MIA > Archive > Bukharin > Prog. of World Rev.
Just as in connection with the land, the leading part in the management in the various localities is gradually transferred to the organisations of the poorest peasantry and the different peasant Soviets and their departments, so is industrial management gradually being transferred (which is exactly what our party expects) into the hands of the workers’ and peasants’ government.
Prior to the October revolution and in the period immediately following upon it, the working class and our party put forward the demand for a workers’ control, that is to say, for workers’ supervision over factories and works to prevent the capitalists from making secret reserves of fuel and raw materials, to see that they did not cheat or speculate, damage goods or dismiss workers unjustly. A workers’ supervision was instituted over production, as well as over the sale and purchase of products, raw materials, their storage, and the financing of enterprises. However, a mere supervision proved inefficient. Especially did this prove insufficient when the nationalisation of production took place and the various privileges of the capitalists were destroyed, and when enterprises and whole branches of industry were transferred into the hands of the workers’ and peasants’ government. It is easy to see that a mere supervision is quite inefficient, and that what is required is not only a workers’ control but workers’ management of industry; worker’ organisations, works’ and factories’ committees, trade unions, economic branches of the Soviets, of workers’ deputies, and finally organs of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government (such as special committees, Soviets of public economy, and so on). These are the organisations that should not only supervise but should also manage. There is another thing that attention should be drawn to here.
Some of the workers who are not sufficiently imbued with the class-spirit argue as follows: we are here to take our factory into our own hands, and there is an end to the matter. Before, the factory was the property of, say, Mr. Smith; now it is the property of the workers. Such a point of view is, of course, wrong, and closely resembles dividing. Indeed, if a state of affairs came about in which every factory belongs to the workers of only that particular factory, the result would be a competition between factories: one cloth factory would strive to gain more than another, they would strive to win over each others customers; the workers of one factory would be ruined whilst those of another would prosper; these latter would employ the workers of the ruined factory, and, in a word, we have again the old familiar picture; just as in the case of the sharing out capitalism would soon revive.
How are we to fight against it? It is evident that we must i build up such an order of workers’ management of enterprises which would train the workers in the idea that every factory is the property not only of the workers of that particular factory, but of the whole working people. This can be attained in the following way. Every factory and works should have a board of management composed of workers in such a way that the majority of members should belong not to that factory in question, but should consist of workers delegated by trade unions of the special branch of industry, by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, and finally by the local Soviet of Public Economy. If the board is composed of workers and of employees (the workers must be in the majority, as they are more reliable adherents to Communism), and if the majority of workers should belong to other factories, then the factory will be managed in the manner required for furthering the interests of all workers as a class.
Every worker understands that works and factories cannot do without book-keepers, mechanics, engineers, etc. Therefore another task of the working class lies in enlisting these into their service. So far the working class could not produce such specialists from their own midst (but they will be able to do so when plans of general education will have been carried out successfully, and a special higher education will have become accessible to everybody), until that time, of course, we shall have, willy-nilly, to pay high wages to ordinary specialists. Let them now serve the working class just as they formerly did the bourgeoisie. Formerly they wore under the control and supervision of the bourgeoisie; now they will have to be under the supervision and control of the workers and employees.
To ensure a smooth running of the wheels of industry it is indispensable, as we have already explained, to have one general plan. It is not enough for every large factory to have its own board of management consisting of workers. There are many factories and many branches of production; they are all bound to one another, all inter-dependent: if the coal mine yields little coal the result will be that factories and railroads will be brought to a standstill; if there is no petrol, navigation is impeded; if no cotton, there will be no work to do for the textile factories. It is consequently necessary to form such an organisation which should embrace all production, should be based on a general plan, and be united with workers’ boards of management of other works and factories; should keep an exact account of all requirements and reserves, not only of one town or of one factory, but for the whole country. The necessity for such a general plan is especially evident in the case of railroads. Any child can understand that the disorganisation in the working of railroads causes incredible calamities; in Siberia, for instance, there is a super-abundance of bread, whilst Petrograd is on the verge of famine. Why is this ? Because the bread is beyond the reach of the inhabitants of Petrograd, as it is impossible to transport it. To ensure regular traffic it is necessary that everything be strictly registered and correctly distributed. And this is only possible under one uniform plan. Let us imagine that one mile of the railroad is under one management, another is under a different one, and a third under a third, and so on, all working independently of each other. An indescribable muddle would be the result. Such a muddle could be avoided only by conducting the railway through a single centralised management. Hence the necessity arises for such workers’ organs and labour organisations as would unite entire branches of production to each other, forming one complete whole, and which would limit the work done in different parts of the country, as, for instance, Siberia and the Ural districts, the northern provinces, the centre, and so on. Such organs are in the course of construction: they are the district and regional Soviets of Public. Economy, special committees uniting whole, branches of production or commerce (as, for instance, Centro-textile, Centro-sugar, and so on), and over all the rest we have, as a central organisation, the Supreme Council (Soviet) of Public Economy. All these organisations are connected with the Soviets of the workers’ deputies and work in unison with the Soviet Government. Their staff is mainly composed of representatives of workers’ organisations, and they are supported by trade unions, works’ and factories’ committees, unions of employees, and so on.
In this way gradually a workers’ management of industry is being formed from the top of the ladder to the bottom. In the respective localities we have works’ and factories’ committees and the workers’ board of management, and above those the region and district committees, and Soviets of Public Economy, and at the head of all these organisations we have the Supreme Council of Public Economy. The task of the working class now lies in enlarging and strengthening by all possible means the workers’ management of industry, educating the vast masses of the people in this direction. The proletariat taking production into his own hands, not as the property of separate individuals or groups, but as the property of the whole workings class, should concern itself with supporting the central and district workers’ organisations by thousands of branches, by and at the various works and -factories. If the higher organs of workers’ boards of management in the localities of production are not supported by the local ones, they will hover, as it were, in mid air, and become transformed into bureaucratic, institutions devoid of any live revolutionary spirit. Hut, on the other hand, they will be enabled to cope with the terrible existing disorganisation if they are supported on all sides by the vital forces of the workers in every locality, and every command of the workers’ central organisation will be responded to and executed not as a matter of form, but as a matter of duty by the workers’ organisations and by the working masses in their respective localities. The more the masses discuss matters for themselves, the more keen their interest in the election of their hoards, the more work carried on at the works and factories, the greater the part they take in the business of doing away with all kinds of disorder and dishonesty – the sooner will the working class possess itself not only in word but in deed of the whole industrial production, thus realising not merely a political, but even an economic dictatorship of the working class, that is to say, the working class will become the actual master not only of the army, the courts of justice, schools and other departments, but it will also be at the head of the management of production. Only then will the might of capital be completely rooted out, and the possibility for capital ever again to crush the working class under its heel be completely destroyed.
Last updated on 7.8.2008