Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky

At different times the bourgeoisie combined the red-hot irons of repression in different proportions with methods of moral influence, and, first of all, the teaching of the priest. As early as the sixteenth century, it reformed the old religion of Catholicism, which defended the feudal order, and adapted for itself a new religion in the form of the Reformation, which combined the free soul with free trade and free labor. It found for itself new priests, who became the spiritual shop-assistants, pious counter-jumpers of the bourgeoisie. The school, the press, the market-place, and parliament were adapted by the bourgeoisie for the moral fashioning of the working-class. Different forms of wages – day-wages, piece wages, contract and collective bargaining – all these are merely changing methods in the hands of the bourgeoisie for the labor mobilization of the proletariat. To this there are added all sorts of forms for encouraging labor and exciting ambition. Finally, the bourgeoisie learned how to gain possession even of the trade unions —i. e., the organizations of the working class itself; and it made use of them on a large scale, particularly in Great Britain, to discipline the workers. It domesticated the leaders, and with their help inoculated the workers with the fiction of the necessity for peaceful organic labor, for a faultless attitude to their duties, and for a strict execution of the laws of the bourgeois State. The crown of all this work is Taylorism, in which the elements of the scientific organization of the process of production are combined with the most concentrated methods of the system of sweating.

From all that has been said above, it is clear that the productivity of freely-hired labor is not something that appeared all at once, perfected, presented by history on a salver. No, it was the result of a long and stubborn policy of repression, education, organization, and encouragement, applied by the bourgeoisie in its relations with the working class. Step by step it learned to squeeze out of the workers ever more and more of the products of labor; and one of the most powerful weapons in its hand turned out to be the proclamation of free hiring as the sole free, normal, healthy, productive, and saving form of labor.

A legal form of labor which would of its own virtue guarantee its productivity has not been known in history, and cannot be known. The legal superstructure of labor corresponds to the relations and current ideas of the epoch. The productivity of labor is developed, on the basis of the development of technical forces, by labor education, by the gradual adaptation of the workers to the changed methods of production and the new form of social relations.

The creation of Socialist society means the organization of the workers on new foundations, their adaptation to those foundations, and their labor re-education, with the one unchanging end of the increase in the productivity of labor. The working class, under the leadership of its vanguard, must itself re-educate itself on the foundations of Socialism. Whoever has not understood this is ignorant of the A B C of Socialist construction.

What methods have we, then, for the re-education of the workers? Infinitely wider than the bourgeoisie has – and, in addition, honest, direct, open methods, infected neither by hypocrisy nor by lies. The bourgeoisie had to have recourse to deception, representing its labor as free, when in reality it was not merely socially-imposed, but actually slave labor. For it was the labor of the majority in the interests of the minority. We, on the other hand, organize labor in the interests of the workers themselves, and therefore we can have no motives for hiding or masking the socially compulsory character of our labor organization. We need the fairy stories neither of the priests, nor of the Liberals, nor of the Kautskians. We say directly and openly to the masses that they can save, rebuild, and bring to a flourishing condition a Socialist country only by means of hard work, unquestioning discipline and exactness in execution on the part of every worker.

The chief of our resources is moral influence – propaganda not only in word but in deed. General labor service has an obligatory character; but this does not mean at all that it represents violence done to the working class. If compulsory labor came up against the opposition of the majority of the workers it would turn out a broken reed, and with it the whole of the Soviet order. The militarization of labor, when the workers are opposed to it, is the State slavery of Arakcheyev. The militarization of labor by the will of the workers themselves is the Socialist dictatorship. That compulsory labor service and the militarization of labor do not force the will of the workers, as "free" labor used to do, is best shown by the flourishing, unprecedented in the history of humanity, of labor voluntarism in the form of "Subbotniks" (Communist Saturdays). Such a phenomenon there never was before, anywhere or at any time. By their own voluntary labor, freely given – once a week and oftener – the workers clearly demonstrate not only their readiness to bear the yoke of "compulsory" labor but their eagerness to give the State besides that a certain quantity of additional labor. The "Subbotniks" are not only a splendid demonstration of Communist solidarity, but also the best possible guarantee for the successful introduction of general labor service. Such truly Communist tendencies must be shown up in their true light, extended, and developed with the help of propaganda.

The chief spiritual weapon of the bourgeoisie is religion; ours is the open explanation to the masses of the exact position of things, the extension of scientific and technical knowledge, and the initiation of the masses into the general economic plan of the State, on the basis of which there must be brought to bear all the labor-power at the disposal of the Soviet regime.

Political economy provided us with the principal substance of our agitation in the period we have just left: the capitalist social order was a riddle, and we explained that riddle to the masses. To-day, social riddles are explained to the masses by the very mechanism of the Soviet order, which draws the masses into all branches of administration. Political economy will more and more pass into the realms of history. There move forward into the foreground the sciences which study nature and the methods of subordinating it to man.

The trade unions must organize scientific and technical educational work on the widest possible scale, so that every worker in his own branch of industry should find the impulses for theoretical work of the brain, while the latter should again return him to labor, perfecting it and making him more productive. The press as a whole must fall into line with the economic problems of the country – not in that sense alone in which this is being done at present —i. e., not in the sense of a mere general agitation in favor of a revival of labor – but in the sense of the discussion and the weighing of concrete economic problems and plans, ways and means of their solution, and, most important of all, the testing and criticism of results already achieved. The newspapers must from day to day follow the production of the most important factories and other enterprises, registering their successes and failures encouraging some and pillorying others…

Russian capitalism, in consequence of its lateness, its lack of independence, and its resulting parasitic features, has had much less time than European capitalism technically to educate the laboring masses, to train and discipline them for production. That problem is now in its entirety imposed upon the industrial organizations of the proletariat. A good engineer, a good mechanic, and a good carpenter, must have in the Soviet Republic the same publicity and fame as hitherto was enjoyed by prominent agitators, revolutionary fighters, and, in the most recent period, the most courageous and capable commanders and commissaries. Greater and lesser leaders of technical development must occupy the central position in the public eye. Bad workers must be made ashamed of doing their work badly.

We still retain, and for a long time will retain, the system of wages. The further we go, the more will its importance become simply to guarantee to all members of society all the necessaries of life; and thereby it will cease to be a system of wages. But at present we are not sufficiently rich for this. Our main problem is to raise the quantity of products turned out, and to this problem all the remainder must be subordinated. In the present difficult period the system of wages is for us, first and foremost, not a method for guaranteeing the personal existence of any separate worker, but a method of estimating what that individual worker brings by his labor to the Labor Republic.

Consequently, wages, in the form both of money and of goods, must be brought into the closest possible touch with the productivity of individual labor. Under capitalism, the system of piece-work and of grading, the application of the Taylor system, etc., have as their object to increase the exploitation of the workers by the squeezing-out of surplus value. Under Socialist production, piece-work, bonuses, etc., have as their problem to increase the volume of social product, and consequently to raise the general well-being. Those workers who do more for the general interest than others receive the right to a greater quantity of the social product than the lazy, the careless, and the disorganizers.

Finally, when it rewards some, the Labor State cannot but punish others – those who are clearly infringing labor solidarity, undermining the common work, and seriously impairing the Socialist renaissance of the country. Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the Socialist dictatorship.

All the measures enumerated above – and together with them a number of others – must assist the development of rivalry in the sphere of production. Without this we shall never rise above the average, which is a very unsatisfactory level. At the bottom of rivalry lies the vital instinct – the struggle for existence – which in the bourgeois order assumes the character of competition. Rivalry will not disappear even in the developed Socialist society; but with the growing guarantee of the necessary requirements of life rivalry will acquire an ever less selfish and purely idealist character. It will express itself in a striving to perform the greatest possible service for one's village, county, town, or the whole of society, and to receive in return renown, gratitude, sympathy, or, finally, just internal satisfaction from the consciousness of work well done. But in the difficult period of transition, in conditions of the extreme shortage of material goods, and the as yet insufficiently developed state of social solidarity, rivalry must inevitably be to a greater or less degree bound up with a striving to guarantee for oneself one's own requirements.

This, comrades, is the sum of resources at the disposal of the Labor State in order to raise the productivity of labor. As we see, there is no ready-made solution here. We shall find it written in no book. For there could not be such a book. We are now only beginning, together with you, to write that book in the sweat and the blood of the workers. We say: working men and women, you have crossed to the path of regulated labor. Only along that road will you build the Socialist society. Before you there lies a problem which no one will settle for you: the problem of increasing production on new social foundations. Unless you solve that problem, you will perish. If you solve it, you will raise humanity by a whole head.

LABOR ARMIES

The question of the application of armies to labor purposes, which has acquired amongst us an enormous importance from the point of view of principle, was approached by us by the path of practice, not at all on the foundations of theoretical consideration. On certain borders of Soviet Russia, circumstances had arisen which had left considerable military forces free for an indefinite period. To transfer them to other active fronts, especially in the winter, was difficult in consequence of the disorder of railway transport. Such, for example, proved the position of the Third Army, distributed over the provinces of the Ural and the Ural area. The leading workers of that army, understanding that as yet it could not be demobilized, themselves raised the question of its transference to labor work. They sent to the centre a more or less worked-out draft decree for a labor army.

The problem was novel and difficult. Would the Red soldiers work? Would their work be sufficiently productive? Would it pay for itself? In this connection there were doubts even in our own ranks. Needless to say, the Mensheviks struck up a chorus of opposition. The same Abramovich, at the Congress of Economic Councils called in January or the beginning of February – that is to say, when the whole affair was still in draft stage – foretold that we should suffer an inevitable failure, for the whole undertaking was senseless, an Arakcheyev Utopia, etc., etc. We considered the matter otherwise. Of course the difficulties were great, but they were not distinguishable in principle from many other difficulties of Soviet constructive work.

Let us consider in fact what was the organism of the Third Army. Taken all in all, one rifle division and one cavalry division – a total of fifteen regiments – and, in addition, special units. The remaining military formations had already been transformed to other armies and fronts. But the apparatus of military administration had remained untouched as yet, and we considered it probable that in the spring we should have to transfer it along the Volga to the Caucasus front, against Denikin, if by that time he were not finally broken. On the whole, in the Third Army there remained about 120,000 Red soldiers in administrative posts, institutions, military units, hospitals, etc. In this general mass, mainly peasant in its composition, there were reckoned about 16,00 °Communists and members of the organization of sympathizers – to a considerable extent workers of the Ural. In this way, in its composition and structure, the Third Army represented a peasant mass bound together into a military organization under the leadership of the foremost workers. In the army there worked a considerable number of military specialists, who carried out important military functions while remaining under the general control of the Communists. If we consider the Third Army from this general point of view, we shall see that it represents in miniature the whole of Soviet Russia. Whether we take the Red Army as a whole, or the organization of the Soviet regime in the county, province, or the whole Republic, including the economic organs, we shall find everywhere the same scheme of organization: millions of peasants drawn into new forms of political, economic, and social life by the organized workers, who occupy a controlling position in all spheres of Soviet construction. To posts requiring special knowledge, we send experts of the bourgeois school. They are given the necessary independence, but control over their work remains in the hands of the working class, in the person of its Communist Party. The introduction of general labor service is again only conceivable for us as the mobilization of mainly peasant labor-power under the guidance of the most advanced workers. In this way there were not, and could not, be any obstacles in principle in the way of application of the army to labor. In other words, the opposition in principle to labor armies, on the part of those same Mensheviks, was in reality opposition to "compulsory" labor generally, and consequently against general labor service and against Soviet methods of economic reconstruction as a whole. This opposition did not trouble us a great deal.

Naturally, the military apparatus as such is not adapted directly to the process of labor. But we had no illusions about that. Control had to remain in the hands of the appropriate economic organs; the army supplied the necessary labor-power in the form of organized, compact units, suitable in the mass for the execution of the simplest homogeneous types of work: the freeing of roads from snow, the storage of fuel, building work, organization of cartage, etc., etc.

To-day we have already had considerable experience in the work of the labor application of the army, and can give not merely a preliminary or hypothetical estimate. What are the conclusions to be drawn from that experience? The Mensheviks have hastened to draw them. The same Abramovich, again, announced at the Miners' Congress that we had become bankrupt, that the labor armies represent parasitic formations, in which there are 100 officials for every ten workers. Is this true? No. This is the irresponsible and malignant criticism of men who stand on one side, do not know the facts, collect only fragments and rubbish, and are concerned in any way and every way either to declare our bankruptcy or to prophecy it. In reality, the labor armies have not only not gone bankrupt, but, on the contrary, have had important successes, have displayed their fidelity, are developing and are becoming stronger and stronger. Just those prophets have gone bankrupt who foretold that nothing would come of the whole plan, that nobody would begin to work, and that the Red soldiers would not go to the labor front but would simply scatter to their homes.

These criticisms were dictated by a philistine scepticism, lack of faith in the masses, lack of faith in bold initiative, and organization. But did we not hear exactly the same criticism, at bottom, when we had recourse to extensive mobilizations for military problems? Then too we were frightened, we were terrified by stories of mass desertion, which was absolutely inevitable, it was alleged, after the imperialist war. Naturally, desertion there was, but considered by the test of experience it proved not at all on such a mass scale as was foretold; it did not destroy the army; the bond of morale and organization – Communist voluntarism and State compulsion combined – allowed us to carry out mobilizations of millions to carry through numerous formations and redistributions, and to solve the most difficult military problems. In the long run, the army was victorious. In relation to labor problems, on the foundation of our military experience, we awaited the same results; and we were not mistaken. The Red soldiers did not scatter when they were transformed from military to labor service, as the sceptics prophesied. Thanks to our splendidly-organized agitation, the transference itself took place amidst great enthusiasm. True, a certain portion of the soldiers tried to leave the army, but this always happens when a large military formation is transferred from one front to another, or is sent from the rear to the front – in general when it is shaken up – and when potential desertion becomes active. But immediately the political sections, the press, the organs of struggle with desertion, etc., entered into their rights; and to-day the percentage of deserters from our labor armies is in no way higher than in our armies on active service.

The statement that the armies, in view of their internal structure, can produce only a small percentage of workers, is true only to a certain extent. As far as the Third Army is concerned, I have already pointed out that it retained its complete apparatus of administration side by side with an extremely insignificant number of military units. While we – owing to military and not economic considerations – retained untouched the staff of the army and its administrative apparatus, the percentage of workers produced by the army was actually extremely low. From the general number of 120,000 Red soldiers, 21 % proved to be employed in administrative and economic work; 16 % were engaged in daily detail work (guards, etc.) in connection with the large number of army institutions and stores; the number of sick, mainly typhus cases, together with the medico-sanitary personnel, was about 13 %; about 25 % were not available for various reasons (detachment, leave, absence without leave, etc.). In this way, the total personnel available for work constitutes no more than 23 %; this is the maximum of what can be drawn for labor from the given army. Actually, at first, there worked only about 14 %, mainly drawn from the two divisions, rifle and cavalry, which still remained with the army.

But as soon as it was clear that Denikin had been crushed, and that we should not have to send the Third Army down the Volga in the spring to assist the forces on the Caucasus front, we immediately entered upon the disbanding of the clumsy army apparatus and a more regular adaptation of the army institutions to problems of labor. Although this work is not yet complete, it has already had time to give some very significant results. At the present moment (March, 1920), the former Third Army gives about 38 % of its total composition as workers. As for the military units of the Ural military area working side by side with it, they already provide 49 % of their number as workers. This result is not so bad, if we compare it with the amount of work done in factories and workshops, amongst which in the case of many quite recently, in the case of some even to-day, absence from work for legal and illegal reasons reached 50 % and over.9 To this one must add that workers in factories and workshops are not infrequently assisted by the adult members of their family, while the Red soldiers have no auxiliary force but themselves.

If we take the case of the 19-year-olds, who have been mobilized in the Ural with the help of the military apparatus – principally for wood fuel work – we shall find that, out of their general number of over 30,000, over 75 % attend work. This is already a very great step forward. It shows that, using the military apparatus for mobilization and formation, we can introduce such alterations in the construction of purely labor units as guarantee an enormous increase in the percentage of those who participate directly in the material process of production.

Finally, in connection with the productivity of military labor, we can also now judge on the basis of experience. During the first days, the productivity of labor in the principal departments of work, in spite of the great moral enthusiasm, was in reality very low, and might seem completely discouraging when one reads the first labor communiqués. Thus, for the preparation of a cubic sazhen of wood, at first, one had to reckon thirteen to fifteen labor days; whereas the standard – true, rarely attained at the present day – is reckoned at three days. One must add, in addition, that artistes in this sphere are capable, under favorable conditions, of producing one cubic sazhen per day per man. What happened in reality? The military units were quartered far from the forest to be felled. In many cases it was necessary to march to and from work 6 to 8 versts, which swallowed up a considerable portion of the working day. There were not sufficient axes and saws on the spot. Many Red soldiers, born in the plains, did not know the forests, had never felled trees, had never chopped or sawed them up. The provincial and county Timber Committees were very far from knowing at first how to use the military units, how to direct them where they were required, how to equip them as they should be equipped. It is not wonderful that all this had as its result an extremely low level of productivity. But after the most crying defects in organization were eliminated, results were achieved that were much more satisfactory. Thus, according to the most recent data, in that same First Labor Army, four and a half working days are now devoted to one sazhen of wood, which is not so far from the present standard. What is most comforting, however, is the fact that the productivity of labor systematically increases, in the measure of the improvement of its conditions.

While as to what can be achieved in this respect, we have a brief but very rich experience in the Moscow Engineer Regiment. The Chief Board of Military Engineers, which controlled this experiment, began with fixing the standard of production as three working days for a cubic sazhen of wood. This standard soon proved to be surpassed. In January there were spent on a cubic sazhen of wood two and one-third working days; in February, 2.1; in March, 1.5; which represents an exclusively high level of productivity. This result was achieved by moral influence, by the exact registration of the individual work of each man, by the awakening of labor pride, by the distribution of bonuses to the workers who produced more than the average result – or, to speak in the language of the trade unions, by a sliding scale adaptable to all individual changes in the productivity of labor. This experiment, carried out almost under laboratory conditions, clearly indicates the path along which we have to go in future.