V. I.

Lenin

Yesterday, May 5, two of the big dailies— Dyelo Naroda and Rech —carried an announcement on
their front pages, later reprinted in the Guchkov-Suvorin
evening paper Vecherneye Vremya , [1] which deserves serious attention.

The public is informed that “in accordance with an agreement
between the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the
Union of Engineers, as authorised by the Provisional
Government”, there has been organised in Petrograd a “Central
Committee for restoring and maintaining normal work in the
industrial enterprises”.

“ The main task of the Central Committee,” the announcement
reads, “is to work out and co-ordinate all measures aimed at
restoring and maintaining normal work in the industrial
enterprises and to organise regular and active public control over all industrial enterprises.”

The words “public control” were italicised in the announcement.

They remind one of the Senate and other bureaucratic committees
of the good old tsarist days. No sooner had some knave of a
tsar’s minister, governor, marshal of the nobility, etc., been
caught red-handed at some thievery, no sooner had some institution directly or indirectly connected with the tsar’s
government conspicuously disgraced itself through out Russia or
throughout Europe, than a high commission of “personages”
notable and super-notable, high-ranking and super-ranking, rich
and super-rich was appointed to “appease public opinion”.

And these personages usually managed to “appease” public opinion
with conspicuous success. The more high-sounding the phrases
about our wise tsar salving “the popular conscience” the more
effectively did these men kill the idea of any “public control”.

So it was, so it will be, one feels like saying as one reads the
pompously worded announcement about the new Central
Committee.

The capitalists have decided to steal a march on the workers. There is a growing consciousness among the workers that
a proletarian control over factories and syndicates is necessary. The master minds of the business world from among
ministerial and near-ministerial circles have had a “brain
wave”—to forestall events and take the Soviet in tow. This
should not be difficult, they thought, so long as the Narodniks
and Mensheviks are still in control there. We’ll fix up “public
control”, they said to themselves. It will look so Important, so
statesmanlike, so ministerial, so solid. And it will kill all
possible real control, all proletarian control so effectively, so quietly. A brilliant idea! The “popular
conscience” will be completely “salved”.

How is this new Central Committee to be composed?

Why, on democratic lines, of course. Are we not all “revolutionary democrats”? If anyone thinks that democracy
requires 20 representatives from 200,000 workers and one
representative from 10,000 engineers, capitalists, etc., that
would be an “anarchist” delusion. No, true democracy consists in
imitating the way in which “revolutionary democracy” has
composed its “new” government, where the workers and peasants
are “represented” by six Mensheviks and Narodniks while eight
Cadets and Octobrists represent the landowners and the capitalists. Do not the latest statistical surveys now being
completed by the new Ministry of Labour by arrangement with the
old Ministry of Industry prove that the majority of Russia’s
population belongs to the class of land owners and capitalists?

Here, if you please, is a complete list of “representatives” of the organisations that have been included
in the new Central Committee by agreement between “revolutionary
democracy” and the government.

The Central Committee is composed of representatives from the
following organisations:

(1) The Executive Committee of the Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies; (2) The Provisional Committee of the Duma;
(3) The All-Russia

Union of Zemstvos; (4) The All-Russia Union of Cities; (5) The Petrograd Municipal Administration;
(6) The Union of Engineers; (7) The Soviet of Officers’ Deputies;
(8) The Council of Congresses of Representatives of
Industry and Commerce; (9) The Petrograd Society of Factory Owners;
(10) The Central War Industries Committee; (11) The Central Committee of Zemstvo and City Unions for Army
Supply; (12) The Committee of Technical War Aid; (13) The Free-Economic Society.

And that’s all?

Yes, that’s all.

Is that not sufficient for salving the popular conscience?

Yes, but what if some big bank or syndicate of capitalists is
represented five or ten times through its share holders in these
ten or twelve institutions?

Oh, why quibble about “details”, when the main thing is to
secure “a regular and active public control ”!

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Notes:
[1]