V. I.

Lenin

The basic and cardinal issue of today Is that of the impending
catastrophe. We must collect the most accurate possible data on
it. Here are some very informative quotations from the paper of
our opponents, the united Narodniks and Mensheviks ( Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet No. 70, May 19):

“ The calamity of mass unemployment is drawing nearer. Resistance
to the workers’ demands on the part of the united employers is
growing. The employers are resorting to slow-down tactics in
production and to lockouts.”

And further:

“ The capitalists are doing nothing to help the country out of
Its economic difficulties....

“ The real disorganisers and counter-revolutionaries are the
capitalists, who are hanging on to their profits. But the
revolution will not and should not be allowed to go under. If
the capitalists do nothing to help it voluntarily, the revolution must lay hands on them.”

This could hardly be expressed more eloquently. The situation
must be critical indeed. “The revolution must lay hands on the
capitalists.” But what revolution? The revolution of which class? How should it lay hands on them?

Here are answers given by speakers who reported to the Executive
Committee of the Soviet on May 16:

“ A number of speakers revealed a depressing picture of
widespread economic disorganisation in the country ... the
bourgeois press says nothing about the real causes of the
trouble, i.e., the war and the selfish conduct of the bourgeoisie.”

From the report of the Menshevik ministerialist Cherevanin:

’ The present economic debacle is too grave to be cured by one or
another palliative, by a number of separate concrete measures. What we need is a general plan, regulation of our
whole economic life by the state....

“ To carry out this plan a special Economic Council must be set
up under the Ministry.”

The mountain has brought forth a mouse. Instead of “the
revolution laying hands on the capitalists” we are offered a
purely bureaucratic remedy.

From the report of Avilov:

“ The main cause of the present economic break-down is the short
age of the most essential industrial products....

“ Owing to the rising cost of living the position of the workers
of numerous grades verges on chronic starvation....

“ Although they are making enormous profits, the employers re
fuse to meet the workers unless there is a simultaneous rise in
the prices of their goods....

“ The only way out of the present situation is price fixing. But
this can only be carried out if there is public control of
distribution.

“ Given compulsory distribution of commodities at controlled
prices, there must also be established control of production,
which otherwise may sag or even be suspended...

“ At the same time the state must institute control over the
sources from which industry receives its circulating and fixed
assets—the banking houses.”

What Comrade Avilov seems to have forgotten is that the “state”
is a machine which the working class and the capitalists are
pulling different ways. Which class is now capable of wielding
state power?

From Bazarov’s report:

“ Fixed prices are virtually evaded; the state monopolies exist
only on paper; controlled supply of the factories with coal and
metal has not only failed to organise production in the
interests of the state, but has not even been able to cope with
the market anarchy or eliminate the unrestrained speculation of
the middlemen and dealers.

“ What is needed is compulsory state trustification of industry.

“ Only by drafting the managements of the various enterprises and
the capitalists into compulsory state service can really
effective measures be taken to combat the anarchy which the
industrialists are deliberately creating in production.”

To say that the government of the capitalists (who are deliberately creating anarchy) must draft the capitalists into
compulsory state service is tantamount to forgetting the class
struggle.

From the report by G. V. Shuba:

“ Despite the ceaseless demands we have been making for the last
two months, not an inch of progress has been made in the general
question—the problem of organising the national economy and
labour. The result is that we have been simply marking time. At
present the situation is this: although we have succeeded, in
the face of opposition, in getting a number of measures and laws
passed—we already have a grain monopoly law—all this remains on paper....

“ We have reached an agreement in principle on the municipalisation of agricultural machines, but we can do nothing
about it because there are practically no machines. to speak
of. The factories built to produce agricultural machines are
turning out absolutely unessential articles for the army. Apart
from the fact that the whole economic life of the country must
be subject to regulation, we must at last break up and remodel
the whole executive machinery of government.’

This is more to the point, closer to the heart of the matter!
“Break up and remodel the whole executive machinery of government”—now that gets us down to bedrock. Obviously, the
question of government machinery is only a fraction of the larger question as to which class is wielding the state
power.

From Kukovetsky’s report:

“ The country’s financial situation is appalling. We are heading
rapidly for financial bankruptcy....

“ Purely financial measures will do no good....

“ Measures must be taken towards compulsory distribution of the
government loan, and if this does not yield the desired results,
we must introduce a compulsory loan.

“ The second measure is the compulsory regulation of industry and
the establishment of fixed prices on goods.”

“ Compulsory” measures are a good thing, but the question
is—which class will be the compellers and which the compelled?

From the report of Groman:

“ What is happening in all countries today may be described as a
process of disintegration of the national economic organism. It
is being countered everywhere by the organising principle. The
state has every. Where begun to organise the economy and
labour....

“ So far neither the government nor the country at large has a
central organ which could regulate the country’s economic life,
There is no economic brain, as it were It must be created.... An
authoritative executive body must be organised. An Economic
Council must be set up.”

A new bureaucratic institution—that is what Groman’s idea
amounts to! Very sad.

They all admit that an unheard-of catastrophe is inevitable. But
they do not understand the main thing—that only the revolutionary class can save the country.

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