Raising Labor Productivity
Повышение производительности труда
Date: 1918
Source: ru:PSS/v36
Translated by: AI (Claude)

In every socialist revolution, after the task of conquering power for the proletariat has been accomplished, and to the extent that the main and fundamental task of expropriating the expropriators and suppressing their resistance is being accomplished, the fundamental task of creating a social system superior to capitalism necessarily comes to the fore, namely: raising labor productivity, and in connection with this (and for this purpose) its superior organization. Our Soviet power is precisely in such a position when, thanks to victories over the exploiters, from Kerensky to Kornilov, it has gained the opportunity to directly approach this task, to tackle it in earnest. And here it becomes immediately clear that while central state power can be seized in a few days, and military (and sabotage) resistance of the exploiters even in different corners of a large country can be suppressed in a few weeks, a durable solution to the task of raising labor productivity requires, in any case (especially after the most agonizing and devastating war), several years. The prolonged nature of the work is dictated here unconditionally by objective circumstances.

The rise in labor productivity requires, first of all, securing the material base of large-scale industry: development of fuel production, iron, machine-building, chemical industry. The Russian Soviet Republic finds itself in favorable conditions in that it has at its disposal – even after the Treaty of Brest – gigantic reserves of ore (in the Urals), fuel in Western Siberia (coal), in the Caucasus and in the southeast (oil), in the center (peat), gigantic wealth of forests, water power, raw materials for the chemical industry (Karabugas), and so on. The exploitation of these natural riches by methods of the latest technology will provide the basis for unprecedented progress of productive forces.

Another condition for raising labor productivity is, first, the educational and cultural uplift of the mass of the population. This uplift is now proceeding with tremendous speed, which is not seen by people blinded by bourgeois routine, incapable of understanding how much striving toward enlightenment and initiative is now unfolding in the people's "lower depths" thanks to the Soviet organization. Secondly, a condition for economic uplift is also the raising of discipline among the working people, their ability to work, quickness, intensity of labor, and better organization of it.

From this side, things are particularly bad with us, and even hopeless, if one believes people who have let themselves be frightened by the bourgeoisie or who serve it for profit. These people do not understand that there has not been and cannot be a revolution when the supporters of the old order did not cry out about collapse, about anarchy, and so on. It is natural that among the masses who have just thrown off an unprecedentedly savage yoke, a deep and wide ferment and agitation is going on – that the working out by the masses of new foundations of labor discipline is a very prolonged process – that before the complete victory over the landowner and the bourgeoisie, such working out could not even begin.

But while not at all giving in to that often artificial despair which is spread by the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia (who have despaired of defending their old privileges), we must in no way cover up the obvious evil. On the contrary, we will expose it and strengthen the Soviet methods of struggle against it, for the success of socialism is inconceivable without the victory of proletarian conscious discipline over spontaneous petty-bourgeois anarchy, this real guarantee of a possible restoration of Kerenskyism and Kornilovism.

The most conscious vanguard of the Russian proletariat has already set itself the task of raising labor discipline. For example, both in the Central Committee of the metalworkers' union and in the Central Council of trade unions, work has begun on the development of corresponding measures and draft decrees. This work must be supported and pushed forward with all our strength. It is necessary to put on the agenda, to practically apply and test piece-rate payment, the application of much that is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system, the proportioning of wages to the overall results of product output or operational results of rail and water transport, and so on and so forth.

The Russian person is a poor worker compared to advanced nations. And this could not be otherwise under the regime of tsarism and the vitality of the remnants of serfdom. Learning to work – the Soviet power must pose this task to the people in all its scope. The last word of capitalism in this respect, the Taylor system – like all progress of capitalism – combines in itself the refined savagery of bourgeois exploitation and a series of richest scientific achievements in the analysis of mechanical movements in labor, the elimination of superfluous and awkward movements, the development of the most correct methods of work, the introduction of the best systems of accounting and control, and so on. The Soviet Republic must at all costs adopt everything valuable from the achievements of science and technology in this area. The feasibility of socialism will be determined precisely by our success in combining Soviet power and the Soviet organization of management with the latest progress of capitalism. It is necessary to create in Russia the study and teaching of the Taylor system, systematic testing and adaptation of it. At the same time, moving toward raising labor productivity, one must take into account the peculiarities of the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, which require, on the one hand, that the foundations of socialist organization of competition be laid, and on the other hand, require the application of compulsion, so that the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not profaned by the practice of a jelly-like state of proletarian power.