Comrades, I must, first of all, apologise for breaking the rules, for in order to take part in the debate one should, of course, have heard the report, the co-report and the discussion. Unfortunately, I feel so unwell that I am unable to do this. But I had the opportunity yesterday to read the main printed documents and to prepare my remarks. Naturally, the breach of the rules I mentioned entails inconvenience for you: I may repeat myself, not knowing what others have said, and fail to reply to what I ought to reply to. But I could not act otherwise.

My main material is Comrade Trotsky’s pamphlet, *The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions*. Comparing this pamphlet with the theses that he submitted to the Central Committee, and reading it closely, I am astonished at the amount of theoretical errors and glaring inaccuracies concentrated in it. How was it possible, in embarking on a major Party discussion on this question, instead of producing something well thought-out, to prepare such an unsuccessful piece? I shall briefly outline the main points in which, in my opinion, the original, fundamental theoretical errors lie.

The trade unions are not only historically necessary, but historically inevitable organisations of the industrial proletariat, embracing it, under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, almost entirely. This is the most fundamental consideration, and Comrade Trotsky constantly forgets it, does not proceed from it, does not appreciate it. Yet the theme he set – “The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions” – is an immensely broad theme.

From what has been said it already follows that in the whole exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat the role of the trade unions is extremely essential. But what is this role? Proceeding to a discussion of this question, one of the most fundamental theoretical questions, I come to the conclusion that here we have a role of an extremely specific kind. On the one hand, embracing all industrial workers, including them in the ranks of the organisation, the trade unions are an organisation of the ruling, dominant, governing class, the class that exercises the dictatorship, the class that exercises state coercion. But this is not a state organisation, it is not an organisation of coercion; it is an educational organisation, an organisation of involvement, of training, it is a school, a school of administration, a school of economic management, a school of communism. It is a type of school quite out of the ordinary, for we have to do not with teachers and pupils, but with an extremely specific combination of that which remained from capitalism and could not but remain, and that which the revolutionary-advanced detachments put forward from their own midst, so to speak, the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. And so, to speak of the role of the trade unions without taking these truths into account means inevitably to arrive at a series of errors.

The trade unions, in terms of their place in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, stand, if one may put it this way, between the Party and the state power. In the transition to socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat is inevitable, but this dictatorship is not exercised through the organisation that embraces all industrial workers. Why? We can read about this in the theses of the Second Congress of the Comintern on the role of the political party in general. I shall not dwell on this here. The result is that the Party, so to speak, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat. And without having such a foundation as the trade unions, it is impossible to exercise the dictatorship, impossible to perform state functions. They must, however, be performed through a series of special institutions, again of some new type, namely: through the Soviet apparatus. What is the specific nature of this position with regard to practical conclusions? It is that the trade unions create the link between the vanguard and the masses, the trade unions, by their everyday work, convince the masses, the masses of the class which alone is capable of taking us from capitalism to communism. That is on the one hand. On the other hand, the trade unions are a “reservoir” of state power. That is what the trade unions are in the period of transition from capitalism to communism. On the whole, this transition cannot be accomplished without the primacy of the class that alone has been schooled by capitalism for large-scale production and that alone is detached from the interests of the small proprietor. But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through its all-embracing organisation. For not only in our country, one of the most backward capitalist countries, but in all other capitalist countries, the proletariat is still so disunited, so downtrodden, so corrupted in some places (specifically by imperialism in certain countries) that the all-embracing organisation of the proletariat cannot directly exercise its dictatorship. The dictatorship can be exercised only by the vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. Thus, what emerges is, as it were, a series of cogwheels. And such is the mechanism of the very basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the very essence of the transition from capitalism to communism. From this it is already evident that when Comrade Trotsky in his first thesis, referring to “ideological confusion”, speaks of a crisis specifically and precisely of the trade unions, there is fundamentally something essentially incorrect here. If one is to speak of a crisis, one can speak of it only after analysing the political situation. The “ideological confusion” is precisely Trotsky’s, because he, precisely on the basic question of the role of the trade unions from the standpoint of the transition from capitalism to communism, has overlooked, has failed to take into account, that here we have a complex system of several cogwheels and there cannot be a simple system, for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through the entire organised proletariat. The dictatorship cannot be exercised without several “transmissions” from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from it to the mass of the working people. In Russia this mass is the peasantry; in other countries there is no such mass, but even in the most advanced countries there is a non-proletarian, or not purely proletarian, mass. From this alone, ideological confusion genuinely results. Trotsky is merely wrong to accuse others of it.

When I take up the question of the production role of the trade unions, I see that fundamental error of Trotsky’s that he constantly speaks of this “in principle”, of the “general principle”. In all his theses, the approach is from the standpoint of the “general principle”. This posing of the question is, from the start, fundamentally incorrect. I shall not even mention that the Ninth Party Congress spoke quite enough and more than enough about the production role of the trade unions.{96} I shall not mention that Trotsky himself quotes in his own theses the perfectly clear statements of Lozovsky and Tomsky, who are supposed to figure for him, as the Germans say, as a “whipping boy”, or as an object on which he can exercise his polemic. There turn out to be no differences of principle, and Tomsky and Lozovsky, who wrote the things cited by Trotsky himself, were poorly chosen for this. No matter how diligently one might search, one will find nothing serious here in the way of differences of principle. In general, the gigantic error, the error of principle, consists in the fact that Comrade Trotsky is dragging the Party and the Soviet government backward by posing the question “in principle” now. We have, thank God, moved from principles to practical, business-like work. In the Smolny we used to chatter about principles, and undoubtedly more than was necessary. Now, after three years, on every point of the production question, on a whole series of component elements of this question, there are decrees – such a sad business these decrees – that are signed and then forgotten by us and not carried out by us. And then arguments about principles are invented, differences of principle are invented. I shall later cite a decree that relates to the question of the production role of the trade unions [10], a decree that everyone forgot, myself included, for which I must repent.

The real differences that exist do not concern questions of general principles at all – with the exception of those I have enumerated. I had to point out the “differences” I enumerated with Comrade Trotsky, because, having taken up the broad theme: “The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, Comrade Trotsky, in my conviction, fell into a series of errors connected with the very essence of the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But if we leave that aside, then one asks: why is it that we do not achieve the coordinated work that we so need? Because of a difference on the question of the methods of approach to the mass, of winning the mass, of contact with the mass. That is the whole essence. And precisely in this lies the specific nature of the trade unions as an institution created under capitalism, inevitable in the transition from capitalism to communism, and destined to be called into question in the distant future. That is the distant future, when the trade unions will be called into question; our grandchildren will talk about it. But now the matter is how to approach the mass, to win it, to link up with it, how to arrange the complex transmissions of the work (the work of exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat). Note that when I speak of complex transmissions of work, I am not thinking of the Soviet apparatus. What there will be yet in terms of the complexity of the transmissions is a separate matter. For now I am speaking only abstractly and in principle about the relations between classes in capitalist society; there is the proletariat, there are the non-proletarian working masses, there is the petty bourgeoisie and there is the bourgeoisie. From this standpoint alone, even if there were no bureaucratism in the apparatus of Soviet power, the extreme complexity of the transmissions already arises from what capitalism created. And this is what one must think about first of all if one is to pose the question of what the difficulty of the “task” of the trade unions consists in. The real difference, I repeat, is not at all what Comrade Trotsky sees it as, but the question of how to win the mass, the question of approach to it, of contact with it. I must say that if we had studied our own practice, our own experience, even on a small scale, in detail and minutely, we would have avoided hundreds of superfluous “differences” and errors of principle with which this pamphlet of Comrade Trotsky is filled. For example, whole theses in this pamphlet are devoted to a polemic with “Soviet trade unionism”. As if there were not enough trouble, a new bugbear has been invented! And who is this? Comrade Ryazanov. I have known Comrade Ryazanov for over twenty years. You know him for a shorter time, but no less well in terms of the matter. You know very well that among his strong points, which he does have, is not the evaluation of slogans. And we are to depict as “Soviet trade unionism” what Comrade Ryazanov sometimes said not quite to the point! Well, is that really serious? If that is the case, then we will have “Soviet trade unionism”, “Soviet anti-conclusion of peace”, and I do not know what else. There is not a single point on which one could not invent a Soviet “ism”. (Ryazanov: “Soviet anti-Brestism”.) Yes, quite right, “Soviet anti-Brestism”.

And yet, while committing this frivolity, Comrade Trotsky for his part makes an error. He claims that defence of the material and spiritual interests of the working class is not the role of the trade unions in a workers’ state. That is an error. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. Allow me, that is an abstraction. When we wrote in 1917 about a workers’ state, that was understandable; but now, when they say to us: “Why defend, from whom is the working class to be defended, since there is no bourgeoisie, since the state is a workers’ state” – then they are making an obvious error. It is not entirely a workers’ state, that is the point. Herein lies one of Comrade Trotsky’s basic errors. Now we have moved from general principles to business-like discussion and to decrees, but we are being dragged back from the start of what is practical and business-like. This will not do. In reality, our state is not a workers’, but a workers’ and peasants’ state – that is the first thing. And much follows from this (Bukharin: What kind? Workers’ and peasants’?). And although Comrade Bukharin shouts from behind: “What kind? Workers’ and peasants’?”, I shall not answer him. And whoever wishes, let him just recall the Congress of Soviets that has just ended, and that in itself will be the answer.

But that is not all. From our Party programme – a document that the author of *The ABC of Communism* knows very well – from this very programme it is evident that our state is a workers’ state with a bureaucratic distortion. And we had to fasten on it this sorry – what shall I call it? – label, I suppose. Here you have the reality of the transition. What then? Given this kind of practically formed state, do the trade unions have nothing to defend? Can one do without them to defend the material and spiritual interests of the proletariat, organised in its entirety? This is a completely incorrect argument theoretically. It transports us into the realm of abstraction or of an ideal that we shall achieve in 15 or 20 years, and even then I am not sure that we shall achieve it in precisely that period. But before us we have a reality that we know very well, if only we do not intoxicate ourselves, do not get carried away with intellectual chatter, or abstract arguments, or with what sometimes seems to be “theory” but is actually an error, an incorrect assessment of the peculiarities of the transition. Our present state is such that the entire organised proletariat must defend itself, and we must use these workers’ organisations to defend the workers against their own state, and for the workers to defend our state. Both kinds of defence are carried out through a specific interweaving of our state measures and our agreement, our “merging” with our trade unions.

I shall still have to speak about this merging. But even this word alone shows that to invent an enemy for oneself in the person of “Soviet trade unionism” here is to make an error. For the concept of “merging” means that there are different things at hand that still have to be merged; the concept of “merging” includes the fact that one must be able to use the measures of the state power to defend the material and spiritual interests of the entirely united proletariat against that state power. And when, instead of merging, we get fusion and coalescence, then we shall convene a congress at which there will be a business-like discussion of practical experience, not of “differences” of principle or abstract theoretical arguments. The attempt to find differences of principle with Comrade Tomsky and Comrade Lozovsky, who figure in Comrade Trotsky’s account as trade unionist “bureaucrats” – I shall speak later about whose side in this dispute has bureaucratic tendencies – is also unsuccessful. We know very well that if Comrade Ryazanov sometimes has a little weakness for inventing a slogan, and almost always one of principle, Comrade Tomsky does not add this sin to his many sins. Therefore, it seems to me, to open a battle of principle here with Comrade Tomsky (as Comrade Trotsky does) is quite beyond all measure. I am frankly astonished at this. There was a time when we all sinned a great deal with regard to factional, theoretical and all sorts of other differences – though, of course, we did some useful things too – and it seems as if we have grown since then. And it is time to move from inventing and exaggerating differences of principle to business-like work. I have never heard it said that Tomsky is predominantly a theoretician, that Tomsky has any pretensions to the title of theoretician; perhaps that is a shortcoming of his, that is another question. But that Tomsky, having grown into the trade union movement, must reflect – consciously or unconsciously, that is another question, I do not say he always does it consciously – that in his position he must reflect this complex transition, and that if something is aching in the mass and it does not know itself what is aching, and he does not know what is aching (applause, laughter), if he shouts about it, then I assert that this is a merit, not a shortcoming. I am fully convinced that Tomsky will be found to have many partial theoretical errors. And all of us, if we sit down at the table and write a resolution or theses in a considered way, we shall all correct them, or perhaps we shall not even correct them, for production work is more interesting than correcting the minutest theoretical differences.

Now I pass to “production democracy”; this is, so to speak, for Bukharin. We know very well that every person has small weaknesses, and a great person has small weaknesses too, including Bukharin. If a word has a little twist to it, then he simply cannot help but be for it. On 7 December at the plenum of the Central Committee he wrote a resolution on production democracy almost with voluptuousness. And the more I ponder this “production democracy”, the more clearly I see its theoretical falsity, I see a lack of thought. There is nothing here but a mess. And on this example, once again, at least at a Party meeting, we must say: “Comrade N. I. Bukharin, fewer verbal twists – it will be of benefit to you, to theory, to the republic.” (Applause.) Production is always needed. Democracy is a category belonging only to the political sphere. There can be no objection to using this word in a speech or an article. An article picks out and vividly expresses one relation, and that is enough. But when you turn this into a thesis, when you want to make it into a slogan uniting the “agreeing” and the disagreeing, when it is said, as Trotsky does, that the Party will have to “choose between two tendencies”, this sounds quite strange. I shall speak separately about whether the Party will have to “choose”, and whose fault it is that the Party has been put in a position where it must “choose”. Since it has turned out this way, we must say: “At any rate, choose as little as possible such theoretically incorrect slogans, containing nothing but confusion, as ‘production democracy’.” Both Trotsky and Bukharin clearly failed theoretically to think through this term and got entangled. “Production democracy” prompts thoughts that are not at all within the circle of ideas that captivated them. They wanted to emphasise, to concentrate more attention on production. Emphasising in an article, in a speech, is one thing, but when it is turned into theses and the Party must choose, I say: choose against this, for it is confusion. Production is always needed, democracy not always. Production democracy gives rise to a series of thoughts that are fundamentally false. The boots were not yet worn out when we preached one-man management. One must not introduce a mess, creating the danger that people will get confused: when democracy, when one-man management, when dictatorship. One must under no circumstances renounce dictatorship either – I hear Bukharin growling from behind: “Quite right.” (Laughter. Applause.)

Next. Since September we have been speaking of the transition from priority to equalisation; we said this in the resolution of the All-Party Conference, approved by the Central Committee.{97} A difficult question. For one way or another equalisation and priority must be combined, yet these concepts exclude one another. But still, we have learned a little Marxism, we have learned how and when one can and must unite opposites, and, more importantly: in our revolution over three and a half years we have practically, repeatedly united opposites.

It is obvious that one must approach the question very cautiously and thoughtfully. After all, at those sad plenums of the Central Committee[11] at which we got the sevens and eights and the famous “buffer group” of Comrade Bukharin,{98} we spoke there about these questions of principle and already established there that the transition from priority to equalisation is not easy. And so, in order to carry out this decision of the September conference, we have to do a little work. For one can combine these opposite concepts so that a cacophony results, or so that a symphony results. Priority means giving preference to one production over all other necessary productions on account of its greatest urgency. What does preference consist in? How great can the preference be? This is a difficult question, and I must say that for its solution mere conscientiousness is not enough; nor is a heroic person enough here, who perhaps has many fine qualities but who is good in his own place; one must be able to approach a very specific question. And so, if we raise the question of priority and equalisation, then the first thing we must do is to treat it thoughtfully, and this is precisely what is not noticeable in Comrade Trotsky’s work; the longer he revises his original theses, the more incorrect propositions he puts forward. Here is what we read in his latest theses:

“…In the sphere of consumption, i.e., the conditions of the personal existence of the working people, it is necessary to pursue the line of equalisation. In the sphere of production, the principle of priority will for a long time remain decisive for us…” (thesis 41, p. 31 in Trotsky’s pamphlet).

This is complete confusion theoretically. It is completely incorrect. Priority is preference, and preference without consumption is nothing. If I am to be preferred in such a way that I receive an eighth of bread, then thank you very much for such preference. Preference in priority is preference in consumption too. Without this, priority is a dream, a little cloud, yet after all we are materialists. And the workers are materialists; if one says priority, then give bread too, and clothes, and meat. That is the only way we understood and understand it, when we discussed these questions hundreds of times, on concrete occasions, in the Council of Defence, when one pulls boots towards himself and says: “I have priority”, and another says: “Boots for me, otherwise your priority workers won’t hold out and your priority will be lost.”

Thus we find that in the theses the question of equalisation and priority is posed in a fundamentally incorrect way. Moreover, we get a retreat backwards from what has been practically tested and won. That cannot be done, and no good can come on such a path.

Next: the question of “merging”. The most correct thing now regarding “merging” would be to keep silent. Speech is silver, but silence is golden. Why? Because we have already started merging in practice; there is not a single large Gubernia Council of National Economy, a large department of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the People’s Commissariat of Railways, etc., where there is no practical merging. But are the results altogether good? There is the rub. Study the practical experience of how the merging was carried out and what has been achieved by it. The decrees by which merging has been introduced in one institution or another are so many that you cannot count them. But to study in a practical way what came of this, what the merging of such-and-such a branch of industry gave, when such-and-such a member of the Gubernia trade union council held such-and-such a post in the Gubernia Council of National Economy, what it led to, how many months he carried out this merging, etc. – we have not yet been able to study our own practical experience in a business-like way. We have proved able to invent a difference of principle about merging and to make an error at the same time; in this we are masters, but in studying our own experience and testing it – that is beyond us. And when we have congresses of Soviets at which, besides sections for the study of agricultural regions from the standpoint of this or that application of the law on improving agriculture, we have sections for the study of merging, for studying the results of merging in the flour-milling industry of Saratov Gubernia, in the metal industry of Petrograd, in the coal industry of the Donbas, etc., when these sections, having gathered a heap of material, declare: “We have studied such-and-such”, then I shall say: “Yes, we have got down to business, we have grown out of childhood!” And if, after we have spent three years on merging, we are presented with “theses” in which differences of principle about merging are invented, what could be more sad and more erroneous than this? We have set out on the path of merging, and I have no doubt that we set out correctly, but we have not yet properly studied the results of our experience. Therefore, the only sensible tactic on the question of merging is: keep silent.

It is necessary to study practical experience. I have signed decrees and resolutions containing instructions on practical mergings, and practice is a hundred times more important than any theory. Therefore, when they say: “Let’s talk about ‘merging’”, I reply: “Let’s study what we have done.” That we have made many mistakes, there is no doubt. Likewise, it may be that the greater part of our decrees are subject to alteration. I agree with that, and I have not the least fondness for decrees. But then give practical suggestions: amend such-and-such. That will be a business-like approach. That will not be unproductive work. That will not lead to bureaucratic project-mongering. When I take in Trotsky’s pamphlet section VI: “Practical Conclusions”, it is precisely this sin that the practical conclusions suffer from. For it is said there that the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the Presidium of the Supreme Council of National Economy should have from one third to half of their members in common for both institutions, and in the collegiums from half to two thirds, etc. Why? Simply, by “eye-measure”. Of course, in our decrees such proportions are often established precisely by “eye-measure”, but why is this inevitable in decrees? I am not a defender of all decrees and I do not want to represent decrees as better than they really are. Very often there are such conventional magnitudes as half, one third of common members, etc., taken by eye-measure. When a decree says such a thing, it means: you try to do it this way, and we shall then weigh the result of your “trying”. We shall then analyse what precisely came of it. When we have analysed, we shall move forward. We are carrying out merging and we shall do it better and better, for we are becoming ever more practical and business-like.

But I seem to have begun to engage in “production propaganda”? Nothing can be done! When speaking of the production role of the trade unions, it is necessary to touch on this question.

And I pass to this question of production propaganda. Again, this is a business-like question, and we put it in a business-like way. There are state institutions for conducting production propaganda that have already been created. Whether they are good or bad, I do not know; they must be tried out; and there is absolutely no need to write “theses” on this question.

If we speak overall of the production role of the trade unions, then on the question of democracy nothing is needed except ordinary democratism. Sophistications like “production democracy” are incorrect and nothing will come of them. That is the first. Second – production propaganda. Institutions have already been created. Trotsky’s theses speak about production propaganda. Unnecessarily, because “theses” here are already an outdated thing. Whether the institution is good or bad, we do not yet know. Let us test it in practice, then we shall say. Let us study and inquire. Suppose that 10 sections of ten persons each are organised at the congress: “Did you engage in production propaganda? How and what came of it?” Having studied this, we shall reward those who have been particularly successful, and reject the unsuccessful experience. We already have practical experience, weak, small, but we have it, and we are being dragged back from it to “theses of principle”. This is rather a “reactionary” movement than “trade-unionism”.

Further, thirdly, bonuses. Here is the production role and task of the trade unions: the production of bonuses in kind. This has been started. The matter has been moved forward. Five hundred thousand poods of grain have been allocated for this; and 170,000 have already been used up. Whether it has been used up well or correctly, I do not know. In the Council of People’s Commissars it was pointed out: they distribute them badly, instead of a bonus, it turns into a supplement to wages; the trade-unionists and labour commissariat people pointed this out too. We appointed a commission to study the matter, but have not yet studied it. One hundred and seventy thousand poods of grain have been given, but it must be given in such a way as to reward those who have shown heroism, conscientiousness, talent and devotion of the business executive, in a word, the qualities that Trotsky praises. But the point now is not to praise in theses, but to give grain and meat. Would it not be better to take away, say, meat from such-and-such category of workers and give it as a bonus to other, “priority” workers? We do not reject such priority. This priority is needed. Let us carefully study the practical experience of our application of priority.

Then, fourthly, disciplinary courts. The production role of the trade unions, “production democracy” – with no offence to Comrade Bukharin – is sheer nonsense if we do not have disciplinary courts. And in your theses this is lacking. Thus, both in principle, and theoretically, and practically, only one conclusion – as regards Trotsky’s theses and Bukharin’s position: take my sorrow away!

And I come even more to this conclusion when I say to myself: you are not posing the question in a Marxist way. It is not only that the theses contain a series of theoretical errors. The approach to evaluating the “role and tasks of the trade unions” is non-Marxist because one cannot approach such a broad topic without having thought through the peculiarities of the current moment from its political side. For it is not for nothing that Comrade Bukharin and I wrote in the resolution of the Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. on the trade unions that politics is the most concentrated expression of economics.

Analysing the current political moment, we could say that we are going through a transitional period within the transitional period. The entire dictatorship of the proletariat is a transitional period, but now we have, so to speak, a whole heap of new transitional periods. The demobilisation of the army, the end of the war, the possibility of a much longer peaceful respite than before, a more solid transition from the war front to the labour front. From this alone, solely from this, the relationship of the proletarian class to the peasant class changes. How does it change? This must be looked at attentively, but your theses do not bring this out. Until we have looked at it, we must know how to wait. The people are over-exhausted, a number of stocks that had to be used for certain priority productions have already been used up, the relationship of the proletariat to the peasantry is changing. The war-weariness is colossal, needs have increased, but production has not increased, or not sufficiently. On the other hand, I pointed out in my report to the Eighth Congress of Soviets the circumstance that we correctly and successfully applied coercion when we were first able to base it on conviction.[12] I must say that Trotsky and Bukharin absolutely failed to take into account this extremely important consideration.

Have we laid a sufficiently broad and solid base of conviction for all the new production tasks? No, we have only just barely begun. We have not yet drawn the masses in. And can the masses switch immediately to these new tasks? They cannot, because the question, say, of whether we must throw out Wrangel the landlord, whether we must spare sacrifices for this, such a question does not yet require special propaganda. But the question of the production role of the trade unions – if we have in mind not the “principled” question, not arguments about “Soviet trade unionism” and similar nonsense, if we have in mind the business-like side of the question, we have only just begun to work the question out, we have only just created the institution for production propaganda; we have no experience yet. We have introduced bonuses in kind, but we have no experience yet. We have created disciplinary courts, but we do not yet know the results. And from the political standpoint, the preparation of the masses is precisely the most important thing. Has the question been prepared, studied, thought out, weighed from this side? Far from it. And in this lies the fundamental, deepest and most dangerous political error, because here, more than in any question whatever, one must act by the rule: “measure seven times, cut once”, yet here they set about cutting without having measured even once. They say that “the Party must choose between