Vladimir Lenin’s

Speech Delivered at the

Third All-Russian Congress of Water Transport Workers

T he water transport system is at the moment of the greatest importance and significance to
Soviet Russia, and the Congress will certainly devote the most
serious attention and care to the tasks that confront water
transport workers. Allow me to dwell on the question which the
Communist Party and the trade unions are more interested in than
in any other, and which you too no doubt are keenly debating; I
refer to the management of industry. This question figures as a
special point on the agenda of the Party Congress. Theses on the
subject are being published. The comrades in the water transport
system must also discuss it.

You know that one of the points in dispute, one that arouses
the liveliest discussion both in the press and at meetings, is
that of one-man management or corporate management. I think that
the preference for corporate management not infrequently betrays
an inadequate comprehension of the tasks confronting the
Republic; what is more, it often testifies to insufficient
class-consciousness. When I reflect on this question, I always
feel like saying that the workers have not yet learned enough
from the bourgeoisie. This is graphically shown by the countries
where the democratic socialists, or Social-Democrats, prevail, who
are now participating in governments in Europe and America, under
various guises and in some form of alliance with the bourgeoisie. They have been ordained by God himself to share the
old prejudices; but in our country, after two years of proletarian rule, we should not only want, but should strive to
inculcate upon the proletariat a class-consciousness that does not
fall short of that of the bourgeoisie. Look how the bourgeoisie
administer the state; how they have organised the bourgeois
class. In the old days, could you have found anyone who shared
the views of the bourgeoisie and was their loyal defender, and yet
argued that individual authority is incompatible with the
administration of the state? If there had been such a blockhead
among the bourgeoisie he would have been laughed to scorn by his
own class fellows, and would not have been allowed to talk or
hold forth at any important meeting of capitalists and bourgeois. They would have asked him what the question of
administration through one person or through a corporate body had
to do with the question of class.

The shrewdest and richest bourgeoisies are the British and
American; the British are in many respects more experienced, and
they know how to rule better than the Americans. And do they not
furnish us with examples of maximum individual dictatorship, of
maximum speed in administration, and yet they keep the power
fully and entirely in the hands of their own class? There you
have a lesson, comrades, and I think that if you give it some
thought, if you recall the not very distant past, when the
Ryabushinskys, Morozovs and other capitalists ruled
Russia—if you recall how, after the overthrow of the autocracy, during the eight months Kerensky, the Mensheviks and
the Socialist-Revolutionaries were in power, they managed so
perfectly and with such remarkable rapidity to change their hue,
to assume every kind of label, to make every kind of outward,
formal concession, and yet keep the power fully and completely in
the hands of their own class—I think that a little reflection on the lesson of Britain and on this concrete example
will do much more to help understand the matter of one-man
management than many abstract, purely theoretical resolutions,
compiled in advance.

It is claimed that corporate management means management by the
workers, and that individual management means non-worker
management. The mere fact that the question is presented in this
way, the mere fact that this sort of argument is used shows that
we still lack a sufficiently clear class-consciousness; and not
only so, but that we are less clear about our class interests
than the bourgeois gentry are. And that is natural. They did not
learn to rule in two years, but in two hundred years, and much
more than two hundred years if you take the European bourgeoisie. We must not give way to despair because we have been
unable to learn everything in two years; but it is important—events demand it—that we should learn more
rapidly than our enemies have. They have had hundreds of years to
learn in; they have opportunities to learn all over again and
correct their mistakes, because on a world scale they are
infinitely stronger than we are. We have no time to learn; we must
approach the question of corporate management from the standpoint
of positive and concrete facts. I am sure you will come to adopt
the policy on this question outlined by the Central Committee of
the Party; it has been published and is being discussed at every
Party meeting, but for the men on the job, for the water
transport workers, who have been at it for two years the truth of
this is obvious. And I hope the vast majority of those present
here, who are familiar with practical management, will understand
that we must not confine ourselves to a general discussion of the
question, but must act like serious practical men, abolishing the
collegiums and managing without them.

All administrative work requires special qualifications. You
may be the very best of revolutionaries and propagandists, and
yet be absolutely useless as an administrator. But anybody who
studies real life and has practical experience knows that
management necessarily implies competency, that a knowledge of
all the conditions of production down to the last detail and of
the latest technology of your branch of production is required;
you must have had a certain scientific training. These are the
conditions we must satisfy at any cost. And when we move general
resolutions in which we talk with the pomposity of experts about
corporate management and one-man management, the conviction
gradually dawns upon us that we know practically nothing about
management, but we are beginning to learn a little from
experience, to weigh every step and to promote every administrator
who shows any ability.

You know from the debates in the Central Committee that we are
not opposed to placing workers at the head, but we say that this
question must be settled in the interests of production. We
cannot wait. The country is so badly ruined, calamities—famine, cold and general want—have reached
such a pitch that we cannot continue like this any longer. No
devotion, no self-sacrifice can save us if we do not keep the
workers alive, if we do not provide them with bread, if we do not
succeed in procuring large quantities of salt, so as to
recompense the peasants by properly organised exchange and not
with pieces of coloured paper which cannot keep us going for
long. The very existence of the power of the workers and
peasants, the very existence of Soviet Russia is at stake. With
management in the hands of incompetent people, with fuel not
delivered in time, with locomotives, steamers and barges
standing unrepaired, the very existence of Soviet Russia is at stake.

Our rail transport system is in a far worse state than our
water transport system. It has been ruined by the Civil War,
which was mainly conducted along the land routes; both sides
destroyed mostly bridges, and this has put the whole railway
system in a desperate state of ruin. We shall restore it. Almost
daily we are doing a little bit towards restoring it. But it will
be some time before the system is completely restored. If even
advanced and cultured countries are suffering from disrupted
transport systems, how are we to restore ours in Russia? But
repaired it must be, and quickly, for the population cannot endure
another winter like the last. Whatever the heroism of the
workers, whatever their spirit of self-sacrifice, they cannot go
on enduring all the torments of hunger, cold, typhus and so on. So
tackle the question of management like practical men. See to it
that management is conducted with the minimum expenditure of
forces; see to it that the administrators, whether experts or
workers, are capable men, that they all work and manage, and let
it be considered a crime for them not to take part in the work of
management. Learn from your own practical experience. Learn from
the bourgeoisie as well. They knew how to maintain their class
rule; they have the experience we cannot do without and to ignore
it would be sheer conceit and entail the utmost danger to
the revolution.

Earlier revolutions perished because the workers were unable to
retain power by means of a firm dictatorship and did not realise
that they could not retain power by dictatorship, by force, by
coercion alone; power can be maintained only by adopting the whole
experience of cultured, technically-equipped, progressive
capitalism and by enlisting the services of all these people. When workers undertaking the job of management for the
first time adopt an unfriendly attitude towards the expert, the
bourgeois, the capitalist who only recently was a director, who
raked in millions and oppressed the workers, we say—and no
doubt the majority of you also say—that these workers have
only just begun to move towards communism. If communism could be
built with experts who were not imbued with the bourgeois
outlook, that would be very easy; but such communism is a myth. We
know that nothing drops from the skies; we know that communism
grows out of capitalism and can be built only from its remnants;
they are bad remnants, it is true, but there are no others. Whoever dreams of a mythical communism should he driven
from every business conference, and only those should be allowed
to remain who know how to get things done with the remnants of
capitalism. There are tremendous difficulties in the work, but it
is fruitful work, and every expert must be treasured as being the
only vehicle of technology and culture, without whom there can be
nothing, without whom there can be no communism.

Our Red Army was victorious in another sphere because we solved
this problem in relation to the Red Army. Thousands of former
officers, generals, and colonels of the tsarist army betrayed and
sold us, and thousands of the finest Red Army men perished as a
result—that you know. But tens of thousands are serving us
although they remain supporters of the bourgeoisie, and without
them there would have been no Red Army. And you know that when two
years ago we tried to create a Red Army without them, it ended in
guerrilla methods and disorder; the result was that our ten to
twelve million soldiers did not make up a single division. There
was not a single division fit to fight, and with our millions of
soldiers we were unable to cope with the tiny regular army of the
whiteguards. We learned this lesson at the cost of much
bloodshed, and it must now be applied to industry.

Experience tells us that everyone with a knowledge of bourgeois
culture, bourgeois science and bourgeois technology must be
treasured. Without them we shall be unable to build communism. The working class, as a class, rules; it created Soviet
power, holds that power as a class, and can take every supporter
of bourgeois interests and fling him out neck and crop. Therein
lies the strength of the proletariat. But if we are to build a
communist society, let us frankly admit our complete inability to
conduct affairs, to be organisers and administrators. We must
approach the matter with the greatest caution, bearing in mind
that only that proletarian is class-conscious who is able to
prepare the bourgeois expert for the forthcoming navigation
season and who does not waste his time and energy, more than
enough of which is always wasted on corporate management.

I repeat, our fate may depend more on the forthcoming navigation season than on the forthcoming war with Poland, if it
is forced upon us. War too, you know, is hampered by the
break-down of the transport system. We have plenty of troops, but
we cannot transport them, we cannot supply them with food; we
cannot bring up salt, of which we have large quantities, and
without an exchange of goods, proper relations with the peasants
are inconceivable. That is why the entire Republic, Soviet power
as a whole, the very existence of the power of the workers and
peasants, imposes on the present navigation season tasks of great
and exceptional importance. Not one week, not one day, not one
minute must be lost; we must put an end to this chaos and increase our possibilities three- and fourfold.

Everything, perhaps, depends on fuel, but the fuel situation is
now better than it was last year. We can float more timber, if we
do not allow mismanagement. Things are much better with regard to
oil, to say nothing of the fact that in the near future Grozny
will most likely be in our hands; and although this is still
problematical, the Emba fields are ours, and there we have ten to fourteen million poods of oil already. And if the water transport system helps us to deliver large quantities of building material to Saratov quickly and in good time, we shall cope with the railway to the Emba fields. And you know what it means to have oil for the water transport system. We shall not be able to get the railways going in a short time. God grant—not God, of course, but our ability to overcome the old prejudices of the workers—that we improve the railways a little in four or five months. And so, the water transport system must carry out a task of heroic proportions during this year’s
navigation period.

Dash, ardour and enthusiasm alone can do nothing; organisation,
endurance and honest effort are what will help, when the loudest
voice is not that of the man who fears the bourgeois expert and
treats us to general talk but that of the man who is able to
establish and to exercise firm authority—let it be even
individual authority provided it is used in the interests of the
proletariat—and who realises that everything depends on the
water transport system.

To make progress we must erect a ladder; in order to get the
sceptical to climb that ladder, we must put things in order, we
must select and promote people who are able to put the water
transport system in order. There are some who say in reference to
military discipline: “The idea! What do we want it for?” Such people do not realise the situation in Russia
and do not realise that although the fight on the bloody front is
coming to an end, the fight on the bloodless front is only
beginning, that no less effort, exertion and sacrifice is
required here, and that the stakes are no smaller and the
resistance greater rather than less. Every wealthy peasant, every
kulak and every member of the old administration who does not want
to act in the interests of the workers is our enemy. Do not
cherish any illusions. Victory demands a tremendous struggle and
iron, military discipline. Whoever does not understand this
understands nothing about the conditions needed to maintain the
power of the workers, and his ideas do great harm to this power of
the workers and peasants.

That is why, comrades, I will conclude my speech by expressing
the hope and certainty that you will devote the greatest attention
to the tasks of the forthcoming navigation season, and will make
it your aim, and will stop at no sacrifice, to create real, iron,
military discipline and to perform in the sphere of water
transport miracles as great as those performed during the past two
years by our Red Army.
(Applause)