Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/56

 illiterate, sat gravely in the offices, occupied the directorial chairs, perched themselves on the high stools at the bookkeeping desks or even grouped around the table of the Administrative Council. But here again experience soon taught these would-be reformers that to undertake the direction of the production it was not enough for a workman to sit in the director's chair. When the pay-sheets had to be drawn up, orders for material placed, or the output regulated, they realized that technical knowledge was not altogether useless, and very soon installed the former officials in their places.

Apart from these temporary victims, a great number of managers had, as we have seen, been driven away by the staff. They left without hope of return, or at least of an early return. And thus Russian industry was deprived of much competency, a loss all the greater since technical capacity was already more rare than in old industrial countries. Moreover, the mobilization for