Page:Lenin - The State and Revolution.pdf/89

 (? ? ? ), trade-unionist, co-operative, individual. There are, for instance, such enterprises as cannot do without a bureaucratic (? ? ?) organization: such are the railways. Here democratic organization might take the following form: The workers elect delegates, who form something in the nature of a parliament, and this parliament determines the condition of work, and superintends the management of the bureaucratic apparatus. Other enterprises might be handed over to the workers' unions, which again could be organized on a co-operative basis."

This view is erroneous, and represents a step backwards by comparison with the deductions of Marx and Engels in the 'seventies from the examples of the Commune.

So far as this assumed necessity of "bureaucratic" organization is concerned, there is no difference whatever between railways and any other form of big industry, any factory, great commercial undertaking, or extensive capitalist form. The conduct of all such enterprises requires the strictest discipline, the nicest accuracy in the apportionment of work under peril of damage to mechanism or product, or even the confusion and stoppage of the whole business. In all such enterprises the workers will, of course, "choose delegates who will form something in the nature of a parliament."

But herein lies the crux: this "something in the nature of a parliament" will not be a parliament in the middle-class sense. Kautsky's ideas do not go beyond the boundaries of middle-class parliamentarism. "This something in the nature of a parliament" will not merely "determine the conditions of work, and superintend the management of the bureaucratic apparatus," as imagined by Kautsky. In a Socialist society this "something in the nature of parliament," consisting of workers' delegates, will determine the conditions of work, and superintend the management of the "apparatus"—but this apparatus will not be "bureaucratic." The workers, having conquered political power, will break up the old bureaucratic apparatus, they will shatter it from its foundations up, until not one stone is left standing upon another; and the new machine, which they will fashion to take its place, will be formed out of these same workers and employees themselves. To guard against their transformation into bureaucrats, measures will be taken at once, which have been analyzed in detail by Marx and Engels—(1) Not only will they be elected, but they will be subject to recall at any time; (2) They will receive payment no higher than that of ordinary workers; (3) There will be an immediate preparation for a state of things when all