Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/48

 and control that has been created for them by the vultures of capitalism. That is why it is infinitely harder for the Western European workers to begin destroying the most powerful of bourgeois States, but it will be also much easier to conclude the task, having at their disposal the means of production organised by the bourgeoisie.

The Russian bourgeoisie, seeing that its power was not very secure, and that the proletariat was near a victory, was afraid to start decisively along the road traced by the Western European bourgeoisie. It understood that, together with the Government power, organised production would fall into the hands of the working class. And therefore the Russian bourgeoisie not only did not care to improve its organisation, but, on the contrary, strove to disorganise, and at the time of Kerensky, had recourse to sabotage as a means of ruining production.

However, it is to be noted that, even prior to the war, in Russia, partly owing to foreign capital, the most important spheres of industry were already syndicated. This especially applies to the so-called heavy branches of industry (coal mining, metallurgic industry, etc.). It is this heavy industry that must be nationalised first (and this is already being done: production in the Ural district, for instance, being practically entirely nationalised). After that, the whole of big production should be nationalised. Together with the transfer of big industry into the hands of the Workers' Government, the less important industries will also become dependent on the Government, because very many lesser industries depended to a great extent on the greater ones even before any nationalisation took place. Sometimes these smaller firms are no more than branches of larger concerns, depending on them for orders. In other cases they supply their produce to the larger concerns; in others they depend on them for supplies of raw material; sometimes they depend on the banks, and so on. Together with the nationalisation of banks and of large industry, they immediately become dependent in some way or other upon nationalised production. Of course, there will still remain a number of small owners and proprietors of small home industries, etc. There are a great number of such in Russia. But, nevertheless, the basis of our industry is not the above named workshops, but the large scale industry, and the nationalisation by the Workers' Government of this kind of production deals capitalism an irreparable blow. The banks and large scale industry are the two main