Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/54

 always help the village poor against the rich, and therefore the former will ever find in them their staunchest allies.

The village poor should not allow themselves to be duped. They have fought and struggled for the land, and they have finally won it from the landlords. They must see that they do not lose it again! They must see that they do not let it slip through their fingers! The danger is there if they are going to work in the direction of sub-dividing the land and sharing it out into private lots. The danger will vanish if the rural poor, together with the working class, go along the road of joint production on as large a scale as possible. Then we shall all proceed at top speed towards Communism.

 

Just as in connection with the land, the leading part in the management in the various localities is gradually transferred to the organisations of the poorest peasantry and the different peasant Soviets and their departments, so is industrial management gradually being transferred (which is exactly what our party expects) into the hands of the workers' and peasants' government.

Prior to the October revolution and in the period immediately following upon it, the working class and our party put forward the demand for a workers' control, that is to say, for workers' supervision over factories and works to prevent the capitalists from making secret reserves of fuel and raw materials, to see that they did not cheat or speculate, damage goods or dismiss workers unjustly. A workers' supervision was instituted over production, as well as over the sale and purchase of products, raw materials, their storage, and the financing of enterprises. However, a mere supervision proved inefficient. Especially did this prove insufficient when the nationalisation of production took place and the various privileges of the capitalists were destroyed, and when enterprises and whole branches of industry were transferred into the hands of the workers' and peasants' government. It is easy to see that a mere supervision is quite inefficient, and that what is required is not only a workers' control but workers' management of industry; workers'