Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/56

 their service. So far the working class could not produce such specialists from their own midst (but they will be able to do so when plans of general education will have been carried out successfully, and a special higher education will have become accessible to everybody), until that time, of course, we shall have, willy-nilly, to pay high wages to ordinary specialists. Let them now serve the working class just as they formerly did the bourgeoisie. Formerly they wore under the control and supervision of the bourgeoisie; now they will have to be under the supervision and control of the workers and employees.

To ensure a smooth running of the wheels of industry it is indispensable, as we have already explained, to have one general plan. It is not enough for every large factory to have its own board of management consisting of workers. There are many factories and many branches of production; they are all bound to one another, all inter-dependent: if the coal mine yields little coal the result will be that factories and railroads will be brought to a standstill; if there is no petrol, navigation is impeded; if no cotton, there will be no work to do for the textile factories. It is consequently necessary to form such an organisation which should embrace all production, should be based on a general plan, and be united with workers' boards of management of other works and factories; should keep an exact account of all requirements and reserves, not only of one town or of one factory, but for the whole country. The necessity for such a general plan is especially evident in the case of railroads. Any child can understand that the disorganisation in the working of railroads causes incredible calamities; in Siberia, for instance, there is a super-abundance of bread, whilst Petrograd is on the verge of famine. Why is this? Because the bread is beyond the reach of the inhabitants of Petrograd, as it is impossible to transport it. To ensure regular traffic it is necessary that everything be strictly registered and correctly distributed. And this is only possible under one uniform plan. Let us imagine that one mile of the railroad is under one management, another is under a different one, and a third under a third, and so on, all working independently of each other. An indescribable muddle would be the result. Such a muddle could be avoided only by conducting the railway through a single centralised management. Hence the necessity arises for such workers' organs and labour organisations as would unite entire branches of production to each other, forming one complete whole, and which would also