Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/422

 fortunes cannot be overcome by any outbursts of enthusiasm, but only by thorough and universal organization and discipline, in order to increase the production of bread for men and bread for industry (fuel), to transport it in time and to distribute it in the right way. That therefore responsibility for the tortures of famine and unemployment falls on everyone who violates labor discipline in any enterprise and in any business. That those who are responsible should be discovered, tried and punished without mercy. The petty bourgeois environment, which we will now have persistently to combat, is reflected particularly in the lack of comprehension of the economic and political connection between famine and unemployment and the prevailing dissolution in organization and discipline,—in the firm hold of the view of the small proprietor: nothing matters, if only I gain as much as possible.

This struggle of the petty bourgeois environment against proletarian organization is expressed with particular force in the railway industry, which embodies, probably most clearly, the economic ties created by large Capitalism. The "office" element furnishes saboteurs and grafters in large numbers; the proletarian element, its best part, is fighting for discipline. But between these two elements there are, of course, many who waver, who are "weak," who are unable to resist the "temptation" of speculation, bribery and personal advantage, at the expense of the functioning apparatus, the uninterrupted work of which is necessary to overcome famine and unemployment.

A characteristic struggle occured on this basis in connection with the last decree on railway management, the decree which granted dictatorial (or "unlimited") power to individual directors. The conscious (and mostly, probably, unconscious) representatives of petty bourgeois disintegration contended that the granting of "unlimited" (i. e. dictatorial) power to individuals was a defection from the principle of Commissariat administration, from the democratic and other principles of the Soviet Republic. Some of the Left Social-Revolutionists carried on a plainly demagogic agitation against the decree on dictatorship, appealing to evil instincts and to the petty bourgeois desire for personal gain. The question thus presented is of really great significance: first, the question of principle—is, in general, the appointment of individuals, endowed with unlimited power, the appointment of dictators, in accord with the fundamental principles of the Soviet rule; secondly, in what relation does this action,—this precedent, if you