Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - The Chief Task of Our Times.djvu/14

 Socialists of the future Socialist Revolution. They recognise how difficult it would be to achieve Socialism without learning from the promoters of Trusts, who have organised production on a large scale and have much experience. Our business is, not to instruct them in Socialism, but to expropriate them, to break down their sabotage—and these two tasks we have fulfilled. We must force them to submit to the control of the workers. If our critics among the Communists of the Left have accused us of adopting tactics which lead us backwards instead of to Communism, I say that their accusations are ludicrous; they are forgetting that we are backward in organisation and financial control because it was very difficffiult to break down the resistance of the capitalists and to obtain the services of the bourgeois technical and other experts. We stand in need of their knowledge, their experience, and their labour; without them it is impossible to maintain the culture created by the former social conditions, which must serve as the material basis of Socialism. The Communists of the Left have not realised this, solely because they do not understand the realities of life, but evolve their theories and watchwords by contrasting State Capitalism with ideal Socialism. We must say to the workers: Yes, this may be a step backwards, but we must endeavour to find the way, and the only way is to organise to the last man, to organise and control production and consumption, and to ensure that, out of the hundreds of millions of money sent out by the Mint, not even a single 100-rouble note should be misappropriated, and that every note should be accounted for. This cannot be accomplished by any revolutionary act or the extermination of the bourgeoisie. It can only be accomplished by the organisation of workers' and peasants' labour, by management and control. These we do not yet possess; that 1s why we have had to pay you higher wages than the capitalists; that is why we must learn all these things. The only road to Socialism is to teach the workers how to manage colossal undertakings, and how to organise production and distribution on a large scale.

Comrades, I know very well how easy it is to jeer at a man occupying a social position when he speaks of management, control, discipline, and self-discipline. It is easy to say to him: "When your Party was not in office it was promising the land of milk and honey to the workers, but as soon as these people assumed power a great change came over them; you are beginning to talk of management, discipline, self-discipline, control." I know very well what splendid material this is for journalists of the type of Miliukoff and Martoff, who use it in order to develop their own theories, which nevertheless do not arouse much sympathy among class-conscious workers.

[Comrade Lenin here read several quotations from his book, "The State and the Revolution," which deals with the ideas which the Soviet Government is endeavouring how to put into practice. In connection with the review of this book by Comrade Bukharin, Lenin said:]

In the journal called "The Communist of the Left," I found a sympathetic review by a no less distinguished journalist than Bukharin, but all that was valuable in it lost its value for me when I had read the whole review. I realised that Bukharin missed what was essential, because he wrote his review in April, but quoted from material which was already stale in April, and appeared to be out of date—I mean the quotation, "One must destroy the old State." That we have done—that was yesterday's task—and we must now go forward; we must look to the future, and must create a Communist State. He wrote on what is already incorporated in the Soviet Organisation, but remained silent on the question of management, control, and discipline. How identical are the trend of thought and the psychology of such people with those of the small bourgeoisie is exemplified in their watchword: "Down with the rich, but no control." That which divides from the class-conscious proletariat even the most revolutionary elements of the small bourgeoisie is the watchword of the proletariat: "Let us organise and discipline ourselves." In this the class-conscious proletariat and the Revolution differ from the small bourgeoisie. We have shown our strength in the suppression of the landowners and the bourgeoisie, and now we must show it in connection with self-discipline and organisation. This is clear to us from experience a thousand years old, and we must make it clear to the