Capitalist culture has created industry on a large scale in the shape of factories, railways, posts, telephones, and so forth; and on this basis the great majority of the functions of the old state have become enormously simplified and reduced in practice to very simple operations, such as registration, filing, and checking. Hence they will be quite within the reach of every literate person, and it will be possible to perform them for the usual “working-man’s wages.”[32]
[32] The State and Revolution, by N. Lenin, p. 12.
Thus it was in September, before the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Then Lenin was at the head of a revolting faction and presented the task of reorganizing the state as very simple indeed. In April he was at the head of a government, confronted by realities, and emphasizing the enormous difficulty and complexity of the task of reorganization. The Soviets at Work and the later booklet, The Chief Tasks of Our Times, lay great emphasis upon the great difficulties to be overcome, the need of experienced and trained men, and the folly of expecting anything like immediate success. “We know all about Socialism,” he said, “but we do not know how to organize on a large scale, how to manage distribution, and so on. The old Bolshevist leaders have not taught us these things, and this is not to the credit of our party.”[33]
[33] The Chief Tasks of Our Times, p. 12.
The same man who had urged the workers to “take possession of the factories” now realized how utterly unfitted the mass of the workers must be for undertaking the management of modern industrial establishments:
To every deputation of workers which has come to me complaining that a factory was stopping work, I have said, “If you desire the confiscation of your factory the decree forms are ready, and I can sign a decree at once. But tell me: Can you take over the management of the concern? Have you reckoned what you can produce? Do you know the relations of your work with Russian and foreign markets?” Then it has appeared that they are inexperienced in these matters; that there is nothing about them in the Bolshevist literature, in the Menshevist, either.[34]
[34] Idem, p. 12.
Lenin and his associates had been brought face to face with a condition which many Marxian Socialist writers had foreseen was likely to exist, not only in Russia, but in far more highly developed industrial nations, namely, a dangerous decline of production and of the average productivity of the workers, instead of the enormous increase which must be attained before any of the promises of Socialism could be redeemed. A few figures from official Bolshevist sources will serve to illustrate the seriousness of the decline in production. The great Soromovo Works had produced fifteen locomotives monthly, even during the last months of the Kerensky régime. By the end of April, 1918, it was pointed out, the output was barely two per month. At the Mytishchy Works in Moscow, the production, as compared with 1916, was only 40 per cent. At this time the Donetz Basin was held by the Bolsheviki. The average monthly output in the coal-fields of this important territory prior to the arrival of the Bolsheviki was 125,000,000 poods. The rule of the Bolsheviki was marked by a serious and continuous decline in production, dropping almost at once to 80,000,000 poods and then steadily declining, month by month, until in April-May, 1918, it reached the low level of 26,000,000 poods.[35] When the Bolsheviki were driven away, the production rose month by month, until, in December, 1918, it had reached 40,000,000 poods. Then the Bolsheviki won control once more and came back, and at once production declined with great swiftness, soon getting down to 24,000,000 poods.[36] These figures, be it remembered, are official Bolshevist figures.
[35] Economicheskaya Zhizn, May 6, 1919.
[36] Idem.