IN AND. Lenin
Better less is better
1923
On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation of it, with the concentration in the Workers' Committee of human material of really modern quality, i.e., not lagging behind the best Western European models. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too lightly, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that i.e. bureaucratic or serf cultures, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.
And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.
Things with the state apparatus in our country are so sad, not to say disgusting, that we must first think closely about how to deal with its shortcomings, remembering that these shortcomings are rooted in the past, which, although turned upside down, has not been outlived, has not receded into the stage of bygone culture. It is about culture that I raise the question here, because in these matters only that which has become part of culture, everyday life, and habits must be considered achieved. And in our country, it can be said, the good in the social structure has not been thought out to the last degree, not understood, not felt, hastily grasped, not checked, not tested, not confirmed by experience, not consolidated, etc. It could not have been otherwise, of course, in the revolutionary era and with such a dizzying speed of development that led us in five years from tsarism to the Soviet system.
It is time to come to your senses. One must be imbued with a salutary distrust of the hastily rapid movement forward, of all boasting, and so on. We need to think about checking those steps forward that we proclaim every hour, take every minute, and then every second we prove their fragility, lack of solidity and incomprehensibility. The worst thing to do here would be to hurry. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the fact that we know at least something, or that we have any significant number of elements for building a really new apparatus, really deserving of the name socialist, Soviet, etc.
No, we have ridiculously few such apparatus and even its elements, and we must remember that to create it one should not spare time and spend many, many, many years.
What elements do we have to create this apparatus? Only two. First, the workers who are carried away by the struggle for socialism. These elements are not sufficiently enlightened. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they don't know how to do it. They can't do it. They have not yet developed in themselves such a development, the culture that is necessary for this. And this requires culture. There is nothing to be done about impudence or onslaught, briskness or energy, or any of the best human qualities in general. Secondly, the elements of knowledge, enlightenment, training, which we have ridiculously little in comparison with all other states.
And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) with zeal, haste, etc.
We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then to check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to present not the demands that bourgeois Western Europe makes, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.
The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.
In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.
For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.
For this it is necessary that the best elements that exist in our social system, namely, the advanced workers, in the first place, and, secondly, really enlightened elements, for whom you can vouch that they will not take a word for granted, nor words will not be spoken against conscience - they were not afraid to admit to any difficulty and were not afraid of any struggle to achieve the goal seriously set for themselves.
For five years now we have been fussing over the improvement of our state apparatus, but this is just fuss, which in five years has only proved its unsuitability, or even its uselessness, or even its harmfulness. Like hustle and bustle, it gave us the appearance of work, while actually littering our institutions and our brains.
Finally, it needs to be different.
We must take it as a rule: it is better to have a smaller number, but higher quality. It is necessary to take it as a rule: it is better in two years, or even in three years, than in a hurry, without any hope of obtaining solid human material.
I know that this rule will be difficult to maintain and apply to our reality. I know that the opposite rule will force its way through a thousand loopholes. I know that gigantic resistance will have to be shown, that perseverance will have to be diabolical, that the work here in the first years will at least be damned thankless; Nevertheless, I am convinced that only by such work will we be able to achieve our goal, and only by achieving this goal will we create a republic truly worthy of the name Soviet, socialist, etc., etc., etc.
On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation of it, with the concentration in the Workers' Committee of human material of really modern quality, i.e., not lagging behind the best Western European models. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too lightly, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that i.e. bureaucratic or serf cultures, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.
And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.
Things with the state apparatus in our country are so sad, not to say disgusting, that we must first think closely about how to deal with its shortcomings, remembering that these shortcomings are rooted in the past, which, although turned upside down, has not been outlived, has not receded into the stage of bygone culture. It is about culture that I raise the question here, because in these matters only that which has become part of culture, everyday life, and habits must be considered achieved. And in our country, it can be said, the good in the social structure has not been thought out to the last degree, not understood, not felt, hastily grasped, not checked, not tested, not confirmed by experience, not consolidated, etc. It could not have been otherwise, of course, in the revolutionary era and with such a dizzying speed of development that led us in five years from tsarism to the Soviet system.
It is time to come to your senses. One must be imbued with a salutary distrust of the hastily rapid movement forward, of all boasting, and so on. We need to think about checking those steps forward that we proclaim every hour, take every minute, and then every second we prove their fragility, lack of solidity and incomprehensibility. The worst thing to do here would be to hurry. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the fact that we know at least something, or that we have any significant number of elements for building a really new apparatus, really deserving of the name socialist, Soviet, etc.
No, we have ridiculously few such apparatus and even its elements, and we must remember that to create it one should not spare time and spend many, many, many years.
What elements do we have to create this apparatus? Only two. First, the workers who are carried away by the struggle for socialism. These elements are not sufficiently enlightened. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they don't know how to do it. They can't do it. They have not yet developed in themselves such a development, the culture that is necessary for this. And this requires culture. There is nothing to be done about impudence or onslaught, briskness or energy, or any of the best human qualities in general. Secondly, the elements of knowledge, enlightenment, training, which we have ridiculously little in comparison with all other states.
And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) with zeal, haste, etc.
We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then to check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to present not the demands that bourgeois Western Europe makes, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.
The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.
In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.
For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.
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IN AND. Lenin
Better less is better
1923
On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation of it, with the concentration in the Workers' Committee of human material of really modern quality, i.e., not lagging behind the best Western European models. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too lightly, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that i.e. bureaucratic or serf cultures, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.
And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.
Things with the state apparatus in our country are so sad, not to say disgusting, that we must first think closely about how to deal with its shortcomings, remembering that these shortcomings are rooted in the past, which, although turned upside down, has not been outlived, has not receded into the stage of bygone culture. It is about culture that I raise the question here, because in these matters only that which has become part of culture, everyday life, and habits must be considered achieved. And in our country, it can be said, the good in the social structure has not been thought out to the last degree, not understood, not felt, hastily grasped, not checked, not tested, not confirmed by experience, not consolidated, etc. It could not have been otherwise, of course, in the revolutionary era and with such a dizzying speed of development that led us in five years from tsarism to the Soviet system.
It is time to come to your senses. One must be imbued with a salutary distrust of the hastily rapid movement forward, of all boasting, and so on. We need to think about checking those steps forward that we proclaim every hour, take every minute, and then every second we prove their fragility, lack of solidity and incomprehensibility. The worst thing to do here would be to hurry. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the fact that we know at least something, or that we have any significant number of elements for building a really new apparatus, really deserving of the name socialist, Soviet, etc.
No, we have ridiculously few such apparatus and even its elements, and we must remember that to create it one should not spare time and spend many, many, many years.
What elements do we have to create this apparatus? Only two. First, the workers who are carried away by the struggle for socialism. These elements are not sufficiently enlightened. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they don't know how to do it. They can't do it. They have not yet developed in themselves such a development, the culture that is necessary for this. And this requires culture. There is nothing to be done about impudence or onslaught, briskness or energy, or any of the best human qualities in general. Secondly, the elements of knowledge, enlightenment, training, which we have ridiculously little in comparison with all other states.
And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) with zeal, haste, etc.
We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then to check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to present not the demands that bourgeois Western Europe makes, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.
The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.
In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.
For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.
For this it is necessary that the best elements that exist in our social system, namely, the advanced workers, in the first place, and, secondly, really enlightened elements, for whom you can vouch that they will not take a word for granted, nor words will not be spoken against conscience - they were not afraid to admit to any difficulty and were not afraid of any struggle to achieve the goal seriously set for themselves.
For five years now we have been fussing over the improvement of our state apparatus, but this is just fuss, which in five years has only proved its unsuitability, or even its uselessness, or even its harmfulness. Like hustle and bustle, it gave us the appearance of work, while actually littering our institutions and our brains.
Finally, it needs to be different.
We must take it as a rule: it is better to have a smaller number, but higher quality. It is necessary to take it as a rule: it is better in two years, or even in three years, than in a hurry, without any hope of obtaining solid human material.
I know that this rule will be difficult to maintain and apply to our reality. I know that the opposite rule will force its way through a thousand loopholes. I know that gigantic resistance will have to be shown, that perseverance will have to be diabolical, that the work here in the first years will at least be damned thankless; Nevertheless, I am convinced that only by such work will we be able to achieve our goal, and only by achieving this goal will we create a republic truly worthy of the name Soviet, socialist, etc., etc., etc.
I believe that the time has finally come for our state apparatus, when we must work on it properly, with all seriousness, and when haste will be perhaps the most harmful feature of this work. Therefore, I would strongly warn against increasing these figures. On the contrary, in my opinion, here one should be especially stingy with numbers. Let's speak directly. The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee does not now enjoy a shadow of authority. Everyone knows that there are no institutions worse than those of our Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, and that under present-day conditions there is nothing to ask of this people's commissariat. We must firmly remember this if we really want to set ourselves the goal of developing an institution in a few years, which, firstly, must be exemplary, secondly, must inspire unconditional confidence in everyone and, thirdly, prove to anyone and everyone that we really justified the work of such a lofty institution as the Central Control Commission. Any general norms for the number of employees, in my opinion, should be expelled immediately and irrevocably. We must select employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection in a very special way and only on the basis of the strictest test. Why, in fact, make up a people's commissariat in which work would be carried out somehow, again without inspiring the slightest confidence in itself, in which the word would enjoy infinitesimal authority? I think that avoiding this is our main task in the kind of restructuring that we now have in mind.
The workers whom we recruit as members of the Central Control Commission must be impeccable as communists, and I think that they still need to be worked on for a long time in order to teach them the methods and tasks of their work. Further, assistants in this work should be a certain number of secretarial staff, from whom it will be necessary to require a triple check before being assigned to the service. Finally, those officials whom we decide, as an exception, to immediately replace the employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, must meet the following conditions:
secondly, they must pass the test of knowledge of our state apparatus;
thirdly, they must pass the test of knowledge of the fundamentals of the theory on the issue of our state apparatus, knowledge of the fundamentals of the science of management, office work, etc.;
fourthly, they must work with the members of the Central Control Commission and with their secretariat so that we can vouch for the work of this entire apparatus as a whole.
I know that these demands imply prohibitive conditions, and I am very inclined to fear that the majority of the "practitioners" in the Workers' and Peasants' Committee will declare these demands unrealizable or will sneer at them contemptuously. But I ask any of the present leaders of the Workers' Committee or of persons who are in touch with him, can he honestly tell me - what is the need in practice in such a people's commissariat as the Workers' Committee? I think this question will help him find a sense of proportion. Either one should not be engaged in one of the reorganizations of which we have had so many, such a hopeless affair as the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, or we must really set ourselves the task of creating, by a slow, difficult, unusual way, not without numerous checks, something really exemplary, capable of inspiring anyone and everyone respect and not only because the ranks and titles require it.
If you do not stock up on patience, if you do not put a few years into this matter, then it is better not to take it at all.
In my opinion, from those institutions that we have already baked up in terms of higher institutions of labor and so on, choose a minimum, test a completely serious formulation and continue work only so that it really stands at the height of modern science and gives us all its support. Then, in a few years, it will not be utopian to hope for an institution that will be able to do its job, namely, systematically, steadily work, enjoying the confidence of the working class, the Russian Communist Party and the entire mass of the population of our republic, to improve our state apparatus.
Preparatory activities for this could begin now. If the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection agreed to the plan for a real transformation, then he could now begin the preparatory steps in order to work systematically until their full completion, without haste and without refusing to remake what was once done.
Any half-hearted solution here would be harmful to the last degree. Any norms of the employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, proceeding from any other considerations, would, in essence, be based on old bureaucratic considerations, on old prejudices, on what has already been condemned, what causes general ridicule, and so on.
In essence, the question here is as follows.
Either show now that we have seriously learned something in the matter of state building (it is not a sin to learn something at five years old), or that we are not ripe for this; and then don't get involved.
I think that with the human material that we have, it will not be immodest to assume that we have already learned enough to systematically and anew build at least one people's commissariat. True, this one people's commissariat should determine our entire state apparatus as a whole.
To announce a competition immediately for the compilation of two or more textbooks on the organization of labor in general and on managerial labor specifically. We can use Yermansky's book, which we already have, as a basis, although, in parentheses, he is distinguished by a clear sympathy for Menshevism and is unsuitable for compiling a textbook suitable for Soviet power. Then you can take as a basis the recent book by Kerzhentsev; Finally, some of the available partial allowances may come in handy.
Send several trained and conscientious persons to Germany or England to collect literature and study this issue. I name England in case sending to America or Canada would be impossible.
Appoint a commission to draw up the initial program of examinations for a candidate for the employees of the Rabkrin; also - for a candidate member of the Central Control Commission.
These and similar works, of course, will not hinder either the People's Commissar, or the members of the collegium of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, or the Presidium of the Central Control Commission. In parallel with this, a preparatory commission will have to be appointed to look for candidates for the position of members of the Central Control Commission. I hope that we now have more than enough candidates for this post, both from among the experienced workers of all departments and from among the students of our Soviet schools. It is hardly correct to exclude one or the other category in advance. It will probably be necessary to prefer the diverse composition of this institution, in which we must look for combinations of many qualities, combinations of unequal virtues, so that here we will have to work on the task of compiling a list of candidates. For example, it would be most undesirable if the new People's Commissariat were composed according to one template, for example, from the type of people of the nature of officials, or with the exception of people of the character of agitators, or with the exclusion of people whose distinctive property is sociability or the ability to penetrate circles, not especially usual for this kind of workers, etc.
* * *
I think the best way to express my point is to compare my plan with academic-type institutions. The members of the Central Control Commission will, under the guidance of their presidium, work systematically to review all the papers and documents of the Politburo. At the same time, they will have to properly allocate their time between individual work on checking the record keeping in our institutions, from the smallest and private to the highest state institutions. Finally, the category of their work will include studies in theory, that is, the theory of the organization of the work to which they intend to devote themselves, and practical studies under the guidance of either old comrades or teachers of higher institutes of labor organization.
But I think that they will never be able to confine themselves to this kind of academic work. Along with them, they will have to prepare themselves for work that I would not hesitate to call preparation for catching, I won’t say - scammers, but something like that, and inventing special tricks in order to cover up their campaigns, approaches, etc.
If in Western European institutions such proposals would arouse unheard-of indignation, a feeling of moral indignation, etc., then I hope that we have not yet become bureaucratized enough to be capable of this. In our country, NEP has not yet managed to acquire such respect as to be offended at the thought that someone might be caught here. Our Soviet Republic has been so recently built and such a heap of rubbish has been piled up that it is hardly possible to be offended at the thought that among this rubbish it is possible to excavate with the help of some tricks, with the help of reconnaissance, sometimes directed to rather distant sources or in a rather roundabout way. whether it comes to anyone's mind, and if it does, then you can be sure that we will all laugh heartily at such a person.
Our new Rabkrin, we hope, will leave behind the quality that the French call pruderie 1
Demonstrative virtue, exaggerated modesty, impregnability.
Which we can call ridiculous affectation or ridiculous self-importance and which, to the last degree, plays into the hands of our entire bureaucracy, both Soviet and Party. In brackets, be it said that we have bureaucracy not only in Soviet institutions, but also in Party ones.
If I wrote above that we should study and study at institutes for the higher organization of labor, etc., then this does not mean at all that I understand this “teaching” in any way in a school way, or that I limit myself to thinking about learning only in a school way. I hope that not a single real revolutionary will suspect me of the fact that in this case I refused to understand by "teaching" some half-joking trick, some trick, some trick, or something of that kind. I know that in a stately and serious Western European state, this idea would really cause horror and not a single decent official would even agree to allow it to be discussed. But I hope that we have not yet become bureaucratized enough and that we have nothing but fun, the discussion of this idea does not cause.
In fact, why not combine the pleasant with the useful? Why not use some playful or half-joking prank to cover something funny, something harmful, something half funny, half harmful, etc.?
It seems to me that our Rabkrin will gain a lot if it takes these considerations into consideration, and that the list of incidents by means of which our Central Control Commission or its colleagues in the Rabkrin won several of their most brilliant victories will be enriched by many adventures of our future "worker's workers" and "Tsekakists" ” in places that are not quite comprehensible in ceremonial and prim textbooks.
* * *
How can Party institutions be combined with Soviet ones? Is there anything unacceptable here?
I am raising this question not on my own behalf, but on behalf of those whom I hinted at above, saying that we have bureaucrats not only in Soviet, but also in Party institutions.
Why, in fact, not to combine both, if this is required by the interest of the case? Hasn't anyone ever noticed that in such a people's commissariat as the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, such a connection is extremely beneficial and has been practiced from the very beginning? Aren't the Politburo discussing, from the party point of view, many small and big questions about "moves" on our part in response to the "moves" of the foreign powers, in preventing their, let's say, tricks, so as not to speak less decently? Isn't this flexible combination of the Soviet and the Party a source of extraordinary strength in our politics? I think that what has justified itself, established itself in our foreign policy and has already become a custom in such a way that there is no doubt in this area, will be at least as much appropriate (and I think it will be much more appropriate ) in relation to our entire state apparatus. But Rabkrin is devoted to our entire state apparatus, and its activities should concern all and sundry, without any exception, state institutions, both local, and central, and commercial, and purely bureaucratic, and educational, and archival, and theatrical, etc. d. In a word, all without the slightest exception.
Why, then, for an institution with such a broad scope, for which, in addition, an extraordinary flexibility of forms of activity is required - why not allow a kind of merging of the control party institution with the control Soviet one?
I would not see any obstacles in this. Moreover, I think that such a connection is the only guarantee of successful work. I think that all sorts of doubts on this score come out of the dustiest corners of our state apparatus and that they should be answered with only one thing - mockery.
* * *
Another doubt: is it convenient to combine educational activity with official activity? It seems to me that it is not only convenient, but also necessary. Generally speaking, we have managed to get infected by Western European statehood, with all the revolutionary attitude towards it, with a whole series of the most harmful and ridiculous prejudices, and in part we were deliberately infected with this by our dear bureaucrats, not without intent to speculate on the fact that in the troubled waters of such prejudices they will repeatedly succeed to fish; and they caught fish in this troubled water to such an extent that only the completely blind among us did not see how widely this fishing was practiced.
In the whole field of social, economic and political relations we are "terribly" revolutionary. But in the field of respect for rank, observance of the forms and rituals of paperwork, our "revolutionary" nature is replaced quite often by the most musty routinism. Here one can more than once observe the most interesting phenomenon, how in social life the greatest leap forward is combined with a monstrous timidity before the smallest changes.
This is understandable, because the most daring steps forward lay in a field that has long been the lot of theory, lay in a field that has been cultivated mainly and even almost exclusively theoretically. The Russian person averted his soul from the hateful bureaucratic reality at home behind unusually bold theoretical constructions, and therefore these unusually bold theoretical constructions acquired an unusually one-sided character in our country. We have coexisted side by side with theoretical boldness in general constructions and amazing timidity in relation to some of the most insignificant clerical reforms. Some great world land revolution was developed with a boldness unheard of in other states, and next to it there was not enough imagination for some ten-degree clerical reform; lacked the imagination or lacked the patience to apply to this reform the same general propositions which gave such "brilliant" results when applied to general questions.
And therefore, our present way of life combines to an amazing degree the features of a desperately bold with timidity of thought in the face of the smallest changes.
I think that it has never happened otherwise in any really great revolution, because really great revolutions are born out of contradictions between the old, between the development of the old and the most abstract striving for the new, which should already be so new that not a single grain of antiquity in he was not.
And the steeper this revolution, the longer the time will last when a whole series of such contradictions will persist.
* * *
We must exercise the utmost care to preserve our workers' power, to keep our small and smallest peasantry under its authority and under its leadership. It is a plus on our side that the whole world is already passing over to a movement which must give rise to a world socialist revolution. But on our side is the disadvantage that the imperialists have managed to split the whole world into two camps, and this split is complicated by the fact that it is now difficult for Germany, a country of really advanced cultural capitalist development, to rise to the last level. All the capitalist powers of the so-called West are pecking at it and do not let it rise. And on the other hand, the entire East, with its hundreds of millions of working, exploited population, brought to the last degree of human extremeness, is placed in conditions where its physical and material forces cannot be compared with the physical, material and military forces of any of the much smaller Western European states.
We are interested in the tactics that we, the Russian Communist Party, we, the Russian Soviet power, must adhere to in order to prevent the Western European counter-revolutionary states from crushing us. In order to ensure our existence until the next military clash between the counter-revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the most civilized states of the world and the states, backward in the Oriental way, which, however, constitute the majority, this majority must have time to become civilized. We, too, do not have enough civilization to pass directly to socialism, although we have the political prerequisites for this. We should stick to this tactic or adopt the following policy for our salvation.
We must try to build a state in which the workers would retain their leadership over the peasants, the confidence of the peasants in relation to themselves and, with the greatest economy, would banish from their social relations every trace of any kind of excess.
We must reduce our state apparatus to the maximum economy. We must expel from it all traces of excesses, of which so much remains from tsarist Russia, from its bureaucratic-capitalist apparatus.
Wouldn't this be a realm of peasant narrow-mindedness?
No. If we retain the leadership of the peasantry in the hands of the working class, then we shall be able, at the cost of the greatest and greatest economic savings in our state, to secure every slightest saving for the development of our large-scale machine industry, for the development of electrification, hydropeat, for the completion of Volkhovstroy, and so on.
This, and this alone, is our hope. Only then will we be able to transfer, figuratively speaking, from one horse to another, namely, from a peasant, peasant, impoverished horse, from an economy horse designed for a devastated peasant country - to a horse that it is looking for and cannot but look for for itself. the proletariat, on the horse of large-scale machine industry, electrification, Volkhovstroy, etc.
This is how I link in my thoughts the general plan of our work, our policy, our tactics, our strategy, with the tasks of the reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Committee. This, for me, is the justification for those exceptional concerns, that exceptional attention that we must devote to the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, placing it on an exceptional level, giving it a head with the rights of the Central Committee, and so on. and so on.
This justification is that only by purifying our apparatus as much as possible, by minimizing everything that is not absolutely necessary in it, will we be able to hold ourselves for sure. And besides, we will be able to maintain ourselves not at the level of a small-peasant country, not at the level of this general narrow-mindedness, but at a level that is steadily rising forward and forward towards large-scale machine industry.
These are the lofty tasks I dream of for our Workers' and Peasants' Committee. That's why I plan for him to merge the most authoritative party elite with the "ordinary" people's commissariat.
BETTER LESS, YES BETTER
On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation of it, with the concentration in the Workers' Committee of human material of really modern quality, i.e., not lagging behind the best Western European models. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too easily, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that ie bureaucratic culture, or serf culture, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.
And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.
Things with the state apparatus in our country are so sad, not to say disgusting, that we must first think closely about how to deal with its shortcomings, remembering that these shortcomings are rooted in the past, which, although turned upside down, has not been outlived, has not receded into the stage of bygone culture. It is about culture that I raise the question here, because in these matters only that which has become part of culture, everyday life, and habits must be considered achieved. And in our country, it can be said, the good in the social structure is not thought out to the last degree, not understood, not felt, grasped hastily, not checked, not tested, not confirmed by experience, not fixed, etc. It could not be otherwise, of course , in a revolutionary era and with such a dizzying speed of development that led us in five years from tsarism to the Soviet system.
It is time to come to your senses. We must be imbued with a salutary distrust of the hastily rapid movement forward, of all boasting, etc. We must think about checking those steps forward that we proclaim every hour, take every minute, and then every second we prove their fragility, lack of solidity and incomprehensibility. The worst thing to do here would be to hurry. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the fact that we know at least something, or that we have any significant number of elements for building a really new apparatus, really deserving of the name socialist, Soviet, etc.
No, such an apparatus and even its elements are ridiculously few in our country, and we must remember that in order to create it, one should not spare time and should be spent by me, many, many years.
What elements do we have to create this apparatus? Only two. First, the workers who are carried away by the struggle for socialism. These elements are not sufficiently enlightened. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they don't know how to do it. They can't do it. They have not yet developed such a
development, the culture that is necessary for this. And this requires culture. There is nothing to be done about impudence or onslaught, briskness or energy, or any of the best human qualities in general. Secondly, the elements of knowledge, enlightenment, training, which we have ridiculously little in comparison with all other states.
And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) by diligence, haste, etc.
We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to present not the demands that bourgeois Western Europe makes, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.
The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.
In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.
For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.
For this it is necessary that the best elements that exist in our social system, namely, the advanced workers, in the first place, and, secondly, really enlightened elements, for whom you can vouch that they will not take a word for granted, nor words will not be said against conscience - they were not afraid to admit to any
difficulties and were not afraid of any struggle to achieve a seriously set goal.
For five years now we have been fussing over the improvement of our state apparatus, but this is just fuss, which in five years has only proved its unsuitability, or even its uselessness, or even its harmfulness. Like hustle and bustle, it gave us the appearance of work, while actually littering our institutions and our brains.
Finally, it needs to be different.
We must take it as a rule: it is better to have a smaller number, but higher quality. It is necessary to take it as a rule: it is better in two years, or even in three years, than in a hurry, without any hope of obtaining solid human material.
I know that this rule will be difficult to maintain and apply to our reality. I know that the opposite rule will force its way through a thousand loopholes. I know that gigantic resistance will have to be shown, that perseverance will have to be diabolical, that the work here in the first years will at least be damned thankless; Nevertheless, I am convinced that only by such work will we be able to achieve our goal, and only by achieving this goal will we create a republic truly worthy of the name Soviet, socialist, etc., etc., etc.
Probably, many readers found the figures that I gave as an example in my first article* too insignificant. I am sure that many calculations can be cited to prove the insufficiency of these figures. But I think that we should put one thing above all such and any calculations: interest of a truly exemplary quality.
I believe that the time has finally come for our state apparatus, when we must work on it properly, with all seriousness, and when perhaps the most harmful feature of this work will be
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* See present volume, pp. 383-388. Ed.
haste. Therefore, I would strongly warn against increasing these figures. On the contrary, in my opinion, here one should be especially stingy with numbers. Let's speak directly. The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee does not now enjoy a shadow of authority. Everyone knows that there are no institutions worse than those of our Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, and that under present-day conditions there is nothing to ask of this People's Commissariat. Firstly, it must be exemplary; secondly, it must inspire unconditional confidence in everyone; and, thirdly, it must prove to each and every one that we have really justified the work of such a lofty institution as the Central Control Commission. Any general norms for the number of employees, in my opinion, should be expelled immediately and irrevocably. We must select employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection in a very special way and only on the basis of the strictest test. Why, in fact, make up a people's commissariat in which work would be carried out somehow, again without inspiring the slightest confidence in itself, in which the word would enjoy infinitesimal authority? I think that avoiding this is our main task in the kind of restructuring that we now have in mind.
The workers whom we recruit as members of the Central Control Commission must be impeccable as communists, and I think that they still need to be worked on for a long time in order to teach them the methods and tasks of their work. Further, assistants in this work should be a certain number of secretarial staff, from whom it will be necessary to require a triple check before being assigned to the service. Finally, those officials whom we decide, as an exception, to immediately replace the employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, must meet the following conditions:
secondly, they must pass the test of knowledge of our state apparatus;
thirdly, they must pass the test of knowledge of the foundations of the theory on the question of our state apparatus, of knowledge of the foundations of the science of management, office work, etc.;
fourthly, they must work with the members of the Central Control Commission and with their secretariat so that we can vouch for the work of this entire apparatus as a whole.
I know that these demands imply exorbitant conditions, and I am very inclined to fear that the majority of "practitioners" in the Workers' and Peasants' Committee will declare these demands unfulfillable or will sneer at them contemptuously. But I ask any of the current leaders of the Workers' Committee or of persons who are in touch with him, can he honestly tell me - what is the need in practice for such a people's commissariat as the Workers' and Peasants' Committee? I think this question will help him find a sense of proportion. Either one should not be engaged in one of the reorganizations of which we have had so many, such a hopeless affair as the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, or we must really set ourselves the task of creating, by a slow, difficult, unusual way, not without numerous checks, something really exemplary, capable of inspiring anyone and everyone respect and not only because the ranks and titles require it.
If you do not stock up on patience, if you do not put a few years into this matter, then it is better not to take it at all.
In my opinion, from those institutions that we have already baked up in terms of higher institutions of labor and so on, choose a minimum, test a completely serious formulation and continue work only so that it really stands at the height of modern science and gives us all its support. Then, in a few years, it will not be utopian to hope for an institution that will be able to do its job, namely, to work systematically, unswervingly, enjoying the confidence of the working class, the Russian Communist Party and the entire mass of the population of our republic, to improve our state apparatus.
Preparatory activities for this could begin now. If the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection agreed to the plan for a real transformation, then he could now begin the preparatory steps in order to work systematically until their full completion, without haste and without refusing to remake what was once done.
Any half-hearted solution here would be harmful to the last degree. Any norms of employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, based on any other considerations, would, in essence, be based on old bureaucratic considerations, on old prejudices, on what has already been condemned, what causes general ridicule, etc. In essence , the question here is:
Either show now that we have seriously learned something in the matter of state building (it is not a sin to learn something at five years old), or that we are not ripe for this; and then don't get involved.
I think that with the human material that we have, it will not be immodest to assume that we have already learned enough to systematically and anew build at least one people's commissariat. True, this one people's commissariat should determine our entire state apparatus as a whole.
To announce a competition immediately for the compilation of two or more textbooks on the organization of labor in general and on managerial labor specifically. We can use Yermansky's book, which we already have, as a basis, although, in parentheses, he is distinguished by a clear sympathy for Menshevism and is unsuitable for compiling a textbook suitable for Soviet power. Then, one can take as a basis the recent book by Kerzhentsev; Finally, some of the available partial allowances may come in handy.
Send several trained and conscientious persons to Germany or England to collect literature and study this issue. I name England in case sending to America or Canada would be impossible.
Appoint a commission to draw up the initial program of examinations for a candidate for the employees of the Rabkrin; also - for a candidate member of the Central Control Commission.
These and similar works, of course, will not hinder either the People's Commissar, or the members of the collegium of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, or the Presidium of the Central Control Commission.
In parallel with this, a preparatory commission will have to be appointed to look for candidates for the position of members of the Central Control Commission. I hope that we will now find more than enough candidates for this position, both from among the experienced workers of all departments and from among the students of our Soviet schools. It is hardly correct to exclude one or the other category in advance. It will probably be necessary to prefer the diverse composition of this institution, in which we must look for combinations of many qualities, combinations of unequal virtues, so that here we will have to work on the task of compiling a list of candidates. For example, it would be most undesirable if the new People's Commissariat were composed according to one template, for example, from the type of people of the nature of officials, or with the exception of people of the nature of agitators, or with the exclusion of people whose distinctive property is sociability or the ability to penetrate circles, not especially common for this kind of workers, etc.
* *
I think the best way to express my point is to compare my plan with academic-type institutions. The members of the Central Control Commission will, under the guidance of their presidium, work systematically to review all the papers and documents of the Politburo. At the same time, they will have to properly allocate their time between individual work on checking the record keeping in our institutions, from the smallest and private to the highest state institutions. Finally, the category of their work will include studies in theory, i.e., the theory of organization
the work to which they intend to devote themselves, and practical exercises under the guidance of either old comrades or teachers of higher institutes of labor organization.
But I think that they will never be able to confine themselves to this kind of academic work. Along with them, they will have to prepare themselves for work that I would not hesitate to call preparation for catching, I won’t say - scammers, but something like that, and inventing special tricks in order to cover up their campaigns, approaches, etc.
If in Western European institutions such proposals would arouse unheard-of indignation, a feeling of moral indignation, etc., then I hope that we have not yet become bureaucratized enough to be capable of this. In our country, NEP has not yet managed to acquire such respect as to be offended at the thought that someone might be caught here. Our Soviet Republic has been so recently built and such a heap of rubbish has been piled up that it is hardly possible to be offended at the thought that among this rubbish it is possible to excavate with the help of some tricks, with the help of reconnaissance, sometimes directed to rather distant sources or in a rather roundabout way. whether it comes to anyone's mind, and if it does, then you can be sure that we will all laugh heartily at such a person.
Our new Rabkrin, we hope, will leave behind that quality which the French call pruderie, which we can call ridiculous affectation or ridiculous self-importance, and which to the last degree plays into the hands of our entire bureaucracy, both Soviet and Party. In brackets, be it said that we have bureaucracy not only in Soviet institutions, but also in Party ones.
If I wrote above that we should study and study in institutes for the higher organization of labor, etc., then this does not mean at all that I understand this "teaching" in any school way, or that I limit myself to thinking about learning only in a school way.
I hope that not a single real revolutionary will suspect me of the fact that by "teaching" in this case I refused to understand some half-joking trick, some trick, some trick, or something of that kind. I know that in a dignified and serious Western European state this idea would really evoke horror, and not a single decent official would even agree to allow it to be discussed. But I hope that we have not yet become bureaucratized enough and that we have nothing but fun, the discussion of this idea does not cause.
In fact, why not combine the pleasant with the useful? Why not use some playful or half-joking prank to cover something funny, something harmful, something half funny, half harmful, etc.?
It seems to me that our Rabkrin will gain a lot if it takes these considerations into consideration, and that the list of incidents by means of which our Central Control Commission or its colleagues in the Rabkrin won several of their most brilliant victories will be enriched by many adventures of our future "rabkrin" and "tsekakists" "in places that are not quite comprehensible in ceremonial and prim textbooks.
How can Party institutions be combined with Soviet ones? Is there anything unacceptable here?
I am raising this question not on my own behalf, but on behalf of those whom I hinted at above, saying that we have bureaucrats not only in Soviet, but also in Party institutions.
Why, in fact, not to combine both, if this is required by the interest of the case? Hasn't anyone ever noticed that in such a people's commissariat as the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, such a connection is extremely beneficial and has been practiced from the very beginning? Is it not discussed in the Politburo from a party point of view
many small and big questions about the "moves" on our part in response to the "moves" of the foreign powers, in preventing them, let's say, tricks, so as not to be expressed less decently? Isn't this flexible combination of the Soviet and the Party a source of extraordinary strength in our politics? I think that what has justified itself, established itself in our foreign policy and has already become a custom in such a way that there is no doubt in this area, will be at least as much appropriate (and I think it will be much more appropriate ) in relation to our entire state apparatus. But Rabkrin is dedicated to our entire state apparatus, and its activities should concern all and sundry, without any exception, state institutions, both local, and central, and commercial, and purely bureaucratic, and educational, and archival, and theatrical, etc. in a word, all without the slightest exception.
Why, then, for an institution with such a broad scope, for which, in addition, an extraordinary flexibility of forms of activity is required - why not allow a kind of merging of the control party institution with the control Soviet one?
I would not see any obstacles in this. Moreover, I think that such a connection is the only guarantee of successful work. I think that all sorts of doubts on this score come out of the dustiest corners of our state apparatus and that they should be answered with only one thing - mockery.
Another doubt: is it convenient to combine educational activity with official activity? It seems to me that it is not only convenient, but also necessary. Generally speaking, we have managed to get infected by Western European statehood, with all the revolutionary attitude towards it, by a whole series of the most harmful and ridiculous prejudices,
and partly we were deliberately infected with this by our dear bureaucrats, not without intent to speculate on the fact that in the troubled waters of such prejudices they will repeatedly succeed in fishing; and they caught fish in this troubled water to such an extent that only the completely blind among us did not see how widely this fishing was practiced.
In the whole field of social, economic and political relations we are "terribly" revolutionary. But in the field of respect for rank, observance of the forms and rituals of paperwork, our "revolutionary" nature is replaced quite often by the most musty routinism. Here one can more than once observe the most interesting phenomenon, how in social life the greatest leap forward is combined with a monstrous timidity before the smallest changes.
This is understandable, because the most daring steps forward lay in a field that has long been the lot of theory, lay in a field that has been cultivated mainly and even almost exclusively theoretically. The Russian person averted his soul from the hateful bureaucratic reality at home behind unusually bold theoretical constructions, and therefore these unusually bold theoretical constructions acquired an unusually one-sided character in our country. We have coexisted side by side with theoretical boldness in general constructions and amazing timidity in relation to some of the most insignificant clerical reforms. Some great world land revolution was developed with a boldness unheard of in other states, and next to it there was not enough imagination for some ten-degree clerical reform; lacked the imagination or lacked the patience to apply to this reform the same general propositions which gave such "brilliant" results when applied to general questions.
And therefore, our present way of life combines to an amazing degree the features of a desperately bold with timidity of thought in the face of the smallest changes.
I think that it has never happened otherwise in any really great revolution, because really great revolutions are born out of contradictions between the old, between the development of the old and the most abstract striving for the new, which should already be so new that not a single grain of antiquity in he was not.
And the steeper this revolution, the longer the time will last when a whole series of such contradictions will persist.
The common feature of our way of life is now the following: we have destroyed capitalist industry, we have tried to destroy to the ground medieval institutions, landlordism, and on this basis we have created a small and tiny peasantry, which follows the proletariat out of confidence in the results of its revolutionary work. On this trust, however, it is not easy for us to hold out until the victory of the socialist revolution in the more developed countries, because the small and smallest peasantry, especially under the New Economic Policy, is kept, by economic necessity, at an extremely low level of labor productivity. Yes, and the international situation has caused Russia to be thrown back now, and that, on the whole, the productivity of people's labor in our country is now much lower than before the war. The Western European capitalist powers, partly consciously, partly spontaneously, have done everything possible to throw back the pass, in order to use the elements of the civil war in Russia to ruin the country as much as possible. It was precisely such a way out of the imperialist war that, of course, seemed to have significant benefits: if we do not overthrow the revolutionary system in Russia, then, in any case, we will hinder its development towards socialism, - approximately, these powers reasoned, and from their point of view they could not reason otherwise. As a result, they received
half solution to your problem. They did not overthrow the new system created by the revolution, but they did not give it the opportunity to take immediately such a step forward that would justify the predictions of the socialists, which would enable them to develop productive forces with tremendous speed, to develop all the possibilities that would develop in socialism, to prove to everyone and everyone clearly, with their own eyes, that socialism conceals within itself gigantic forces and that humanity has now passed on to a new stage of development, bearing extraordinarily brilliant possibilities.
The system of international relations has now developed in such a way that in Europe one of the states is enslaved by the victorious states - this is Germany. Then, a number of states, and, moreover, the oldest states of the West, found themselves, by virtue of victory, in conditions where they can use this victory to make a number of insignificant concessions to their oppressed classes - concessions that, nevertheless, delay the revolutionary movement in them and create some kind of "social world".
At the same time, a number of countries—the East, India, China, etc.—because of the latest imperialist war, have been completely knocked out of their rut. Their development was finally directed along the all-European capitalist scale. They began a pan-European ferment. And it is now clear to the whole world that they have been drawn into a development that cannot but lead to a crisis of all world capitalism.
Thus, at the present moment we are confronted with the question: will we be able to hold out with our petty and minute peasant production, with our ruin, until the Western European capitalist countries complete their development towards socialism? But they don't end it like that How we expected earlier. They complete it not by uniform "ripening" of socialism in them, but by exploiting some states by others, by exploiting the first of those defeated during the imperialist war.
state connected with the exploitation of the whole East. And the East, on the other hand, finally came into the revolutionary movement precisely because of this first imperialist war and was finally drawn into the general circulation of the world revolutionary movement.
What tactics are prescribed by this state of affairs for our country? Obviously, the following: we must exercise the utmost care to preserve our workers' power, to keep our small and smallest peasantry under its authority and under its leadership. It is a plus on our side that the whole world is already passing over to a movement which must give rise to a world socialist revolution. But on our side is the disadvantage that the imperialists have managed to split the whole world into two camps, and this split is complicated by the fact that it is now difficult for Germany, a country of really advanced cultural capitalist development, to rise to the last level. All the capitalist powers of the so-called West are pecking at it and do not let it rise. And on the other hand, the entire East, with its hundreds of millions of working, exploited population, brought to the last degree of human extremeness, is placed in conditions where its physical and material forces cannot be compared with the physical, material and military forces of any of the much smaller Western European states.
Can we save ourselves from the coming clash with these imperialist states? Do we have any hope that the internal contradictions and conflicts between the prosperous imperialist states of the West and the prosperous imperialist states of the East will give us a second delay, as they did the first time, when the campaign of the Western European counter-revolution aimed at supporting the Russian counter-revolution was thwarted because of contradictions in the camp of the counter-revolutionaries of the West and East, in the camp of the exploiters of the Eastern
and Western exploiters, in the camp of Japan and America?
This question, it seems to me, should be answered in such a way that the decision here depends on too many circumstances, and the outcome of the struggle, on the whole, can only be foreseen on the ground that the vast majority of the world's population is ultimately trained and educated to fight by capitalism itself. .
The outcome of the struggle depends, in the final analysis, on the fact that Russia, India, China, etc. constitute the vast majority of the population. And it is precisely this majority of the population that has been drawn with extraordinary rapidity in recent years into the struggle for its liberation, so that in this sense there can be no shadow of doubt as to what the final solution of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the final victory of socialism is completely and unconditionally assured.
But we are not interested in this inevitability of the final victory of socialism. We are interested in the tactics that we, the Russian Communist Party, we, the Russian Soviet power, must adhere to in order to prevent the Western European counter-revolutionary states from crushing us. In order to ensure our existence until the next military clash between the counter-revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the most civilized states of the world and the orientally backward states, which, however, constitute the majority, this majority must have time to become civilized. We, too, do not have enough civilization to pass directly to socialism, although we have the political prerequisites for this. We should stick to this tactic or adopt the following policy for our salvation.
We must try to build a state in which the workers would retain their leadership over the peasants, the confidence of the peasants in relation to themselves and, with the greatest economy, would drive them out of their communities.
public relations, all traces of any kind of excesses.
We must reduce our state apparatus to the maximum economy. We must expel from it all traces of excesses, of which so much remains from tsarist Russia, from its bureaucratic-capitalist apparatus.
Wouldn't this be a realm of peasant narrow-mindedness?
No. If we retain the leadership of the peasantry in the hands of the working class, then we shall be able, at the cost of the greatest and greatest economic savings in our state, to secure every slightest saving for the development of our large-scale machine industry, for the development of electrification, hydropeat, for the completion of Volkhovstroy, and so on.
This, and this alone, is our hope. Only then will we be able to transfer, figuratively speaking, from one horse to another, namely, from a peasant, peasant, impoverished horse, from a horse of savings calculated for a ruined peasant country - to a horse that he is looking for and cannot, but look for for the proletariat, on the horse of large-scale machine industry, electrification, Volkhovstroy, etc.
This is how I link in my thoughts the general plan of your work, our policy, our tactics, our strategy, with the tasks of the reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Committee. That, for me, is the justification for those exceptional concerns, that exceptional attention that we must devote to the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, placing it on an exceptional level, giving it a head with the rights of the Central Committee, etc., etc.
This justification is that only by purifying our apparatus as much as possible, by minimizing everything that is not absolutely necessary in it, will we be able to hold ourselves for sure. And besides, we will be able to maintain ourselves not at the level of a small-peasant country, not at the level of
this general narrow-mindedness, but at a level that rises steadily forward and forward towards large-scale machine industry.
These are the lofty tasks I dream of for our Workers' and Peasants' Committee. That's why I plan for him to merge the most authoritative party elite with the "ordinary" people's commissariat.
IN AND. Lenin
Better less is better
1923
On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation of it, with the concentration in the Workers' Committee of human material of really modern quality, i.e., not lagging behind the best Western European models. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too lightly, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that i.e. bureaucratic or serf cultures, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.
And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.
Things with the state apparatus in our country are so sad, not to say disgusting, that we must first think closely about how to deal with its shortcomings, remembering that these shortcomings are rooted in the past, which, although turned upside down, has not been outlived, has not receded into the stage of bygone culture. It is about culture that I raise the question here, because in these matters only that which has become part of culture, everyday life, and habits must be considered achieved. And in our country, it can be said, the good in the social structure has not been thought out to the last degree, not understood, not felt, hastily grasped, not checked, not tested, not confirmed by experience, not consolidated, etc. It could not have been otherwise, of course, in the revolutionary era and with such a dizzying speed of development that led us in five years from tsarism to the Soviet system.
It is time to come to your senses. One must be imbued with a salutary distrust of the hastily rapid movement forward, of all boasting, and so on. We need to think about checking those steps forward that we proclaim every hour, take every minute, and then every second we prove their fragility, lack of solidity and incomprehensibility. The worst thing to do here would be to hurry. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the fact that we know at least something, or that we have any significant number of elements for building a really new apparatus, really deserving of the name socialist, Soviet, etc.
No, we have ridiculously few such apparatus and even its elements, and we must remember that to create it one should not spare time and spend many, many, many years.
What elements do we have to create this apparatus? Only two. First, the workers who are carried away by the struggle for socialism. These elements are not sufficiently enlightened. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they don't know how to do it. They can't do it. They have not yet developed in themselves such a development, the culture that is necessary for this. And this requires culture. There is nothing to be done about impudence or onslaught, briskness or energy, or any of the best human qualities in general. Secondly, the elements of knowledge, enlightenment, training, which we have ridiculously little in comparison with all other states.
And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) with zeal, haste, etc.
We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then to check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to present not the demands that bourgeois Western Europe makes, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.
The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.
In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.
For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.
For this it is necessary that the best elements that exist in our social system, namely, the advanced workers, in the first place, and, secondly, really enlightened elements, for whom you can vouch that they will not take a word for granted, nor words will not be spoken against conscience - they were not afraid to admit to any difficulty and were not afraid of any struggle to achieve the goal seriously set for themselves.
For five years now we have been fussing over the improvement of our state apparatus, but this is just fuss, which in five years has only proved its unsuitability, or even its uselessness, or even its harmfulness. Like hustle and bustle, it gave us the appearance of work, while actually littering our institutions and our brains.
Finally, it needs to be different.
We must take it as a rule: it is better to have a smaller number, but higher quality. It is necessary to take it as a rule: it is better in two years, or even in three years, than in a hurry, without any hope of obtaining solid human material.
I know that this rule will be difficult to maintain and apply to our reality. I know that the opposite rule will force its way through a thousand loopholes. I know that gigantic resistance will have to be shown, that perseverance will have to be diabolical, that the work here in the first years will at least be damned thankless; Nevertheless, I am convinced that only by such work will we be able to achieve our goal, and only by achieving this goal will we create a republic truly worthy of the name Soviet, socialist, etc., etc., etc.
End of introductory segment.
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