_Without the direction of specialists of different branches of knowledge, technique, and experience, the transformation toward Socialism is impossible_, for Socialism demands a conscious mass movement toward a higher productivity of labor in comparison with capitalism and on the basis which had been attained by capitalism. Socialism must accomplish this movement forward in its own way, by its own methods--to make it more definite, by Soviet methods. But the specialists are inevitably bourgeois on account of the whole environment of social life which made them specialists.... In view of the considerable delay in accounting and control in general, although we have succeeded in defeating sabotage, we have _not yet_ created an environment which would put at our disposal the bourgeois specialists. Many sabotagers are coming into our service, but the best organizers and the biggest specialists can be used by the state either in the old bourgeois way (that is, for a higher salary) or in the new proletarian way (that is, by creating such an environment of universal accounting and control which would inevitably and naturally attract and gain the submission of specialists). We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agree to a very high remuneration for the services of the biggest of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. _It is clear that the measure is a compromise, that it is a defection from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule, which demand the reduction of salaries to the standard of remuneration of the average workers_--principles which demand that "career hunting" be fought by deeds, not words. Furthermore, it is clear that such a measure is not merely a halt in a certain part and to a certain degree of the offensive against capitalism (for capitalism is not a quantity of money, but a definite social relationship), _but also a step backward by our Socialist Soviet state_, which has from the very beginning proclaimed and carried on a policy of reducing high salaries to the standard of wages of the average worker. ... The corrupting influence of high salaries is beyond question--both on the Soviets ... and on the mass of the workers. But all thinking and honest workers and peasants will agree with us and will admit that we are unable to get rid at once of the evil heritage of capitalism.... The sooner we ourselves, workers and peasants, learn better labor discipline and a higher technique of toil, making use of the bourgeois specialists for this purpose, the sooner we will get rid of the need of paying tribute to these specialists.[68]