There is a very characteristic touch of Machiavellian artistry in this reference to “a secure transition to higher forms of labor discipline,” in which there is to be “absolute submission to the personal orders of the representatives of the Soviet rule during work.” The eloquent apologia for the Soviet system of industrial control by the workers carries the announcement of the liquidation of that system. It is to be replaced by some “higher forms of labor discipline,” forms which will not attempt the impossible task of conducting factories on “debating-society lines.” The “petty bourgeois tendency to turn the members of the Soviets into ‘parliamentarians,’ or, on the other hand, into bureaucrats,” is to be combated. In many places the departments of the Soviets are turning “into organs which gradually merge with the commissariats”--in other words, are ceasing to function as governing bodies in the factories. There is a difficult transition to be made which alone will make possible “the definite realization of Socialism,” and that is to put an end to the wastefulness arising from the attempt to combine the discussion and solution of political problems with work in the factories. There must be a return to the system of uninterrupted work for so many hours, with politics after working-hours. That is what is meant by the statement: “It is our object to obtain _the free performance of state obligations by every toiler after he is through with his eight-hour session of productive work_.” Admirable wisdom! Saul among the prophets at last! The romancer turns realist! But this program cannot be carried out without making of the elaborate system of workers’ control a wreck, a thing of shreds and patches. Away goes the Utopian combination of factory and forum, in which the dynamos are stilled when there are speeches to be made--pathetic travesty of industry and government both. The toiler must learn that his “state obligations” are to be performed after the day’s work is done, and not in working-time at the expense of the pay-roll. More than this, it is necessary to place every factory under the absolute dictatorship of one person: Every large machine industry requires an absolute and strict unity of the will which directs the joint work of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of people.... But how can we secure a strict unity of will? By subjecting the will of thousands to the will of one.[40] [40] _The Soviets at Work._ If the workers are properly submissive, if they are “ideally conscious and disciplined,” this dictatorship may be a very mild affair; otherwise it will be stern and harsh: