Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky
Kant · en
The chief spiritual weapon of the bourgeoisie is religion; ours is the
open explanation to the masses of the exact position of things, the
extension of scientific and technical knowledge, and the initiation of
the masses into the general economic plan of the State, on the basis
of which there must be brought to bear all the labor-power at the
disposal of the Soviet regime.
Political economy provided us with the principal substance of our
agitation in the period we have just left: the capitalist social order
was a riddle, and we explained that riddle to the masses. To-day,
social riddles are explained to the masses by the very mechanism of
the Soviet order, which draws the masses into all branches of
administration. Political economy will more and more pass into the
realms of history. There move forward into the foreground the sciences
which study nature and the methods of subordinating it to man.
The trade unions must organize scientific and technical educational
work on the widest possible scale, so that every worker in his own
branch of industry should find the impulses for theoretical work of
the brain, while the latter should again return him to labor,
perfecting it and making him more productive. The press as a whole
must fall into line with the economic problems of the country--not in
that sense alone in which this is being done at present--_i.e._,
not in the sense of a mere general agitation in favor of a revival of
labor--but in the sense of the discussion and the weighing of concrete
economic problems and plans, ways and means of their solution, and,
most important of all, the testing and criticism of results already
achieved. The newspapers must from day to day follow the production of
the most important factories and other enterprises, registering their
successes and failures encouraging some and pillorying others....
Russian capitalism, in consequence of its lateness, its lack of
independence, and its resulting parasitic features, has had much less
time than European capitalism technically to educate the laboring
masses, to train and discipline them for production. That problem is
now in its entirety imposed upon the industrial organizations of the
proletariat. A good engineer, a good mechanic, and a good carpenter,
must have in the Soviet Republic the same publicity and fame as
hitherto was enjoyed by prominent agitators, revolutionary fighters,
and, in the most recent period, the most courageous and capable
commanders and commissaries. Greater and lesser leaders of technical
development must occupy the central position in the public eye. Bad
workers must be made ashamed of doing their work badly.