Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky
Kant · en
That this is not a question of principle for the opponents of the
one-man principle is shown best of all by their not demanding the
collegiate principle for the actual workshops, jobs, and pits. They
even say with indignation that only a madman can demand that a board
of three or five should manage a workshop. There must be one manager,
and one only. Why? If collegiate administration is a "school," why do
we not require an elementary school? Why should we not introduce
boards into the workshops? And, if the collegiate principle is not a
sacred gospel for the workshops, why is it compulsory for the
factories?
Abramovich said here that, as we have few experts--thanks to the
Bolsheviks, he repeats after Kautsky--we shall replace them by boards
of workers. That is nonsense. No board of persons who do not know the
given business can replace one man who knows it. A board of lawyers
will not replace one switchman. A board of patients will not replace
the doctor. The very idea is incorrect. A board in itself does not
give knowledge to the ignorant. It can only hide the ignorance of the
ignorant. If a person is appointed to a responsible administrative
post, he is under the watch, not only of others but of himself, and
sees clearly what he knows and what he does not know. But there is
nothing worse than a board of ignorant, badly-prepared workers
appointed to a purely practical post, demanding expert knowledge. The
members of the board are in a state of perpetual panic and mutual
dissatisfaction, and by their helplessness introduce hesitation and
chaos into all their work. The working class is very deeply interested
in raising its capacity for administration, that is, in being
educated; but this is attained in the sphere of industry by the
periodical report of the administrative body of a factory before the
whole factory, and the discussion of the economic plan for the year or
for the current month. All the workers who display serious interest in
the work of industrial organization are registered by the directors of
the undertaking, or by special commissions; are taken through
appropriate courses closely bound up with the practical work of the
factory itself; and are then appointed, first to less responsible, and
then to more responsible posts. In such a way we shall embrace many
thousands, and, in the future, tens of thousands. But the question of
"threes" and "fives" interests, not the laboring masses, but the more
backward, weaker, less fitted for independent work, section of the
Soviet labor bureaucracy. The foremost, intelligent, determined
administrator naturally strives to take the factory into his hands as
a whole, and to show both to himself and to others that he can carry
out his work. While if that administrator is a weakling, who does not
stand very steadily on his feet, he attempts to associate another with
himself, for in the company of another his own weakness will be
unnoticed. In such a collegiate principle there is a very dangerous