their interest in the construction of Communism, and their enthusiasm for work.

(16) The refusal of qualified workers to work at their special trade must be combated. Qualified workers guilty of this offense will be held responsible to the Soviet Republic...

(17) At the present moment, when we see the dawn of a universal proletarian revolution, every one of our victories over economic disorganization and the disorganizing forces of capitalism is of great historical importance. Soviet Russia must become the economic base of the universal proletarian revolution.

(18) Those who evade labor conscription are deserters. . .

NOTE: By paragraph (11) the Russian Communist Party has been intrusted with the administration function of formulating the "single economic plan" for labor mobolization; and this plan is to be enforced by the official Commissariat of Labor of the Soviet government.

Document XIV

"THE FACTORY COMMITTEE," PETROGRAD "PRAVDA" DECEMBER 20, 1919. (EXTRACTS.)

The Petrograd Soviet of Trade Unions is beginning to discuss very seriously several important problems of trade union organization in order to summarize the results of its work since the Second All-Russian Congress of the Unions and in order to be ready for the Third All-Russian Congress which is to be held in February.

Among the questions which are being raised the one which attracts greatest attention is that concerned with the Factory Committee.

Judging by the newspaper articles which have appeared in the Moscow "Pravda" and "Trade Union Movement," there are two tendencies in Moscow now; one is for abolishing the factory committees and the other is for preserving them.

Formerly the part that the factory committees played in the carrying out of the labor control consisted in auditing the finances of the enterprise, in looking after the supply of fuel and raw materials, in controlling the technical personnel which was so often apt to engage in sabotage, etc. In other words, the factory committee carried out the labor control. In most of the enterprises, however, the control had but preventive character.

And it was out of these same factory committees as well as the trade unions that the new organs of state management and industry, the Soviets of National Economy grew and developed. At that time, the factory committees became merged with the trade unions and became the local organs of the trade unions instead of being councils of delegates as formerly.

All this time, too, there was a bitter struggle in the factories and the foundries over labor control between the capi talists and the workmen.

Many entrepreneurs were punished for their sabotage by being removed from the managements of their enterprises and the enterprises were nationalized. In such cases it was often necessary to place the management of these factories and foundries in the hands of the factory committees. There were

also cases of the seizure of enterprises by the factory committee, and this was inevitable, especially in the country districts. So it was until the summer of 1918 And from

that time on begins a new chapter in the history of the factory committees and of their relations with the government. What forms do these relations take? And are the assertions of those who want the committees abolished correct? In order to answer this question let us see first of all what is the nature of the whole apparatus of industrial management at the present time.

At the present time most of the enterprises are united in groups (kusts) and the management organ for each group is the Regional or Group Board. The organ of management in each factory is the factory management. A group management has a collegium of 5-7 persons at its head. This collegium is organized by the Soviet of National Economy. One-third of it represents the workmen, one-third the trade unions, and one-third the Soviet of National Economy. Of the whole number one-third must consist of specialists. Then we have actual working apparatus consisting of the engineers, the technicians, the bookkeepers and other specialists. The factory management is headed either by one director and his assistants, a workman, or by a collegium usually consisting of three persons. Then we also have the heads of departments, the foremen, the heads of supply divisions, the engineers, the technicians, the bookkeepers and others.

All this is a collossal administrative and technical apparatus. And has it, at least one-third of it, changed at all?

Has it accepted and assimilated the aims and purposes of the proletariat? And is it ready to make voluntary sacrifices for the realization of these things? Not at all. Only through necessity it submitted to Soviet authority and at the first suitable moment it will undoubtedly break away from it and will again engage in sabotage. All these engineers, technicians, heads of departments, foremen, are men of old bourgeois psychology. They do not strive for the same creative ideals as the working class. They are prone to indifference, to a lack of interest in their work, if the workmen themselves do not watch them very closely.

And under these conditions can a small group of workers in a management of three or four solve the problem of manage

ment in an enterprise if there is no special organ which can help it by controlling production in the factory itself, in its different divisions and shops.

The proletariat cannot do without specialists in the factories and in the army. In the latter it has organized constant control over the specialists in the form of the institution of commissaries and of the communist collectives, while in the factories and foundries it realizes this control through the factory committees which, being organs of the trade unions, are of assistance to thhe management rather than in opposition to it.

And so the factory committees are necessary and there is much work for them.

V. IVANOF.

NOTE: The Bolsheviks have often asserted that bourgeois technical experts have very generally adopted the principles of Bolshevism and have gone over whole heartedly to the Communist Party. The picture of factory conditions presented in the above article signed by an ardent Communist would indicate quite the opposite.

THE SOVIET THEORY FROM LENIN'S REPORT TO IX CONGRESS OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY.

MOSCOW, "PRAVDA," MARCH 31, 1920

Comrades, allow me to introduce a little theory into this question of how a class governs and of how the rule of a class expresses itself. In this matter we are, of course, not novices, and we differ from former revolutions in that in our revolution there is nothing of a Utopian character. If a new class has come to replace the old, it is only in a desperate struggle against classes that it maintains itself. And it will win in the end only if it is able to bring about the destruction of the old class. The gigantic and complicated process of class struggle puts the matter thus squarely; otherwise you will become mired in the marsh of confusion.

How does the rule of a class express itself? How did the rule of the bourgeoisie over the feudals express itself? In the constitution it was written: "Liberty and equality." This was a lie. So long as there are toilers, property holders are able and even obliged, as such, to speculate. We say that there was no equality, that the well-fed was not equal to the hungry, and the speculator to the toiler. How does the rule of a class then express itself? The rule of the proletariat expresses itself in taking away landlord and capitalistic property. The very spirit and fundamental content of all former constitutions, including the most republican and democratic, amounted simply to property rights. Our constitution has won the right to historic existence because it is not simply on paper, that we have written that private prop erty is abolished. The triumphant proletariat abolished and completely destroyed private property, and here one has the essence of the rule of a class. Thus, first of all, it is a question of property. When we had decided in a practical way the question of property, we had at the same time guaranteed the rule of a class. Then the constitution put down on paper what life had decided: "There is no capitalistic or landlord property." And the constitution added: "And the working class, according to the constitution, has more rights than the peasantry, while exploiters have no rights at all." Thus was written down the