Corruption

And what elements are insinuating themselves into the new regime! “No single profound and powerful mass movement has ever taken place in history without dubious means, without adventurers and swindlers who bleed inexperienced novices, without boasters and mob orators, without senseless vacillation and stupidity, without needless fuss, without attempts on the part of the individual leaders to attempt twenty different things without pursuing one to its end.” (Lenin, The immediate work, etc., p.40)

There is no doubt that every great mass movement has to suffer from such pernicious influences. We in Germany have also been made to feel this; but the Russian Soviet regime has given proof besides of certain characteristics peculiar to it. In the first place, the novices were never so “inexperienced” as they are in Russia. That was inevitable. Under the absolutist regime all the elements who were striving upwards were denied all chance of insight, and still more all chance of participation in the administration of the State and of the community, as well as in all forms of higher organisation and administrative activity.

The interest of the revolutionaries, particularly of the most impatient and most violent elements among them, was concentrated on the struggle against the police and secret conspiracy. One has no right to reproach them for their inexperience, when they suddenly came to power. But this inexperience represents an important feature, which proves how unripe Russia was for Socialism at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution. Socialism can still less be carried out by ignorant and undisciplined masses, the more inexperienced the novices are who have to show the way. It is a further proof that the schooling and education of the masses, as well as of their leaders, in democracy is a necessary condition of Socialism. It is impossible in one bound to leap from Absolutism into a Socialist society. Again, the difference between the Soviet regime and the earlier great mass movements is shown in the fact that the Soviet has abolished the best means for exposing the adventurers, the swindlers, the boasters and the brawlers, namely, the freedom of the Press. These undesirable elements were thus exempt from all criticism by people who had expert knowledge. They had to do only with ignorant workmen and soldiers, as well as with inexperienced innovators, and they flourished exceedingly. Certainly the leaders of the Bolsheviks have undertaken to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to distinguish the true Socialists from the swindlers and the rogues. But long before this has been “learnt” production has failed, as the result of the backward state of the Russian working-classes, and even threatens to come to a complete standstill. Their only hope of arresting this catastrophe lies in a dictatorship of the leaders, but they must give these leaders dictatorship, without being in the position to make adequate choice. Hence this kind of dictatorship, which from the outset is open to much criticism, can only work to disadvantage. Just as they first of all indulged in expropriation, and only then began to organise; so now they appoint dictators, and only afterwards attempt to learn the method of choosing them rightly. Such absurdities were inevitable as soon as they began to introduce Socialism arbitrarily, and without any relation to actual conditions. But the Soviet regime is not only endangered through the incursion of “adventurers and swindlers,” whom it cannot judge and examine accurately. It suffers from a danger, which is no less serious, from the fact that it alienates those members who have the highest character and who, intellectually, are among the most prominent. Without the collaboration of the educated and intellectual elements, Socialism at the present stage of production is impossible. So long as Socialism was in the stage of propaganda, so long as it was merely a question of bringing the proletariat to a consciousness of its place in society and of its tasks and obligations for the future arising therefrom. Socialism had need of the educated elements – whether these were men of universal education, drawn from among the middle classes, or self-educated men, who had sprung from the proletariat. But it needed them only for the carrying out and popularising of its theories. Here it was not a question of quantity, but solely of quality.

But it is quite different at the present time, when we are in the period in which Socialism in a practical form is to be introduced. Just as a capitalist system of production and the capitalist state could not exist without the help of numerous reliable and scientific men, social production and the State system, which is dominates by the working classes, requires such help equally urgently. Without such assistance, or in opposition to it, no Socialism is possible. For practical participation in the establishment of Socialism, as well as in the development and propagation of Socialist theories, a passionate devotion to the great cause of the emancipation of the human race is not essential. What is most necessary is, that a large section of them at least should be convinced of the possibility and advantage of Socialist production, so that no sacrifice of intelligence is necessary if one wishes to co-operate. If in the matter of manual labour an improved production is impossible with any kind of compulsory labour, this is all the more the case in the sphere of intellectual work.

The removal of doubt on the part of the educated as to the practical introduction of Socialism, and the willingness of such elements to co-operate in its construction and development, as soon as the necessary power arises, belong to the necessary conditions of Socialist production, to the conditions to which society will have progressed, if it is to be ripe for Socialism. The importance of these conditions will be all the more obvious the more other necessary conditions of Socialism are to hand ; so that a recognition of the practicability of Socialism will lead the unbiased educated classes to a conviction of its sound reasonableness.

This importance of the educated classes the Bolsheviks did not recognise at first. For since at the beginning they merely served to increase the blind passion of the soldiers, the peasants and the town labourers, the masses of the educated were from the very beginning hostile to the Bolsheviks, and even the Socialists among them, because they recognised that Russia was not yet ripe for the kind of immediate socialisation which the Bolsheviks had undertaken. They did not trouble to think about the treatment which was meted out to the “intelligentsia.” A man of this class, for instance, would be expelled from the factory which the workers alone wished to manage. He was deprived of all political rights, since the authority of the Workmen’s Council granted to manual labourers alone the right to vote. He was expropriated, so far as he had any possessions, and was deprived of every means of living his refined form of life. He was even condemned later on to compulsory labour and to death by starvation.

The Bolsheviks thought at first to get along without the “intelligentsia,” without the experts. Tsarism was of the opinion that a general was capable of filling any and every position in the State without any special qualification or education. The Soviet Republic took over from Tsarism, along, with many other ideas, this one also; only in the place of the general they put the proletariat. The theoreticians among the Bolsheviks called this procedure “the development of Socialism from science to action.” One could better describe it as “the development of Socialism from science to dilettantism.”

As is generally the case with the Soviet Republic, it allows itself to be guided by mere instinct, and not by real insight into the actual circumstances. Thus it happened that they discovered, after the child had fallen into the well, what was necessary, and so they tried to cover up the well. They sought to attract the educated to work apart from any compulsory labour, as had been the case some time before, and, indeed, to do work for which they were suited, and which they understood. Whereupon the educated classes who entered the service of the Government ceased to count as bourgeois, to be treated and ill-treated as such. They rose in the circle of the “active and working” population by performing “productive” and “useful” labour. They were protected from expropriation and received adequate salary. Since it was not conviction but only fear of ill-treatment that drove most of these educated into the service of the Government naturally enough their work was in reality neither very productive nor very useful. Trotsky complains about this, for instance, in his essay on Work, Discipline, etc., quoted above; he says:–

The first epoch of the fight against the sabotage (of the intellectuals) consisted in mercilessly destroying the organisations of the saboteurs. That was necessary, and therefore right. Now in the period where the power of the Soviets has become assured, this struggle against the saboteurs must take the form of transforming the saboteurs of yesterday into servants, into administrators, and technical managers, wherever the new regime demands it.

Trotsky, therefore, implies that the “necessary and therefore right” way to make these intellectuals servants and leaders of socialisation is, first of all, mercilessly to trample them under foot. The result of this he himself gives us:

We have destroyed the old forms of sabotage, and swept away the old officials with an iron broom. The substitutes for these old officials proved themselves to be by no means first-class material in any branch whatsoever of administration. On the one hand, the posts that have become vacant were filled by comrades of each party, who had done all the “spade work,” and who had boon schooled in the revolution. They formed the best elements, the fighters, the honourable men, the men who were not self-seekers. On the other hand, there appeared on the scene fortune-seekers, social failures who under the old regime had been, so to speak, without occupation. When, therefore, it was necessary to get tens of thousands of new qualified labour at one stroke, it is not to be wondered at if many intruders succeeded in penetrating into the new regime. We must also admit that many of the Socialist comrades, who are now at work in different offices and institutions, have by no means shown themselves to be always capable of organising creative and energetic labour. We can follow the movements of such comrades in the ministerial offices, especially of those in the ranks of the October Bolsheviks, who work four or five hours a day, and not very intensively at that; whereas our whole position now demands the most strenuous labour, not out of fear, but from a sense of duty.

That was the necessary, though by no means the right consequence of a policy which sought to win the educated classes, not through conviction, but merely through kicks from behind as well as from the front.

Another means was devised to increase the supply of active labour. The Paris Commune of 1871 reduced the pay of State officials, and decided on the sum of 6,000 franca as a maximum salary. The Soviet Republic endeavoured to do likewise ; but this would not work, so they had to revert to the old system. Lenin remarks in this connection:-

We must needs return to the old bourgeois methods, and establish very high payment for all ‘service rendered’ by the best of the bourgeois experts. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, and somewhat of a departure tom the principles of the Paris Commune and of every proletarian power ... It is clear that such a measure means not only the standstill – in certain departments and to a certain degree – of the offensive against capital, but also a retrograde step in our socialising power as a Soviet. (The Immediate Work of the Soviet Power, p.19.)

But Lenin implies that it cannot be otherwise, and he is perfectly right. The necessity for high salaries can arise from two causes. The bigger the concern, the greater the number of its workers. So much more important under equal circumstances, therefore, is the a mass of the gross value which it delivers. If the workman produces value equivalent to five shillings a day, the concern with a hundred workmen will produce to the value of 500 shillings a day, and one with a thousand workmen will produce 5,000 shillings a day. The bigger the concern, the more difficult it is to organise and guide it, and all the rarer is the necessary efficiency for its organisation. But all the greater will be the means which the owner or owners of the concern will have at their disposal, in order to engage the services of such select equipment. In proportion, therefore, as these large industries increase, the salaries of their heads increase also, and finally reach vast dimensions. With this circumstance the State administration has to reckon. If it does not raise proportionately the salaries of its higher officials, it must be prepared to find that private industry will attract them away – so far as they are at all capable, and not mere holders of sinecures. In this way the State administration becomes impoverished, and that is one of the reasons why State economy is unable to cope with competition of private enterprise.

It is questionable, whether the Commune, once it had become established, and whether industry on a large scale, once it had been developed on capitalistic lines under the Commune, instead of becoming socialised, which was possible, could have maintained this system of fixed salaries at 6,000 frs. The decree issued on April 2nd shows the petty bourgeois character of the Paris industry at that time. Moreover it proves the disinterestedness of the members of the Commune. We have already referred to the well-known example of the Financial Minister, Jourde. Competition, however, arising from a flourishing and powerful private industry in Soviet Russia makes it impossible to force up the wages of the most skilled “specialists”; for either such an industry is expropriated and ruined, or it soon deprives the private owner of all value. High wages can have only one abject. They are calculated to overcome the objection to serve the Soviet Republic, which objection the most capable among the educated secretly cherish in their hearts, and also to awaken their interest for the new regime.

Since the way of conviction does not work, and since the lash of hunger does not obtain any startling results, there remains but one way open to buy the people, and that is, to provide for them at least such conditions as they had under the capitalist system. We now see what are the elements which are to become leaders of Socialist production in the Soviet Republic. On the one side a few old conspirators, honourable fighters of blameless intentions, yet in matters of business merely inexperienced novices; and on the other side, numerous educated men who, against their own convictions, either as mere seekers try to adapt themselves to the new power, as they would adapt themselves to any other power, if occasion arose; or who are driven through fear and hunger and punishment; or, finally, such men, as allowed themselves to be bought by high wages. They are, as Trotsky admits, by no means first-class elements. Moreover, in so far as they know anything at all, they do not belong to the best, the worthiest of their kind. People among them, who at the same time possessed strong character as well as business knowledge, were as rare as white crows. In the hands of such elements dictatorial power has now been placed in order to save Socialism; a power which the workers have to accept without opposition. Such power tends to corrupt even the best. In this respect it is often entrusted to people who are corrupt from the very start.

In the midst of the general misery and the general expropriation they gather together in their hands the beginnings of a new capitalism. Of course the production of commodities proceeds, and must proceed; since agricultural activity, regarded as private enterprise, as a matter of fact represents the production of commodities, and influences life as a whole. For this reason the peasant community has less and less of surplus stocks to sell. The Soviet Republic grants full power in a village to the poor peasants, who possess so little land that they can produce no surplus in foodstuffs. From the well-to-do peasants all surplus commodities are to be taken without any compensation, and placed at the service of the State granaries. This practice, in so far as it is ever carried out, can take place only once, for, in the following year, the well-to-do peasant will take very good care that he does not produce more than he himself needs. In this way the returns of agriculture will be limited. Whatever of surplus stock the peasant produces, in spite of this, he conceals, and merely sells it secretly to the profiteers.

At the same time industry comes to a standstill. As a consequence, the State expenditure can only be covered by a new paper money. Hence, as at the time of the French Revolution, and as again at the present day, although in a less degree in Germany, there flourish speculators, profiteers, and smugglers. Formerly they were guillotined. Nowadays it is the fashion to shoot them. But the failure is the same. The only result is that, at the present day, just as much as in 1793, the uncertain nature of the capital thus acquired by swindlers increases, as well as the amount of the bribes that the new dictators demand, and which they get if, by chance, an incautious person should fall into their net. Even that in its turn becomes a fresh basis for the collecting together of new property.

Whoever is anxious for further information over this bribery system of the new Russian bureaucracy should turn to Gavronsky’s Balance of the Russian Revolution, which, from page 58 and several pages onwards, is full of accounts of bribery and corruption.

How shall one get the better of these new “dictators,” before whom the working masses are to bow without opposition? As in its attempts to “moralise” the masses, the Soviet Government knows no better means of “moralising” its leaders than by the threat of tribunals. If the dictatorship of the proletariat is to be over-ridden by the dictatorship of its organisers, these in their turn will be over-ruled by the dictatorship of the tribunals.

A network of revolutionary tribunals and extraordinary commissions has been formed “to oppose the counter-revolution, speculation, and abuse.” They have the arbitrary power to condemn anyone who shall be denounced to them, and at their discrimination to shoot those of whom they do not approve; that is to say, all those speculators and profiteers whom they catch, as well as their accomplices among the Soviet officials. They do not stop merely at that, but involve every honourable man who dares to criticise their fearful misrule. Under the collective name of “counter-revolution” every form of opposition is included, in whatever circles it arises and from whatever motives it springs, whatever the means employed and whatever the ends aimed for. But unfortunately this summary procedure has no result.

As often as not the sincere fighters among the Bolsheviks become indignant, when they realise that these extraordinary commissions, which are the last hope for the cleansing of the Revolution, are themselves likewise corrupt. Gawronsky quotes (p.61) the following heart-cry of the weekly journal of the special commission:–

From all sides there reach us news that not only worthless elements, but plain criminals, are endeavouring to slip into the commissions, and especially into commissions in the various local districts.

Gawronsky also mentions people (p.62) who have shown that this attempt at intrusion is not only made, but very often made with success. So runs an article out of The Will to Labour, the central organ of Revolutionary Communism, October 10th, 1918.

Fresh in our memory there are still cases in which the local Soviets have been literally terrorised by the special and extraordinary Soviets. Naturally a local selection was made. In the Soviets the better elements remained, whereas in the extraordinary commissions were to be found bands of men who were ready for any kind of brigandage. Hence there is nothing left of the programme for the renovation of humanity by means of Socialism on Bolshevik methods, except two or three sincere strugglers in the midst of an ever growing morass of ignorance, corruption, and desperation, which extends further and further, and finally threatens to engulf and drown them.

Chapter 8 (cont’d) |