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secrets from the eyes of the outside world, something over which, it seems, he wanted to be omnipotent and in sole command, hidden not only from criticism, not only from outside interference, but also from outside eyes. For the Soviet government, on the contrary, it is the organisation of labour in any particular large enterprises, in any particular village communes that is the chief, fundamental and urgent question of all social life. Our first and main means for increasing the self-discipline of the working people and for passing from the old, good-for-nothing methods of work, or methods of shirking work, in capitalist society, must be the press, revealing shortcomings in the economic life of each labour commune, ruthlessly branding these shortcomings, frankly laying bare all the ulcers of our economic life, and thus appealing to the public opinion of the working people for curing these ulcers. Let there be ten times less newspaper material (perhaps it would be good if there were 100 times less) devoted to so-called current news, but let us have, distributed in hundreds of thousands and millions of copies, a press that acquaints the whole population with the exemplary arrangement of affairs in a few state labour communes which surpass the others. Each factory, each artel and agricultural enterprise, each village that goes over to the new agriculture by applying the law on socialisation of the land, is now, as one of the democratic bases of Soviet power, an independent commune with its own internal organisation of labour. In each of these communes, an increase in the self-discipline of the working people, their ability to work together with managing experts, even from the bourgeois intelligentsia, their achievement of practical results in the sense of raising labour productivity, economising human labour and safeguarding output from the unprecedented thieving from which we are suffering immeasurably at the present time -- that is what should form the main content of our Soviet press. That is the way in which we can and must bring it about that the force of example becomes first of all a morally essential, and later a compulsorily introduced, pattern for organising labour in the new Soviet Russia.

    In capitalist society there have been repeated examples of the organisation of labour communes by people who hoped

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peacefully and painlessly to convince mankind of the advantages of socialism and to ensure its adoption. Such a standpoint and such methods of activity evoke wholly legitimate ridicule from revolutionary Marxists because, under the conditions of capitalist slavery, to achieve any radical changes by means of isolated examples would in fact be a completely vain dream, which in practice has led either to moribund enterprises or to the conversion of these enterprises into associations of petty capitalists.

    This habitual attitude of ridicule and scorn towards the importance of example in the national economy is sometimes evident even now among people who have not thoroughly considered the radical changes that began from the time of the conquest of political power by the proletariat. Now, when the land has ceased to be private property, when the factories have almost ceased to be private property and will undoubtedly cease to be such in the very near future (it will be no trouble at all for the Soviet government in its present situation to introduce the appropriate decrees), the example of the labour commune, which solves organisational problems better than any other means, has acquired tremendous significance. It is just now that we must see to it that the mass of unusually valuable material available in the form of the experience of the new organisation of production in individual towns, in individual enterprises, in individual village communes, becomes the possession of the masses.

    We are still under considerable pressure from the old public opinion imposed by the bourgeoisie. If we look at our newspapers, it is easy to see what a disproportionately large place we still devote to questions raised by the bourgeoisie, questions with which it seeks to divert the attention of the working people from the concrete practical tasks of socialist reconstruction. We must convert -- and we shall convert -- the press from an organ for purveying sensations, from a mere apparatus for communicating political news, from an organ of struggle against bourgeois lying -- into an instrument for the economic re-education of the masses, into an instrument for telling the masses how to organise work in a new way. Enterprises or village communes which do not respond to any appeals and demands for restoring

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self-discipline and raising labour productivity will be entered on a "black list" by the socialist parties and will either be put in the category of sick enterprises in regard to which measures have to be taken for their rehabilitation by means of special arrangements -- special steps and statutes -- or they will be put in the category of punished enterprises which are liable to closure and whose participants must be handed over to a people's court. Introducing publicity in this sphere will by itself be a vast reform and will serve to draw the broad mass of the people into independent participation in deciding these questions, which most closely concern the masses. The reason why so little has been done in this respect up to now is that what was kept hidden from public knowledge in individual enterprises and communes has remained a secret as of old, which was understandable under capitalism but which is absolutely absurd and sense less in a society that wants to achieve socialism. The force of example, which could not be displayed in capitalist society, will be of enormous importance in a society that has abolished private ownership of land and factories, not only because, perhaps, good examples will be followed here, but also because a better example of the organisation of production will be accompanied inevitably by a lightening of labour and an increase in the amount of consumption for those who have carried out this better organisation. And here, in connection with the importance of the press as an organ for the economic reorganisation and re-education of the masses, we must also touch on the importance of the press in organising competition.

    The organisation of competition must take a prominent place among the tasks of the Soviet government in the economic sphere. In their criticism of socialism, bourgeois economists have often declared that socialists deny the importance of competition or give it no place in their system or, as the economists express it, in their plan of social organisation. There is no need to say how stupid is this accusation, which has often been refuted in the socialist press. The bourgeois economists, as always, have confused the question of the specific features of capitalist society with the question of a different form of organisation of competition. The socialists' attacks have never been directed against

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competition as such, but only against market competition. Market competition, however, is a special form of competition characteristic of capitalist society and consisting in a struggle of individual producers for a livelihood and for influence, for a place in the market. The abolition of competition as a struggle of producers that is connected only with the market does not at all mean the abolition of competition -- on the contrary, the abolition of commodity production and capitalism makes it possible to organise competition in its human instead of its bestial forms. It is just at the present time in Russia, in view of the foundations of political power that have been created by the Soviet Republic, and of the economic characteristics of Russia with her vast expanses and tremendous diversity of conditions -- it is just now that organisation of competition on a socialist basis in our country should be one of the most important and rewarding tasks in the reorganisation of society.

    We are for democratic centralism. And it must be clearly understood how vastly different democratic centralism is from bureaucratic centralism on the one hand, and from anarchism on the other. The opponents of centralism continually put forward autonomy and federation as a means of struggle against the uncertainties of centralism. As a matter of fact, democratic centralism in no way excludes autonomy, on the contrary, it presupposes the necessity of it. As a matter of fact, even federation, if carried out within limits that are rational from an economic point of view, if it is based on important national distinctions that give rise to a real need for a certain degree of state separateness -- even federation is in no way in contradiction to democratic centralism. Under a really democratic system, and the more so with the Soviet organisation of the state, federation is very often merely a transitional step towards really democratic centralism. The example of the Russian Soviet Republic shows us particularly clearly that federation, which we are introducing and will introduce, is now the surest step towards the most lasting union of the various nationalities of Russia into a single democratic centralised Soviet state.

    And just as democratic centralism in no way excludes autonomy and federation, so, too, it in no way excludes, but on the contrary presupposes, the fullest freedom of various

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localities and even of various communes of the state in developing multifarious forms of state, social and economic life. There is nothing more mistaken than confusing democratic centralism with bureaucracy and routinism. Our task now is to carry out democratic centralism in the economic sphere, to ensure absolute harmony and unity in the functioning of such economic undertakings as the railways, the postal and telegraph services, other means of transport, and so forth. At the same time, centralism, understood in a truly democratic sense, presupposes the possibility, created for the first time in history, of a full and unhampered development not only of specific local features, but also of local inventiveness, local initiative, of diverse ways, methods and means of progress to the common goal. The task of organising competition, therefore, has two aspects: on the one hand, it requires the carrying out of democratic centralism as described above, on the other hand, it makes it possible to find the most correct and most economical way of reorganising the economic structure of Russia. In general terms, this way is known. It consists in the transition to large-scale economy based on machine industry, in the transition to socialism. But the concrete conditions and forms of this transition are and must be diverse, depending on the conditions under which the advance aiming at the creation of socialism begins. Local distinctions, specific economic formations, forms of everyday life, the degree of preparedness of the population, attempts to carry out a particular plan -- all these are bound to be reflected in the specific features of the path to socialism of a particular labour commune of the state. The greater such diversity -- provided, of course, that it does not turn into eccentricity -- the more surely and rapidly shall we ensure the achievement of both democratic centralism and a socialist economy. It only remains for us now to organise competition, i.e., to ensure publicity which would enable all communes in the state to learn how economic development has proceeded in various localities; to ensure, secondly, that the results of the advance towards socialism in one commune of the state are comparable with those in another; to ensure, thirdly, that the experience acquired in one commune can be repeated in practice by other communes; to ensure the possibility of

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an exchange of those material -- and human -- forces which have done well in any particular sphere of the national economy or of the state administration. Crushed by the capitalist system, we cannot at present even imagine at all accurately what rich forces lie hidden in the mass of the working people, in the diversity of labour communes of a large state, in the forces of the intelligentsia, who have hitherto worked as lifeless, dumb executors of the capitalists' pre-determined plans, what forces are lying hidden and can reveal themselves given a socialist structure of society. What we have to do is only to clear the way for these forces. If we devote ourselves to the organisation of competition as a matter of state importance, then -- provided that Soviet principles of the state system are implemented, provided that private ownership of land, factories, etc., is abolished -- the results are inevitably bound to show themselves and will dictate our further forms of construction.

    The slogan of practical ability and businesslike methods has enjoyed little popularity among revolutionaries. One can even say that no slogan has been less popular among them. It is quite understandable that as long as the revolutionaries' task consisted in destroying the old capitalist

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order they were bound to reject and ridicule such a slogan. For at that time this slogan in practice concealed the endeavour in one form or another to come to terms with capitalism, or to weaken the proletariat's attack on the foundations of capitalism, to weaken the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. Quite clearly, things were bound to undergo a radical change after the proletariat had conquered and consolidated its power and work had begun on a wide scale for laying the foundations of a new, i.e., socialist, society. Now, too, as was pointed out above, we have no right to weaken in the slightest degree either our work of convincing the mass of the population of the correctness of our ideas, or our work of destroying the resistance of the exploiters. But the main thing in the fulfilment of these two functions has already been achieved by us. The chief and urgent requirement now is precisely the slogan of practical ability and businesslike methods. It follows that it is now an immediate, ripe and essential task to draw the bourgeois intelligentsia into our work. It would be ludicrously stupid to regard this drawing in of the intelligentsia as some kind of weakening of the Soviet system, some kind of departure from the principles of socialism or some kind of inadmissible compromise with the bourgeoisie. To express such an opinion would be a meaningless repetition of words that refer to a quite different period of activity of the revolutionary proletarian parties. On the contrary, precisely for fulfilling our revolutionary tasks, precisely in order that these tasks should not remain a utopia or a naïve aspiration but actually become a reality -- and be achieved immediately -- precisely for the sake of this aim we must now put practical ability and businesslike methods in organisational work as our primary, immediate and chief task. What has to be done just now is to tackle from every aspect the practical erection of the edifice, the plan of which we outlined long ago, the foundations for which we have fought for vigorously enough and firmly enough won, the materials for which we have adequately collected and which now -- having provided it with scaffolding and put on working clothes, which we are not afraid of dirtying with any auxiliary materials, and strictly fulfilling the instructions of those in charge of the practical work -- we must build and build and build.

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    In discussing the question of restoring the discipline and self-discipline of the working people, special mention should be made of the important role now devolving on the courts of law. In capitalist society, the court was mainly an instrument of oppression, an instrument of bourgeois exploitation. Hence the bounden duty of the proletarian revolution lay not in reforming the judicial institutions (the task to which the Cadets and their henchmen, the Mensheviks and Right S.R.s, confined themselves), but in completely destroying and razing to its foundations the whole of the old judicial apparatus. The October Revolution fulfilled, and successfully fulfilled, this necessary task. In place of the old court, it began to establish a new, people's court or, rather, Soviet court, based on the principle of the participation of the working and exploited classes -- and only of these classes -- in administering the state. The new court has been needed first and foremost for the struggle against the exploiters who are trying to restore their domination, or to defend their privileges, or secretly to smuggle through and secure by deception some particle of these privileges. But, in addition, the courts -- if they are really organised on the principle of Soviet institutions -- have another, still more important task. This task is to ensure the strictest discipline and self-discipline of the working people. We would be ridiculous utopians if we were to imagine that such a task could be carried out on the morrow of the fall of bourgeois rule, i.e., in the first stage of the transition from capitalism to socialism, or -- without coercion. It is quite impossible to fulfil this task without coercion. We need the state, we need coercion. The Soviet courts must be the organ of the proletarian state carrying out such coercion. They have

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the immense task of educating the population in labour discipline. As yet, exceedingly little, or rather almost nothing, has been done by us in this respect. We must, however, achieve the organisation of such courts on the widest scale, with their activity extending to the entire working life of the country. Only such courts, provided the broad mass of the working and exploited population take part in them, will be able to ensure, through democratic forms conforming to the principles of the Soviet system, that aspirations for discipline and self-discipline do not remain vain aspirations. Only such courts will be able to ensure that we have a revolutionary authority, which we all recognise in words when speaking of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but instead of which we often see around us something as amorphous as jelly. Incidentally, it would be more correct to compare the state of society in which we live now not with a jelly, but with metal that is being melted to prepare a more stable alloy.

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