.... The Supreme Council of National Economy has a special department for each industry. There are 50 of them. Each one of these departments manages a separate branch of industry. Miljutin described their activity as follows : They carry out the plans of production, distribute the raw materials, keep account of what is being produced and finance the undertakings. Besides they engage and discharge the management of the shops. The management of such an industrial department consists of one, three or five persons, which are appointed by the Supreme Council of National Economy, after consultation w'fbh the unions.
It would take us too far to follow up the various functions more closely into the gouvernement or local district management. They are all built on the same principle. And it is sufficient for us to know the principle. But the principle is consistently carried out from the top downward, as may be seen from the above. The organization from the bottom upward does not exist in industry, and for that reason there is no talk of self-government. The workers have no direct influence, yes, in practice they have no influence at all, not even indirect, over the management of industry, or the shop and the factory in which they work.
The workers get their wages paid through the Finance Department of the Supreme Council of National Economy. Even the prices are set on the goods by the S. C. of N. E. and thereafter made into a law.
The staff of officials of the Supreme Council of National Economy is in Moscow, which is the centre for all Russia, and consists of 20,000 persons. Besides there are, according to the statements of Miljutin, 35 local councils and each one of these has 2,000 employees. This would give a total of 90,000 employees. According to the figures given before there are in the nationalized industries 985,414 employees, or in round numbers one million. There is, consequently, 'about one official for each ten workers.
This apparatus, as at presently constituted, works heavily rather than elastically. For many purposes it cannot be used. And we should not wonder at this. A political body, which in the last instance depends upon the All-Russian Executive Committee, cannot function on the economic field like a purely economic organization of hand and brain workers, which are in straight line with one another or alongside of one another.
They have also come to feel that way in Russia, so that they turn to private undertakings when it is a question of work that requires quick and prompt attention. In pointing this out, I am merely stating facts, but nevertheless, it is by no means proven that capitalism is indispensable or has any advantages. It only proves that this kind of state socialism, which was started in Russia under such unfavorable conditions, has not the power tc live; there might very well be other socialist economic forms 'which are so much the more rational. But the fact that in Russia the few private undertakings have a superior capacity for work, can be traced to the circumstance that the private undertakings pay their workers better than the state enterprises. In the already mentioned iron foundry in Moscow, belonging to Pirvitz, the workers are a good deal better off than in the Soviet shops. A commercial and technical employee, a Miss Wegener, receives, for instance, free board and lodging, the usual Payok (food stuff ration) and, like all the people of Moscow, free apartment and 15,000 rubles. According to her own statement she is far better off than in Soviet service, in which she was formerly working, and works with greater interest. The same thing applies to the workers. Another case may contribute still more to illustrating what; we have said. As the supplying of fuel did not work satisfactorily in years past a certain official was given free hands. He engaged private persons and workers who under better conditions got the necessary railroad cars ready much quicker, and as a result the transportation took place much quicker. Still more such examples could be cited. The bolsheviks themselves constantly complain of the slowness of their apparatus, and particularly the last party conferences as well as at the soviet congresses, complaints are piling up.