In consideration of the sad condition in which industry fin< itself the dissatisfaction of the ruling bolsheviks is easy to undei stand, and if they give the ideas of syndicalism such great coi cessions as to have for chairman of the Supreme Council of N tional Economy, Rykov, a representative of the syndicalist ideasand that is the case not with him alone but in most of the leading circles — this can largely be ascribed to the bankruptcy from which their own theories of state socialism have suffered, and which is most evident in the organization of industry. Already in the year of 1918, the first year of bolshevik power, Mnogin, the commissar of the textile department of the S. C. of N. E., wrote in No. 40 of the "Isvestija," that the Russian Soviet Republic did not need any unions but only small factory committees which had to carry out the orders of the government. To-day, when they see that industry cannot get into a flourishing state through "governing," they have finally found the road to the unions. As cheering as this is, so regrettable is it, on the other side, that through the state tendencies of the state socialists the ruinous way of nationalization was entered upon, and is in practice still followed. If industry is not to suffer further collapse, the bolsheviks must soon make a reality of the now recognized theory, turn over production to the productive organs the workers possess in their unions, under complete self-administration of the factories by those employed there, and not by individual managers put in by the Supreme Council of National Economy.
He who comes with the expectations of finding communism can get very little satisfaction from the conditions in Russia. But even he, who only hopes for a little improvement of economic life will, as we have seen, find little to cheer him in Russia. Those in power at present repeatedly give as a reason for this the long duration of the war, the world war and the civil war. Without doubt this is one of the main causes. But as this is being sung so often and always in a new fashion by the bolsheviks, a repetition would be tedious. For it is equally certain that other factors of principle, tactics and organization play a role in this respect.
One of these factors is the principle of political centralism, which is given such limitless praise by the bolsheviks. This principle, which is being lauded by Radek, Trotzky and all leaders of bolshevism as the best ripened fruit on the tree of socialist development, has, nevertheless, had a truly devastating influence on economic life, and this is the case up to the present day. For that reason the songs of praise sung to centralism by the bolsheviks must with necessity wind up in a lugubrious wail due to the facts of the economic collapse. And the most sparkling dialectics of Radek and Trotzky cannot hide their character of hollow demagoguery. I cannot here keep from using the words "hollow demagoguery" when reading in what a dirty, genuinely Marx-Engels way, Radek attacks Bertrand Russel in his provoking effusions: "Bertrand Russel's Sentimental Trip to Russia." In that work one can, in fact, find nothing but pure demagoguery. Against Russel's sincere descriptions Radek brings up no facts, but only writes about "Russel's slippers by the hot stove." With this he may be able to impress his Russian worshipers, but not thinking people, and certainly not the working class of the world. This reference to the tactics of the bolshevik theoreticians has here been made only to show what value should be put on their arj ments.
We need not enter into a theoretical discussion of the prii ciples of centralism. It is sufficient in this connection to show how, with the principle of centralism as a fundamental principle of organization, the economic life does not prosper, how the free development of private initiative is completely suppressed and how economic life has suffered from it in an unspeakable manner.