A little exception was made for vegetable and delicatessen stores. There are very few of the latter. But the former one finds in every block.
Trust Building or Trustification
The monopolization and nationalization of industry abolished the competition existing in small capitalist industry. Industry became concentrated and centralized. Great state trusts came into existence. Compared with the private capitalist enterprise, in which production for the profit of individuals or stock companies is carried on in quite meaningless and unregulated fashion, production by a single organization, even if it is capitalistic, is to be greeted as a step forward, because it can then be carried on in a more rational manner. The advantage is so much greater if the motive of production is not profit, but the needs of the nation. But here it must be remembered that care should be taken thai the liberty of individuals, of the producers, is not lost, for in the measure that liberty is infringed upon, progress is impeded. Yes, it may go so far that, through unequal compensation for service rendered, in a society where nationalization, as well as the trustifaction of the whole national industry has been fully carried out, even while the production for use is the basic plan — it may go s< far, we say, that the position of deep layers of the workers is no1 better than it is under private capitalism. Or, expressing it in different manner: The state socialism introduced press( (through the premium system such as is used in Russia) th< workers down in the same disagreeable position as capitalisi did. This system may be called state capitalism, and historicall: it may be pointed out as a higher stage; but as for the workei who labor in the factory the social revolution must bring th< an improvement in their position, for the aim of the social rev< lution is the liberation of the working class.
The workers who> by means of the revolution desired to realize their own emancipation, felt instinctively that they must direct their efforts on taking over production and managing il according to their own principles. They also elected shop committees to manage the shops. The shops independently managed those workers ivho work in the shops, that is how the Russiai. workers first pictured to themselves the socialization of industry, or the realization of the social revolution.
But the Communist Party of Russia considered this tendency of the workers only as the first and lowest form. On Dec. 5, 1917, the Supreme Council of National Economy was founded. The management of the factories was thereafter more and more twisted out of the workers' hands. The Supreme Council of National Economy took over this task. This S. C. of N. E. should properly not be anything but the co-ordiriation of all the establishments from the bottom upward, with • retention of the independent shop management by the workers. But what came was something else. The S. C. of N. E. is an institution which manages the industry of the country from the top downward.
The Supreme Council of National Economy consists of 11 persons. The president's name is Rykoff. He is appointed by the All-Russian Executive Committee. The rest of the members are, in part, nominated by the Central Council of the Unions and finally appointed by the Council of People's Commissars. This Council of the People's Commissars can at any time cancel the decisions of the Economic Council, so that the Council of People's Commissars, a political institution which consists principally of communists, has the last word. Miljutin, a member of the Supreme Council of National Economy, mentioned in an interview with me that all important questions must be submitted to the Council of People's Commissars. Also there are tendencies to still more centralize the council, instead of decentralizing it, after the end of all wars, thus allowing the state to get a grip on the whole economic life.