Nor can we designate as communistic the wage policy in force. There are two standards by which to size up this question: (1) The land, the nation, the state, perhaps also the class; (2) the workers and the individual. The first is the starting point to the state socialists, the social-democrats, the bolsheviks, the "communists" ; the second is the starting point of the anti-state socialists. If we think of the welfare of the country, the state — even if it is a proletarian state — or of the class, then we will do everything to defend these. That is what the bolsheviks do. When the revolution broke out, it was in this sense that they had to defend the revolution. They had to keep the industry of the country going at any price, even if they had to give up the principal demands of socialism, namely the equal wage. At present there are in Russia 35 wage steps or wage classes, the academically educated people, the engineers, the technicians, the organizers, etc., are in the highest classification of wages, the trained workers in the middle classes and the unskilled workers in the lowest classes. Furthermore, consideration is given to the question whether the workers labor in establishments which are important for the war and against the counter-revolution. They have even proposed to the railwayman, in the summer of 1920, the tariff which was laid before them in 1912 during czarism, but which was then declined. We are, consequently, forced to say that Russia has gone to the dogs on the wage question, no matter what beautiful phrases or important reasons Lenin may put forward to defend it.
The bolsheviks were driven to this wage policy, which we have just designated as anti-socialist, through an important turn of the conditions. The workers ivere not in a position to take over the industries. They were not prepared for it and they had not organized themselves for the purpose of taking over production. In Russia this was certainly not possible. The revolution did not come when the workers or a group of revolutionaries were ready with their revolutionary preparations, or when the workers were technically so well prepared that they could take over production without friction from the capitalistic leaders (whether they be technicians or organizers), but the revolution came in Russia before the workers were in a position to prepare for it. When too, a political party takes the power, then, naturally, nothing socialistic can come from it. One need not, consequently, be astonished over the fact that the bolsheviks did not carry through a socialist wage policy, but, on the contrary, there would have been reason for astonishment if they had worked out such a wage policy.
The bolsheviks had thus been compelled to retain the bourgeoisie which had been the leader of industry before the revolution, in their employ, either by means of physical force or through extra-ordinary high pay. The last method proved to be the best one, and the capitalist wage policy was continued, but at the same time they explained, and they do so yet, that the aim was to further develop the workers, in order to make the bourgeoisie more superfluous and replace them by workers.
But if they now had such bad luck in Russia, that the revolution found the workers unprepared and in no position to take production out of the hands of the capitalists, then we must at least draw a lesson therefrom. For the bad thing about it is that the workers who, naturally, are no political economists and do not understand the connection of things, put the blame on the revolutionary party or organization which happens to be in power. This time it happens to be the bolsheviks, but if it were the syndicalists or the anarchists or any other revolutionary government, then it would be the same lyre they would be compelled to play on, and the workers would consider them as their rulers, just as they now consider the bolsheviks.