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V. Afanasyev
Principles Underlying the Scientific Direction of Communist Construction

Objectivity and the Concrete Situation

Social processes are governed by objective laws characterising what is most essential in the life and development of society. In giving practical leadership to the world’s first socialist state and to the building of socialism, Lenin’s point of departure was that administration was inconceivable without knowledge and skilful utilisation of objective laws. The paramount principle underlying scientific direction is that of objectivity, i.e., strict adherence to the requirements of objective laws and due account for realistic potentialities and the actual state of society.

While emphasising that direction can be provided only on the basis of objective laws, Lenin at the same time made it clear that this direction should not be confined to general formulation of laws or to the drawing up of abstract patterns applicable to all cases in life. He said that it was necessary to study the concrete content of processes, as well as of the laws which mirror them, to see how laws operate and manifest themselves in specific circumstances and to draw correct conclusions from practical experience.

Any law and any formula (even the most precise and attractive) does not contain “indications” of the manifestation of its own substance in specific circumstances. A formula may be drawn only from experience, and experience alone takes it from realm of formulas into the realm of reality, endowing it with flesh and blood, making it concrete, and thereby modifying it.

It is extremely important to take this into account today when social life has become incomparably more complex, when laws as the predominant trend force a road for themselves through a mass of concrete and frequently contradictory phenomena that modify the operation of these laws and must be taken into consideration in the practice of applying them. For example, the law of planned development operates in the complex conditions of commoditymonetary relations, and therefore the economy cannot be scientifically directed if these relations are not taken into consideration. The task before Soviet economists, sociologists and organisers is to study the relationship between the law of planned development and the law of commoditymonetary relations, and the ways and means of directing them into a planned channel and thereby bringing them under the control of organs of administration.

From this proceeds the principle of the concrete situation, which is of the utmost importance to the science of administration. A concrete analysis of the concrete situation makes it possible to avoid subjectivism, harebrained schemes and arbitrariness in administration. To administer concretely means to administer on the basis of trustworthy and scientifically processed information on the inner state 197of the object as well as on the external conditions in which it functions. Errors and obstacles on the way to the goal may be noted and removed in good time, and the administration corrected and brought into line with objective changes only when trustworthy information is available, in other words, only when there is knowledge of the real, concrete processes taking place in society.

An important role in making trustworthy information available to organs of administration, studying the channels for receiving such information and evolving methods of scientifically processing the received information is played by statistics and concrete social research.

Naturally, the organs of administration may use solitary facts, but this is possible only when these facts are typical and mirror the substance of social processes. As a rule, however, administration is implemented on the basis of a generalisation of a host of facts and figures; it is therefore impossible to do without statistics and without concrete social research. Lenin made it a requirement that statisticians should not simply register facts, collecting information without a rigid system, but that they should scientifically analyse and compare information, draw practical conclusions and offer practical recommendations. “Statisticians,” he wrote, “must be our practical assistants, not engage in scholastics.” [197•*

The importance of concrete social research to the administration of society is that it helps to lay bare social processes in all their complexity, multiformity and concreteness and provides organs of administration with trustworthy information, thus enabling them to assess the efficacy of one system of administration or another and, when necessary, to choose the right method of changing it so that it conforms with new facts, phenomena and emergent trends. This research, like statistics, provides data for generalising and studying new laws, which, in their turn, may be utilised to improve the system of administration.

Lenin paid special heed to the working masses, who are the most trustworthy and direct sources of information. We know how attentive he was to envoys from workers, peasants and soldiers, who came to him from all parts of the country, and how frequently and gladly he visited factories and offices in order to see and hear for himself, to get to the heart of things. Constant contact with the people and reliance on the masses are an indispensable condition for concrete, correct and effective scientific administration. In this connection Lenin wrote: “We can administer only when we express correctly what the people are conscious of.” [198•*

Difficult as it is to organise, an information service is particularly important today when by virtue of the extraordinary complexity and diversity of social life and the huge scale of creative activity the volume of information has grown to gigantic proportions. This enormous volume of information can be processed only with the aid of the latest scientific and technological achievements, particularly modern mathematical methods and electronic computers.

The setting up of an efficient information service is linked up with the training of specialists in economics and mathematics and in the handling of modern electronic computers.
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Efficiency and Optimality

Administration presupposes a definite objective and the finding Qf the materiali manpower and financial resources for attaining that objective. These are an important aspect of administration. An objective may not be attained on schedule or it may never be reached at all even when there are sufficient materials and manpower and plenty of time. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for the administration to ensure the most efficient and rational utilisation of material, manpower and financial resources. Efficiency therefore allows the objective to be reached within the shortest possible time and with the least outlay of material means and manpower. The administration, Lenin wrote, must secure the “greatest economy of forces and the most productive utilisation of manpower”. [198•** Exemplary organisation on scientific lines, i.e., the creation of the most rational and expedient relations between the different links of the social system (between territorial administrative units, spheres of social activities, branches of the economy, individual enterprises, and so on) is vital if the leadership of society is to be effective. Of fundamental importance in the socialist revolution is “the positive or constructive work of setting up an extremely intricate and delicate system of new organisational relationships extending to the planned production and distribution of goods....” [199•*

This brings to the fore the task of creating the most favourable conditions for human endeavour. Labour is the foundation of the life and development of man and society, the source of material and spiritual wealth; therefore, the success of communist construction depends chiefly on how labour is organised and how efficient and productive it is. Lenin regarded the scientific organisation of labour as indispensable for the building of the new society. His formula for this scientific organisation of labour was “organisation of labour in socialist fashion (agriculture+industry)”. [199•**

He advised drawing upon the capitalist experience of organising labour and was interested in, for example, the Taylor system and recommended that its positive and negative aspects should be taken into consideration. He was interested in the relationship between man and machines in the production process, in man’s place and role in the process of production or, as he put it, the physiological credit and debit in the human machine. He considered that methods of organising labour scientifically had to be mastered not only by leaders but also by the masses and suggested a contest for textbooks on labour organisation in general and on management in particular.

Ever conscious of the time factor, he was always careful not to waste other people’s time. He was a principled opponent of endless meetings, especially of ostentatious meetings into which a large number of people, let alone people who had nothing to do with the problem under discussion, were drawn. He did not allow people to spend their time uselessly at conferences, in waiting-rooms, in purposeless running around and in unnecessary paperwork. For efficient management the time factor must be taken into account in all matters, big and small. Deadlines must therefore be based on a sober account of the available forces.200

The problems that Lenin worked out theoretically and resolved in practice with the purpose of ensuring efficient management of socialist construction included the planning of the economy as a whole and its individual branches, current and long-term planning, rigid dovetailing of different plans, rational distribution of productive forces and their uninterrupted improvement, scientific and technical progress, effective accounting and control, general principles of remuneration for labour and for stimulating labour, running enterprises on a self-supporting basis, profits and the monetary system.
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Notes

[198•**] Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 351.

[199•*] Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 241.

[199•**] Ibid., Vol. 35, p. 430.

[197•*] Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 498.

[198•*] Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 304.