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 On the activities of Lenin in 1917-1922

DIGEST OF ARTICLES, MOSCOW 1958

A.B. Medvedev

THE DEVELOPMENT BY V. I. LENIN OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZING THE MANAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY IN THE FIRST PERIOD OF SOVIET POWER
(October 1917 - June 1918)

The Great October Socialist Revolution was a classic example of putting Lenin's theory of socialist revolution into practice. As a result of the victory of the socialist revolution in our country, the power of the exploiters was overthrown and the political rule of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat, was established. Soviet power was the highest form of democracy for the broad masses of the people. For the first time in history, the people became the masters of their country: factories, plants and railways, the land and its subsoil became the property of the working people.

In order to further strengthen the political and economic domination of the proletariat, it was necessary to create new economic relations, to ensure a higher type of social organization of labor, it was necessary to organize labor in a new way and, on this basis, to achieve a continuous increase in the rate of production, an all-round increase in labor productivity. All this, of course, required the ability of the working class to manage the economy and organize production and distribution in practice. Therefore, V. I. Lenin attached great importance to the scientific development of the question of organizing the management of the economy as a whole, and especially of socialist industry, which was called upon to occupy a leading position in the country's economy.

In the works written by Lenin at the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918, the fundamental questions of the organization of industrial management in the transition period from capitalism to socialism are elucidated. They reflect the beginning of the gigantic activity of the proletarian state in creating new economic relations, they show the first steps of the proletariat in organizing the management of industry.

In his work “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power”, V. I. Lenin outlined his famous plan for starting socialist construction. One of the main tasks of the party and the working class was to learn how to manage the state and socialist production. This was the decisive link in the general chain of historical tasks of the socialist revolution, the fundamental task of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In practice, this meant the need to organize the production and distribution of material goods in the interests of the working people themselves, with the widest and most active participation of the people.

* * *

The Leninist principles of the management of socialist industry were an integral part of the general plan for the struggle for a radical transformation of the economy on socialist lines, the most important means for carrying out the building of socialism in our country.

The socialist revolution, having converted the main means of production into the property of the whole people, created the conditions for organizing the management of industry on principles fundamentally new in comparison with capitalism.

Under the dominance of capital, the entire system of industrial management is adapted to obtaining the highest profits by intensifying the exploitation of the proletariat. The participation of the working class and its organizations in the management of industry is not allowed. Describing the essence of the management of production under capitalism, Marx wrote: “The management of the capitalist is not only a special function that arises from the very nature of the social labor process and is part of this latter, it is at the same time a function of the exploitation of this social labor process” 1 .

With the socialist nationalization of the main means of production, the capitalist principle of management is eliminated and the possibility of organizing industry on a planned basis according to the principle of economic expediency, in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, is created. From this follows the need for the participation of the working people themselves in the management of industry. It is determined by the very nature of Soviet power, by the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

As for the forms of economic management, V. I. Lenin pointed out that they are subject to constant critical verification and change depending on the specific conditions and tasks of the country's economic and cultural development. The forms of administration must serve to improve the management of the country's economy in the interests of the working masses themselves.

The basic principle of managing socialist industry is the principle of democratic centralism. From the first days of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the principle of democratic centralism in the management of industry was developed by V. I. Lenin on the basis of Marxist revolutionary theory and the collective experience of the working masses. This principle was developed and strengthened in the struggle of our Party and the advanced forces of the working class against petty-bourgeois licentiousness and indiscipline in production, against anarchosyndicalism, against the Mensheviks, Trotskyists and "Left Communists". The principle of democratic centralism is based on the Leninist idea that the people themselves, as producers of material goods, are the decisive force in social development and that,the organization of industrial management must be built on the unity of planned centralized state leadership and socialist democracy, based on the broad initiative of the working class, the mass participation of its best forces in the management of socialist production.

V. I. Lenin attached exceptional importance to drawing the broad masses of the working class into active participation in the management of production. “Let us break with prejudice once and for all,” V. I. Lenin pointed out, “that the affairs of state, the management of banks and factories, is an impossible task for the workers” 2 .

As a result of the victory of the October Socialist Revolution, new conditions were created for the life and activity of the working masses, a qualitative change took place in their socio-political role, they became creators of a new life, masters of their position. The production and distribution of material goods began to be carried out in the interests of the entire people, which created an objective opportunity for the unlimited development of the creative initiative of millions of working people. However, how to involve the working people in managing the economy, to develop their initiative and independent activity, what forms for this can be most acceptable, accessible and expedient, Marxist theory has not yet had ready answers to these vitally exciting questions. The Communist Party, headed by V. I. Lenin, found answers to these questions by turning to the revolutionary initiative and creativity of the masses themselves.

In workers' control over production and distribution, V. I. Lenin saw the first step, the initial form of involving the working people themselves in the management of socialist industry.

Workers' control as a form of proletarian intervention in the management of an enterprise, as a measure of the working class's struggle against ruin and famine, arose even before the October Revolution. In Petrograd, for example, already in the first days of the February Revolution, factory committees arose. Being vitally interested in saving enterprises from destruction by the capitalists, the workers of the industrial centers of the country, represented by factory committees, established protection and control over factory property, intervened in the proper use of raw materials, and gradually expanded control functions. The slogan of workers' control until October was one of the political slogans of the party and the working class in the struggle for the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one.

V. I. Lenin closely associated the liquidation of the capitalist mode of production and its replacement with a socialist one with workers' control and with the organization of the management of socialist industry. V. I. Lenin believed that workers' control must be given a wide scope, turning it into a nationwide proletarian control over production and distribution, and the Bolshevik Party should become the head of this matter. The April Conference and the Sixth Party Congress, guided by V. I. Lenin's instructions on workers' control, set as one of the central tasks of the upcoming socialist revolution the further expansion of workers' control into the full regulation of production.

With the victory of the socialist revolution, workers' control became the most important task of the proletarian state.

On November 27 (14), 1917, the Soviet government adopted a law on workers' control, which was the result of V. I. Lenin's scientific generalization of the experience of the proletariat already available by that time in organizing workers' control in production.

Workers' control, as stated in the "Regulations on workers' control", was introduced by the Soviet government in the interests of systematic regulation of the national economy in all industrial, commercial, banking, transport and other institutions that had hired workers.

The main task of the organs of workers' control was to ensure the uninterrupted operation of industry, as the main economic base of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to increase labor productivity. With the help of popular workers' control, the Soviet state was to organize the planned coordination of the work of factories and plants with the general economic policy of the Communist Party. In addition, workers' control was also an excellent school for training administrators, financiers, planners, and other leaders of socialist industry. VI: Lenin also connected the introduction of workers' control with the building of socialism. At the beginning of November 1918, at the VI All-Russian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, he pointed out that “socialism can take shape and be consolidated only when when the working class learns to govern... Without this, socialism is only a wish. So we introduced workers' control."3 .

The advanced workers of the country also regarded workers' control over industry as the first step towards socialism, as the most important form of enlisting the working people in the management of production, as a form of combating economic disruption and training personnel to manage industry. It was through workers' control that the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, learned the art of managing industry and joined in the leadership of the national economy. Attaching great importance to workers' control in the matter of broadly involving the working masses in the management of production, V. I. Lenin emphasized with all his might that the nationalization of industry could not be carried out without its own proletarian cadres who had mastered the knowledge and experience of management. He regarded workers' control as a preparatory step towards the nationalization of industry and the direct management of production by the working class. V. I. Lenin considered workers' control as the first revolutionary economic measure of the working class, obligatory for any country where the working masses are in power.

Attaching such great importance to workers' control and considering that the Bolshevik Party in Russia had become the ruling party and was obliged to govern the country, the Bolsheviks led the struggle of the proletariat for the organization of workers' control over production and distribution, for the socialist transformation of industry. At the beginning of 1918, the Central Committee of the RSDLP, in an address to all members of the party, pointed out: “Our party stands at the head of Soviet power. The decrees and measures of the Soviet government come from our Party .

The Party obliged all Party organs to strengthen the leadership of industry and the national economy, to render all possible assistance to the work of workers' control commissions and to create them at those enterprises where they were absent. Questions about the work of industry and workers' control commissions were discussed at party meetings, conferences, and congresses. Thus, for example, at the Third Samara Provincial Party Congress in March 1918, following a special report on the organization of industrial work, a decision was made obliging Party organizations to focus their main attention on the organization of production and distribution, “so that the members of our Party push all organizations towards the vigorous construction of economic life" 5 . The party congress was led by V. V. Kuibyshev.

At the beginning of 1918, at a party meeting in the city of Verkhneuralsk, the communists decided to organize workers' control in the spirit of Lenin's decree and to intensify explanatory work at factories about the need for a resolute struggle against sabotage by entrepreneurs. parties of the Moscow region. In January 1918, he demanded that party organizations mobilize all their forces to improve the work of industry, worker control and strengthen labor discipline.

An analysis of the reports of party organizations on their work at the beginning of 1918 convincingly shows the strengthening of the organizing role of local party cells in strengthening ties with the masses, explaining party policy, and involving the working class in active creative work in organizing workers' control and managing industry. So, for example, the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Party Committee reported to the Central Committee of the RCP (b) about the strengthening of party work at factories in the urban area, that party cells were organized at the factories, rallies were being held in the area, reports were being made to explain the economic policy of the party. Party work has noticeably improved and the influence of the communists among the working masses in the Kanavinsky district and in Sormov, Kovrov and other counties has increased.

The communists of the Revel Shipbuilding Plant paid constant attention to the work of the plant, strengthening labor discipline, and organizing workers' control. In November 1917, they discussed measures to strengthen production discipline at the plant and determined the composition of candidates for the working committee .

In order to strengthen the leading role of the party and strengthen its ties with the masses, V. I. Lenin considered it necessary to go to factories and factories, into the midst of the working class and, together with it, master the new business of socialist construction.

Guided by these instructions of V. I. Lenin, the Central Committee of the Party in June 1918 demanded that the Communists take an active part in all the diverse internal work of the Party. The Moscow committee proposed to the district committees of the party to enlist every communist in compulsory work in the party organization. The instructions of the Basmanny district committee of the party, developed in the first half of 1918, defined the duties of the communists in the new conditions, when questions of socialist construction were on the order of the day.

It was reminded that a communist must always be a party fighter in any sector of socialist construction. “Each member of the cell must remember all the time (whether standing at the bench, learning how to use a rifle, or going on vacation) that he is a communist, therefore it is his duty to agitate everywhere for the Communist Party, for the dissemination of the ideas of communism, for Soviet power. .. Participation in subbotniks (revolutionary work) is obligatory for members of the cell” 7. For the successful organization of workers' control, it was necessary to develop the broad initiative of the millions of working people, to unite all public organizations of the working class around themselves and direct their activities towards the implementation of the decrees of Soviet power. As early as October 28 (November 10), 1917, the expanded plenum of the Moscow Bureau of the RSDLP(b) pointed out the need to "enlist the broad masses of the people to assist the new government and carry out its decrees" 8 .

But in order to be a genuine fighter for the cause of communism, to participate in industrial life and "to influence the entire course of the work of a given enterprise", every communist had to study. In the aforementioned instruction of the Basmanny district party committee, a special clause was written: “Illiterate party members are required to learn to read and write upon opening a school.” In order to improve political literacy, the district committee organized party schools and reminded the communists in a special paragraph in the instructions that "classes in the party school are obligatory for all members of the party" 9 .

Party schools were created to explain to the communists the economic policy of the party. The Moscow regional bureau of the RCP (b) organized such a school for representatives of the party organizations of the central industrial region 10. Lectures were given at the school on the economic policy of Soviet power, the organization of workers' control, etc. In January 1918, the Basmanny district committee of the party informed the Moscow Committee about the organized party school, where lectures were given and seminars were held on various issues, including the special section "The economic policy of the workers' state." The seminars discussed issues of wages and distribution of products, the organization of a socialist economy, the tasks of economic councils, central administrations, centers, trade unions, factory committees, etc. 11.

The Party did a great deal of hard work in Soviet trade union, cooperative and youth organizations in order to draw them into the construction of a new life. It purged public organizations of anti-Soviet elements, strengthened its position in them, Bolshevized and directed their activities in the interests of socialist construction.

In this way, the experience of the work of party organizations at enterprises in the first period of the dictatorship of the proletariat was accumulated. In the struggle against the Mensheviks and other petty-bourgeois parties, the party organizations of the country, for the most part, skillfully groped for the forms and methods of work among the broad masses of the working people, improved these forms, helped the working class in the process of acute struggle against the exploiters through workers' control to train their own, Bolshevik cadres of leaders of numerous sectors of work. industry.

The content, forms and methods of worker control depended on the situation that developed at the enterprises. In the struggle against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the capitalists used the most varied, often unexpected and vile methods. They did not disdain any means to intensify the economic ruin, to stifle the proletarian revolution and at any cost to save their factories and plants from nationalization. In such difficult conditions of the class struggle, the organs of workers' control (factory and factory committees, control commissions, councils of elders and other workers' organizations) had to resolve issues without delay, on their own, relying only on their experience and class instincts.

Entrepreneurs, for example, widely used the method of stealing factory and factory property, exporting finished products from the territories of enterprises. Therefore, from the very first days of the revolution, the protection of public property was placed by the Communist Party at the center of attention of the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The working class took decisive measures against all those who encroached on the people's property. Thus, the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Bogoslovsky Mining District wrote in a circular addressed to the commissars of factories, mines, offices and departments: “All the property of the district, as a national property, is inviolable. Those convicted of deliberately plundering this property will be brought to the revolutionary court” 12 .

Due to the fact that arson of people's property had become one of the widespread forms of the class struggle of the capitalists against workers' control, the communists increased their revolutionary vigilance to protect factory property. Thus, the general meeting of communists in the Lefortovo district of Moscow, in view of the increasing incidence of fires in factories, proposed intensifying revolutionary vigilance and obliged the party cells "to take energetic measures to protect factories and factories . " Such decisions were made at the Revel Shipbuilding Plant and at many other enterprises in the country.

The organs of workers' control and their commissions fought against various speculative machinations of the capitalists. At the Urban plant, the control commission suspected the entrepreneur of metal speculation. When the capitalist refused to recognize control, the factory committee arrested him. The commission found that he was selling the metal at speculative prices. The Central Council of the Factory Committee decided to transfer this case to the commission for combating speculation in order to bring the owner of the Urban plant to criminal liability.

Separate bodies of workers' control resolved issues of national importance. The Control Commission at the Union of Textile Workers of the Moscow Region reported that "some factories have large stocks of paper yarn, while others, on the contrary, experience an acute shortage, which makes it extremely difficult for the planned work of enterprises" 14 . The commission itself distributed this raw material to the factories through the factory committees.

The Kaluga Council of Workers' Control organized the exchange of manufactured goods for agricultural products. Positive results were obtained by the connection established by the council between peasant consumer societies for the sale of their products to the southern provinces in exchange for bread.

The Commission on Raw Materials under the Central Council of Factory and Plant Committees of Petrograd has widely developed its activities to save raw materials and materials at enterprises. Under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the regime of economy became the most important cause of the whole people. This was of particular importance due to the fact that the country did not have enough raw materials and metal, because of the lack of fuel and materials, factories and factories stopped. The advanced workers understood that the struggle for economy was the vital cause of the workers themselves. On October 20 (November 2), 1917, the factory committee of the Putilov shipyard proposed to the Central Council to concentrate the distribution of metal waste in their hands in order to use this waste for the development of peaceful industry. Having made such a proposal, the factory committee of the shipyard reported that the metal scraps were being melted down at the Putilov plant and that from there the Putilov shipyard received material quite suitable for production15.

In the planned regulation of production and distribution, issues of financial control were becoming increasingly important. For the control commissions, this area of ​​work presented the greatest difficulties: it required special knowledge. All sorts of financial combinations often served as a convenient screen for entrepreneurs to cover up their heinous deeds.

The conference of factory committees of the Vyborg side of Petrograd in January 1918 decided:

“In the existence of people's power, everything must be known to the working people themselves...”. The conduct of financial control at enterprises, the resolution said, “should not be chaotic, but should be more organized...”. The conference drew the attention of the Central Council of Factory Committees to the speedy formation of special courses on financial control .. In March 1918, the Executive Committee of the Council of Workers' Deputies of the Starogrozny Oil Fields reported to the office of the North Caucasian Society that the decision of the workers' section under the Central Council of Workers' and Military Deputies strictly prohibited the issuance of sums of money without the sanction of the workers' section and factory workers' committees. It was also forbidden to calculate workers and employees without the permission of the council of factory committees and the workers' section .

In many cases, workers' control developed into direct management of production, when workers' control bodies and local Soviets of working people's deputies took control of the enterprise into their own hands. So it was at the largest Metal Plant in Petrograd, where the plant's board decided to close the plant, under the pretext of a lack of fuel. In November 1917, the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by representatives of the Bolshevik Party, created a workers' directorate and prevented the closure of the plant. The Regulation on the Workers' Directorate defines in detail its functions, rights, composition, and also formulates the concept of workers' control: "Workers' control," states the Regulations, "means the direct active participation of the workers' directorate in the management of production and the plant" 18. The management provided the plant with fuel, raw materials, organized the acceptance and execution of orders, the operation of transport, as well as the normal conduct of financial transactions.

The organs of workers' control took an active part in obtaining orders for enterprises, sent their representatives to the places for raw materials and fuel, organized the loading of raw materials and finished products for factories, monitored the timely arrival of these goods, distributed food products, controlled the admission and dismissal of workers, etc. Even when the entrepreneur still formally occupied his place as the owner of the enterprise or the manager of the plant, in fact, the real responsibility for the fate of production was borne by the control commissions.

In exceptionally difficult conditions, in an atmosphere of general ruin and the difficult economic situation of the country, and, moreover, having no qualified leading cadres of its own, the proletariat had to organize the work of enterprises. In the struggle to establish genuine workers' control, the enormous creative forces of the working class, previously fettered by the landlord-bourgeois system, were manifested. Quite quickly, the majority of the country's enterprises were covered by control. In the Moscow region, for example, by March 1, 1918, out of 326 surveyed enterprises with 132,000 workers, only 58 did not have control commissions. These were mostly small businesses with only 4,000 workers. In Uryad, the largest industrial center of the country, by March 1918, workers' control was exercised at almost all enterprises.

It should be noted that the leading staff of the plant management was formed mainly from cadre workers who had gone through a large school of class struggle against the capitalists and had experience in working in factory committees and control commissions. In the textile industry, for example, in 1919-1920, factory management members with 10 years of production work experience accounted for 66 percent. Of the 809 members of government boards, 408 were previously members of factory committees, 185 were members of control commissions. The Communists and their sympathizers made up the majority in the industrial administration apparatus.

In the struggle of the working class to abolish the economic domination of capital, in the course of the further development of the socialist revolution, the functions of the organs of workers' control were expanded day by day, while the leading influence of the capitalists in enterprises was more and more limited. And it was quite natural. The more successfully the proletariat recognized the numerous forms and methods of capitalist sabotage, the more it showed its vigilance and delved deeper into the production process. The fact that the functions of workers' control were steadily expanding was also recognized by the bourgeois press. For example, it was written in it that in a significant part of enterprises, workers' control is accompanied by interference in the management of the enterprise, expressed in some cases in the acceptance and execution of orders, in the reception of workers and employees, their transfer and dismissal,19 .

Thus, the expansion of the functions of workers' control actually meant the further strengthening of Soviet power, the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat. At the same time, this was clear evidence of the development of socialist democracy in the management of production, based on the broad initiative of the working class, the result of the growth of its organizational abilities, the improvement of the experience and skills of the working class in independent production management.

Workers' control at a certain historical period was the only way to train the proletariat in the management of production and create a working apparatus for managing the economy. However, for all the importance of workers' control, its bodies, of course, could not solve the problems associated with the nationwide regulation of the country's economy. Objectively, the circumstances developed in such a way that without a single state governing body it was impossible to implement the economic policy of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

With the transition of enterprises under the jurisdiction of the proletarian state, the workers themselves began to direct the production process. Consequently, the need for control of production disappeared, thus changing the very content of workers' control. The control commissions no longer interfered in the administrative functions of the plant management, they were limited only to their revision. With the limitation of the functions of workers' control, the need to maintain the former apparatus of the control bodies has disappeared. Everywhere workers' control passed to the economic councils, which took over the organization of the entire life of enterprises.

The construction of organs for the planned management of the national economy began immediately after the proletarian revolution and took place in parallel with the nationalization of industry. Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 15 (2), 1917 created a state economic body in the person of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh).

Already six months after the proletarian revolution, V. I. Lenin pointed out that "gradually the worker enters into his role, begins to lose his timidity and begins to feel like a ruler." V. I. Lenin attached the greatest importance to this fact, he saw that the time had come to take the next step along the road to socialism—to move from workers' control to direct management of the national economy. Thus, workers' control was a transitional form to the management of production.

* * *

The construction of the entire national economy as a single whole on the basis of the principles of democratic centralism required the Party to solve the problem of training leading cadres for socialist industry.

V. I. Lenin considered the scientific selection, education and placement of industrial cadres to be the most important condition for organizing the management of socialist industry. To implement party spirit in the management of industry, VI Lenin teaches, means ensuring careful selection of cadres, placing them correctly and organizing control over the fulfillment of party directives.

In capitalist Russia, the highest and middle administrative and economic positions were for the most part the privilege of the exploiting class. The sabotage of the bourgeois intelligentsia urgently dictated the need for a speedy solution to the problem of organizing a systematic and planned selection of leaders and organizers who would meet the requirements of life, the tasks of the socialist transformation of the country's economy. Therefore, V. I. Lenin considered the promotion of leaders and organizers from among the masses of cadres as the most important organizational task of the party. He understood that the training of proletarian management cadres would depend on how the party was able to use the rich experience of bourgeois specialists.

We cannot build power, V. I. Lenin pointed out, if such a heritage of capitalist culture as the intelligentsia is not used. The task was to turn specialists from servants of capitalism into servants of the working masses, into their advisers.

V. I. Lenin took into account that the proletarian state would have to carry out difficult, truly titanic work to attract bourgeois specialists to the side of Soviet power, to train new Soviet leaders of various branches of the national economy, who had come from the midst of the people. The problem of training management personnel was solved by the Soviet government and the Communist Party in three ways: first, by promoting the advanced part of the proletariat to leading work in industry; secondly, the enlistment of old, bourgeois specialists in the management of industry, and, thirdly, the mass training of new cadres of the Soviet intelligentsia in educational institutions.

Outlining a plan for the development of the gigantic natural wealth of Russia - the development of a large machine industry, electrification, the construction of new railway lines, the creation of an industrial base in the eastern regions of the country - V. I. Lenin believed that with the help of this program the party would be able to win the best part of the technical intelligentsia, to involve them in the work of implementing this program and, thereby, to preserve for the proletariat the cultural and technical heritage that prominent representatives of science and technology had at their disposal. It was a matter of attracting prominent specialists from the field of science and technology, setting before them an enormous state task, in fact convincing them that the Bolsheviks, having seized power, would immediately allocate millions of funds for the development of science and technology,

Severely suppressing any attempt at counter-revolutionary sabotage, the party enlisted bourgeois specialists in scientific and technical construction on a voluntary basis, by creating conditions for them that would exclude the possibility of sabotage and facilitate their active participation in solving the problems of the country's technical transformation. How the dictatorship of the proletariat resolutely fought the saboteurs can be seen from a number of documents of that period. So, in January 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a special decision on the report of Ya. M. Sverdlov, the text of which was written by V. I. Lenin. The decision of the Soviet government determined the attitude of the workers' and peasants' power towards those who opposed the policy of workers' control and tried to violate the internal laws of the proletarian state. "Do not negotiate with saboteurs," - said in the decision of the Council of People's Commissars. People's Commissars were given the right to hire only those persons "who, completely obeying the Soviet government and supporting it, are necessary for work in the relevant departments"20 .

The program for the rational distribution and use of the country's productive forces not only helped to attract bourgeois specialists to the side of Soviet power, but it also had tremendous political significance. The people of mental labor saw that the working people had come to power in earnest and for a long time. Naturally, this had a sobering effect on broad sections of the vacillating intelligentsia and kept them from actively going over to the side of the enemies of the proletarian revolution.

The first successes in building a new life, the defeat by the Soviet government of the military resistance of the bourgeoisie, the correct policy of the party in relation to bourgeois specialists - contributed to the turn of a significant part of the intelligentsia to the side of the Soviet government. The leading representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia understood that the future belongs to the proletariat and that only the proletariat is capable of leading the country out of the grave state of economic ruin, hunger and poverty, of ensuring the true flourishing of science and technology in the interests of the vast majority of the working masses, of placing all the country's natural resources at the service of man. By May 1918, 81 engineers of the old bourgeois school were already working in the apparatus of the Supreme Council of National Economy. Prominent specialists, engineers, and professors began to take part in the work of the main departments and centers of the Supreme Council of National Economy.

On June 10, 1918, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, the question "On the work of specialists" was specially discussed. At the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, the Council of People's Commissars decided to "publish the fundamental principles of our policy in attracting engineers, both to work in commissions of specialists and in administrative] posts, conditions of publicity, criticism from workers' organizations." The Council of People's Commissars instructed the Presidium of the Supreme Council of National Economy to develop "a plan for organizing a competition for attracting specialists to responsible Soviet posts" 21 .

V. I. Lenin carefully approached the cadres of the old intelligentsia, taking into account the pros and cons of each specialist, political personality and business qualities. From the entry about the engineers Bogdanov, Kurtov, Karpov, Weizmann, it can be seen how Lenin studied the people of science in a comprehensive manner. This entry contains their political and business profile.

Personal communication and correspondence of V. I. Lenin with workers, engineering and technical workers, employees of state institutions and enterprises, constantly enriched him with new facts from the life of the country, its economy, knowledge of its needs and requirements. Lenin constantly listened to the opinions and suggestions of engineers, scientists, and practitioners.

The head of the main accounting department of the labor departments of Moscow and the Moscow region, A.S. Soloviev, wrote to V.I. Lenin: “To citizen V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin). In view of the impending crisis in fuel, I will allow myself to draw your attention to my note on Ukhta oil, with which I am well acquainted. The author of the note asked V. I. Lenin to give an order to inspect the Ukhta oil field and begin its development. Based on authoritative analyzes of oil, A. S. Solovyov attached a detailed description of the characteristics of its qualities to the letter. V. I. Lenin carefully studied the material sent to him about Ukhta oil and handed it over to the Supreme Council of National Economy with a request to answer what had been done with regard to its development. The letter of A. S. Solovyov shows us how the most advanced part of the specialists of the old school strove to devote all their strength and knowledge to the new social system,

In December 1917, V. I. Lenin wrote to the Supreme Council of National Economy: “I recommend to you the bearer comrade Solovyov [telephone] [265-24], an expert in the oil business and the author of the nationalization project. Need to use! V. Ulyanov" 22 .

The Soviet government created the necessary conditions for the fruitful work of specialists. Scientific workers were surrounded by great care and attention of V. I. Lenin and the entire party. Lenin proposed to establish high wages for bourgeois specialists. Vladimir Ilyich regarded this measure as an important means of attracting the bourgeois intelligentsia to socialist construction. A special commission was set up in the Supreme Council of National Economy to attract specialists to the Supreme Council of National Economy and pay them for their work.

From the notes made by Lenin at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars on May 9, 1918, when discussing the decree on the Committee for State Constructions, it is clear how much importance he attached to the qualitative composition of the committee. Lenin made sure that the committee had an "initiative group of engineers" and protected the committee from elements hostile to Soviet power. According to V. I. Lenin's plans, the management of the committee should have 60 engineers, 300-400 technicians, "obviously honest people" 23 . The Soviet government mercilessly expelled enemies of the people, swindlers and crooks from the administration of industry. So, in early July 1918, the bureau of the metal department of the Supreme Council of National Economy dismissed a number of employees from service for an irresponsible attitude to official duties.

The party waged a struggle against the "Left Communists", Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and other enemies of the revolution, who sought to discredit its policy towards bourgeois specialists. At every crossroads, the enemies of the working people shouted that the Bolsheviks were supposedly going into the arms of the bourgeoisie and preparing the restoration of capitalism in the country. Hiding behind false phrases about continuing the attack on capital, about breaking sabotage, they tried to frustrate Lenin's plan for economic construction.

At the same time, the party launched work to organize the systematic training of the new Soviet intelligentsia, economic cadres from the working class. It was obvious to the party that without its own proletarian management cadres it was impossible to solve the problem of building socialism.

V. I. Lenin said that without the guidance of specialists, educated people, intellectuals, it is impossible to solve the problem of a successful transition to socialism. However, guidelines alone will not do; people are needed who could put these guidelines into practice. The intellectuals, giving the most excellent advice and instructions, often turned out to be "shamefully" armless ", incapable of putting these advice and instructions into practice" 24. Therefore, V. I. Lenin attached great importance to practitioners-organizers from the “people”, from the workers and working peasants, without whom one cannot do in any case. Tens of thousands of workers and peasants were promoted to leading positions, although they did not have sufficient experience in managing production, they were tempered in the revolutionary struggle and were firmly convinced of the rightness of their cause. They possessed great energy and the will to win, and therefore, for the most part, they successfully coped with the management of industry, established proletarian order in production, and organized the working class to fight for high labor productivity.

Already in September 1918, at the plenum of the Supreme Economic Council, it was noted that the working class singled out more and more of its representatives from its midst, who successfully coped both with the management of industrial enterprises and with work in the departments of the Supreme Economic Council and other central institutions.

In the fact that the proletariat learned the art of managing production from bourgeois specialists and had positive results in this matter, V. I. Lenin saw the key to the success of socialist construction, the best guarantee that the dictatorship of the proletariat will cope with the tasks that history has set for it. V. I. Lenin taught the party to constantly show concern for strengthening the Soviet economic apparatus with the best representatives of the working class and intelligentsia.

V. I. Lenin considered the rise in the educational and cultural level of the working people to be the most important condition for the training of qualified personnel in the management of industry.

The familiarization of the broad masses of the population with a socialist culture based on the world outlook of Marxism-Leninism was one of the most important conditions for the victorious building of socialism. Lenin considered it necessary to expand access to higher educational institutions to the broad masses of working people and, above all, to proletarian youth. The interests of socialist construction urgently demanded that science be brought closer to practice, to the life of factories and plants. For these purposes, a scientific and technical department was created at the Supreme Economic Council, which included all the technical forces of the country, from the Academy of Sciences to technical schools. The department was engaged in strengthening the connection between science and practice, the introduction of advanced methods of work in production, the development of rationalization and invention.

In order to raise the cultural level of the broad masses of working people, already in 1918, the Soviet state democratized the secondary and higher schools, opened schools for adults, and also created various courses for training industrial management personnel.

The Council of the National Economy of the Northern Region organized courses for instructors in the national economy. The notice of the Council of People's Commissars indicated the task of the courses: to train cadres of workers who could organize the national economy, build it on the principles of communism and strengthen the dominance of the proletariat in the economic field.

For these purposes, the notice said, workers devoted to the cause of the proletariat are needed. The Soviet called on the factory committees, trade unions, party and other proletarian organizations to select their best representatives for the courses. The course program was varied.

The trade unions carried out a great deal of work in the training of industrial management cadres. In July 1918, at a meeting of representatives of the trade unions, an organizing committee was created to convene the All-Russian Congress on Technical and Craft Education. The appeal of the organizing committee said: "For the wide and skillful development of natural resources, it is necessary to create a cadre of technically trained leaders and performers, it is necessary to develop broad professional education from the bottom to the top ..." 25 . The organizing committee pointed out the need to convene a special congress to discuss issues of vocational education. The committee carried out all the preparatory work together with the lower production teams, taking into account the opinions and wishes of public organizations of the working class.

Already in the very preparatory work for convening the congress, Lenin's concern was laid down for the organization of the systematic training of personnel for industry and their rational use. The explanatory note to the questionnaire sent out by the committee to the workers' organizations pointed out the need to chart the right path for understanding "how to make technical and trades education widely available, truly accessible to all working people . "

Thus, the working class, under the leadership of its party, carried out the instructions of V. I. Lenin to create its own proletarian cadres for the management of socialist industry.

* * *

In developing the principle of democratic centralism in the management of socialist industry, V. I. Lenin paid special attention to the question of the unity of political and economic leadership.

VI Lenin teaches that there must be an inextricable, organic connection between politics and economy, for "Politics is a concentrated economy" 27 .

The combination of political and economic leadership requires a political approach to solving economic problems. In practice, this means that each economic body in its sector must be an active builder of communism, and the Soviet economic leader must always put the general state interests in the foreground.

During the first period of Soviet power, the work of the Party in promoting the unity of political and economic leadership proceeded mainly along the line of a resolute struggle against the manifestation of anarcho-syndicalism and parochialism among a separate part of the workers and leading cadres, for the introduction of the principle of centralism and planning on the basis of the Soviet system into the management of the national economy. democracy.

Anarcho-syndicalism manifested itself in the fact that many plants and factories in the first months of Soviet power lived only for their own local interests, tried, first of all, to put themselves in the most advantageous conditions. The interests of their plant, workshop, production site were placed above the national ones. It came to the point that the workers of individual enterprises tried to share the profits of "their" factories and plants, did not release equipment and finished products from the territory of the enterprise, contrary to the orders of the Supreme Council of National Economy.

The syndicalist mood took place especially among the railroad and water workers of the Volga basin. Workers, the Volga basin, for example, believed that "the Volga should belong to the Volgars." Syndicalism also took place in the Urals. At the II Regional Urals Congress on the management of nationalized industry, individual voices were heard against centralized management. The separatist tendencies were still too strong in industry, and there was great distrust of the central organs even on the part of a separate part of the workers.

This anti-state policy, as a disgusting legacy of the capitalist past, made the work of the central organs of supply and distribution extremely difficult, and production itself suffered from it.

Such moods and actions interfered with the nationwide planning of the organization of the country's productive forces, split the national economy into separate parts, thereby weakening it, shattered the proletarian dictatorship, and interfered with the most reasonable use of resources and the division of labor between the regions of the country. They were the result of petty-bourgeois influence and fundamentally contradicted Lenin's teaching on the management of socialist industry, the principle of democratic centralism.

The party led by V. I. Lenin waged a resolute struggle against those who, while defending anarcho-syndicalism in industry, essentially undermined the leading role of the party in socialist construction and distracted the working class from the struggle for the common state interests and the implementation of the economic policy of the Communist Party.

Speaking at the 7th Party Congress, V. I. Lenin said: “The organization of accounting, control over the largest enterprises, the transformation of the entire state economic mechanism into a single large machine, into an economic organism that works in such a way that hundreds of millions of people are guided by one plan - this is what gigantic organizational task that fell on our shoulders .

Based on the first experience of the proletariat in organizing the management of socialist industry, V. I. Lenin, in the outline of the article “Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power”, defined the most important task of the working class and its party in the field of further improving the management of economic construction. "Our task now," V. I. Lenin pointed out, "is to bring about precisely democratic centralism in the sphere of economy . "

V. I. Lenin understood the whole difficulty and complexity of the struggle against localism and small-ownership habits. He knew that it would take a lot of effort on the part of the party and the working class to establish a truly proletarian order and strengthen discipline in production. V. I. Lenin urgently demanded from the representatives of the proletariat the persistent centralization of economic life, the planning of the work of industry, the preparation of estimates and the submission of reports.

The Communist Party waged a decisive struggle primarily against the "Left Communists" and the Mensheviks, who opposed the centralized leadership of socialist industry.

The Council of People's Commissars, having heard the report “On the situation of water transport” on March 26, 1918, demanded “the strictest and most conscientious execution of all orders” of the state administration of the Volga river transport. In April 1918, the government received a complaint from the main committee for leather affairs that local authorities were acting on their own accord. The telegram to the Soviets, signed by V. I. Lenin, stated: “The orders of the main committee and regional committees for leather affairs must be strictly implemented. The interference of other organizations in the affairs of the leather industry is unacceptable” 30 .

In the first half of June 1918, at meetings of the Council of People's Commissars chaired by V. I. Lenin, issues related to the organization of centralized management of the Ural industry were discussed. A large number of delegates from the Urals took part in resolving these issues.

As a result, the Ural Regional State Trust was organized to unite all the large enterprises of the Urals. The delegates of the II regional congress on the management of the nationalized enterprises of the Urals, despite the attacks of the "left communists" who opposed the centralization of management, for the independence of the places from the Center, recognized that "... the Ural association is part of a single whole state association of production." The congress also recognized "it is urgently necessary in the very near future, in the interests of the nation-wide, to unite the Urals, Kuznetsk and Altai coal regions into one production unit" 31 .

The Party explained to the working class and its organizations that nationalized industry was the property of the whole people and that under the conditions of the victory of the proletarian revolution the management of social production could be carried out on behalf of all working people only by the state of workers and peasants. It was necessary to eradicate from the minds of the working people the accursed rule “every man for himself, one god for all”, to overcome the greatest hatred and distrust of the masses that had taken root for centuries towards everything state, to cultivate a new attitude towards public property as the property of all working people.

In an article about the prospects for regulating production in the Urals, A. Andreev wrote that during the period of building the national economy on new principles, “it would be strange to think about preserving“ our own bell tower. The socialist economy has its own peculiarity in that it systematically centralizes all production and distribution .

The decision of the Petrograd citywide conference of metalworkers, held in May 191, pointed out the need to concentrate the metal-working industry on a few large factories. The conference decided to introduce the strictest control and weekly reporting at these plants.

In July 1918, by decision of the Soviet government, a group of factories was transferred to the direct disposal of the Supreme Council of National Economy in view of the need to organize the maintenance of mainly railway and water transport. Among the transferred plants were the Bryansk plant in Bezhitsa, the Mytishchi car-building, the Moscow metal (former Goujon), the Petrograd plant of the Phoenix society, Votkinsky, and others.

This was one of the many forms of organizing the interconnection of socialist enterprises. The party and the state considered the work of each enterprise from the point of view of national interests. The government's decision to transfer a group of factories to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Council of National Economy confirmed the intransigence of the proletarian dictatorship to the anti-state, anarcho-syndicalist aspirations of individual economic bodies to oppose private property interests to public interests.

In the struggle against anarcho-syndicalism, for the organization of centralized administration, the trade unions became the closest assistants to the Communist Party and state power. The Central Committee of the Trade Union of the Metal Industry advocated the unification of all enterprises in this sector of the national economy into the metal department of the Supreme Council of National Economy. In order to create a certain management system, the decision of the Central Committee of the trade union said, it is necessary to have such an body that would "coordinate the work of individual factories and direct the overall activity of the enterprise in order to achieve the greatest benefit for the national economy" 33 .

A few months after the October Revolution, I. Lenin, in his work “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power”, pointed out, as one of the most important tasks of the working people in the socialist revolution, to the positive or creative work of establishing “an extremely complex and thin network of new organizational relations covering planned production and distribution of products necessary for the existence of tens of millions of people” 34 . Therefore, V. I. Lenin considered the organization of planned production and distribution of products to be the main task of the party and Soviet power. In practice, this meant that the national economy must be considered as a single whole and that the connection between the individual branches of the economy must be systematic.

Socialist planning, from the first days of the dictatorship of the proletariat, thus began to turn into the most important economic and organizational function of the Soviet state. In the establishment of common economic plans and the organization of the struggle for their implementation, in the development of democratic forms of industrial management and the broad initiative of the people themselves, in the organization of labor on socialist principles, V. I. Lenin saw the most important means for eliminating the fragmentation of production and creating a large socialist economy.

At the first All-Russian Congress of the Soviets of the National Economy in early June 1918, it was decided to distribute stocks of raw materials, materials and semi-finished products through a single center to ensure their distribution between regions, which in turn should distribute them among individual factories 35 .

In July 1918, the Central Organ of Orders under the Supreme Council of National Economy was created to regulate production "by establishing unity and regularity in the distribution of orders" 36 .

The proletarian state, using the created apparatus, took the first steps towards establishing an accounting of material and labor resources, planning on a national scale the distribution of productive forces, and organizing the production of personal consumption items on a planned basis.

The organization of the national economy on a planned basis is the main distinguishing feature of a socialist economy. Socialist planning requires, above all, accounting. Without an exact knowledge of the state of the country's productive forces, there was no point in even thinking about the planned, proportional development of the national economy. The calculation of resources thus became the first condition for socialist planning on a national scale. The proletariat, led by the Bolshevik Party, had to, in the interests of organizing the economy on a planned basis, really master the means of production, be able to put them into play, calculate what was won. Therefore, it is necessary to organize "nationwide accounting", said V. I. Lenin, at all costs.

Socialist planning also presupposes control, verification of execution. In the work "How to organize a competition?" V. I. Lenin points out that in our country there is enough for everyone both bread and all kinds of raw materials for industry. It is only necessary to correctly distribute labor and products, to establish nationwide practical, practical control over this distribution .

The whole point of the planned management of the national economy is, firstly, on the basis of the already available data on the availability of resources, to correctly determine the target for production and distribution, and, secondly, with the help of state and public organizations, to establish verification of fulfillment, practical control over the execution of the task. V. I. Lenin saw the “essence of socialist transformation” in universal, general and universal accounting and control. Lenin's instructions on the organization of nationwide accounting and control laid the foundations for the principles of socialist economic management and planning.

After the plan has been comprehensively discussed and approved, it assumes the force of law and becomes a powerful weapon in the struggle of the Communist Party, the proletarian state and the millions of working masses for the construction of socialism and communism. V. I. Lenin repeatedly emphasized the obligation to fulfill state plans. Soviet planning has an active, creative and effective character.

The planning of the national economy contains enormous opportunities for the development of broad socialist democracy. All organs of state administration and the vast masses of working people, who are involved in the management of the national economy, take part in the elaboration of plans and the struggle for their fulfillment.

The most important role in the preparation for the nationalization of industry, and then in the creation of centralized management of nationalized enterprises and the planned organization of the socialist national economy, was played by the Supreme Economic Council, and in the localities by regional, provincial and district economic councils.

The creation of the Supreme Economic Council was the result of the creative work of the new proletarian state headed by V. I. Lenin. The tasks of the Supreme Economic Council were: organization of the national economy and state finances, planned regulation of the country's economy, ensuring the coordinated work of local and central economic institutions. The Supreme Economic Council was given the right to confiscate, requisition, sequester, forced syndication of various industries, trade, and other activities in the field of production, distribution and public finance.

V. I. Lenin attached great importance to the activities of the Supreme Economic Council. His letter in late July - early August 1918 to Larin, who was then working in the Supreme Council of National Economy, is completely devoted to the activities of the Council of the National Economy, as the highest economic body of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In it, V. I. Lenin pointed out the need to write a small (30-40 pages in a small format) pamphlet on the composition and activities of the Supreme Council of National Economy, considering this to be of paramount importance both for Europe and for the peasants. He demanded in this pamphlet to tell clearly, simply, with facts about the participation of workers' organizations in the work of the Supreme Council of National Economy, about the not syndicalist, but precisely the communist (Marxist) character of construction (i.e., a new social order, system), about subordination (i.e. the breaking of resistance) of the capitalists and the practical successes of the Supreme Economic Council on 5-10 best examples. The pamphlet should show what remains to be done, the new role of the trade unions (their growth, their current size, the role and how they manage production), as well as the number of nationalized enterprises, etc.38.

As can be seen from the letter, V. I. Lenin first of all drew attention to the enormous political significance of these issues. (“This is of paramount importance for Europe and for the peasants”), he pointed out “and the exceptional role of the economic councils in the class struggle (“submission, i.e., breaking down the resistance of the capitalists”). The suppression of the resistance of the exploiters is the task not only of the punitive organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin teaches, but also of such proletarian organs of economic leadership as the economic councils. In a letter, V. I. Lenin also pointed out the need for an organization, a consistent socialist system of management (“not a syndicalist, but precisely a communist (Marxist) character of construction, that is, a new socialist way, system”). This instruction was directed against the anarcho-syndicalist aspirations fueled by the Mensheviks and the "Left Communists".

The economic councils practically carried out the economic policy of the Soviet Union. They were organs of struggle for the implementation of the Leninist principles of organizing the management of industry. The economic councils led the nationalized industry, regulated production, united and directed the activities of local bodies of workers' control, and actively helped to build the economy on socialist principles. By May 1918, 7 regional, 38 provincial and 69 district economic councils were registered with the Supreme Council of National Economy. Within a few months, the Party carried out a tremendous amount of work in creating proletarian economic organs in the country.

One of the first organized at the end of 1917 was the Council of National Economy of the Northern Region 39 . The Economic Council concentrated its main attention on the regulation and organization of production. He took into account the needs of the region for fuel, raw materials, food, labor and tools of production, took measures to meet the needs of the population, etc.

The departments and sections of the Economic Council organized a widespread workers' control at enterprises, carried out the nationalization of industry, and trained leading cadres for the national economy. The Council of National Economy worked out a production plan for the development of the metal industry for the second half of 1918, thereby, for the first time in history, the planning of socialist production was initiated. By the autumn of 1918, the economic council of the Northern District had developed into an apparatus directing the economic life of the entire region.

At the same time, local economic councils were created in Moscow, Kharkov, the Urals, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, and others. The most characteristic feature of the development of the Council of National Economy was their close connection with state authorities - the Soviets of Workers', Red Army and Peasants' Deputies. The Council of National Economy, as genuine apparatuses of state power, were inseparable parts of the dictatorship of the proletariat, since only in the organs of Soviet power did they find support for themselves, thanks to which they were able to expand their activities widely. They were entirely subordinate to the Soviets, they were the conductors of their policy, the executors of the will of the Soviet government in the construction of new economic relations.

The economic councils inherited from their predecessor organizations, the factory committees and the trade unions, all their revolutionary spirit and intransigence in the economic struggle against the bourgeoisie, their skills and practice in organizing the working class.

V. I. Lenin considered the creation of economic councils as a concrete step towards the complete transition of the entire economy of the country into the hands of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With the development of the nationalization of industry, both the Supreme Council of National Economy and the local economic councils concentrated their activities more and more on the management of socialized enterprises. With the transformation of all large-scale industry into state property, the Supreme Economic Council was transformed into the Commissariat for the Management of the Country's Industry.

Party organizations constantly strengthened the councils of the national economy with Bolshevik cadres capable of organizing the management of production. So, in April 1918, the Moscow Committee of the RCP (b) ordered the City District Committee of the Party to urgently “... remove from work at least 20 communists from the commissariats and send them to the administration of the affairs of the economic council” 40 .

Despite the numerous issues of foreign and domestic policy that the Soviet government dealt with on a daily basis, the activities of the Supreme Economic Council have always been at the center of attention of the work of the Council of People's Commissars. In January 1918, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars chaired by V. I. Lenin, a special resolution was adopted on the activities of the Supreme Economic Council. By its decision, the Council of People's Commissars raised the role of the Councils of the National Economy, strengthened the centralization and leadership of all departments, institutions and organizations that regulate the economy.

Local party committees paid constant attention to the work of the economic councils. One of the forms of assistance to the economic councils on the part of party organizations was the hearing of reports at committee meetings on their work.

So, the Bryansk district committee of the party at the beginning of 1918 listened to a special report on the activities of the economic council. In the decision of the III Samara provincial congress of the RCP (b) in March 1918, on the report on the organization of industry, it was proposed that "on the ground, in fact, our party would take over the organization of economic councils ...". In June 1918, the Nizhny Novgorod provincial party conference also heard a report on the work of the Gubsovnarkhoz . Party organizations constantly delved into the activities of the local economic councils and helped them improve their work.

The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the National Economy, held in May-June 1918, occupied an important place in the history of the struggle of the Soviet state for the organization of centralized management of the national economy. At the very first meeting of the congress, V. I. Lenin spoke. He spoke of the "highest role of the economic councils" which they must play in strengthening the socialist order in industry. VI Lenin emphasized that the Supreme Economic Council was a state apparatus of a new type, which was "destined to grow, develop and become stronger" 42 . At the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, the congress decided to reorganize the entire system of management of socialist industry.

The need for such a decision was dictated by life itself, by the urgent need for further improvement of the forms of economic management and the development of socialist industry. In the spring of 1918, the nationalization of large-scale industry was widely developed in the country. The management of enterprises passed into the hands of the working class, new Soviet cadres of business executives appeared. In addition, the unfolding struggle of the party against the forces of the petty-bourgeois elements in production, which did not recognize the Soviet order, also urgently demanded the adoption of a new regulation on the management of nationalized enterprises.

At the same time, the congress was guided by Lenin's instructions that the administrative apparatus should be built on a strictly centralized basis. Speaking in May 1918 at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, V. I. Lenin pointed out the need for a real proletarian dictatorship, a firm and iron power of class-conscious workers, so that proletarian discipline could be felt in every far corner of the country. The slogan of centralization, unification, and iron proletarian discipline must apply, V. I. Lenin declared, to all links of the Soviet and economic bodies, and they must unswervingly carry out the instructions of the center. The “Regulations on the management of nationalized industry” adopted by the congress was the beginning of a huge state work to establish a single centralized system for managing industry.

According to the "Regulations", in the development of which V.I. Lenin took an active part, at each plant, factory, mine, which became the property of the republic, a factory management was formed. It consisted of two-thirds of the representatives of the council of the national economy and one-third of the workers of this enterprise. Such a management system was of great importance in the organization of production. Persons allocated to the plant management from the Council of National Economy were obliged to reckon with the organization that sent them, to fulfill the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the field of economic life, and in fact to carry out the economic policy of Soviet power. The presence of workers among the members of the management connected the factory management and the council of the national economy even more closely with the working masses of the enterprise.

The "Regulations" also determined the rights and obligations of the Central Board of nationalized enterprises. In particular, the board considered, approved or changed regional estimates, production programs, plans for the expansion or re-equipment of enterprises, prepared a nationwide estimate, plan, etc. for approval by the Supreme Council of National Economy.

Thus, the Party gradually, step by step, created and improved a coherent system of industrial management, thereby dealing a decisive blow against petty-bourgeois licentiousness in enterprises, anarcho-syndicalism and parochialism. The establishment of a centralized system of state administration of industry helped the proletarian state to ensure the unity of the political and economic leadership of industry.

Fighting for the centralized management of industry, V. I. Lenin, at the same time, always warned the party and the organs of Soviet power against the slightest manifestation of a pattern, the use of some kind of unified schemes, forms and methods for managing the national economy, from attempts to “establish uniformity from above”, etc. Lenin pointed out that such methods of "leadership" have nothing in common with democratic and socialist centralism, they contradict the very spirit, the very nature of the Soviet state.

Democratic centralism in the field of economy, as V. I. Lenin repeatedly pointed out, means the obligatory combination of a single centralized planned leadership that ensures “absolute harmony and unity” in the work of enterprises with the maximum development of local initiative. Each enterprise, each village, teaches V.I. Lenin, have the right "in their own way to apply the general Soviet legalizations ("in their own way" not in the sense of violating them, but in the sense of a variety of forms for their implementation), in their own way to decide the problem of accounting for the production and distribution of products" 43. Lenin's directive is aimed at strengthening the role of local party and economic bodies in organizing management and planning, at developing initiative and initiative in developing the most clear forms of economic management, and also at strict observance, above all, of state, general people's interests. In his notes on the need to centralize large-scale production, Lenin determined the place of regional centers in the system of production management on the principles of democratic centralism. "Regional centers determine their functions depending on local, domestic and other conditions, in accordance with general production instructions and decisions of the center" 44 .

Unlike bourgeois bureaucratic centralism, which means the complete suppression of local initiative, socialist centralism, on the contrary, promotes in every possible way the development of the independence and initiative of local bodies in solving economic problems. Socialist centralism, says V. I. Lenin, proceeds from the fact that “unity in the main, in the fundamental, in the essential is not violated, but is ensured by diversity in detail, in local characteristics, in methods of approach to business, in methods of exercising control” 45 .

Under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, democracy in the management of industry is ensured primarily by the fact that the factories and factories belong to the working people themselves and are managed by their representatives. The principle of democratic centralism is inherent in the very nature of large-scale socialist production; it follows from the very nature of the planned economy, from the nature of our Soviet social system.

The organization of industrial management on the principles of democratic centralism demanded the strictest observance of discipline from all economic enterprises, from every worker. By the spring of 1918, when the socialist socialization of the means of production assumed the broadest and most systematic character, when the national economy became more complex every day, and its individual links became more and more dependent on each other, under such conditions, “internal labor discipline” was no longer enough. V. I. Lenin, at the congress of labor commissars in May 1918, pointed out that labor discipline, which was discussed within factories and factories, should spread throughout the country so that the broad masses of working people would understand that there was no other way out. It was necessary to instill in every worker a high sense of responsibility for the fate of the country,46 . Lenin made the success of socialist construction directly dependent on the conscious discipline of the working class. He proposed declaring a crusade against crooks and loafers, against the disruptors of the new Soviet order.

V. I. Lenin insisted on the introduction of unity of command in production. Discipline means unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader of a single labor process. V. I. Lenin said that unity of command is "dictatorship during labor." It follows from the very essence of large-scale production, which requires centralized and planned management of the enterprise.

Lenin considered the full responsibility of a certain person for the work entrusted to him as an important condition for strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and improving the activities of the national economy as a whole. Is the appointment of individuals vested with full power in general compatible with the very nature of Soviet power? Representatives of various petty-bourgeois parties, as well as "left communists", slandered the party that it was allegedly retreating from the principles of collegiality, from democracy and other important principles of Soviet power. However, in reality they advocated petty-bourgeois licentiousness in production.

From the first days of the revolution, V. I. Lenin considered the meeting to be the new democracy of the working people. It contributed to the awakening of the working masses to a new life. For a lasting transition to the highest forms of labor discipline, “to the conscious assimilation of the idea of ​​the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to unquestioning obedience to individual orders,” a whole historical period was needed for the initial discussion by the working people themselves of new living conditions, new tasks.

In the same way, the system of election and collegiality justified itself in the early days of Soviet power: through broad elective colleges, the party educated the first cadres of Soviet business executives, representatives of the working class gained experience in managing the economy and industries. By the spring of 1918, the situation at the enterprises had changed. Boundless collegiality in the management of economic work began to slow down the strengthening of production discipline and organization at the enterprises. Moreover, collegial management no longer provided for the increased demands of socialist construction.

“The revolution,” wrote Lenin, “has just shattered the oldest, strongest, heaviest fetters to which the masses obeyed under duress. It was yesterday. And today the same revolution, and precisely in the interests of its development and strengthening, precisely in the interests of socialism, demands the unquestioning obedience of the masses to the unified will of the leaders of the labor process .

Exposing the bourgeois ideologists who sought to oppose socialist democracy to one-man management, Lenin showed that the dictatorship of individuals in production does not at all contradict the dictatorship of the class. It has so often happened in the history of revolutionary movements that the dictatorship of individuals has been the vehicle of the dictatorship of the revolutionary classes. Therefore, the task of the Communist Party, says V. I. Lenin, which is a conscious spokesman for the aspirations of the exploited for liberation, is to lead the masses along the right path, “along the path of labor discipline, along the path of coordinating the tasks of holding meetings on working conditions and the tasks of unquestioning obedience to the will of the Soviet leader, the dictator, during work” 48 .

V. I. Lenin proposed to appoint economic managers as the highest bodies of state power. At the same time, he pointed out that individual management does not at all mean the removal of the working masses from the management of industry. The essence of the matter was to implement the principle of one-man command in combination with the broad democratism of the working masses with unquestioning obedience to the unified will of the leaders.

But is it possible to combine democracy with unity of command? Yes, it's possible. Moreover, when the collective of workers actively influences the affairs of the enterprise, unity of command will be further developed and strengthened.

Life has confirmed that any production issue can be most correctly resolved only with the help of the team, on the basis of its experience and increased activity. During the discussion of factory issues, workers and specialists began to learn from their own experience how to manage, cultivated in themselves a sense of responsibility for the fate of the enterprise. In this case, the leader, if he had sufficient business and political qualities, skillfully used the experience of the team, enriched himself with it, absorbed all the best that his subordinates had accumulated and could act more confidently, as a one-man administrator. His orders, in this case, were a synthesis of the wishes of the workers themselves on how to most successfully solve this or that problem. Therefore, such orders and instructions are always supported by the collective. To properly resolve the issue,

Strengthening unity of command requires not only verification of performance from above, but also verification from below, by increasing the demands of the masses on the leader, criticizing his shortcomings. Criticism from below expresses, firstly, the desire of ordinary workers to help their leader correct shortcomings, improve the work of enterprises, and, secondly, the active participation of the workers' collective itself in solving production problems, which characterizes it as a true master of production.

The Leninist principles of broad independent activity of the masses by no means signify meeting management of production. Marxism-Leninism has waged and is waging a resolute struggle not only against the idealistic view of "heroes" as the main creators of history, but also against those who defend anarchism and deny the authority of the leader, who, hiding behind the slogan of democracy, seek to bring disorder into production. Formal democracy, teaches VI Lenin, must be subordinated to revolutionary expediency. V. I. Lenin demanded from leaders the skillful use of rallies only to the extent of their necessity and usefulness for management and without prejudice to the implementation of firm leadership of the task assigned. "Rally, but govern without the slightest hesitation" 49 .

Resolutely speaking out both against bare administration and bureaucratic methods of leadership, and against the slightest manifestation of anarchism and petty-bourgeois licentiousness among the working masses, V. I. Lenin reminded the party and the working class of the need from all shores, meeting democratism of the working masses with iron discipline during labor, with unquestioning obedience to the will of one person, the Soviet leader, during labor .

In the spring of 1918, the Communist Party and the Soviet government began to rebuild the management of industry on the principle of unity of command in order to quickly eliminate elements of the petty-bourgeois elements in production that did not recognize the new Soviet order. A particularly urgent need for the immediate introduction of unity of command and centralized management was felt in the railway transport, which was badly damaged during the war years and therefore could not cope with the transportation of goods. In addition, at a terrible moment, when the young republic was going through hardships, employees of the commissariat of communications and the railway department stopped work, evaded their official duty. Of all sectors of the national economy, rail transport was then the most vulnerable. “In the railway business,” wrote V. I. Lenin,51 . Therefore, the principle of unity of command in management, first of all, was required to be implemented in railway transport. It was necessary to restore revolutionary order, to ensure unquestioning obedience to the orders of the leaders appointed by the Soviet government.

In transport, V. I. Lenin pointed out, maximum centralization in leadership, dictatorial rights to ensure order were necessary. In March 1918, the Soviet government adopted a decree “On the centralization of administration, the protection of the road, and the increase in carrying capacity,” to which V. I. Lenin attached great importance. He spoke of the decree as an example of a firm line of proletarian discipline. Such was essentially the basic line of the Bolshevik Party in all economic construction.

The working class of the country ardently approved of the measures taken by the Soviet government to restructure the work of railway transport. Thus, the delegates of the regional conference of trade unions and factory committees of metalworkers and miners of the Urals, expressing the aspirations of the Ural working class, approved government measures to improve the management of railways. The conference decided "to take all measures for the class organization of railway workers and for them to exercise full active workers' control in the repair and construction of railways" 52 .

Much effort was required by the party and the Soviet government to introduce the principle of unity of command. The initiators of the struggle for unquestioning obedience during work to the orders of the leaders were the workers' organizations of the factories.

The instructions for the management of the nationalized Khvatov glass factory, approved in April 1918 by the Saratov Economic Council, stated:

"The Council of the National Economy appoints a technical and administrative director, in whose hands is the actual management and management of all the activities of the enterprise" 53 .

In May 1918, the factory committee of the Bryansk State Plant, together with the party organization and the workers' management, developed the "Temporary internal regulations", which V. I. Lenin repeatedly spoke of as the best example of the manifestation of the creative initiative of the proletariat. The "Rules" defined measures aimed at strengthening the unity of command in production. “At the plant, any order relating to the order and progress of work is valid if it comes from the director of the plant and in the shops from the head of the shop.” The "Temporary Rules" obligated workers and employees of the plant to make productive use of their working time, to strengthen production discipline, and to protect public property.

Disciplinary sanctions against violators of labor discipline, according to the "Rules", were determined by the plant management together with the plant committee. It was forbidden to hold rallies and meetings during working hours.

The "Rules" increased the responsibility of the heads of shops and departments for the implementation of production programs, as well as the role of trade unions in matters of organization and remuneration. Lenin's reference to the experience of the Bryansk plant most clearly illustrates the Leninist style of leadership: do not be smart, do not think, you need to take, study and generalize examples of what the masses of working people themselves create with their own experience, the practice of creative work. Lenin's reference to the creativity of the masses, their experience, clearly runs through all his articles in the press and speeches.

On a genuinely new proletarian discipline, the establishment of which our Party headed by V. I. Lenin so insistently sought to establish, Soviet unity of command is based. Soviet unity of command is not only the unlimited power of the leader, it also presupposes the widest activity of the working class, the stormy democratism of the working people. Under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, obedience to the orders of the one-man boss in production is supplemented by mass control of the working class, and the dictatorship of individuals is supplemented by the promotion of millions of organizational talents from below to direct production.

From the first days of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Communist Party and the Soviet government organized the management of production on the principles of democratic centralism, thereby ensuring the unity of the political and economic leadership of industry.

It was difficult in that period to put into practice the Leninist principles of economic management. The "left communists", being the ideologists of petty-bourgeois debauchery, declared the system of measures proposed by V. I. Lenin, "capitulation to the bourgeoisie." The "leftists" were especially opposed to centralized management of the economy and unity of command in production. They considered the struggle to strengthen proletarian discipline a "step back" from socialism. The “leftists” defended the old forms of production management, the obsolete collegiality, opposed the involvement of old bourgeois specialists in socialist construction, etc.

In the spring of 1918, when the class struggle entered a new, higher stage of its development — the struggle for the organization of production, for the restoration of the economy, the policy of the bourgeoisie was expressed in supporting and strengthening the resistance of the small proprietor to discipline and order in production, in enlisting this proprietor to the side of the counter-revolution , against Soviet power.

The behavior of the "Left Communists" during this difficult period of the proletarian revolution fully reflected the mood of the vacillating and resisting small proprietor and served the interests of capital.

V. I. Lenin saw the main danger for socialist construction in the counter-revolutionary, petty-bourgeois element. In a number of his works and numerous speeches, V. I. Lenin exposed the opportunist nature of the "Left Communists", thereby arming our Party and the working class with an ideological weapon of struggle against petty-bourgeois licentiousness and indiscipline.

It was a difficult time. What was needed was Lenin's wisdom, his endurance and firmness, the deepest faith in the strength of the people, the revolution. It was necessary to have Lenin's ability to inspire and direct these forces to a great cause - a radical restructuring of the country's economy on socialist lines. This could only be done by the Bolshevik Party, led by its leader V. I. Lenin.

* * *

The historical significance of the Leninist socialist principle of industrial management is invaluable. This principle has not lost its significance today. Whatever question we take of the modern work of industry, it is connected with Lenin's ideas of organizing the management of the national economy on the basis of democratic centralism and planned management of the national economy.

Under the conditions of the gradual transition from socialism to communism, the organization of industrial management has acquired exceptional importance. The closer the realization of a classless communist society, the more the questions of organizing socialist production and managing the national economy come to the fore in our construction. These questions now occupy a paramount place in the entire complex of organizational tasks. They were put forward as the central tasks of the Communist Party and the working class by the most important political documents of recent years and, first of all, by the decisions of the XX Party Congress, the February Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1957 and the laws adopted by the VII session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in May 1957 on issues of further improvement of the organization of industrial management and construction as well as on the further expansion of the rights of the Union republics in economic and cultural development, on the development of initiatives in the field, the restructuring of industrial management with the transfer of the center of gravity of the management of enterprises and construction projects to the economic regions of the country. The successful development of the country's productive forces, as well as the presence of numerous qualified personnel in the national economy, allowed the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government to take measures to further improve the organizational forms of managing industry and construction in order to bring them into line with the tasks and requirements of the national economy at the present stage. communist construction. restructuring the management of industry with the transfer of the center of gravity of the management of enterprises and construction projects to the economic regions of the country. The successful development of the country's productive forces, as well as the presence of numerous qualified personnel in the national economy, allowed the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government to take measures to further improve the organizational forms of managing industry and construction in order to bring them into line with the tasks and requirements of the national economy at the present stage. communist construction. restructuring the management of industry with the transfer of the center of gravity of the management of enterprises and construction projects to the economic regions of the country. The successful development of the country's productive forces, as well as the presence of numerous qualified personnel in the national economy, allowed the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government to take measures to further improve the organizational forms of managing industry and construction in order to bring them into line with the tasks and requirements of the national economy at the present stage. communist construction.

These decisions of the Party and the government embody Lenin's ideas of raising labor productivity in every possible way and improving the forms and methods of directing socialist industry.

The program for the further improvement of the organization of management of the national economy, which has now been drawn up by the Party and the government, is based on scientific generalization and comprehensive consideration of the richest experience in socialist construction accumulated by our people and the Communist Party, on the creative development of the Leninist socialist principle of directing production. Democratic centralism, combining centralized state management of the economy with the development of broad independent activity and the initiative of the masses themselves, directly participating in the management of production—such is the Leninist socialist principle of managing the country's economy.

The change in the management of the national economy, brought about by the interests of building communism in the USSR, is clear evidence of the strength of our socialist economy. It contributes to the further strengthening and development of the Leninist socialist principle of managing the national economy. The Soviet people, led by the Communist Party, by implementing the instructions of V. I. Lenin on the organization of industrial management, achieved great victories in the construction of socialism.

The Leninist socialist principle of economic management, confirmed by the practice of the USSR, is of great international importance. Socialism is being built by the working people of the People's Democracies of Europe and Asia. The working masses cannot help repeating in their basic and main features the path of struggle for the radical transformation of the economy of their country on socialist lines, which the Soviet people traversed. The most important instructions of V. I. Lenin on the organization of industrial management remain in force for all countries that have embarked on the path of socialist construction. The peoples of these countries, following the path laid by the October Revolution, under the leadership of their communist and workers' parties, creatively use the great experience of building socialism and communism in the USSR, making their invaluable contribution to the theory and practice of scientific socialism.

Notes:

1 K. Marx. Capital, vol. I, p. 337.

2 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 26, p. 327.

3 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 28, p. 119.

4 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 3, on. 1, unit ridge 36, l. fourteen

5 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, units ridge 32, on. 1, l. 12.

6 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, units ridge 22..on. 1, l. 57-58

7 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 3, on. 1, unit ridge 21, ll. 2, 3, 4.

8 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 1, on. 1, d. 8, l. 20.

9 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 3, on. 1, unit ridge 21, ll. 2, 3, 4.

10 The Moscow regional party organization included organizations of 14 provinces: Vladimir, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kostroma, Kursk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Orel, Smolensk, Ryazan, Tambov, Tver, Tula, Yaroslavl.

11 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 62, unit ridge 4, l. nine

12 "Nationalization of industry in the USSR". Collection of documents and materials. Gospolitizdat, 1954, pp. 619-620

13 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 61, d. 2, l. 1.

14 Workers' Control, No. 1, 1918, p. 15

15 TsGAOR, f. 472, on. 1, d. 4

16 "New Way", organ of the Central Council of Factory and Plant Committees, No. 3. January 21, 1918, pp. 12-13.

17 Grozny Regional State. archive, f. I, d. 28, l. 116.

18 TsGAOR, f. 472, on. 1, d. 27, l. eleven.

19 "News of the All-Russian Union of the Society of Breeders and Manufacturers" Kg 10-11, December 1917

20 "Leninsky collection" XXI, p. 98

21 Ibid., p. 132

22 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, on. 1, unit ridge No. 4998.

23 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, on. 1, unit ridge No. 5121.

24 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 26, p. 373.

25 TsGAOR, f. 5451, op. 2, units ridge 310. l 4

26 TsGAOR, f. 5451, op. 2, units ridge 310, l. four.

27 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 282

28 V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 27. p. 68.

29 Ibid., p. 181.

30 See Lenin's Collection, XXI, pp. 199, 125, 126.

31 "Ural worker", June 6, 1918

32 "Ural worker", February 24, 1918

33 TsGAOR, f. 5451, op. 2, units ridge 270, l. 1

34 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 213.

35 TsGAOR, f. 3984.on. _ 1, d. 95, l 16-17.

36 TsGAOR, f. 3429, on. 1, d. 968, l. 25.

37 See V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 26, pp. 371, 372.

38 See "Leninsky collection", XXI, p. 135.

39 The Severny District included: Petrograd, Olonets, Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Pskov, Estland and Northern provinces, as well as the unoccupied districts of the Lifland province.

40 Party archive of the MK and MGK CPSU, f. 64, on. 1, unit ridge 12, l. 1.

41 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, f. 17, on. 1, unit ridge 26, l. 126; units ridge 32, l. 12; units ridge 22, l. 3.

42 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 372.

43 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 231.

44 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, f. 2.on. 1, units xp 80-82

45 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 26, p. 374.

46 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 367.

47 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 239.

48 Ibid., p. 240.

49 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 48.

50 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 241.

51 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 237.

52 "Nationalization of industry in the USSR". Collection of documents and materials of 1917-1920, Gospolitizdat, 1954, p. 647.

53 "Nationalization of industry in the USSR", p. 566.