THE PROBLEM OF ‘VOLUNTARY WORK DISCIPLINE’
Work is the basis of man’s social existence. This is stressed by every social theory. In this respect, however, the problem is not that work is the basis of human existence. The problem relates to the nature of work: Is it in opposition to or in harmony with the biologic needs of masses of people? Marx’s economic theory proved that everything that is produced in the way of economic values comes about through the expenditure of man’s living working power, and not through the expenditure of dead material
Hence, as the sole force that produces values, human working power deserves the greatest interest and care. In a society under the compulsion of market economy and not use economy, it is out of the question to speak of the care and careful treatment of human working power. Just as any other commodity, this working power is bought and used by the owners of the means of production (the state or individual capitalists). The ‘wage’ received by the working man corresponds approximately to the minimum of what he needs to reproduce his working power. Profit economy has no interest in sparing labour power. As a result of the progressive mechanization and economization of work, so much labour power is made superfluous that there is always a ready replacement for expended labour power.
The Soviet Union abolished private but not state profit economy. Its original intent was to transform the capitalist ‘economization’ of work into a socialist ‘economization’ of work. It liberated the productive forces of the country and shortened working hours in general; in this way it succeeded in getting through the acute economic crisis of 1929-32 without unemployment. There can be no doubt that the Soviet Union’s economizing measures, which were partially socialistic in the beginning, enabled it to satisfy the needs of society as a whole. However, the basic problem of a genuine democracy, a work democracy, is more than just a problem of economy of labour. More than anything else it is a matter of changing the nature of work so that it ceases to be an onerous duty and becomes a gratifying fulfilment of a need.
The character-analytic investigation of the human function of work (an investigation that is by no means finished) offers us a number of clues which make it possible to solve the problem of alienated work in a practical way. Two basic types of human work can be differentiated with satisfying exactness: work that is compulsive and does not give any pleasure and work that is natural and pleasurable.
To comprehend this differentiation, we must first of all free ourselves of several mechanistic ‘scientific’ views of human work. Experimental psychology considers only the question of which methods lend themselves to the greatest possible utilization of the human labour power. When it speaks of the joy of work, it means the joy an independent scientist or artist derives from his accomplishments. Even the psychoanalytic theory of work makes the mistake of solely and always orienting itself on the model of intellectual accomplishments. The examination of work from the point of view of mass psychology correctly proceeds from the relationship of the worker to the product of his work. This relationship has a socio-economic background and relates to the pleasure the worker derives from his work. Work is a basic biologic activity, which, as life in general, rests on pleasurable pulsation.
The pleasure an ‘independent’ researcher derives from his work cannot be set up as the yardstick of work in general. From a social point of view (any other view would have nothing to do with sociology) the work of the twentieth century is altogether ruled by the law of duty and the necessity of subsistence. The work of hundreds of millions of wage earners throughout the world does not afford them the least bit of pleasure or biologic gratification. Essentially it is based on the pattern of compulsory work. It is characterized by the fact that it is opposed to the worker’s biologic need of pleasure. It ensues from duty and conscience, in order not to go to pieces, and is usually done for others. The worker has no interest in the product of his work; hence, work is onerous and devoid of
pleasure. Work that is based on compulsion, regardless of what kind of compulsion, and not on pleasure, is not only non-fulfilling biologically, but not very productive in terms of economy.
The problem is momentous and not very much is known about it. To begin with, let us try to get a general picture. It is clear that mechanistic, biologically unsatisfying work is a product of the widespread mechanistic view of life and the machine civilization. Can the biologic function of work be reconciled with the social function of work? This is possible, but firmly entrenched ideas and institutions must be radically corrected first.
The craftsman of the nineteenth century still had a full relationship to the product of his work. But when, as in a Ford factory, a worker has to perform one and the same manipulation year in and year out, always working on one detail and never the product as a whole, it is out of the question to speak of satisfying work. The specialized and mechanized division of labour, together with the system of paid labour in general, produce the effect that the working man has no relationship to the machine.
At this point one will demur that there is indeed a need to work, a ‘natural’ gratification in work, which is inherent in the act of work itself. True, there is a biologic gratification in activity, but the forms into which this activity is pressed in the market economy kill the pleasure of work and the urge to work, and prevent them from manifesting themselves. Doubtless, it is one of work-democracy’s most urgent tasks to harmonise the conditions and forms of work with the need to work and the pleasure of work, in short, to eliminate the antithesis between pleasure and work. Here a vast new field is opened for human thought: Would it be possible and how would it be possible to retain the economization and mechanization of work and still not kill the pleasure of work? It is definitely conceivable that the worker can have a relationship to the finished product of work of which he performs only a part, without eliminating the division of labour. The joy of life received from working is an essential, indispensable element of man’s restructuralization from the slave of work to the master of production. If man could again have a direct relationship to the product of his work, he would also be happy to bear the responsibility for his work, a responsibility that today he does not have of refuses to have.
One could cite the Soviet Union and say: ‘You work-democrats are Utopians and visionaries, though you pride yourselves on viewing reality unsentimentally. In the workers’ paradise of the Soviet Union, where is the abolition of the division of labour? Where is the pleasure of work? Where is the abolition of the wage system and market economy? Can’t you see from the results of the workers’ revolution itself just how impossible and illusionary your epicurean views of work are?’
The answer to this argument is: In 1^44 the mysticism of the masses is stronger than ever before, notwithstanding the progress of natural science. This is indisputable; but when one fails to achieve a goal towards which one strives - in this case, the rationality of masses of people - this in itself does not mean that it cannot be achieved. The fundamental question remains: Is the goal of pleasurable work a realistic goal or is it a Utopian goal? If it is a realistic goal, if it is intensely desired by everyone, then we must ask what is obstructing its realization. This question applies to the field of technology as well as it applies to the field of science. If it has not yet been possible to climb to the peak
of Mount Everest that does not mean that it is an impossible feat! It is a question of the last eight hundred metres!
It is precisely on this point that the antithesis between work-democracy and politics is clearly and simply disclosed: Our newspapers are full of political discussions which fail to take into consideration a single difficulty of the work process of masses of people. This is understandable, for the politician knows nothing whatever about work. Now let us imagine that a work-democratic community would exclude all irrationalism from its newspapers and would dedicate itself to the discussion of the conditions of pleasurable work. Working masses of people would immediately come forth with a flood of suggestions and proposals which would preclude any kind of politicizing once and for all. Just imagine how pleased a boss, an engineer, a specialist, would be to describe every aspect and step of the work process and to offer suggestions and advice for improvement. They would argue and compete with one another. There would be hot debates. How wonderful this would be. It took centuries before one hit upon the idea of building factories like recuperation homes and not like prisons, to build them with lots of light, good ventilation and washrooms and kitchens, etc. The pressure of the war economy caused radio music to be introduced into factories. It is incalculable how far this process would continue if the working people and not the politicians were in control of the press.
In the first five years of the Soviet economy there were signs of work-democracy. For example, one-sided specialized training of the emerging generation was avoided and every effort was made to give young men and women an all-round preparation for professional life. In this way an attempt was made to offset the damages of the division of labour. The gap between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ work was narrowed. The youth received such an all-round mental and physical preparation for their later professional life that any member of society could be employed in any other place of the work process. For example, employees in large firms were periodically changed from one job to another. Employees of different firms were exchanged. When well-trained specialists became part of the management of the firm, they were sent back to the machines after a while to prevent them from losing contact with their work and becoming administrative bureaucrats.
The self-administration affirms was expressed in the establishment of the so-called’ triumviral directorship’. Every firm was managed by employees who were elected for this purpose by the firm as a whole. In this way the entire body of employees participated directly in the management. Special ‘production conferences’ were held. These and many other facts showed that an effort was made to re-establish the unity of pleasure and work. At this point the opponents of work-democracy will take pleasure in pointing out that most of these improvements could not be maintained, that, for example, the production conferences of the firm’s body of employees degenerated into mere formalities in the course of time or were completely eliminated. To this we answer: Didn’t the Wright brothers make flying possible, though Daedalus and Icarus in antiquity and Leonardo da Vinci in the Middle Ages failed in their efforts to fly? The first attempts at a work-democratic management of the firms in the Soviet Union failed because the reorganisation of the firm’s management did not go hand in hand with the restructuralisation of the human structure. This was a lesson and the next time it can be done better.
The triumviral directorship and the self-administration of firms were abolished when a single manager became the director of a firm, assumed individual responsibility and advanced to an independent position of leadership. True enough, this ‘director’ still stemmed from the workers, i.e., from the body of workers of the individual firm, but this autonomous manager of the firm was soon forced to develop all the characteristics of an overseer, bureaucrat or ruler who was no longer a part of the mass of working people. Indeed, it is here that we find the roots of the Soviet Union’s’ ruling class’. But this does not refute the fact that every work process is by nature and of necessity a work-democratic process. The self-regulation of work is spontaneously present. It is a matter of changing the structure of the working man in such a way as to liberate this natural work-democracy from the encumbrances of bureaucracy and to help it to develop its own forms and organisations. The work-democrat who is familiar with work processes does not deny the difficulties; on the contrary, he focuses all his energies on them because it is important for him to comprehend and overcome all difficulties. He does not derive any pleasure from the fact that there are difficulties, setbacks and failures. Only the politician, who builds his power over masses of people upon these difficulties, etc., sees reason to triumph here. The work-democrat does not use these failures to try to show that use economy is impossible and that man is immutable; it is precisely from his failures that he learns to do it better. One who is lame can easily laugh when a runner misses a hurdle.
One of the major difficulties the Soviet government encountered very early was the fact that precisely the skilled and interested workers showed little enthusiasm for politics. Let it suffice to quote the statement of one functionary in support of this: ‘The love of one’s occupation,’ he said,
is what is most important. Qualified workers are the Party’s best reserve. They are always gratified by their occupation and are always looking for new ways of improving their work. They are very conscious. When one converses with them and asks why they do not join the Party, the answer is that they don’t have the time. ‘I am interested,’ they say, ‘in finding ways to improve steel and mixing concrete.’ Then they invent something of their own, a tool, etc. It is precisely in such workers that we are interested, but we have still not found a way of engaging their political interests; nevertheless, they are the best and the most developed workers. They are always busy and are always looking for ways of improving their production [italics are mine, WR].
This functionary touched upon one of the basic questions of the relationship between politics and work. In Germany, too, one often heard it said: ‘Those of us who strive for freedom are surely on the right track and the workers understand us, but they want nothing to do with politics; we have the same difficulty with the industrial workers.’ Apart from the political disappointments that alienated the German industrial workers from the Communist party in the years after 1923, there was a very important circumstance which one repeatedly overlooked or could not comprehend. As a group, politicians understood nothing whatever about technical problems, and they were completely isolated from the domain of concrete work. The worker who had a keen interest in the technical problems of his work had ‘to attune himself to politics’ if he listened to a party politician in the evening. The politicians were not capable of developing social revolutionary attitudes and ideas from the work process itself; they simply knew nothing at all about work. And yet they tried to get around the workers with abstract ideas about high politics, which was of no interest to the workers. However,
every detail of work-democracy can be organically developed from the technical aspects of work. How are we going to set up our firm when we have to administrate it? What difficulties will we have to overcome? What measures are we going to adopt to make our work easier? What do we still have to learn to run our firm in a better way? What arrangements are we going to make about living quarters, meals, child care, etc.?’ Such questions will imbue all those who perform responsible work with the feeling: This firm is our problem child. The alienation of the worker from his work can be overcome only if the workers themselves learn to master the technical aspects of their firm, which, after all, they keep going to all intents and purposes. In this way the gap between skilled work and social responsibility, which is the ruination of society, is closed. Skilled work and social responsibility must go hand in hand, then the antithesis between work that gives pleasure and the mechanical conditions of work will be eliminated. Under fascism in Germany, the worker was not the least bit interested in the work process. He was a’ guided’, irresponsible subject who had to obey the orders of the firm manager who bore all the responsibility. Or he had the nationalistic illusion that he represented the firm as a ‘German’, not as a socially responsible producer of use values, but as a ‘German’. This illusionary, nationalistic attitude was characteristic of the entire NSBO53 work in Germany, which made every effort to conceal the worker’s very evident lack of interest in his work by the illusionary identification with the ‘state’. Well now, society is society and machine is machine, whether in Germany, America or Honolulu. As work itself, society and machine are international facts. ‘German work’ is nonsense! Natural work-democracy eliminates lack of interest. It does not conceal it by an illusionary identification with the’ state’, hair colour or nose shape; it eliminates lack of interest by making it possible for the workers to feel a real responsibility for their product and have the feeling: ‘This firm is ours.’ It is not a matter of having a formal ‘ class consciousness’ or of belonging to a specific class, but of having a technical interest in one’s occupation, of having an objective relationship to one’s work, a relationship that replaces nationalism and class consciousness by a consciousness of one’s skills. Only when one is objectively and intimately related to one’s work is one capable of comprehending just how destructive the dictatorial and formal democratic forms of work are, not only for work itself but also for the pleasure of work.
When a man takes pleasure in his work, we call his relationship to it ‘libidinous’. Since work and sexuality (in both the strict and broad senses of the word) are intimately interwoven, man’s relationship to work is also a question of the sex-economy of masses of people. The hygiene of the work process is dependent upon the way masses of people use and gratify their biologic energy. Work and sexuality derive from the same biologic energy.
The political revolution that was borne by the workers failed to inculcate the feeling that the workers themselves are responsible for everything. This failure resulted in a regression to authoritarian measures. Almost from the very beginning, the government of the Soviet Union had to cope with the difficulty that the workers had no respect for their tools. There was no end to the complaints about desertions from places of work and enormous turnover of workers in the various firms, etc. Borsen of 22 May 1934 carried a thorough report on the ‘unsatisfactory’ conditions existing in the coal districts, especially in the very important ‘Donbas’ district. The report stated that it was only by adopting extraordinary measures, namely by taking supernumerary engineers and technicians from
their offices and sending them into the mines that they succeeded in raising the daily production from 120 to 148 thousand tons in January of that year; but even then not all of the machines were in operation, and in March of 1934 the daily output again fell to 140 thousand tons. One of the chief causes of this production slump was the ‘negligence’ shown in the treatment of the machinery. Another cause was that, ‘with the approach of spring’, many workers sought to get away from the mines. According to the press, this was due to ‘lack of interest’. In the months of January and February, 33,000 (!) workers left the mines and 28,000 new workers were employed. One is inclined to believe that this large migration could have been averted if the management had provided better living conditions for the workers and recreational possibilities for their leisure hours.
To the asceticism and human alienation of the pure economist, this was like a bee in his bonnet. Certainly ‘leisure time’ is intended for amusement and tine partaking of the joy of life. To be sure, clubs, theatres and other recreational facilities were set up in the firms. Thus, one sensed the importance of enjoyment for the hygiene of the work process. But officially and especially in social ideology, ‘work’ was defined as ‘the substance of life’ and declared to be the antithesis of sexuality.
In the film The Way to Life, a revolt breaks out in spring in a factory operated and administrated by juvenile delinquents. They smash the machines and refuse to work. In the film this outbreak was ascribed to the fact that a rail line had been flooded, thus preventing the delivery of work material. That is to say, the’ explosion’ was attributed to the’ absence of work material’. It was clear, however, that the young men, who lived on their collectives without girls, had spring fever, which was merely released but not caused by the absence of work. Ungratified sexuality is readily transformed into rage. ‘Prison explosions’ are outbreaks of sadism resulting from the absence of sexual gratification. Hence, when 33,000 workers leave their employment site all at once precisely in spring, there can be no doubt that the unsatisfying sex-economic conditions in the Soviet Union are the cause. By ‘sex-economic conditions’ we mean more than just the possibility of a regulated and satisfying love life; over and above this we mean everything that is related to pleasure and the joy of life in one’s work. However, Soviet politicians practised a kind of work therapy against sexual needs. Such practices are sure to backfire. In the course of more than a decade, during which I have been reading official Soviet literature, I have not encountered a single hint of such decisive biologic relations.
The relationship between the worker’s sexual life and the performance of his work is of decisive importance. It is not as if work diverted sexual energy from gratification, so that the more one worked the less need one would have for sexual gratification. The opposite of this is the case: The more gratifying one’s sexual life is, the more fulfilling and pleasurable is one’s work, if all external conditions are fulfilled. Gratified sexual energy is spontaneously converted into an interest in work and an urge for activity. In contrast to this, one’s work is disturbed in various ways if one’s sexual need is not gratified and is suppressed. Hence, a basic principle of the work hygiene of a work-democratic society is: It is necessary to establish not only the best external conditions of work, but also to create the inner biologic preconditions to allow the fullest unfolding of the biologic urge for activity. Hence, the safeguarding of a completely satisfying sexual life for the working masses is the most important precondition of pleasurable work. In any society the degree to which work kills the joy of life, the degree to which it is
represented as a duty (whether to a ‘fatherland’, the ‘proletariat’, the ‘nation’ or whatever other names these illusions may have), is a sure yardstick on which to measure the anti-democratic character of the ruling class of this society. Just as ‘duty’, ‘state’, ‘discipline and order’, ‘sacrifice’, etc., are intimately related to one another, so too’ joy of life’,’ work-democracy’, ‘self-regulation’, ‘pleasurable work’, ‘natural sexuality’, belong together inseparably. In academic philosophy there is a lot of barren hair-splitting over whether or not there is a biologic need to work. Here, as in many other areas, the lack of vital experience precludes the solution of the problem. The urge for activity originates in the organism’s biologic sources of excitation; therefore, it is a natural urge. But the forms of work are not biologically but socially determined. Man’s urge for activity, which is both natural and effortless, fulfils itself spontaneously with objective tasks and aims and enters the service of the gratification of social and individual needs. Applied to work hygiene: Work must be arranged in such a way that the biologic urge for activity is developed and gratified. This function excludes every form of moralistic-authoritarian work performed under the compulsion of duty, for it brooks no bossiness. It requires:
The establishment of the best external conditions of work (protection of labour, reduction of working hours, variety in the work function, establishment of a direct relationship of the worker to his product).
The liberation of the natural urge for activity (the prevention of the formation of rigid character armouring).
The creation of the preconditions that will enable sexual energy to be converted into an interest in work. To this end, sexual energy must
be capable of being gratified and actually gratified. This requires the safeguarding of all the preconditions that are necessary for a completely satisfying, sex-economic, -socially affirmed sexual life of all working men and women (decent living quarters, contraception, affirmative sex-economy in the governing of childhood and adolescent sexuality).
The regressions in the Soviet Union must be comprehended objectively, and then we shall see that: The difficulties involved in changing the structure of the masses were incorrectly assessed. It was believed that one was dealing with a secondary, merely ‘ideologic’ factor. That which was more or less moralistically condemned as ‘old traditions’, ‘indolence’, ‘proclivity for lower middle-class habits’, etc., was, as it turned out, a problem that was far more complex and difficult to solve than the mechanization of industry. Threatened by belligerent imperialistic powers, the Soviet government was forced to implement industrialization with all possible haste. To do this, it reverted to authoritarian methods. The initial efforts towards social self-administration were neglected and even dropped.
Above all, the effort to convert compulsive, authoritarian work into voluntary, biologically pleasurable work, failed. Work was still performed under the pressure of rigid competition or under the illusionary identification with the state. As Stalin noted at the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a ‘depersonalization of work’ set in, an ‘indifference towards the material’ with which one worked and the products intended for consumers. The workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate, which was set up in the Central Committee in 1917 to act as a control on the
Central Committee, proved to be inadequate, despite the fact that it was a fully democratic organization. Stalin stated:
According to its organization, the workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate cannot adequately control the execution of the work. A few years ago, when our work in the economic sphere was simpler and less satisfactory and one was able to reckon with the possibility of an inspection of the work of all commissars and all industrial organizations, the workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate was in order. But now that our work in the economic sphere has grown and become more complex and there is no longer any necessity or possibility of supervising it from a central position, the workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate has to be changed. Now we have no need of supervision, but a surveillance of the implementation of the decisions of the Central Committee. Now we need a control over the implementation of the decisions of the central courts. Now we have need of an organization which, without setting itself the unpleasant goal of supervising everything, is capable of concentrating its entire attention on the task of controlling and checking the implementation of the decisions of the central institutions.
Such an organization can only be the Soviet Control Commission of the Council of the
Commissariat of the Soviet Union. This Commissariat shall be responsible to the Council of Commissars and shall have local representatives who are independent of the local organisations. However, to insure that it shall have sufficient authority and shall be in the position, if the need arises, to call any responsible functionary to account, it is necessary that the candidates for the members of the Soviet Control Commission be appointed by the Party Congress and ratified by the Council of the Commissars and the Central Committee of the US SR. It is my belief that only such an organization will be capable of strengthening Soviet control and Soviet discipline . . . It is necessary that the members of this organisation shall be appointed and dismissed only by the highest organ, the Party Congress. There can be no doubt that such an organization will really be capable of safeguarding the control over the execution of the decision of the central Party organs and of strengthening Party discipline [all italics are mine, WR]
Here we have a clear articulation of the shifting of the self-administration of firms in the direction of authoritarian control. The workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate, which originally had the function of controlling the state leadership, disappeared completely and was replaced by organs appointed by the state having the function of controlling the work assigned to the workers and peasants. The workers and peasants said nothing; the fiasco of social democracy was complete. The incapacity for freedom on the part of masses of people was neither named nor perceived.
This shift had become necessary in the interest of holding the Russian society together. The self-administration that had been aimed at had not developed or had not developed enough. It could not develop because the Communist party, though proclaiming the principle of self-administration, did not recognize the means of allowing this self-administration to unfold itself. Whereas, in the beginning the workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate had the task of controlling and supervising all the Soviet commissariats and economic organizations as the elected representatives of the Soviet Congress; whereas, in other words, masses of working people, who of course elected the Soviet, once had control of the party and the economy, this function was now transferred to the party and its organs, which were independent of the local Soviet organisations. If the workers’ and peasants’ inspectorate was an expression of the social tendency towards the self-
regulation and self-administration of the masses, the new ‘Control Commission’ was the expression of the authoritarian implementation of party decisions. In short, it was only one of the many regressions from the intention of self-government to authoritarian control of society and its economy.
Could this step be regarded as a consequence of the questionable nature of the Soviets? The answer is: It was not the Soviets, as the representatives of working men and women that were a fiasco, but the manipulation of these Soviets by politicians. At all events, the Soviet government had to cope with the problems of economy and those of work discipline. In view of the failure of the principle of self-government, the re-emergence of the authoritarian principle was inevitable. This does not mean that we condone the authoritarian principle. On the contrary, if we stress this catastrophic regression, we do so because we want to know the reasons for this setback in order, then, to eliminate the difficulties and help self-government to achieve victory after all. The responsibility for this failure falls heavily upon the working masses of people themselves. Unless they learn to eliminate their own weaknesses with their own ingenuity, they cannot hope to rid themselves of authoritarian forms of government. No one can help them; they and they alone are responsible. This and this alone is true and affords hope.
The Soviet government cannot be reproached for reverting to authoritarian and moralistic methods of control; it bad no other choice if it did not want to endanger everything. It is to be reproached for neglecting self-government, for blocking its future development and for not creating its preconditions. The Soviet government is to be reproached for forgetting that the state has to wither away. It is to be reproached for neglecting to make the failure of the self-government and self-regulation of the masses the point of departure for new and greater efforts; for trying to make the world believe that, despite everything, this self-regulation was developing and that ‘complete socialism’ and genuine democracy prevailed. Illusions always prevent that which they pretend to be from really materiali2ing. Hence, it is clear that the first duty of every genuine democrat is to recognize such difficulties of development, to expose them and to help to overcome them. Open confession of dictatorship is far less dangerous than sham democracy. One can defend oneself against the former; the latter is like a creeper attached to the body of a drowning man. The Soviet politicians cannot escape the reproach of dishonesty. They did more harm to the development of genuine democracy than Hitler did. This is a heavy reproach, but it is unavoidable. It is useless merely to talk about self-criticism. As painful as it may be, one must also exercise it.
The failure of self-administration and self-government in the Soviet Union led to an organization of work discipline, which was clearly manifested in the militaristic display of the first five-year plan. The science of economics was a ‘fortress’, and it was youth’s objective to ‘capture’ it. The press carried reports on the ‘campaign’ and ‘fronts’ as at a time of war; armies of workers ‘fought battles’; brigades stormed ‘narrow passes’. ‘Iron battalions’ took ‘combat sectors under heavy fire’. ‘Cadre’ was appointed. ‘Deserters’ were exposed to public ridicule; ‘manoeuvres’ were held; people were ‘alarmed’ and’ mobilized’. The’ light cavalry’ took possession of ‘commando outposts’ in dangerous ‘attacks’.
These examples from Soviet literature suffice to show that the implementation of the gigantic five-year plan was possible only with the help of an ideology borrowed from a climate of war and creating a climate of war. The concrete fact of the masses’ incapacity
for freedom was at the basis of all this. The acceleration of industrialization served to build up the military power of the country. Since the social revolution in the West failed to materialize, and since, above all, the self-administration of the Soviet society had not developed, the situation in Soviet Russia was indeed comparable to a state of war. The Soviet diplomacy of that time had the difficult task of delaying every military confrontation, especially the confrontation with Japan over the East Chinese railroad and Manchuria. And yet, owing to the objective developmental circumstances of that time, that which was unavoidable and also immediately useful - insofar as it did actually enable the Soviet Union to arm itself against imperialistic attacks - had two devastating after-effects:
If a country having a population of 160 million is held in a climate of war for years on end and is imbued with a militaristic ideology, this inevitably has an influence on the formation of the human structure, even if the purpose of this war ideology is attained. The militaristic structure of the mass leadership received autonomous powers. ‘Selfless devotion’, held up as the ideal of life in the education of the masses, gradually shaped the mass psychology that made it possible to carry out the dictatorial processes of purges, executions and coercive measures of all kinds. In view of all this, it is clear that the role of biopsychology in the development towards a free society should not be underestimated.
If a government that feels itself to be surrounded by belligerent powers exercises a definite kind of militaristic-ideologic influence on the masses for years on end and forgets its own task in the turmoil of solving the most difficult immediate tasks, then it can easily come about that it will maintain this atmosphere and continue to intensify it, even after, its purpose fulfilled, it has become superfluous. The masses of people are and remain alien, stand apart, vegetate or go beyond their needs into irrational chauvinism.
The authoritarian regulation of the work process fits in perfectly with the militaristic atmosphere in which the Soviet man lived. There was and could be no thought of converting the methods of work into self-administration. As far as that goes, the heroism, especially the heroism displayed by the Comsomol in the struggle to build up industry, was worthy of admiration. And yet, how is the nature of the Comsomol’s heroism to be differentiated from that of the Hitler youth or an imperialistic warrior? What about the fight for human (not national) freedom? It is deceptive to think that the heroism of an English or German soldier in the world wars was inferior to the heroism of a Comsomol youth in the building up of Soviet industry. If we fail to make a sharp and clear distinction between the emotion of heroism and the goal of freedom, we easily fall into a rut which no longer has anything to do with the pursuit of the goal (self-administration). Okay, the heroism was ‘necessary’, but the effort to effect a basic change in the structure of masses of people failed to bear fruit and, as a consequence thereof, the establishment of that social state, for which generations of freedom-fighters had given the best of their minds and their lives, also failed to materialize. Since the worker no longer had a ‘personal’ interest in his work, it was necessary to revert to his ‘drive for acquisition’. The bonus system was reintroduced. Workers were assessed according to the value of their working power; those who did more were given better nourishment and living quarters. But this was not the worst of it: The most rigid form of the competitive wage system was reintroduced. All of this was ‘necessary’, but it should have been clear that it was diametrically opposed to the original goal.
The fact that’ locks’ were made use of to keep the workers from leaving their work sites was also a clear indication of the moralistic, authoritarian regulation of work. For instance, the workers had to commit themselves to remain until the end of the five-year plan. At that time about 40 per cent of the industry of the Soviet Union was producing war materials. This meant that the work in industries producing consumer goods had to be considerably stepped up to keep it at the same level. ‘Work evenings’ were introduced for the purpose of spurring ambition. On such ‘evenings’ competitions were held to see who could set type the fastest, who could wrap confetti the fastest, etc. Black and red bulletin boards were introduced in various factories. The names of the ‘lazy’ workers were put on the black bulletin boards and the names of the ‘good and diligent’ workers were put on the red bulletin boards. Nothing was learned about the effect the moral elevation of some and the moral degradation of others had on character formation. But from all that we know about the use of such measures, it can be safely concluded that the effect on the formation of the human structure was disastrous. Those whose names appeared on the black bulletin boards could not help but have a feeling of shame, envy, inferiority, indeed, bitter hatred; whereas those whose names appeared on the red bulletin board could triumph over their competitors, could feel themselves to be winners, could give vent to their brutality and allow their ambition to overstep all natural bounds. For all that, those who lost out in such a competition were not necessarily the ‘inferior’ ones. On the contrary, we can assume that, with respect to their structures, some of the ‘blacks’ were freer human beings, even if more neurotic. And those who came out on top did not necessarily have to be free human beings, for we know that the traits that were spurred in them are precisely those traits we find in the overambitious man, the go-getter, the show-off, in short, the plague-ridden man.
Just how little one still thought about the withering away of the state and the transferring of its functions to man is shown by a poem that was used as a means of spurring work discipline.
Es braucht der Staat fur die Kolchose Zahllose stahlerne Agitatoren.
Vom Pazifik bis Minsk, von Wjatka bis Krim barrt fetter Ackerboden der Traktoren.
Es ruft der Staat
Voran, voranl Mann far Mannl Tretet an!
Den Hammer Nacht und Tag . scbwingen wir Scblag auf Schlag, bauen taglich bundertmal
dem Land ein neues Ross aus Stahl.
[The state needs for the kolkhozes A host of agitators made of steel.
From the Pacific to Minsk, from Vyatka to the Crimea Rich soil awaits the tractors.
The state calls you!
Forward! Forward I One and all I Form ranks I
Day and night the hammer We swing, blow by blow,
And a hundred times each day we build A steed of steel for our land.]
‘The state needs’ - instead of ‘We need’. Such distinctions may mean nothing to the politician who sees everything in terms of economy, but they are of decisive importance for the restructuralization of man’s character.
The so-called Stakhanov movement was a glaring indication of the misery of the work function. Those workers whose productivity was far above average were called Stakhanovists. Stakhanov was the first industrial worker to set a record in the performance of his work. It is clear that the lack of interest of masses of workers in their work lay at the basis of Stakhanov-ism. Pretence to superiority has little meaning here. The Soviet Union was forced to step up its production. Since the workers as a whole failed to meet production quotas voluntarily, the Soviet government was forced to adopt measures intended to exploit the workers’ ambition to excel. It was also forced to introduce rigid pay scales. But we must not allow the necessity of this process to divert us from the main problem: A minimal increase in the individual worker’s interest and ability in his work would have made the Stakhanov movement superfluous. In turn, this would have required a complete reversal in the sexual policies and sexual education of the Russian society. The knowledge and the will needed to accomplish this was lacking.
The relapse into Stakhanovism had disastrous effects on the formation of man’s character structure. Only those who are inordinately ambitious and brutal are capable of excelling at competitive piecework. The great majority of the workers either fall far behind or leave off altogether. A gap arises between the majority of average workers and a small minority of work-athletes, who readily develop into a new ruling class. As long as the vast majority of workers have no enthusiasm for their work and no consciousness of personal responsibility about it, it is out of the question to speak of a change from coercive discipline to pleasurable work. Complaints will continue about the workers, poor production, absenteeism and negligent handling of machinery. This new gap produces envy and ambition among the weaker workers and presumption and racial arrogance among the stronger workers. A collective feeling of belonging and working together cannot emerge. Denunciations and reactions characteristic of the emotional plague will prevail.
The way in which National Socialism or fascist ideologists appraise the democratic or non-democratic character of a process is a good standard. When nationalistic,
chauvinistic, militaristic, imperialistic disciplinary politicians lavish praise on something, one has to be on the alert. For example, this is what Mehnert has to say:
It very often happens that the Comsomols who come to a factory to help boost production are not received very cordially, for the methods which they use to incite the workers to achieve greater production are not, as a rule, very considerate. Especially hated are the workers’ correspondents who drag everything into the open and print it in their newspapers. The lack of tools and raw materials, the living conditions, which are usually bleak, the passive resistance of many workers, are often too much for the Comsomols. There have been times when they have come singing victorious songs and have had to depart with tears of desperation.
So much for the factual report. And now follows fascist praise of the Soviet spirit:
This myth is simple and clear. In our time, which is so devoid of and hungry for myths, it has a fascinating effect. And as every myth, it has created an ethos, an ethos which millions of people today bear in themselves and which seizes others every year. To the Russians, this ethos means: ‘Our need is great and the goals we have set ourselves are far off. We can achieve them only by struggling against the whole world, which fears and hates us, against enemies around us and in our own ranks. To the degree that we approach socialism, our distress will be lessened. But we can be victorious only if we all stand up for one and one stands up for all. We are all responsible to one another. When a plant produces poor weapons a time of war, it commits a crime against the nation as a whole, not only against the soldiers who lose their lives because of them. When a plant produces poor machinery today, it commits a crime against socialism, against all of us who are fighting to build it. Desertion from the front at a time of war is not an offence against an officer, but a betrayal of one’s comrades. Desertion from the front of the five-year plan and from socialism is not a strike against an employer, but a crime against each and every one of us. For this is our country, our factories and our future!
The human structure that is formed from such a ‘disciplination’ of work is also infused with religious fanaticism and dull passive resistance. It has always been the case that the ‘ethos’ of the few, with their discipline, leads to the incompetence of the large majority of people. Myth and ethos may be heroic, but they are always dangerous, undemocratic and reactionary measures. It is a question of the character, the will, the conviction, joy of assuming responsibility and enthusiasm of the broad masses of working men and women. They themselves must be willing and capable of sticking up for their own lives and insisting on the wealth of their own experience. An ethos based on the misery of masses and demanding such great sacrifices and discipline that only a few are capable of measuring up to it, an ethos that is so severe and continues to be so severe that even those who support it cannot keep the pace, may have an elevating effect; but it will never solve a single objective problem of the social community. A genuine democrat, a work-democrat, who cannot get to the masses owing to such an ethos, will simply exclaim: To bell with this ethos!
Was the authoritarian, nationalistic regulation of work in the Soviet Union necessary? Yes!
Was it capable of arming the country? Yes!
Was this regulation a progressive measure intended to establish the self-administration of the Russian society?
No!
Did it solve any of the mounting social problems, or pave the way to their solution?
Did it, and what did it, contribute to the satisfaction of society?
Nothing!
On the contrary, it produced a human nature imbued with and confined in nationalism, thus laying the foundation for the Red one-man dictatorship.
The military power of a society plays no role whatever in assessing the structure and tendencies of that society with respect to its freedom. The conducting of war, the building of industry, the waving of banners, the holding of parades, are child’s play compared with the task of creating a human species that is free. Friend and foe readily come to terms where militarism and chauvinistic patriotism prevail. But the babble of Babylon was nothing compared with the confusion surrounding the concept ‘freedom’. We want to find our bearings again on a statement made t>y a military disciplinarian, a man who would fight with the same subjective honesty and conviction for an America striving for democracy as he would fight for an America regressing towards fascism.
In 1943 Captain Rickenbacker paid an official visit to the Soviet Union. Following his return, a detailed article on his impressions appeared in the 18 August issue of the New York Times, I quote:
. . . Captain Rickenbacker remarked that whereas for the last several years Russia has been moving to the right, the United States, at the same time, has been ‘tending to the left’.
‘If they keep going on as they are you’ll find Russia coming out of this war the greatest democracy in the world, while if we keep going on the way we are we’ll be where they were twenty-five years ago,’ he declared.
‘Do you mean to suggest that Russia is moving toward capitalism while we are moving toward bolshevism?’ Captain Rickenbacker was asked.
‘Yes, in a sense,’ he replied.
. . . Among the things he was particularly impressed with in Russia was the iron discipline in industrial plants, severe punishment for chronic absenteeism, to the extent of removal from the job to the bread line, incentive pay, compulsory overtime work and’ no labour difficulties.’ The Russians, Captain Rickenbacker said, work eight hours a day, six days a week, with an additional three hours a day overtime at time and one-half. . .
‘. . . Bolshevism in Russia is not what we have been led to believe by communistic enthusiasts in this country. They have been constantly turning to the right, as evidenced in many ways, during the last twelve months. Nowhere in the world have I seen so much respect for progressive rank in the Army as I witnessed in Russia from the bottom to the top, which is in the direction of capitalism and democracy. Officers’ uniforms have in great measure been copied from the old Czaristic design, and the press is selling pre-revolutionary heroes to the people.’
We have learned to listen to conservative voices, to comprehend them and to admit the validity of their factual statements when they coincide with the truth. We have also learned to understand that conservative facts and reactionary developments issue from the biopathy of masses of people. We differ from an authoritarian such as Rickenbacker in that we do not feel any sense of triumph over the discovery of unpleasant facts. We simply ferret out the natural processes, for it is when these processes are blocked that the disciplinarian’s views are correct. If that which Rickenbacker understands by democracy prevails in the Soviet Union, then we want nothing to do with it. ‘Capitalism’ and ‘democracy’ cannot be equated. Freedom cannot be inferred from military fitness. To praise the Soviet Union of today and to reject the development of social democracy in Russia during Lenin’s time is to eliminate every possibility of establishing clarity.
Statements as ridiculous as the one quoted above are possible only if the history of a country and its bitter fight for liberation from slavery are not known. Rickenbacker recommended the Soviet Union of 1943 as a model for America. He recommended it because he was annoyed by the absenteeism in American factories. He was impressed by the facility with which the dictatorship appears to be capable of coping with social difficulties. But if that is the case, what is all the fuss about freedom, liberation war, the new world? This Babylonian babble is a consequence of ‘politicalism’. In conclusion, I should like to add this word of warning while there is still time: If things continue as they have, there is a very real possibility that America will soon be at war with Russia. The Soviet Union will tolerate neither a genuinely democratic America nor a genuinely democratic Germany. One of the many reasons for this will be the bad conscience that weighs heavily upon the leadership of a state that started out to conquer freedom for the world and ended in an antiquated chauvinism, so bitterly fought against by its founders.
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