Portal:Communism/Selected quote/59

“ The same was manifested in the American Civil War, where economic development was thrown back for a decade. In a proletarian revolution the same thing takes place on a much larger scale. During a proletarian revolution we must not only destroy the State machine, but completely reorganize the industrial relations. That is the most important point.

What are the industrial relations in the capitalist system? First of all there is a capitalist hierarchy, the subordination of one group to another; higher up there is the class of capitalists, then follow the directors, then the technical Intelligentsia, the so-called new middle class, then the skilled workers and finally the rank and file workers. If these industrial relations are to be recognized it means that we must first of all and immediately destroy the various ties that bind these groups. The workers achieve this not by street fights only, but by struggling industrially by means of strikes, etc. The working class cannot win the army in time of Revolution if the soldiers obey their officers. It is equally necessary to bring about a breakdown in industrial discipline, if the proletariat is to gain a hold over the economic apparatus.

Once these ties between the classes and strata are severed, the whole process of production will be brought to a standstill. When the workers strike or fight on the barricades, no work can be done. When there is a sabotage on the part of the technical intelligentsia, the whole process of production is interrupted. Only when the proletariat is fully in possession of the whole government machine can it put down such attempts. Until that time the process of production will be paralyzed. Kautsky and Otto Bauer were talking utter rubbish when they spoke of the continuity of the process of production and wish to connect it with the revolution. It would be the same if an army wishing to defeat its officers were to preserve a strict discipline under their command instead of killing them. Either the revolution will win, and then there is an inevitable disorganization of the process of production, or discipline will be maintained, and then there will be no revolution at all. Every revolution is paid for by certain attending evils, and it is only at that price that we can bring about the transition to higher forms of economic life of the revolutionary proletariat. We need not be afraid of that temporary disorganization. One cannot make omelets without breaking eggs.

” — Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938)
The New Economic Policy Of Soviet Russia , 1921