The Bolsheviks had somewhat better success in overcoming the managerial anarchy that followed the spread of workers’ control. The syndicalist policies of the regime just before and just after October 1917 were a device to lure workers away from the Mensheviks: it helped the Bolsheviks gain majorities in the Factory Committees. After the signing of Brest, it was decided to revert to traditional methods of individual industrial management with the employment of “bourgeois specialists.” Trotsky spoke about this in March and Lenin in May 1918.89 In fact, many of the previous owners and managers had never left their jobs, and by terms of the June 28, 1918, nationalization decree were forbidden to do so. The Supreme Economic Council was full of these people as well. In the fall of 1919, a visitor from Siberia noted that at the head of many of Moscow’s
sit former employers and responsible officials and managers of business, and the unprepared visitor … who is personally acquainted with the former commercial and industrial world would be surprised to see previous owners of big leather factories sitting in Glavkozh [the leather syndicate], big manufacturers in the central textile organization, etc.90
But Lenin’s and Trotsky’s insistence on the need to utilize the skills of “bourgeois specialists” in the service of the “socialist” cause ran into resistance from Left Communists, trade union officials, and Factory Committees. Resenting the power and privilege which the members of the old “capitalist” elite enjoyed in Soviet industries by virtue of their expertise, they harassed and intimidated them.91
Until the end of the Civil War, the government had great difficulty enforcing the principle of personal management. In 1919, only 10.8 percent of industrial-establishments had individual managers. But in 1920–21, Moscow vigorously resumed the campaign, and at the close of 1921, 90.7 percent of Russian factories were run in this manner.92 The argument in favor of “collegiate” management, however, did not die down, its proponents arguing that individual management alienated workers from the regime and allowed “capitalists” to retain control of expropriated plants in the guise of serving the state.93 Before long, this argument would be raised at the national level by the so-called Workers’ Opposition.
The narrowly economic objective of Soviet industrial policies under War Communism was, of course, to raise productivity. Statistical evidence, however, demonstrates that the effect of these policies was precisely the contrary. Under Communist management, industrial productivity did not merely decline: it plunged at a rate which suggested that, if the process continued, by the mid-1920S Soviet Russia would be left without any industry. There exist various indices of this phenomenon.
I. OVERALL LARGE-SCALE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION* 1913 100 1917 77 1919 26 1920 18
II. OUTPUT OF SELECTED INDUSTRIAL GOODS IN 192094 (1913 = 100) Coal 27.0 Iron 2.4 Cotton yarn 5.1 Petroleum 42.7
III. PRODUCTIVITY (in constant rubles) of the Russian worker95 1913 100 1917 85 1918 44 1919 22 1920 26
IV. NUMBER OF EMPLOYED INDUSTRIAL WORKERS† 1918 100 1919 82 1920 77 1921 49
In sum, under War Communism, the Russian “proletariat” fell by one-half, industrial output by three-quarters, and industrial productivity by 70 percent. Surveying the wreckage, Lenin in 1921 exclaimed: “What is the proletariat? It is the class engaged in large-scale industry. And where is large-scale industry? What kind of a proletariat is it? Where is your [sic!] industry? Why is it idle?”96 The answer to these rhetorical questions was that Utopian programs, which Lenin had approved, had all but destroyed Russian industry and decimated Russia’s working class. But during this time of deindustrialization, the expenses of maintaining the bureaucracy in charge of the economy grew by leaps and bounds: by 1921 they absorbed 75.1 percent of the budget. As for the personnel of the Supreme Economic Council, which managed Russia’s industry, it grew during this period a hundredfold.*
The decline in agricultural production was less drastic, but because of the small margin of food surplus, its effect on the population was even more devastating.
