One-man management principle

[bropasaran]

Have you ever thought about the similarities of the Leninist idea of one-management and the idea of the fuhrer-prinzip, what do you think about that?

[Remus Bleys]

How the fuck was that a principle?

[bropasaran]

"it must be said that large-scale machine industry—which is precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation of socialism—calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people. The technical, economic and historical necessity of this is obvious, and all those who have thought about socialism have always regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism. But how can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one.

Given ideal class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those participating in the common work, this subordination would be something like the mild leadership of a conductor of an orchestra. It may assume the sharp forms of a dictatorship if ideal discipline and class-consciousness are lacking. But be that as it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of processes organised on the pattern of large-scale machine industry. On the railways it is twice and three times as necessary. In this transition from one political task to another, which on the surface is totally dissimilar to the first, lies the whole originality of the present situation. The revolution has only just smashed the oldest, strongest and heaviest of fetters, to which the people submitted under duress. That was yesterday. Today, however, the same revolution demands—precisely in the interests of its development and consolidation, precisely in the interests of socialism—that the people unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour."

[Raquin]

Lenin invented one-man management?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What a clever man he was. Of course, one-man management was instituted in order to enforce the democratic decisions of the organs of soviet power (and to prevent things like VIKZheDor members taking railway stock because "they own it"), whereas the fuehrerprinzip was supposed to replace democratic decision-making, but details, right?

And don't fool yourself into thinking you can compare the economic structure of Soviet Russia with that of fascist states. If anything, the fascists shared your raging stiffie for co-ops and federations.

[helot]

What a clever man he was. Of course, one-man management was instituted in order to enforce the democratic decisions of the organs of soviet power

Could you go into more detail on this. I've not heard this specific claim before and not being the most clued up on Russian history im not exactly sure where to start. I'd be keen to understand their exact role both within the workplace and outside if applicable.

[Tim Cornelis]

What I think about it is is how you try to forcefully put two completely different concepts into a single category to brand Leninism as fascism, unfairly, even though these two concepts are quite different in content and reasoning.

[bropasaran]

Of course, 870, dictatorship over the workers is democracy, emacipancipation from all bosses is nazism, war is peace, freedom is slavery, 2+2=5, sure.

[Q]

I can't help myself but notice the borderline trolling nature of this OP...

But let's say for a moment that it wasn't. One-man management was instituted as a retreat measure under civil war conditions. It wasn't a 'principle' whatsoever.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Yeah, you basically just snipped two paragraphs out of a much larger pamphlet without providing any context. People should read The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government because it's very much an interesting glimpse into what difficulties a proletarian government face.

To think that the decision to ensure that every measure was taken to keep the agriculture and industry working efficiently was somehow against the needs of the working class is ridiculous, let alone that the working class was somehow incapable of coming to that conclusion itself. This was a period where workers and peasants were forming meetings and organisations of all sorts to discuss the planning society but it was also a period where the remnants of the old order were doing everything they could to suppress the power of the soviets. Both from without, in the form of White Generals, and within in the form of those who wanted to use the chaos to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the working class.

Lenin writes at the very start of the section from which you grabbed your quote: "The resolution adopted by the recent Moscow Congress of Soviets advanced as the primary task of the moment the establishment of a “harmonious organisation”, and the tightening of discipline. Everyone now readily “votes for” and “subscribes to” resolutions of this kind; but usually people do not think over the fact that the application of such resolutions calls for coercion—coercion precisely in the form of dictatorship. And yet it would be extremely stupid and absurdly utopian to assume that the transition from capitalism to socialism is possible without coercion and without dictatorship."

The Moscow Congress of Soviets had voted in Victor Nogin, a textile worker, as President and he, along with the other workers within the Moscow Soviet (as well as other soviets in Russia) recognised the need to stop the petite-bourgeois mindset of individual gain at the expense of the revolution. This wasn't some authoritarian stamping down of dissent in the workplace but a democratic decision, after discussions amongst the workers themselves, to maintain the efficiency of industry so that they could maintain the revolution. It was a recognition amongst the working class that in this uncertain period there was a need to quash counter-revolution.

Don't cherry pick quotes and whitewash history in order to support your own ideology.

[bropasaran]

I can't help myself but notice the borderline trolling nature of this OP...

But let's say for a moment that it wasn't. One-man management was instituted as a retreat measure under civil war conditions. It wasn't a 'principle' whatsoever.

Does Lenin say that? In fact, he says exactly the opposite. In the quote that I have given, Lenin states it is a principle, and moreover- a necessary principle of "socialism". Does he mention a civil war? He does:

"every great revolution, and a socialist revolution in particular, even if there is no external war, is inconceivable without internal war, i.e., civil war".

So, not a "retreat measure". Did Lenin later say it was a retreat measure? In fact, he says exactly the opposite:

"The whole attention of the Communist Party and the Soviet government is centred on peaceful economic development, on problems of the dictatorship and of one-man management. Not only the experience we have had in the stubborn civil war of the past two years leads us to such a solution of these problems. When we tackled them for the first time in 1918, there was no civil war and no experience to speak of. It was, therefore, not only the experience of the Red Army and of the victorious Civil War, but something more profound, something bound up with the tasks of the dictatorship of the working class in general, that has induced us now, as it did two years ago, to concentrate all our attention on labour discipline as the crucial factor in the economic development of socialism, and as the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat as we understand it."

Does at least the "libertarian" Trotsky say that the this awful anti-worker measure was a "retreat" measure due to the civil war? Nope, he actually whines how civil war hindered them in applying it:

"I consider that if the civil war had not plundered our economic organs of all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative, we should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management in the sphere of economic administration much sooner, and much less painfully."

Maybe at least Trotsky didn't- like Lenin- say that this kind of vile authoritarianism was necessary for "socialism"? Right? Wrong:

"The foundations of the militarization of labor are those forms of State compulsion without which the replacement of capitalist economy by the Socialist will for ever remain an empty sound. Why do we speak of militarization? Of course, this is only an analogy – but an analogy very rich in content. No social organization except the army has ever considered itself justified in subordinating citizens to itself in such a measure, and to control them by its will on all sides to such a degree, as the State of the proletarian dictatorship considers itself justified in doing, and does."


Sorry, but you guys are treating Lenin and Trotsky the same way modern Christians treat the Bible- you repreat the few nice-sounding quotes and when people point out that your object of worship is actually a pile of oppression and murder, you stick your fingers in your ears and sing la-la-la thinking that will do away with the abominable ideas which Lenin and Trotsky promoted as integral to what they called "socialism".

[Q]

Sorry, but you guys are treating Lenin and Trotsky the same way modern Christians treat the Bible- you repreat the few nice-sounding quotes and when people point out that your object of worship is actually a pile of oppression and murder, you stick your fingers in your ears and sing la-la-la thinking that will do away with the abominable ideas which Lenin and Trotsky promoted as integral to what they called "socialism".
If you knew anything about me - like, read my posts of the last four or five years - you'd knew that I'm very critical of the early soviet government. Like, the other day I made some critical comments in a thread in this very same subforum (http://www.revleft.com/vb/did-ussr-go-t189528/index.html). in fact, I'm not even a 'Leninist'.

But I get it, you're on a silly holy war against Leninists. No need for actually having a decent discussion.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Sorry, but you guys are treating Lenin and Trotsky the same way modern Christians treat the Bible- you repreat the few nice-sounding quotes and when people point out that your object of worship is actually a pile of oppression and murder, you stick your fingers in your ears and sing la-la-la thinking that will do away with the abominable ideas which Lenin and Trotsky promoted as integral to what they called "socialism".
Putting aside all the other shit where you basically ignore context in order to apply your liberal sensibilities to a civil war between the organs of the working class, the soviets, and the counter-revolution, this end statement is ridiculous. It's just illuminating the way that you seem to think applying the 'great man' theory of history to Lenin and Trotsky, that they alone dictated how the situation in Russia would unfold, is somehow a compelling argument. Unlike you, I don't think the working class is some collective group of sheep to be led to the slaughter, this was a period of high class-conciousness and workers were involved quite intimately in debate and the decision making process throughout the revolutionary society and they supported the measures taken to stamp out counter-revolution.

Read Victor Serge's Year One of the Revolution. Serge is suitably critical of the Bolsheviks, so you won't think it's just Leninist propaganda, but he also objectively recognised the realities of the material conditions and why the workers chose to follow the advice of the Bolsheviks, who themselves were largely working class.

[Thirsty Crow]

Have you ever thought about the similarities of the Leninist idea of one-management and the idea of the fuhrer-prinzip, what do you think about that?
The one has no relation to the other. Similarities are to be found in the simple fact that one person occupies the position of authority; the domain and character of authority is completely different.

That is not to say that the practice of one man management was anything other than a symptom of counter-revolution.

[Tim Cornelis]

Does at least the "libertarian" Trotsky say that the this awful anti-worker measure was a "retreat" measure due to the civil war? Nope, he actually whines how civil war hindered them in applying it:

I like how you, with your quotation marks, imply as if we, Marxists, claim Trotsky was libertarian, and that you refute this by pointing out his authoritarian measures. If I remember correctly, it was you who implied (sort of) Trotskyists were libertarian in a discussion about the Spanish civil war.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Could you go into more detail on this. I've not heard this specific claim before and not being the most clued up on Russian history im not exactly sure where to start. I'd be keen to understand their exact role both within the workplace and outside if applicable.

One-man management meant replacing collegial management bodies (usually called boards or collegia) with individual managers, personally responsible for the execution of directives from the centre. The point of one-man management was precisely the personal responsibility of the manager; not only did individual managers reach decisions faster than collegial bodies, they could not blame other members of the management for sluggishness in executing directives.

These directives, in turn, were generally made by elected, democratic soviet bodies - the individual soviets and their financial directorates, regional associations of soviets (the Union of Communes of the Northern Region for example), and by central bodies such as the VeSeNKha. The one exception was Trotsky, in his capacity as People's Commissar of War and of the Railways.

I don't think it can be described as a retreat - I don't think the collegial form of management is necessarily more "socialist" (and I certainly have no sympathy for the petit-bourgeois perspective of impossible, who cries "authoritarianism!" whenever coordination and non-market cooperation are mentioned). It was the form of management that was suited not just to the conditions of the civil war but to Russia's economic and cultural development. Undoubtedly in China or Europe it would have been different.

[Brotto Rühle]

What a clever man he was. Of course, one-man management was instituted in order to enforce the democratic decisions of the organs of soviet power (and to prevent things like VIKZheDor members taking railway stock because "they own it"), whereas the fuehrerprinzip was supposed to replace democratic decision-making, but details, right?One man management was "instituted" in order to maintain the bourgeois mechanisms that were the capitalist mode of production and bourgeois state. There was no "soviet power".


And don't fool yourself into thinking you can compare the economic structure of Soviet Russia with that of fascist states. If anything, the fascists shared your raging stiffie for co-ops and federations.Both capitalist.

"If the relations of production in Russia are capitalist then the state is Fascist. Fascism is a mass petty-bourgeois movement, but the Fascist state is not a mass petty-bourgeois state. It is the political reflection of the drive towards complete centralization of production which distinguishes all national economies today." - CLR James