n is to survive at all, regard this step as definitely
retrograde and likely in the long run to make the revolution not worth
preserving. [*]

* Thus Rykov, President of the Supreme Council of Public
Economy: "There is a possibility of so constructing a State
that in it there will be a ruling caste consisting chiefly
of administrative engineers, technicians, etc.; that is, we
should get a form of State economy based on a small group of
a ruling caste whose privilege in this case would be the
management of the workers and peasants." That criticism of
individual control, from a communist, goes a good deal
further than most of the criticism from people avowedly in
opposition.] The enormous importance attached by everybody
to this question of individual or collegiate control, may
be judged from the fact that at every conference I attended,
and every discussion to which I listened, this point, which
might seem of minor importance, completely overshadowed the
question of industrial conscription which, at least inside
the Communist Party, seemed generally taken for granted. It
may be taken now as certain that the majority of the
Communists are in favor of individual control. They say that
the object of "workers' control" before the revolution was
to ensure that factories should be run in the interests of
workers as well of employers. In Russia now there are no
employers other than the State as a whole, which is
exclusively made up of employees. (I am stating now the view
of the majority at the last Trades Union Congress at which I
was present, April, 1920.) They say that "workers' control"
exists in a larger and more efficient manner than was
suggested by the old pre-revolutionary statements on that
question. Further, they say that if workers' control ought
to be identified with Trade Union control, the Trades Unions
are certainly supreme in all those matters with which they
have chiefly concerned themselves, since they dominate the
Commissariat of Labor, are very largely represented on the
Supreme Council of Public Economy, and fix the rates of pay
for their own members. [*]

* The wages of workmen are decided by the Trades Unions, who
draw up "tariffs" for the whole country, basing their
calculations on three criteria: (I) The price of foo