parent. In the present huge Trade Union
Conference there are only sixty Mensheviks. The Communists are
swallowing one party after another. Those who were not drawn over to us
during the period of struggle are now joining us during the process of
construction, and we find that our differences now are not political at
all, but concerned only with the practical details of construction." He
illustrated this by pointing out the present constitution of the Supreme
Council of Public Economy. There are under it fifty-three Departments or
Centres (Textile, Soap, Wool, Timber, Flax, etc.), each controlled by
a "College" of three or more persons. There are 232 members of these
Colleges or Boards in all, and of them 83 are workmen, 79 are
engineers, 1 was an ex-director, 50 were from the clerical staff, and 19
unclassified. Politically 115 were Communists, 105 were "non-party," and
12 were of non-Communist parties. He continued, "Further, in swallowing
the other parties, the Communists themselves will cease to exist as a
political party. Think only that youths coming to their manhood during
this year in Russia and in the future will not be able to confirm from
their own experience the reasoning of Karl Marx, because they will have
had no experience of a capitalist country. What can they make of
the class struggle? The class struggle here is already over, and the
distinctions of class have already gone altogether. In the old days,
members of our party were men who had read, or tried to read, Marx's
"Capital," who knew the "Communist Manifesto" by heart, and were
occupied in continual criticism of the basis of capitalist society. Look
at the new members of our party. Marx is quite unnecessary to them. They
join us, not for struggle in the interests of an oppressed class, but
simply because they understand our aims in constructive work. And, as
this process continues, we old social democrats shall disappear, and our
places will be filled by people of entirely different character grown up
under entirely new conditions."

NON-PARTYISM

Rykov's prophecies of the disappearance of Political parties may be
falsified by a development of that very non-partyism on which he bases
them. It is true that the parties openly hostile to the Communists
in Russia have practically disappeared. Many old-time Mensheviks have
joined the Communist Party. Here and there in the country may be found
a Social Revolutionary stronghold. Here and there in