Russia's Managers- Bureaucracy or Class?
BURNHAM, JAMES
Russia's Managers— Bureaucracy or Class? mwnAQSMSNT IN RUSSIAN INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE. By Gregory BU*tU»k, Solomon it. Schwartn ami Aaron dT^nmtm. Oxford, *maH + m page*. $*.<*) By James...
...the first place, it would not seem *¦* the "plant managers" alone make special class, even potentially...
...It I to a study of tho development snd structure of the Soviet economy from the point of view of "managemtnt": more particularly, for industry, in terms of the role of the "plant manager," by which title the authors mean tho operating executive of a single enterprise...
...Theae factor*, however, Important a* they are for an accurate account of Soviet economic life, doubtless do not alter the more important generalizations...
...A columnist has ears only- for gossip...
...The abort period ef "workers* control," whkh they rightly understand as no msr* than an ephemeral phase of the transfer of power, was followed by the ifcsttir conditions of "war communism,'' under which, so far as there was orgsaised production at all, it waa usually carried out by the combined efforts of a technician, inherited from the old regime, sad a political commissar...
...But the conditions are altered in a nationalized economy (perhaps would be even if the economy were not wholly slate-owned but fully state-controlled...
...No other book en the Soviet Union ha* mad* me feel so directly the varied richness of the social life opened ap In Russis by the Revolution, the historical excitement, one might say, of th* wealth of rapidly changing aad alway* freak institutional forma and modea of living which the hand of the GPU could blight but not destiny...
...these managers constitute a new •eeial class...
...Management in Soviet industry, the .othofi show, haa developed through a uuaher of dearly demarcated stages...
...There is no sense in criticizing the choice of persons, times or places...
...W. E. Woodward...
...They are hot, of' courae, Webba...
...that it ia privileged in income and way ef life...
...You tee them tied down, held back, blindfolded by lack of the thingt which we have...
...4 Hew Social Clots...
...f It anight seem that the focus is thereby narrowed to an area of interest only to the professional economist...
...Jame* Burnham, Professor of Philoeophy at New York University, t* th* author of The Manage/ial Revolution and The Machiavellian...
...This is the tale of mechanical change...
...It mutt be a dull reader who does not ask himself tome questions...
...An Intimate History of America THE WAY OUR PEOPLE LIVED...
...The "plant managers" are thua •tsimilated to—and assimilate— the rul»g hierarchy as a whole: the kolkhoz Chairmen and higher agricultural officials, the directors of the higher eco¦nmie organs, and the other members •* the State and Party bureaucracy...
...But it doesn't matter...
...But there is a lot about machines...
...There ure two defects (or so, at any rate, they teem to me) which, finally, 1 feel required to mention...
...The women, except for a rkther isolated suffrsgist, sre all excited about clothes...
...The talk turns on inventions, changes in the way of living...
...402 By WILLIAM E. BOHN JN his last chapter that old enlivener of the past, VV...
...There are twe further impreeaiona I wish to note in particular...
...granted that none of the freedom or expansion existed In the political or moral order...
...Historical experience —aa in the raae* of prieatly ruling classes like those of the late Egyptian and the Incaic Empire*, or of the Chinese Mandarin* and the medieval Church hierarchy—proves that personally held private property right* are not an indispensable condition ef the existence of a ruling class • • • The Sources of Xaiiioi Strength I HAVE been ttresting a problem in which I have a special theoretic interest, at the expense of a rounded account of the book I am reviewing...
...New York in 1908, the dinert glance backward and forward...
...This was followed, during moat of the '20's, by combined direction through the so-called "triangle": manager (still, as a rule, of tat pre-revolutionary generation), party edl, and trade-union committee (with much intervention, of courae, from higher echelons of State and Party...
...He is listened to with flattering awe while he explains the relativity of historical time...
...And, I am thankful to say, clever Mr...
...In the section on industry it perhapa haa tomething to do with the total absence of reference to two factors of prime economic importance in the Soviet Union: first and moat significant, the economic role of the labor and concentration rampa...
...This is the story of the inventor as liberator...
...The New England mechanic, not the politicians or trie warriort, liberated them...
...The new men of the Stalinist generation, much better trained technically, with no personal stake in either Cxarism or the early days of the Revolution, established themselves in the factories...
...There are hints now and then...
...To this* law the Soviet regime—not from itt own choice but because of the set of revolution and th* social effects of economic expansion—hat to far been bound...
...Whole sections, whole classes, whole periodt have been left out...
...The fir'l law of survival and growth for a regime or a ruling clot* i* that it should grant free aceeoo to ambitious newcomers...
...In that last episode...
...E. P. Dutton and Co...
...Ston, however, another change began, list narked in the training schools and colleges, where the number of admistiont Was cut down drastically and the length of th* courses of atudy increased...
...The authors, no doubt in an over-*crupuioua—and quite vain—attempt to avoid charges of 'anti-Soviet bias" in their findings, use explicitly only official Soviet aource material (John Scott'* Behind th* Ural* it the only non-Soviet writing apecifioally mentioned...
...their uae of the material it critical...
...Woodward just seta down the juicy facts...
...You are given a sense of how ways of living have been revolutionized by gadgets...
...But if a time-machine could catapult him back to 1508, he would feel pretty much at home...
...By James Burnham r*pHB Inotit-te of WorW Affaira begins its publishing program well with this remarkably interesting book...
...Each passage might be * chapter out of a novel...
...Here is the story in lively picturet of the colonials, the revolutionist, the '49ert moving Wi st...
...His Professor Jason Broome had written a book "or "Colonial Men and Women...
...Tht professor laps it up, for "the sense of life" is what he tries to put into hif histories...
...these are all facte...
...By th* end of the '20'*, the power of the trade-union committees had been eliminated, a shift correlated politically with tbt liquidation of the Right Opposition...
...The Red Specialists went the way of their predecessors...
...This is what has been going on in Russia...
...There you have the point of view...
...A millionaire it exclutively interested in his stamp collection...
...The en of the Red Specialists came to a definite close in the Trials of 1936-38, during the course of which there occured a revolution in managerial personnel...
...Red Specialists regarded themselves not a* manager* but rather at Comawnists temporarily assigned to managerial work...
...Woodward is that he never asks the questions and — especially — he doesn't force any answers on his readers...
...They agree that the automobile is nothing but a plaything of the rich...
...There is mighty little about war or politics or religion or art...
...and administrators of agriculture, the trade»union and cultural organizations, and the State as a whole...
...E. Woodward, give* us a self-portrait...
...They came from other party talks, and were, from a profet(ieaal point of view, badly trained and IseaVient, though suited often for th* job of ruthlessly driving along the tchenie* of the first two Plans...
...A village magistrate, a Virginia , planter, a New York auctioneer, four young southerners off to California in '49—such up-and-coming characters show us what is going on inside and outside of people's heads...
...certainly, no a priori reason against it...
...But actually the whole volume is filled with contemporary pictures...
...yet the prizet in the economy and in the administrative ranka of the State were plainly numeroua and big enough to make tHe risks seem well worth taking...
...they have developed rather at' a section of * wider class that includes the manager...
...Thi* is eipecially evident in the section on agriculture, for which Yugow it retpontible...
...The question starts a fine flurry of table talk, and the historian ends it with a judicial decision...
...They're not just dummies or patterns cut out of paper...
...it remains Without economic roots, and at most achieves a "Bonapartist" kind of independence by jockeying between more basic classes...
...The invention of the sewing machine by Elias Howe was, in hit opinion, "the most important invention of the 19th century from the standpoint of social progress...
...In every age and place we get a lively section out of somebody's life...
...The panorama it in focus...
...The charming thing about Mr...
...There is...
...The "triangle" entirely colltpatd, to be replaced by 'one-man control"' (which had been proclaimed but atver realised some year* before...
...Many of the old managers w*r* 'thrown out and replaced by Red Specialhtm• hurriedly trained ip »peed-up technieal courses...
...one alone cannot possibly indicate how a reader of this |pjg |g forced into a cumulative re-examination of ideas on topics ranging over the entire Held of the social sciences...
...But' we have our company of early 20th century citizens...
...And, second, no other book make* so clear the source of the ttrength of the Stalinist regime: in part it it that *ame'.riehn*»*, which, in the expanding economy, ba* meant that every young man or woman with ambition and vitality could break out of the fence of anceatral routine to take the road toward increase of power and privilege, toward, indeed, what would be, for the peatant and the untkilled worker, a more expansive and more abundant life...
...They ask the professor, for example, "What do you consider the most important invention of the last century...
...Every chapter deserves a review...
...That there is such a group in Russia...
...They carry us over the country and down through the centuries...
...Professor Broome has a better chance than professors usually enjoy at the dinner-table...
...So the hero taket hit place at the center of picture...
...The two together should permit more mured antwer* then have yet been po*»ible about the nature of the revolution of our time...
...What happens is the illumination of a fresh perspective in which •J the great problems ef the revolution, of Socialism, and of the prospects jf our age, are seen from a new aad clarifying angle...
...Friction between party and manager waa minimized by the fact that nearly all wanagera were also party men—and Ptet of them high in the party ap?Vstus...
...Their ways of living have changed, but their thoughts have remained much the same...
...that it i* ia power, politically, socially and economically...
...This is a fine book to set people thinking...
...The reason it that "before Howe women, were tlavea...
...In the appendix we have 30 pages of authentic pictures carrying us from 1662 to 1908...
...Perhaps that is the best thing about the' book...
...Granted that the road might well end in s concentration camp or the Lubianka...
...Then a fused group arises which performs the functions of the older political bureaucracy und at the same time has an economic base through its extension as the managerial stratum in the economy...
...and, second, the economic functions of the so-called "combinations," which, from all first hand report*, modify considerably the economic machinery that it recognized by law and decree...
...This, however, is not at all the consequence...
...Whether there— and elsewhere—this group csn consolidate itself sa ¦ major historical class and can look forward to *ome centurie* of rale, i* not yet, perhaps, decided...
...The views of the authors Schwars evidently going further *han either of the others in the belief I* they do not yet, they may...
...How idess hsve—or haven't —changed it hardly mentioned...
...When his dinner partner wants to make t hit with him she coos: "What I like most about the book is that itNoiakef people live...
...A New Yorker Of 1808 would be speechless with wonder in the streets or apartments of his own city in 1908...
...With this book now before us, we may look eagerly forward to a companion volume on German management under the Nazis, which it being prepared by the same project of the Institute of World Affairs...
...With the Shakty Trial' (1*928) *and the grit Five Year Plan, a new period Dense...
...Neverthele**, the analysis i* occasionally distorted by a' whiff of the official point of view...
...In a capitalist economy, the politic*) bureaucracy teems unable to attain full independence as a class...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 23
