difficult roads, and that whenever they had been followed
they had shown the way to victory, and that therefore,
though there was much in the Central Committee's theses
that was hard to digest, he was for giving them complete
support, confident that, as Comrades Lenin and Trotsky
were in favor of them, they were likely to be right this time,
as so often heretofore. But for the most part the speeches
were directly concerned with the problem under discussion,
and showed a political consciousness which would have
been almost incredible three years ago. The Red Army
served as a text for many, who said that the methods which
had produced that army and its victories over the Whites had
been proved successful and should be used to produce a
Red Army of Labor and similar victories on the bloodless
front against economic disaster. Nobody seemed to question
the main idea of compulsory labor. The contest that aroused
real bitterness was between the methods of individual and
collegiate command. The new proposals lead eventually
towards individual command, and fears were expressed lest
this should mean putting summary powers into the hands of
bourgeois specialists, thus nullifying "workers' control". In
reply, it was pointed out that individual command had
proved necessary in the army and had resulted in victory for
the revolution. The question was not between specialists
and no specialists. Everybody knew that specialists were
necessary. The question was how to get the most out of
them. Effective political control had secured that bourgeois
specialists, old officers, led to victory the army of the Red
Republic. The same result could be secured in the factories
in the same way. It was pointed out that in one year they