peasantry; that the court is a means of training in discipline.  There is a lack of appreciation of the simple and obvious fact that, if the chief misfortunes of Russia are famine and unemployment, these misfortunes cannot be overcome by any outbursts of enthusiasm, but only by thorough and universal organization and discipline, in order to increase the production of bread for men and fuel for industry, to transport it in time, and to distribute it in the right way.  That therefore responsibility for the pangs of famine and unemployment falls on every one who violates the labor discipline in any enterprise and in any business.  That those who are responsible should be discovered, tried, and punished without mercy.  The petty bourgeois environment, which we will have to combat persistently now, shows particularly in the lack of comprehension of the economic and political connection between famine and unemployment and the prevailing dissoluteness in organization and discipline—­in the firm hold of the view of the small proprietor that “nothing matters, if only I gain as much as possible.”

A characteristic struggle occurred on this basis in connection with the last decree on railway management, the decree which granted dictatorial (or “unlimited”) power to individual directors.  The conscious (and mostly, probably, unconscious) representatives of petty bourgeois dissoluteness contended that the granting of “unlimited” (i.e., dictatorial) power to individuals was a defection from the principle of board administration, from the democratic and other principles of the Soviet rule.  Some of the Socialist-Revolutionists of the left wing carried on a plainly demagogic agitation against the decree on dictatorship, appealing to the evil instincts and to the petty bourgeois desire for personal gain.  The question thus presented is of really great significance; firstly, the question of principle is, in general, the appointment of individuals endowed with unlimited power, the appointment of dictators, in accord with the fundamental principles of the Soviet rule; secondly, in what relation is this case—­this precedent, if you wish—­to the special problems of the Soviet rule during the present concrete period?  Both questions deserve serious consideration.[74]

With characteristic ingenuity Lenine attempts to provide this dictatorship with a theoretical basis which will pass muster as Marxian Socialism.  He uses the term “Soviet democracy” as a synonym for democratic Socialism and says there is “absolutely no contradiction in principle” between it and “the use of dictatorial power of individuals.”  By what violence to reason and to language is the word democracy applied to the system described by Lenine?  To use words with such scant respect to their meanings, established by etymology, history, and universal agreement in usage, is to invite and indeed compel the contempt of minds disciplined by