p Administration presupposes a definite objective and the finding Qf the materiali manpower and financial resources for attaining that objective. These are an important aspect of administration. An objective may not be attained on schedule or it may never be reached at all even when there are sufficient materials and manpower and plenty of time. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for the administration to ensure the most efficient and rational utilisation of material, manpower and financial resources. Efficiency therefore allows the objective to be reached within the shortest possible time and with the least outlay of material means and manpower. The administration, Lenin wrote, must secure the “greatest economy of forces and the most productive utilisation of manpower”.  [198•**  Exemplary organisation on scientific lines, i.e., the creation of the most rational and expedient relations between the different links of the social system (between territorial administrative units, spheres of social activities, branches of the economy, individual enterprises, and so on) is vital if the leadership of society is to be effective. Of fundamental 199 importance in the socialist revolution is “the positive or constructive work of setting up an extremely intricate and delicate system of new organisational relationships extending to the planned production and distribution of goods....”  [199•* 

p This brings to the fore the task of creating the most favourable conditions for human endeavour. Labour is the foundation of the life and development of man and society, the source of material and spiritual wealth; therefore, the success of communist construction depends chiefly on how labour is organised and how efficient and productive it is. Lenin regarded the scientific organisation of labour as indispensable for the building of the new society. His formula for this scientific organisation of labour was “organisation of labour in socialist fashion (agriculture+industry)”.  [199•** 

p He advised drawing upon the capitalist experience of organising labour and was interested in, for example, the Taylor system and recommended that its positive and negative aspects should be taken into consideration. He was interested in the relationship between man and machines in the production process, in man’s place and role in the process of production or, as he put it, the physiological credit and debit in the human machine. He considered that methods of organising labour scientifically had to be mastered not only by leaders but also by the masses and suggested a contest for textbooks on labour organisation in general and on management in particular.

Ever conscious of the time factor, he was always careful not to waste other people’s time. He was a principled opponent of endless meetings, especially of ostentatious meetings into which a large number of people, let alone people who had nothing to do with the problem under discussion, were drawn. He did not allow people to spend their time uselessly at conferences, in waiting-rooms, in purposeless running around and in unnecessary paperwork. For efficient management the time factor must be taken into account in all matters, big and small. Deadlines must therefore be based on a sober account of the available forces.

The problems that Lenin worked out theoretically and resolved in practice with the purpose of ensuring efficient management of socialist construction included the planning of the economy as a whole and its individual branches, current and long-term planning, rigid dovetailing of different plans, rational distribution of productive forces and their uninterrupted improvement, scientific and technical progress, effective accounting and control, general principles of remuneration for labour and for stimulating labour, running enterprises on a self-supporting basis, profits and the monetary system.