p In order to ensure the unity and integrity of socialist society and conscious, purposeful direction of socialist economy and social affairs as a whole there must be exemplary, scientifically organised administration of the individual links of the social system and social production—individual districts, enterprises, and so forth.
p It is here, at the factories and collective and state farms that the means of existence are created, that the plans of socialist construction are carried out, that people show creative inspiration and initiative in their work, and that the practical experience of millions upon millions of people is accumulated.
p How then is the administration of society as a whole combined with the administration of its individual links? What principle underlying administration most fully conforms to the nature of socialist society? This principle is 203 democratic centralism, which Lenin comprehensively elaborated and scientifically substantiated. He wrote: “Neither railways nor transport, nor large-scale machinery and enterprises in general can function correctly without a single will linking the entire working personnel into an economic organ operating with the precision of clockwork.”^^ [203•* ^^
p As the fundamental principle underlying the direction of communist construction, democratic centralism issues from the very substance, the objective nature of socialism. Public ownership gives life to unity, integrity, centralisation and planning, on the one hand, and broad initiative and relative independence to the individual links of the social system, and the creative activity of millions of people, on the other.
p Democratic centralism, Lenin wrote, ensures “absolute harmony and unity" in the function of different spheres of social life, of the different districts and regions of the country, but at the same time it “presupposes the possibility, created for the first time in history, of a full and unhampered development not only of specific local features, but also of local inventiveness, local initiative, of diverse ways, methods and means of progress to the common goal”. [203•**
p This principle has nothing in common with stereotyped patterns, regimentation or anarchy. Unity in the main and in the essential should not violate but, on the contrary, secure multiformity in details, in local features, in the approach to work, in concrete methods of carrying out common tasks. At the same time, the relative independence of local authorities should not develop into efforts to be original or overstep the bounds of common purposes, the interests of communist construction, otherwise violations of relationships, disproportion in development and a sliding into anarchist separatism and parochialism are inevitable.
p Lenin categorically opposed all manifestations of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, whose representatives regarded socialist society as a conglomerate of autonomous production communes. Under the spurious “banner” of defending independence and freedom, they came out against centralised administration and the planning of economic 204 development, demanding complete autonomy for local government and economic organs, their independence from the centre, and thereby seeking to reverse social progress, to take it back to the workshop system, to feudal dismemberment and insulation. Lenin also combated the “Left Communists”, emphasising that the working people were called on to administer society in all its links and control the work of these links, and not lock themselves up in the narrow boundaries of their professions, their “own” branch of the economy, their individual factory or mill.
p At the same time, Lenin did not tolerate contempt for “outlying districts" and the ignoring of local experience or of the creative initiative of the people. Coming out against the abundance of “general arguments" and “political fireworks”, he called for more concreteness in the study and dissemination of advanced local experience, for a more profound study of reality in the localities. The deeper we delve into living practice and distract our attention from bureaucratic instructions, the more successfully will the work proceed. The task is “to teach the people the art of administration, not from books, not from lectures or meetings, but from practical experience”. [204•*
In working out and introducing democratic centralism into practice, Lenin attached great importance to combining this principle with collective leadership and one-man administration of communist construction. He underscored the importance of collective leadership and demanded that there should be individual responsibility. He wrote: “There must be collective discussion, but individual responsibility.” [204•**