Roots of
Bureaucracy*
* A t t h e b e g i n n i n g of 1960 I s a a c D e u t s c h e r d e l i v e r e d t h r e e l e c t u r e s on t h e
s u b j e c t of b u r e a u c r a c y to a g r a d u a t e s e m i n a r a t t h e L o n d o n S c h o o l of E c o n o m i c s .
T h e f o l l o w i n g t e x t , e d i t e d b y T a m a r a D e u t s c h e r , is a s h o r t e n e d v e r s i o n of
t h e s e lectures.
T h e term itself suggests the rule of the "bureau", of the apparatus, I
of something impersonal and hostile, which has assumed life and
reigns over h u m a n beings. I n common parlance we also speak about
the lifeless bureaucrats, about the m e n who form t h a t mechanism. T h e
h u m a n beings t h a t administer the State look as if t h e y were lifeless,
as if t h e y were mere cogs in the machine. In other words, we are
confronted here in the most condensed, the most intensive, form with
the reification of relationships between h u m a n beings, and with the
appearance of life in mechanisms, in things. This, of course, im-
mediately brings to mind the great complex of fetishism: over the
whole area of our m a r k e t economy m a n seems to be at the mercy of
things, of commodities, even of currencies. H u m a n and social relation-
ships become objectified, whereas objects seem to assume the force
and power of living elements. T h e parallel between man's alienation
from the State a n d the representatives of the S t a t e - t h e bureau-
c r a c y - o n the one hand, and between his alienation from the
products of his own economy, on the other, is obviously very close,
a n d the two kinds of alienation are similarly interrelated.
T h e r e is a great difficulty in getting beyond mere appearance to
the v e r y core of the relationship between State and society, between
the a p p a r a t u s t h a t administers the life of a c o m m u n i t y and the
c o m m u n i t y itself. T h e difficulty consists in this: the appearance is
not only appearance, it is also part of a reality. T h e fetishism of the
State a n d of the commodity is, so to say, "built into" the very
mechanism in which State a n d m a r k e t function. Society is at one
and the same time estranged from the State a n d inseparable from
it. T h e State is the incubus t h a t oppresses society; it is also society's
protective angel without which it cannot live.
H e r e again some of the most hidden a n d complex aspects of the
relationship between society and State are clearly and strikingly
reflected in our e v e r y d a y language. W h e n we say "they", meaning the
bureaucrats who rule us, "they" who impose taxes, "they" who wage
wars, who do all sorts of things which involve the life of all of us,
we express a feeling of impotence, of estrangement from the State:
b u t we are also conscious t h a t without the State there would be no
social life, no social development, no history. T h e difficulty in
sifting appearance from reality consists in this: the bureaucracy
performs certain functions which are obviously necessary and indis-
pensable for the life of society; yet it also performs functions which
might theoretically be described as superfluous.
T h e contradictory aspects of bureaucracy have, of course, led to
two contradictory and extremely opposed philosophical, historical
a n d sociological views of the problem. Apart from m a n y intermediate
shadings, traditionally there have been two basic approaches to the
question of bureaucracy a n d the State: the bureaucratic and the
anarchist approach. T h e Webbs liked to divide people into those
who evaluated political problems from the bureaucratic or from t h e
anarchist point of view. This is, of course, a simplification, b u t never-
theless there is something to be said for it. T h e bureaucratic approach
has h a d its great philosophers, its great prophets, and its celebrated
sociologists. P r o b a b l y the greatest philosophical apologist of the
State was Hegel, just as the greatest sociological apologist of the
State was M a x Weber.
T h e r e is no doubt t h a t old Prussia was the paradise of the bureau-
cracy, and it is therefore not a m a t t e r of accident t h a t the greatest
apologists for the State and for bureaucracy have come from Prussia.
Both Hegel and Weber, each in a different w a y a n d on different
levels of theoretical thinking are, in fact, the metaphysicians of the
Prussian bureaucracy, who generalize from the Prussian bureaucratic
experience and project t h a t experience onto the stage of world
history. It is therefore necessary to keep in mind the basic tenets of
this school of thought. T o Hegel the State and bureaucracy were
both the reflection and the reality of the moral idea, t h a t is the
reflection a n d the reality of supreme reason, the reality of the
Weltgeist, the manifestation of god in history. M a x Weber, who is
in a w a y a descendant, a grandson of Hegel (perhaps a dwarf
grandson), puts the same idea into his typically Prussian catalogue
of the virtues of bureaucracy:
1. H a n s H . G e r t h a n d C. W r i g h t M i l l s , t r a n s . a n d eds., F r o m M a x W e b e r :
E s s a y s i n Sociology, ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 5 8 ) , pp. 214-15.
At the other extreme we have the anarchist view of bureaucracy
a n d the State, with its most eminent r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s - - P r o u d h o n ,
B a k u n i n and K r o p o t k i n - a n d with the various derivative liberal and
anarcho-liberal trends. Now this school, when you look at it closely,
represents the intellectual revolt of the old F r a n c e of the bourgeoisie
and of the old Russia of the muzhiks against their bureaucracies.
This school of thought specializes, of course, in composing catalogues
of bureaucratic vices. T h e State a n d the bureaucracy are seen as the
p e r m a n e n t usurpers of history; t h e y are seen as the very
e m b o d i m e n t of all evil in h u m a n society, evil which cannot be
eradicated other t h a n b y the abolition of the State and the destruc-
tion of all bureaucracy. W h e n Kropotkin w a n t e d to show the depths
of the moral deterioration of the F r e n c h Revolution, he described
how Robespierre, Danton, the Jacobins, a n d the Hebertists, changed
from revolutionaries to statesmen. In his eyes, w h a t vitiated the re-
volution was bureaucracy and the State.
I n fact each of these approaches contains an element of t r u t h
because in practice the State and bureaucracy have been the Jekyll
a n d H y d e of h u m a n civilization. T h e y have indeed represented the
virtues a n d the vices of h u m a n society and its historical develop-
m e n t in a m a n n e r more concentrated, more intense t h a n a n y other
institution. State and bureaucracy focus in themselves this character-
istic duality of our civilization: every progress achieved so far has
been accompanied b y retrogression; every advance t h a t m a n m a d e
has been bought at the price of regress; every unfolding of h u m a n
creative energy has been paid for with the crippling or stunting of
some other creative energy. This duality has been, I think, very
striking in the development of bureaucracy throughout all social
a n d political regimes.
II
2. M a r x , E n g e l s , W e r k e ( B e r l i n , 1 9 6 2 ) , X X I : D e r U r s p r u n g d e r Familie,
165-66. E n g e l s , T h e O r i g i n of t h e F a m i l y ( L o n d o n , 1 9 4 2 ) , p p . 194-95.
thing of an entrepreneur; or else he was a servant of the feudal lord
or part of his retinue. T h e formation of bureaucracy into a distinct
group was m a d e possible only b y the spread and the universalization
of a m o n e y economy, in which every state employee was paid his
salary in money.
T h e growth of bureaucracy was further stimulated b y the break-
ing down of feudal particularism and the formation of a m a r k e t on
a national scale. Only on the basis of a national m a r k e t could na-
tional bureaucracy m a k e its appearance. B y themselves these general
economic causes of the growth of bureaucracy explain only how
bureaucracy in its m o d e r n form became possible, b u t t h e y do not
yet explain w h y it has grown and why, in some definite historical
circumstances, it has acquired its political importance. T o these
questions one should seek an answer not in economic changes but
in socio-political structures. W e have, for instance, the striking fact
t h a t England, the country of classical capitalism, was the least bu-
reaucratic of all capitalist countries, while Germany, until the last
quarter of the nineteenth century the underdeveloped capitalist coun-
try, was the most bureaucratic. France, which held a middle posi-
tion, also held a middle position with regard to the strength of
bureaucracy in political life.
If one were to seek certain general rules about the rise and de-
cline of bureaucratic influence in capitalist society, one would find
t h a t the political power of bureaucracy under capitalism has always
been in inverse proportion to the maturity, the vigour, the capacity
for self-government of the strata constituting a given bourgeois so-
ciety. On the other hand, when in highly developed bourgeois
societies class struggles have reached something like a deadlock,
when contending classes have lain as if prostrate after a series of
exhausting social a n d political struggles, then political leadership
has almost automatically passed into the hands of a bureaucracy.
I n such situations the bureaucracy establishes itself not only as the
a p p a r a t u s regulating the functioning of the State, but also as the
power imposing its political will on society. T h e real cradle of mo-
dern bureaucracy was, of course, the pre-bourgeois absolute mon-
a r c h y - t h e T u d o r s in England, the Bourbons in France, or the Ho-
henzollerns in P r u s s i a - t h e m o n a r c h y which was maintaining the
uncertain equilibrium between a decaying feudalism a n d a rising
capitalism. Feudalism was already too weak to continue its supre-
macy, capitalism was still too weak to establish its domination; a
stasis in the class struggle, as it were, between feudalism a n d capital-
ism left room for the absolute m o n a r c h y to act as the umpire be-
tween the two opposed camps.
T h e stronger the opposition of feudal and bourgeois interests and
the more paralysing the stalemate between them, the more scope
was there for the bureaucracy of the absolutist m o n a r c h y to play the
role of arbiter. Incidentally, E n g l a n d ( a n d also the U n i t e d States)
was the least bureaucratic of all capitalist countries precisely be-
cause very early in history t h a t feudal-capitalist antagonism was
resolved through the gradual merger of the feudal a n d capitalist
interests. T h e feudal-bourgeois notables, the great aristocratic Eng-
lish families assumed some of the functions which on the continent
were exercised by the bureaucracy. In a sense, the embourgeoises
feudal elements administered the State without becoming a distinct
and separate social group. T h e U n i t e d States too was in its history
free from t h a t strife between feudal and capitalist interests, the
strife which acted as a stimulus for the growth of bureaucracy.
Quite a different a n d peculiar case was Russia, where the great
power of State and bureaucracy resulted from the u n d e r d e v e l o p m e n t
of both social strata: neither the feudal element nor the bourgeoisie
were ever strong enough to manage the affairs of the State. It was
the State that, like the demiurge, created social classes, now in-
ducing their formation a n d expansion, now impeding and thwarting
it. I n this w a y its bureaucracy became not only an umpire but
also the manipulator of all social classes.
III
4. F. E n g e l s , A n t i - D h r i n g ( L o n d o n , 1 9 4 3 ) , p. 308.
social and productive process. We are not concerned with the elimina-
tion of all administrative f u n c t i o n s - t h i s would be absurd in an
industrially developing s o c i e t y - b u t we are concerned with reducing
the policeman's baton to its proper role, that of disentangling traffic
jams.
W h e n M a r x and Engels analysed the experience of the C o m m u n e
of Paris t h e y were as if half-aware of the bureaucratic t h r e a t t h a t
could arise in the future, a n d they were at great pains to underline
the measures that the C o m m u n e had taken in order to guarantee a
socialist revolution against the recrudescence of bureaucratic power.
T h e Commune, they stressed, had taken a n u m b e r of precautions
which should serve as a pattern and a model for future socialist
transformations: it was elected in a general election and established
an elected civil service, every m e m b e r of which could be deposed at
a n y time at the d e m a n d of the electorate. T h e C o m m u n e abolished
the standing a r m y and replaced it by the people at arms; it also
established the principle t h a t no civil servant could earn more t h a n
the ordinary worker. This should have abolished all privileges of a
bureaucratic group. T h e Commune, in other words, set the example
of a State which was to begin to wither away as soon as it was
established. I t was no m a t t e r of chance t h a t only a few weeks
before the October revolution Lenin m a d e a special effort to restore
this, b y then almost forgotten, part of Marxist teaching about State,
socialism and bureaucracy. H e expressed his idea of the State in
t h a t famous aphorism: under socialism or even in a proletarian
dictatorship the administration should become so simplified t h a t
every cook should be able to manage State affairs.
I n the light of all the painful experience of the last decades it is
all too easy to see how very greatly the representatives of classical
M a r x i s m had indeed u n d e r r a t e d the problems of bureaucracy. T h e r e
were, I think, two reasons for this. T h e original founders of the
Marxist school never really a t t e m p t e d to p o r t r a y in advance the
society which would emerge after a socialist revolution. T h e y an-
alysed revolution, so to say, in the abstract; in the same w a y as
M a r x in D a s Kapital analysed not any specific capitalist system but
capitalism in the abstract, capitalism p e r se; they also thought of
socialist or post-capitalist society in the abstract. If one considers
t h a t they carried out their analysis so m a n y decades before the
actual attempt, their m e t h o d was scientifically justified. T h e other
reason is, so to say, psychological. T h e y could not help viewing the
future revolution on the p a t t e r n of the greatest revolutionary ex-
perience in their own life, t h a t of 1848. T h e y saw it as a chain
reaction of revolutions, as 1848 was, spreading at least over E u r o p e
more or less simultaneously. ( H e r e was the germ of the idea of
p e r m a n e n t revolution, which in this respect was not the original
creation of Trotskii; it was indeed very deeply e m b e d d e d in the
thought of classical Marxism.) An all-European socialist revolution
would have been relatively secure immediately after its victory.
W i t h v e r y little social tension there would be hardly any civil strife,
a n d without wars of intervention there would have been no need for
the re-creation of standing armies which are an i m p o r t a n t factor of
bureaucratization. T h e y also assumed that, at least in the highly in-
dustrialized societies of western Europe, the very considerable pro-
portion of the working class would provide a strong mass support
for the revolutionary government. T h e y also trusted t h a t once the
majority of the E u r o p e a n working class had been won for the revo-
lution it would, as it were, remain faithful and loyal to the revolu-
tion. This, together with the existing democratic tradition, would
form the strongest guarantee against any revival of the bureaucratic
machine or the formation of a new one.
W h e n we are t e m p t e d to reproach the founders of the Marxist
school with underrating the dangers of bureaucracy in post-revolu-
tionary society, we must bear in mind the fact t h a t t h e y took the
abundance of goods as the first condition, a pre-condition and raison
d'etre of a socialist revolution. "The possibility of securing for every
m e m b e r of society, through social production, an existence not only
fully sufficient m a t e r i a l l y . . . but guaranteeing to all the free deve-
l o p m e n t and exercise of their physical and m e n t a l f a c u l t i e s - t h i s
possibility is n o w . . . h e r e . . . . i t is here,"'' stated Engels emphatically
in his Anti-Diihring nearly ninety years ago. I t is only in the middle
of this century t h a t we are faced with attempts at socialist revolu-
tion in countries where a desperately insufficient production makes
a n y decent material existence quite impossible.
T h e r e was u n d o u b t e d l y in Marxism an ambivalent attitude to-
w a r d the State. On the one h a n d - - a n d this Marxism had in common
with a n a r c h i s m - t h e r e was a conviction based on a deeply realistic
historical analysis t h a t all revolutions are frustrated as long as they
do not do away with the State; on the other, there was the conviction
t h a t the socialist revolution has need of a State for its own pur-
pose, to smash, to break the old capitalist system a n d create its
own state machine t h a t would exercise the proletarian dictatorship.
B u t that machine, for the first time in history, would represent the
interests not of a privileged minority but of the mass of toilers, the
real producers of society's wealth. "The first act by virtue of which
the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of
s o c i e t y " - t h e taking possession of the means of p r o d u c t i o n - " i s at
the same time its last independent act as a state."' F r o m then on
the interference of the State in social relations becomes superfluous.
5. Ibid., p. 311.
6. Zbid., p. 309.
T h e government of persons is replaced b y the administration of
things. T h e political function of the State disappears; w h a t remains
is the direction of the process of production. T h e State will not be
abolished overnight, as the anarchists imagine; it will slowly "wither
away."
T h e reality of the Russian revolution was in every single respect
a negation of the assumptions m a d e b y classical Marxism. It was
certainly not revolution in the a b s t r a c t - i t was real enough! It did
not follow the 1848 pattern, it was not an all-European upheaval;
it remained isolated in one country. It occurred in a nation where
the proletariat was a tiny minority and even t h a t minority disin-
tegrated as a class in the process of world war, revolution and civil
war. It was also an extremely backward, poverty-stricken country
where the problem immediately facing the revolutionary govern-
m e n t was not to build socialism, but to create the first pre-condi-
tions for any modern civilized life. All this resulted in at least two
political developments which inevitably led to the recrudescence of
bureaucracy.
I have described how the political supremacy of bureaucracy
always followed a stalemate in the class struggle, an exhaustion of
all social classes in the process of political and social struggles.
Now, mutatis mutandis, after the Russian revolution we see the
same situation again: in the early 1920's all classes of Russian
society, workers, peasants, bourgeoisie, landlords, aristocracy, are
either destroyed or completely exhausted politically, morally, in-
tellectually. After all the trials of a decade filled with world war,
revolution, civil wars and industrial devastation no social class is
capable of asserting itself. W h a t is left is only the machine of the
Bolshevik p a r t y which establishes its bureaucratic supremacy over
society as a whole. However, cela change et ce n'est plus la m 6 m e
chose: society as a whole has undergone a f u n d a m e n t a l change.
T h e old cleavage between the m e n of property and the propertyless
masses gives place to another division, different in character but no
less noxious a n d corrosive: the division between the rulers a n d the
ruled. Moreover, after the revolution it acquires a far greater force
t h a n it h a d before when it was as if submerged by class distinction
and class discord. W h a t again comes to the fore is the perennial,
the oldest split between the organizers and the organized. T h e pre-
lude to class society appears now as the epilogue. F a r from "wither-
ing away" the post-revolutionary state gathers into its hands such
power as it has never had before. F o r the first time in history
b u r e a u c r a c y seems omnipotent and omnipresent. If under the capital-
ist system we saw t h a t the power of bureaucracy always found a
counterweight in the power of the propertied classes, here we see
no such restrictions and no such limitations. T h e bureaucracy is
the manager of the totality of the nation's resources; more t h a n
ever before it appears independent, separated, indeed set high
above society. F a r from withering away the State reaches its apothe-
osis, which takes the form of an almost p e r m a n e n t orgy of bureau-
cratic violence over all classes of society.
Let us now go back for a m o m e n t to the Marxist analysis of the
revolution in the abstract and see where a n d in w h a t w a y the pic-
ture of post-revolutionary Russia contradicts this analysis. H a d there
been a E u r o p e a n revolution in which proletarian majorities would
have won swiftly and decisively and spared their nations all the
political and social turmoil and slaughter of wars a n d civil strife,
then very probably we would not have seen t h a t fear-inspiring
apotheosis of the Russian State. Nevertheless the problem would
still have existed to a degree which classical M a r x i s m did not en-
visage. T o p u t it in a nutshell: it seems t h a t the thinkers and
theoreticians of the nineteenth century t e n d e d to telescope certain
stages of future development from capitalism to socialism. W h a t
classical M a r x i s m "telescoped" was the revolution-and-socialism as
it were, whereas between the revolution and socialism there was
b o u n d to lie a terribly long and complicated period of transition.
E v e n under the best of circumstances that period would have been
characterized by an inevitable tension between the bureaucrat and
the worker. Some prognosis of t h a t tension can be found in Marxism,
however. I n their famous Critique of the Gotha P r o g r a m m e M a r x
a n d Engels speak about two phases of communism, the lower and
the higher.' In the lower one there still prevails the "narrow horizon
of bourgeois rights" with its inequality and its wide differentials in
individual incomes. Obviously, if in socialism society, according to
Marx, still needs to secure the full development of its productive
forces until a real economy of wealth and a b u n d a n c e is created, then
it has to reward skill a n d offer incentives. T h e b u r e a u c r a t is in a
sense the skilled worker, and there is no doubt t h a t he will place
himself on the privileged side of the scale.
T h e division between the organizers a n d the organized acquires
more a n d not less importance precisely because, the means of pro-
duction having passed from private to public ownership, the respons-
ibility for running the national economy rests now with the organ-
izers. T h e new society has not developed on its own foundations,
but is emerging from capitalism and still bears all the birthmarks
of capitalism. It is not yet ripe economically, morally a n d intellec-
tually, to reward everyone according to his needs, a n d as long as
everyone has to be paid according to his work the bureaucracy will
r e m a i n the privileged group. N o m a t t e r w h a t the pseudo-Marxist
terminology of present Russian leaders, Russian society t o d a y is
7. K a r l M a r x , C r i t i q u e of t h e G o t h a P r o g r a m m e ( L o n d o n , 1 9 3 3 ) , p. 106
still far from s o c i a l i s t - i t has only m a d e the very first step on the
road of transition from capitalism toward socialism.
T h e tension between the bureaucrat a n d the workers is rooted in
the cleavage between brain work and m a n u a l labour. I t simply is not
true t h a t today's Russian State can be run b y any cook (although
all sorts of cooks t r y to do it). In practice it proved impossible to
establish and maintain the principle proclaimed by the C o m m u n e
of Paris which served M a r x as the guarantee against the rise of
bureaucracy, the principle extolled again b y Lenin on the eve of
October, according to which the functionary should not earn more
t h a n the ordinary worker's wage. This principle implied a truly
egalitarian s o c i e t y - a n d here is p a r t of an important contradiction
in the thought of M a r x and his disciples. E v i d e n t l y the a r g u m e n t
t h a t no civil servant, no m a t t e r how high his function, m u s t not
earn more t h a n an ordinary worker cannot be reconciled with the
other a r g u m e n t t h a t in the lower phase of socialism which still
bears the stamp of "bourgeois rights" it would be utopian to expect
"equality of distribution". In the post-revolutionary Russian state
with its p o v e r t y a n d its inadequate development of productive forces
the scramble for rewards was b o u n d to be fierce and ferocious, a n d
because the abolition of capitalism was inspired by a longing for
egalitarianism, the inequality was even more revolting and shocking.
It was also inequality on an abysmally low level of existence, or
r a t h e r inequality below subsistance level.
P a r t of the Marxist theory of the withering away of the State
was based upon a certain balance between its centralistic organization
and the universal element of decentralization. T h e socialist State
was to have been a State of elected communes, local municipal coun-
cils, local governments a n d self-governments, yet they were all to
form a unified organism which was necessary for a rational national-
ized mode of production. This concept also presupposed a highly
developed society, which Russia at the beginning of the century was
not.
In the development of post-capitalist society the tension between
the worker and the b u r e a u c r a t m a y yet prove to have some essen-
tially creative elements. T h e worker and the bureaucrat are equally
necessary for the transition toward socialism. As long as the work-
ing masses are still in t h a t stage of intellectual pauperism left over
from the centuries of oppression and illiteracy, the m a n a g e m e n t of
the processes of production m u s t fall to the civil servant. On the
other hand, in a truly post-capitalist society the basic social class
are the workers, a n d socialism is the workers' a n d not the bureaucrats'
business. T h e dynamic balance between the official a n d the worker
will find its counterpart in the authority of the State a n d the control
of the masses over the State. This will also assure the necessary
equilibrium between the principle of centralization and t h a t of de-
centralization. W h a t we have seen in Russia has been an utter dis-
equilibrium. As a result of objective historic circumstances and sub-
jective interests, the balance swung heavily, decisively, absolutely to
the side of bureaucracy. W h a t we have seen in H u n g a r y and Poland
in 1956 was a reaction against t h i s - S t a l i n i s t - s t a t e of affairs with
an extreme swing of the p e n d u l u m in the other direction and the
workers' passionate, violent, unreasoning revolt against bureaucratic
d e s p o t i s m - a revolt no doubt justified b y all their experiences and
grievances, but one which in its consequences led again to a grave
and dangerous imbalance.
H o w t h e n do I see the prospects a n d how do I see the further
development of t h a t tension between the worker and the bureaucrat?
I have indicated before all the faults of the historical perspective
in the classical Marxist view of bureaucracy. Yet, I think t h a t
basically a n d f u n d a m e n t a l l y this view helps to cope with the problem
of bureaucracy far better t h a n a n y other I have encountered.
T h e question we have to answer is this: has the bureaucracy,
whose apotheosis after the revolution I have described, constituted
itself into new class? Can it perpetuate itself as a privileged minori-
ty? Does it p e r p e t u a t e social inequality? I would like first of all to
point out one very obvious a n d i m p o r t a n t but often forgotten fact:
all the inequality t h a t exists in today's Russia between the worker
a n d the b u r e a u c r a t is an inequality of consumption. This is un-
d o u b t e d l y very important, irritating a n d painful; yet with all the
privileges which the b u r e a u c r a t defends brutally a n d stubbornly,
he lacks the essential privilege of owning the means of production.
Officialdom still dominates society and lords over it, yet it lacks the
cohesion a n d unity which would make of it a separate class in the
M a r x i s t sense of the word. T h e bureaucrats enjoy power and some
measure of prosperity, yet t h e y cannot b e q u e a t h their prosperity
a n d wealth to their children. T h e y cannot accumulate capital, or
invest it for the benefit of their descendants: t h e y cannot p e r p e t u a t e
themselves or their kith a n d kin.
It is true t h a t Soviet bureaucracy dominates s o c i e t y - e c o n o m i c a l l y ,
politically and c u l t u r a l l y - m o r e obviously and to a greater extent
t h a n does any modern possessing class. Y e t it is also more vulnerable.
N o t only can it not p e r p e t u a t e itself, b u t it has been unable even to
secure for itself the continuty of its own position, the continuity of
management. U n d e r Stalin one leading group of bureaucrats after
another was beheaded, one leading group of managers of industry
after another was purged. T h e n came Khrushchev and dispersed the
most powerful centre of that bureaucracy: all the economic ministries
in the capital were scattered over wide and far flung Russia. Until
this d a y the Soviet bureaucracy has not m a n a g e d to acquire t h a t
social, economic and psychological identity of its own which would
allow us to describe it as a new class. It has been something like a
huge amoeba covering post-revolutionary society with itself. I t is an
amoeba because it lacks a social backbone of its own, it is not a
formed entity, not a historic force t h a t comes on the scene in the w a y
in which, for example, the old bourgeoisie came forth after the
F r e n c h revolution.
Soviet bureaucracy is also hamstrung b y a deep inherent contra-
diction: it rules as a result of the abolition of property in industry
and finance, as a result of the workers' victory over the ancien regime;
and it has to p a y homage to t h a t victory; it has to acknowledge
ever anew t h a t it manages industry and finance on behalf of the
nation, on behalf of the workers. Privileged as t h e y are, Soviet
managers have to be on their guard: as more a n d more workers
receive more a n d more education, the m o m e n t m a y easily come when
the managers' skill, honesty, and competence m a y come u n d e r close
scrutiny. T h e y thrive on the a p a t h y of the workers who so far have
allowed t h e m to run the state on their behalf. B u t this is a precar-
ious position, an incomparably less stable foundation t h a n t h a t
sanctified b y tradition, property, a n d law. T h e conflict between the
liberating origin of bureaucracy's power and the use it makes of t h a t
power generates constant tension between "us" the workers a n d
"them" the managerial a n d political hierarchy.
T h e r e is also another reason for the lack of stability a n d cohesion
in the managerial group no m a t t e r how privileged it has become.
Over the last decades Soviet bureaucracy has all the time been in a
process of stupendous expansion. Millions of people from the work-
ing class and to a lesser extent from the p e a s a n t r y were recruited
into its ranks. This continuous expansion militates against the
crystallization of the bureaucracy not only into a class but even into
a cohesive social group. I know, of course, that once a m a n from the
lower classes is m a d e to share in the privileges of the hierarchy, he
himself becomes a bureaucrat. This m a y be so in individual cases
and in abstract theory, but on the whole the "betrayal of one's class"
does not work so very simply. W h e n the son of a miner or a worker
becomes an engineer or an administrator of a factory he does not on
the morrow become completely insensitive to w h a t goes on in his
former environment, in the working class. All surveys show convin-
cingly t h a t in no other country is there such a rapid m o v e m e n t
from m a n u a l to non-manual and to w h a t the Americans like to
call "elite strata", as there is in the Soviet Union.
W e m u s t also realize t h a t the privileges of the great majority of
the bureaucrats are very, very paltry. T h e Russian administrator has
the standard of living of our lower middle classes. E v e n the luxuries
of the small minority high on top of the p y r a m i d are not especially
enviable, particularly if one considers the r i s k s - a n d we all know how
terrible these were under Stalin.
Of course, even small privileges contribute to the tension between
the worker a n d the bureaucrat, but we should not mistake t h a t
tension for a class antagonism, in spite of some similiarities which on
closer examination would prove to be only very superficial. W h a t
we observe here is rather the hostility between m e m b e r s of the same
class, between, say, a skilled miner and an unskilled one, between
the engine driver and a less expert railwayman. This hostility a n d
this tension contain in themselves a tremendous political antagonism,
b u t one t h a t cannot be resolved b y a n y upheaval in society. It can
be resolved only b y the growth of the national wealth in the first
instance, a growth which would make it possible to satisfy the
m i n i m u m needs of the broadest masses of the population and
more t h a n that. I t can be resolved b y the spread a n d improvement
of education, because it is the material and intellectual wealth of
society t h a t leads to the softening of the age-old d i v i s i o n - n o w
renewed and s h a r p e n e d - b e t w e e n the organizers and the organized.
W h e n the organized is no longer the d u m b a n d dull a n d helpless
muzhik, when the cook is no longer the old scullion, then indeed the
gulf between the b u r e a u c r a t and the worker can disappear. W h a t
will remain will be the division of functions, not of social status.
T h e old Marxist prospect of the "withering away" of the state m a y
seem odd to us. B u t let us not play with old formulas which were
p a r t of an idiom to which we are not accustomed. W h a t M a r x really
m e a n t was t h a t the state should divest itself of its oppressive political
functions. And I think this will become possible only in a society
based on nationalized means of production, free from slumps a n d
booms, free from speculations and speculators, free from the un-
controllable forces of the whimsical m a r k e t of private economy. In
a society in which all the miracles of science and technology are
t u r n e d to peaceful and productive uses; in which automation in
industry is not h a m p e r e d b y fear of investment on the one side and
fear of r e d u n d a n c y on the other; in which working hours are short
and leisure civilized ( a n d completely unlike our stultifying com-
mercialized mass entertainment!); a n d - l a s t but not l e a s t - i n a
society free from cults, dogmatism, a n d o r t h o d o x i e s - i n such a
society the antagonism between brainwork a n d m a n u a l labour really
will wither away, a n d so will the division between the organizers
a n d the organized. Then, a n d only then, it will be seen t h a t if
b u r e a u c r a c y was a faint prelude to class society, bureaucracy will
m a r k the fierce, ferocious epilogue to class s o c i e t y - n o more than
an epilogue.
Isaac D e u t s c h e r
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