bmission to
the will of one person" is not a state toward which free men will strive.
Not willingly will men who enjoy the degree of personal freedom existing in
democratic nations turn to this:

With respect to ... the significance of individual dictatorial
power from the standpoint of the specific problems of the present
period, we must say that every large machine industry--which is
the material productive source and basis of Socialism--requires an
absolute and strict unity of the will which directs the joint work
of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of people. This
necessity is obvious from the technical, economical, and
historical standpoint, and has always been recognized by all those
who had given any thought to Socialism, as its prerequisite. But
how can we secure a strict unity of will? _By subjecting the will
of thousands_ to the will of one.

This subjection, _if the participants in the common work are
ideally conscious and disciplined_, may resemble the mild leading
of an orchestra conductor; but may take the acute form of a
dictatorship--if there is no ideal discipline and consciousness.
But at any rate, _complete submission to a single will is
absolutely necessary for the success of the processes of work
which is organized on the type of large machine industry_. This is
doubly true of the railways. And just this transition from one
political problem to another, which in appearance has no
resemblance to the first, constitutes the peculiarity of the
present period. The Revolution has just broken the oldest, the
strongest, and the heaviest chains to which the masses were
compelled to submit. So it was yesterday. And to-day, the same
Revolution (and indeed in the interest of Socialism) demands the
_absolute submission_ of the masses to the _single will_ of those
who direct the labor process. It is self-evident that it can be
realized only after great upheavals, crises, returns to the old;
only through the greatest strain of the energy of the proletarian
vanguard which is leading the people to the new order....

To the extent to which the principal problem of the Soviet rule
changes from military suppression to administration, suppression
and compulsion will, _as a rule, be manifested in trials, and not
in shooting on the spot_. And in this respect the revolutionary