Combating Economic Chaos By a Spate of Commissions

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Izvestia for May 17 publishes a tiresomely lengthy and silly resolution of the Soviet’s Economic Department concerning ways of combating economic chaos.

And what a combat that is! Splendid ideas and excellent plans are smothered in a net of dead, bureaucratic institutions. “The Economic Department shall be converted [mark this!] into a department for the organisation of the national economy.”

Excellent! We are on the right track! The country can make its mind easy. The Department has been renamed.

But is it possible to “organise the national economy”. without wielding state power? This the Executive Committee has overlooked.

The Department has six “sub-departments”.... That is Point I of the resolution. Point 2 is about establishing “close organisational ties”; Point 3 is about working out the “basic principles” of regulation; Point 4 is about establishing “close organisational contact” with the cabinet ministers (upon my oath, this is not from a fable by Muzhik Vredny but from Izvestia No. 68, for May 17, page 3, column 3, Point 4); Point 5 is about “the government forming commissions”; Point 6 is about “a bill to be drafted in the very near future”; Point 7 is about starting immediately “to draw up basic legislative proposals” on five sub-points....

O wise men! O lawgivers! O Louis Blancs!