for the workers to confiscate the factories. Often they simply drove off the capitalists (who were busily doing their best to sabotage and ruin the industries) and took charge themselves.
Naturally enough the shop committees, once in control of the industries, tried to operate them. But in this they failed. Although they were good fighting organizations they could not manage industry. One of their principal faults was that they were essentially local in character while the industries, considering their markets, sources of supply for raw materials, etc., were distinctly national and international. Much confusion resulted from the industrial efforts of the shop committees, so the national trade unions, then rapidly coming to the front, had to step in and take charge of the situation to prevent entire industrial demoralization. They amalgamated the shop committees into their own official machinery and restricted their activities to the control over local labor which they now exercise.
But the national trade unions were only a degree better in managing industry than the shop committees had been. Quite evidently what was necessary was a purely technical organization, and thus, the Supreme Economic Council, came into existence. Its given function was to supervise and organize the operation of industry generally. The workers, however, full of revolutionary militancy, were not inclined to yield their industrial control altogether to the doubtful engineers and specialists of the Supreme Economic Council; hence they insisted upon the rights of nominating all the heads of that body, and, also of sending their representatives directly in all factory managements. This developed the "collegium" system, under which the committees heading the different sections of the Supreme Economic Council and individual industries were composed partly of industrial experts and partly of representatives of the national unions.
This system is still largely in effect, but there is a strong tendency toward the development of one-man management. The Communist Party, the Government, and the unions have gone on record in favor of it. The idea is to center the responsibility upon single individuals, who must be experts, and then hold them responsible for results. Too much friction and too much scattering of authority are produced by the collegium sys-
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