THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION
193
manded, we are able to show through the theory of the managerial
revolution how Russia has developed consistently along the lines
to be deduced from theory, granted the specific circumstances of
the Russian position. The triple managerial problem in Russia
worked out as follows: First, in a rapid and drastic fashion, the
capitalist institutions and the capitalists at home were reduced to
impotence; and, after. an armed defense, a temporary truce was
reached with capitalist institutions and capitalists abroad. Then
(though this second step began during the solution of the first
step), more gradually, the masses were curbed in such a manner
as to lead them to accept the new exploiting
ord~r.
The curbing of
the masses began long before the death of Lenin (Lenin's and
Trotsky's leadership in the smashing of the power of the Factory
Committees and of the autonomy and rights of the trade unions and
local soviets were decisive early moves, for instance); Stalin's
definitive victory and the Moscow Trials merely symbolized the
completion of the second part of the triple managerial problem.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the inability of Britain to move against
Russia during the Finnish war showed that capitalism from abroad
was no longer capable of overturning the new order. The third part
of the managerial problem remains: the competition with other
sections of the managers for first fruits in the managerial world
system. In this competition, the Russian weaknesses indicate that
Russia will not be able to endure, that it will crack apart, and fall
toward east and west.
Russia has today advanced furthest, from a structural or
institutional point of view, toward the managerial goal. The rest
of the world, however, plainly moves in the same general direction,
though the specific route being foilowed need not be the same as
the Russian. In Germany, for example, the pattern for the solution
of the triple managerial problem is different, though the problem
and the outcome are the same. The order of the first two stages in
Germany is on the whole the reverse of what we found in the case
of Russia. In Germany, the curbing of the masses, their redirec–
tion into managerial channels, by and large preceded the reduction
of the home capitalists and capitalist institutions to impotence; and
the undermining of the capitalists abroad proceeds along with the
process of completing the reduction of the capitalists at home. This
account is, however, too rigidly schematized. In actual fact, the
