A
NEW KIND
OF
WAR
549
The chief purpose of the Russian manager is to produce goods.
That is
not
the purpose of the American manager, who is charged with
tending a balance-sheet rather than meeting quotas of production. The
self-interest of the manager in Russia is clearly tied to this purpose: the
Russian receives bonuses for exceeding his quota. In
The Red Executive,
David Granick says: "The Soviets have adopted the concept that
earnings should be tied closely and immediately to production. For
workers, the piece-rate system of payment reigns supreme. For managers,
monthly bonuses make up a major part of income...." The American,
on the other hand, increases his income when the balance-sheet is
properly tended. This is the most important difference between the
two systems-remembering, of course, that Russian industry
is
far be–
hind ours, and they have never been forced to deal with the problem
of surplus.
It
is just barely possible that there is something about the
preservation of power against the onslaught of surplus which would
lead the Communist Party bureaucrats to sabotage the production of a
mature industry (to preserve their unnecessary power) just as the
American paper-manipulators have done. But this we will not know
until the Russians are faced with the problem.
The emphasis on production is experienced by the Russian manager
as
soon as he begins to work. He typically has plant experience. But
the American manager may be a financial or administrative man from
the very beginning and never even get a good solid look at the inside
of a factory. Almost all of the Russian managers have engineering de–
grees, even though they end up doing administrative work which would
be handled in the United States by a lawyer or a business school
graduate.
In America, the control factor lies in the financial-business part
of the organization, not in production itself. In Russia, it is clearly
and simply the Communist Party, which begins to have its effect in the
shop and is omnipresent as a control factor from the bottom level all
the way up to the Presidium. The human relations curriculum in
American business schools is supplied, in Russia, by practical activity in
the Communist Party, which the Russian managers experience while
getting their engineering degrees. The elite quality of Russian manage–
ment is thus secured: "While management is recruited almost com–
pletely from Party ranks, only some four per cent of the total
population are Party members." In America, the elite is selected
through money-background and educational status.
The two main things about America are that it is a very big
country and, unlike Russia which is also a very big country, never had
