THE SOVIET POWER

the working population of Petrograd took part in safeguarding the city. Yet again, to relieve the men for other duties, working women entered the militia service. In the soviets it is possible to train non-members as assistants. By looking on, at first, they can learn the work of the executive committee and the sub-committees. The same thing can be done in the factory committees and in the trade unions, where all the members can take office by turns. In a word, in one way or another (practical experience will teach us the best methods), we must follow in the footsteps of the Paris Commune, must simplify the work of administration, attract the masses to participate in it, completely put an end to bureaucracy. The more extensive this participation of the masses is, the sooner will the dictatorship of the proletariat die out. As soon as all the adult and hale members of the population, all without exception, have come to participate in administration, the last vestiges of bureaucracy will disappear. Concurrently with the disappearance of our bourgeois antagonists, we shall be able to celebrate the obsequies of the State. The government of men will be replaced by the administration of things — the administration of machinery, buildings, locomotives, and other apparatus. The communist order of society will be fully installed.