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PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY 155economic and social development. The differentiation produced by thisdevelopment (in our case, for example, the multiplication and specializationof banks, of accounts and of forms of finance) was judged to be a uselessand expensive complication, to be rationalized through a process of"simplification." This process in turn was an indispensable prerequisite forleading the entire economy from a single center, so that, by "simplifying,"Piatakov and the Bolshevik leadership were also building the foundationsfor their own domination (as well as bringing themselves into line with thetrends of the time, triggered by the war, and unconsciously preparing themselvesto tackle the Civil War).This centralist program of reducing society to one large firm was mitigated,though, at the end of 1917 by two factors. First, as we have said, Piatakov,following Hilferding, recognized that in "backward" Russia, centralizedgovernment of the economy would have to be limited at first to thecommanding heights (banks, large industry, transport, etc.). Second, centralismwas in open contradiction with other positions held by the LeftCommunists. For example, their program of April 1918 strongly stressedlocalism, the election of organs of leadership from the grass roots, collegialismand, while admitting its necessity, expressed strong reservation over theuse of the spetsy. Unlike the considerations linked to the analysis of theRussian situation, and thus by their very nature contingent, these were"principles." But reality, sub specie of civil war, operated on them that processof selection of which we have spoken and which made Marxism aneven fitter ideology for state-building in backward conditions.In Piatakov's case, the first important step of this process of "selection"was the 1919 defeat of the second, partly left-wing, Ukrainian Bolshevikgovernment. We have seen how Piatakov came through this by linking himselfto Trotsky, and we have mentioned the "discoveries" he made at thattime, in the first place the realization of how indispensable it was for anypower, and in particular for a newly born power struggling to affirm itself,to have a stable and efficient bureaucratic system. 39This was what triggeredPiatakov's reflections about bureaucracy (mentioned above in the second39Recognition of the value and importance of the bureaucratic apparatus was, of course, general,as was resorting to it. In going through the former Soviet archives, it has been impossiblenot to be impressed by the speed with which that apparatus and its rules developed, as well asby the gigantic dimensions of the Bolsheviks' efforts to make it work. By early 1919, everymeeting, even of small, local organizations, was recorded in protokoły that were later carefullypreserved. Each organization had its own legal office, which prepared elaborate documents foruse in relationshipswith other bureaucracies. It could be said, therefore, that, especially giventhe conditions and the times, the Bolsheviks' bureaucratic effort, which absorbed an enormousamount of energy, was extraordinarily successful. This may help explain why such a paradoxicalsystem as the one they created could live on for so many decades.