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culture has been repeatedly modified by new organs ofadministration and methods of direction. Thus, a verymarked feature in the late thirties was the subdivisionof the over-weighted commissariats and the introductionof a greater degree of decentralization. Even so, theprevalence of the bureaucratic spirit has been the objectof ceaseless attack, in particular the disproportionatelylarge administrative staffs in comparison with thenumbers directly engaged in production.Parallel with the work of preparation, co-ordinationand administration, there has been continuous developmentin the machinery of control, in enforcing theinstructions of the central authorities and in accountingfor and economizing money and materials. In the earlydays the task of securing effective control over what hadbeen socialized was devolved upon the Commissariat ofWorkers' and Peasants' Inspection. To this body weregiven the combined duties of keeping the government intouch with the rank and file of the workers, of combatingopposition and sabotage, and of controlling the executionof the government's economic and labour instructions.Lenin attached extreme importance to the Commissariat,and in 1922 Stalin took charge of it for a time. Inconjunction with the Central Control Commission of theParty, it was one of the chief means of his ultimateascendancy. With the changed political conditions afterthe first five-year plan and the crisis of collectivization,a big reorganization was made and the Commission(since 1940 the Commissariat) of Soviet Control was setup. This was less closely identified with the partymachinery and more purely concerned with financialand economic accountancy, for which purposes it waslater given wide executive, as well as inspection, powers.This outline of the growth of planning machinery mayserve to bring out that Soviet planning is not a rigidmechanism or schedule, but a constantly adjusted effortto co-ordinate perspectives or estimates and operationalprogrammes, with constantly altered organs and methods.It has been to a large extent a gigantic experimentationin trial and error, though it is of course maintained thatthere is far less avoidable trial and error after productive381