GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

CRITICISM 07 IDEALIST THEORY 749
provides that the units of the armed forces shall elect
councils to express their wishes and to watch over their
interests. These directly elected councils deal with all
matters appertaining to the welfare of the unit which elects
them, concerning themselves with questions of pay and of
hours, with the quality of work performed, with duration
and dates of holidays, with pensions on retirement through
old age or injury. They also elect delegates to other
councils, which are in effect federations of functional
councils, and exercise jurisdiction over a whole town or
region. The federating regional councils elect delegates
to a supreme council, the All-Russia Congress of Soviets,
in which Sovereignty resides. The executive committee
of the All-Russia Congress of Soviets is elected by the
Congress to carry on the actual business of government,
and appoints individuals from among its members, the
Russian Commissars, to take charge of the various adminis-
trative departments.
This brief sketch of the machinery of Soviet democracy
has been inserted here as evidence of the fact that systems
of democracy based not upon geographical constituency
units, but upon functional organizations, are not only
possible, but are actually at work. I am not concerned
here that systems of representation based upon
community of occupation are either superior or inferior
to those which embody the principle of proximity of residence.
It is sufficient for the purpose of the discussion
to point out that they are different. Their difference
derives from the recognition that common interests, based
upon economic solidarity and functional association, constitute
a pattern of organization which is at least as valuable
as, if not more valuable than, the pattern which
results from common interests based upon geographical
proximity. It is a difference which points once again to
the conclusion already reached, that there is no ground for
accepting a division of mankind into Nation-States whose
members are organized upon the basis of territorial pro-
pinquity as being either final or absolute. Moreover, it is