In the preceding chapter, we saw how naive is the concept of a transition of ‘the old apparatus’ as a whole, directly on to new tracks. An analysis of that part of the transition period which can be defined as the collapse of the capitalist system, brought us to the proposition that the hierarchical, technical and productive system, which is at once an expression of socio-class relations and the relations of production, inevitably disintegrates into its constituent elements. However brief (historically speaking) this intermediate moment of industrial anarchy may prove to be, nevertheless it is a necessary moment in the general chain of events. However, it must be noted here that not all the socio-technical links disintegrate, but only those of a hierarchical type. During the decay of the capitalist system and its revolutionary collapse, the links are severed between the working class on the one hand and the technical intelligentsia, the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie on the other. But the relations of production which express the bonds between worker and worker, engineer and engineer, bourgeois and bourgeois are not severed. Therefore, the general demarcation of the social strata and the break-up of the human, organizational and technical apparatus take place primarily along these lines. Hence, by and large, the nexus within the proletariat is not severed and it

The Economics of the Transition Period

is this bond which is the basic feature, socialized in the heart of [and by] capitalism.1