Chapter XII: Jurisdiction of the Local Organs of the Soviets (7)

According to _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, November 1, 1918, a commission of five which had been appointed to discover and distribute metal among the factories in proportion to their needs was found to have been bribed to distribute the metal, not in proportion to the needs of the industries, but according to the value of the bribe.

From the _Weekly Report of the Extraordinary Commission_, No. 1, page 28, we learn that the administration of the combined Moscow nationalized factories was convicted of a whole series of abuses and speculations, resulting in the embezzlement of many millions of rubles. It was said that members of the administrative board and practically all the employees took part in this graft.

From _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, November 3, 1918, we learn that the Soviet of National Economy of Kursk, connected with the Supreme Council of National Economy, was found guilty of speculative dealings in sugar and hemp.

In the same important official journal, January 22, 1919, the well-known Bolshevik, Kerzhentzev, in a terrible exposure from which we have already quoted in an earlier chapter, says: “The abundant testimony, verified by the Soviet Commission, portrays a very striking picture of violence. When these members of the Executive Committee [he names Glakhov, Morev, and Makhov] arrived at the township of Sadomovo they commenced to assault the population and to rob them of foodstuffs and of their household belongings, such as quilts, clothing, harness, etc. No receipts for the requisitioned goods were given and no money paid. “_They even resold to others on the spot some of the breadstuffs which they had requisitioned._” Again, the same journal published, on March 9, 1919, a report by a prominent Bolshevik, Sosnovsky, on conditions in the Tver Province, saying: “The local Communist Soviet workers behave themselves, with rare exceptions, in a disgusting manner. _Misuse of power is going on constantly._”

A cursory examination of the files of the _Bulletin of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets_, for the first few months of 1919, reveals a great deal of such evidence as the foregoing. In No. 12 we read: “The toiling population see in the squandering of money right and left by the commissaries and in their indecent loudness and profanity during their trips through the district, the complete absence of party discipline.” In No. 13 of the same organ there is an account of the case of Commissary Odintzov, a member of the peace delegation to the Ukraine, who was “found speculating in breadstuffs.” In No. 20 we read that “members of the Extraordinary Commission, Unger and Lebedev, were found guilty of embezzlement.” No. 25 says that “a case has been started against the commissaries, O. K. Bogdanov and Zaitzev, accused of misappropriating part of the requisitioned gold and silver articles.”

Let us hear from some of the leading Bolsheviki who participated in the debate on the subject of the relation of the central Soviet authority to local self-government at the eighth Congress of the Communist Party, March, 1919. Nogin, former president of the Moscow Soviet, said: “The time has come to state openly before this meeting how low our party has fallen. We have to confess that the representatives both of the central and the local authorities disgrace the name of the party by their conduct. _Their drunkenness and immorality, the robberies and other crimes committed by them, are so terrible as scarcely to be believed._” Commissar Volin said: “Some of the local authorities give themselves over to outrageous abominations. How can they be put a stop to? The word ‘communist’ rouses deep hatred, not only among the bourgeoisie, but even among the poorer and the middle classes which we are ruining. What can we do for our own salvation?” Pakhomoff said: “I sent several comrades to the villages. _They had barely reached their destination when they turned bandits._” Ossinsky said, “The revolts now taking place are not White Guard risings, as formerly, but rebellions caused by famine _and the outrageous behavior of our own commissaries_.”

Zinoviev was equally emphatic in his declaration: “It cannot be concealed from this meeting that in certain localities the word ‘communist’ has become a term of abuse. The people are beginning to hate the ‘men in leather jackets,’ as the commissaries were nicknamed in Perm. The fact cannot be denied, and we must look the truth in the face. Every one knows that both in the provinces and in the large towns the housing reform has been carried out imperfectly. True, the bourgeoisie has been driven out of its houses, _but the workmen have gained nothing thereby. The houses are taken possession of by Bolshevist state employees_, and sometimes they have been occupied, not even by the ‘Soviet bureaucrat,’ but by his mother-in-law or grandmother.”

Not only has the bribery of officials grown, as revealed by the reports of the Extraordinary Commissions, but many of the Bolshevist officials have engaged in food speculation. That the greatest buyers of the food illegally sold at the Sukharevka market are the highly paid Soviet officials is a charge frequently made in the Bolshevist press. In November, 1919, Tsurupa, People’s Commissary for Supplies, published an article in _Izvestia_ (No. 207), exposing the speculation in foodstuffs at the Sukharevka market, formerly the largest market for second-hand goods in Moscow, now the center of illicit speculation. Tsurupa said:

At the present moment a number of measures are being drawn up
to begin war on “Sukharevka.” The struggle must be carried
on in two directions: first, the strengthening of the organs
of supply and the control over the work of Soviet machinery;
secondly, the destruction of speculators. The measures of
the second kind are, of course, merely palliative, and it
is impossible to overcome “Sukharevka” without insuring the
population a certain supply of the rationed foodstuffs.

Even among our respected comrades there are some who consider
“Sukharevaka” as an almost normal thing, or, at any rate, as
supplementing the gaps in food-supply.

* * * * *

Many defects in our organization are directly conducive to
speculation. Thus many head commissariats, centers, factories,
and works pay their workmen and employees in foodstuffs
exceeding their personal requirements, and, as a rule, these
articles find their way to “Sukharevka” for purposes of
speculation.

The foodstuffs which find their way to “Sukharevka” are sold
at such high prices that _only the upper circles of Soviet
employees can afford to buy them, the masses of consumers being
totally unable to do so_. These foodstuffs are at the disposal
of the--so to speak--_Soviet bourgeoisie_, who can afford to
squander thousands of rubles. “Sukharevka” gives nothing to the
masses.

The Moscow Extraordinary Commission is carrying on an active
campaign against “Sukharevka” speculation. As a result of a
fortnight’s work, 437 persons have been arrested, and a series
of transactions have been discovered. The most important cases
were as follows:

(1) Sale of 19 million rubles’ worth of textiles.

(2) Sale of three wagon-loads of sugar. (At the price of even
200 rubles, and not 400 rubles, a wagon of 36,000 pounds of
sugar works out at 8,000,000 rubles, and the whole deal amounts
to 24,000,000 rubles.)

(3) Seventeen wagon-loads of herrings.

(4) 15,000,000 rubles’ worth of rubber goods, etc.

In the course of the campaign of the Moscow Extraordinary Commission above referred to it was discovered that the state textile stores in Moscow had been looted by the “Communists” in charge of them. Millions of yards of textiles, instead of being placed on sale in the nationalized stores, had been sold to speculators and found their way into the Sukharevka. During the summer of 1919 the Bolshevist official press literally teemed with revelations of graft, spoliation, and robbery by officials. The report of the Smolensk Extraordinary Commission showed that hundreds of complaints had been made and investigated. In general the financial accounts were kept with almost unbelievable carelessness and laxity. Large sums of money were paid out on the order of single individuals without the knowledge of any other officials, and without check of any sort. Out of a total expenditure of three and a half million rubles for food rations to soldiers’ families there were no vouchers or receipts for 1,161,670 rubles, according to the report. Commenting upon the reign of corruption in all parts of Soviet Russia, the _Krasnaya Gazeta_, in an article entitled, “When Is This to End?” said:

In the Commissariat of the Boards for the various
municipalities thefts of goods and money are almost of daily
occurrence. Quite recently representatives of the State Control
found that silk and other goods for over a million rubles
had been stolen within a short space of time from the goods
listed as nationalized. Furthermore, it has come out during
the inspection of the nationalized houses that thefts and
embezzlements of the people’s money have become an ordinary
occurrence. It is remarkable how light-fingered gentry who are
put to manage the confiscated houses succeed in getting away
after pocketing the money belonging to the Soviet, and all that
with impunity, _and yet the money stolen by them is estimated
not at hundreds of rubles, but at tens of thousands of rubles_.
Will there ever be an end to these proceedings? Or is complete
liberty to be given to the thieves in Soviet Russia to do as
they like?

Why does the Extraordinary Commission not see to the affairs of
the Commissariat of the Municipality? It is high time all these
Augean stables were cleaned up. This must stop at last. The
Soviet authorities are sufficiently strong to have some scores
of these thieves of the people’s property hanged. To close
one’s eyes to all this is the same as encouraging the thieves.

Here, then, is a part of the evidence of the brutality and corruption of the vast bureaucracy which Bolshevism has developed to replace the old bureaucracy of the Czars. It is only a small part of the total mass of such evidence.[51] Every word of it comes from Bolshevist officials and journals of standing and authority. It will not do to seek to evade the issue by setting up the plea that corruption and brutality are found in other lands. That plea not only “begs the question,” but it destroys the only foundation upon which an honest attempt to justify Bolshevism can be made, namely, the claim that it represents a higher stage of civilization, of culture, and morality than the old. Only a profound belief in the righteousness of that claim could justify the recourse to such a terrible method of bringing about a change in the social organization of a great nation. There is not the faintest shadow of a reason for believing that Bolshevism has been one whit less corrupt than the czarist bureaucracy.

[51] In _Les Bolsheviks à l’œuvre_, Paris, 1920, A. Lockerman gives a list of many similar cases of looting and graft by commissars.

What of efficiency? Does the available evidence tend to show that this bureaucratic system managed to secure a degree of efficiency in production and distribution commensurate, in part, at least, with its enormous cost? On the contrary, while there was a marked increase in output after nationalization was introduced, due to the restoration of capitalist methods of management, the enormous cost at which the improvement was effected, for which the bureaucracy was responsible, left matters in a deplorable condition. This can be well understood in view of the fact, cited by Professor Issaiev, that in one of the largest metal works in Moscow the overhead charges, cost of administration, accounting, and so on, which in 1916, the last year of the old régime, amounted to 15 per cent. of the total cost, rose to over 65 per cent. in 1918-19. This was not an unusual case, but fairly typical. Once again, however, let us resist the temptation to quote such figures, based upon the calculations and researches of hostile critics, and confine ourselves strictly to Bolshevist testimony.

At the end of December, 1918, Rykov, president of the Supreme Council of National Economy, reported to the Central Executive Committee, according to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, “Now almost all the large and medium-sized establishments are nationalized.” A few days later an article by Miliutin, published in the same paper, said: “A year ago there were about 36 per cent. of nationalized establishments throughout Soviet Russia. At the present time 90 per cent. of industrial establishments are nationalized.” On January 12, 1919, the same journal reported that nationalization had become general throughout Russian industry, embracing the textile and metallurgical industries, glass-making, printing, publishing, practically all commerce, and even barber shops. We are, therefore, in a fair position to judge the effects of nationalization upon the basis of subsequent reports.

It is not as well known as it ought to be that the Bolsheviki, even under nationalization, continued the practice, established under czarism and maintained by the Provisional Government under Kerensky, of subsidizing factories from the central treasury of the government. Bad as this practice was under capitalism, it was immeasurably worse when applied to industry under Soviet control and to nationalized industry. It was not only conducive to laxity and bad management, but it invited these as well as being destructive of enterprise and energy. The sums spent for this purpose were enormous, staggering in their total. A few illustrations must suffice to show this. According to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 50), in the month of January, 1919, the Metal Department of the Supreme Council of National Economy distributed among the various nationalized metallurgical works 1,167,295,000 rubles, and the central organization of the copper industry received 1,193,990,000 rubles. According to a report of the Section of Polygraphic Trades, published in _Pravda_, May 17, 1919, nineteen nationalized printing-establishments lost 13,500,000 rubles during 1918, the deficit having to be made up by subsidies from the central treasury. At the Conference of Tobacco Workers, held on April 25, 1919, it was reported, according to _Severnaya Communa_, that the Petrograd factories alone were being operated at a loss approaching two million rubles a month. It was further stated that “the condition of the tobacco industry is bad. The number of plants has been decreased by more than half, and the output is only one-third.” In the report of Nemensky on the audit of the Centro-Textile, from which we have already quoted, we read:

The Finance Credit Division of the Centrotekstil received up to
February 1, 1919, 3,400,000,000 rubles. There was no control
of the expenditure of moneys. _Money was advanced to factories
immediately upon demand, and there were cases when money was
forwarded to factories which did not exist._ From July 1 to
December 31, 1918, the Centrotekstil advanced on account of
products to be received 1,348,619,000 rubles. The value of the
goods securing these advances received up to January 1, 1919,
was only 143,716,000 rubles. The Centrotekstil’s negligent
way of doing business may be particularly observed from the
way it purchased supplies of raw wool. Up to January 1, 1919,
only 129,803 poods of wool was acquired, whereas the annual
requirement is figured at 3,500,000 poods.

The value of the goods actually received was, according to this authority, only 10 per cent. of the money advanced. We are told that “money was forwarded to factories which did not exist.” That this practice was not confined to the Centro-Textile we infer from the account given in the _Izvestia_ of State Control (No. 2) of a firm which obtained a large sum of money in advance for Westinghouse brakes to be manufactured and supplied by it, though investigation proved that the firm did not even own a foundry and was unable to furnish any brakes at all. How much of this represents inefficiency, and how much of it graft, the reader must judge for himself. The Bolshevist newspaper, _Trud_, organ of the trades-unions, in an article dealing with the closing down of nineteen textile factories, said, April 28, 1919:

In our textile crisis a prominent part is played also by the
bad utilization of that which we do have. Thus the efficiency
of labor has dropped to almost nothing, of labor discipline
there is not even a trace left, the machinery, on account of
careless handling, has deteriorated and its productive capacity
has been lowered.

In _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, March 21, 1919, Bucharin said: “Our position is such that, together with the deterioration of the material production--machinery, railways, and other things--_there is a destruction of the fundamental productive force, the labor class, as such_. Here in Russia, as in western Europe,[52] the working-class is dissolving, factories are closing, and the working-class is reabsorbed into the villages.”

[52] _Sic!_

From the report of the Supreme Council of National Economy, March, 1919, we learn that in the vast majority of the branches of Russia’s industry the labor required for production had increased from 400 to 500 per cent. The Congress of Salesmen’s Unions, held at the end of April, 1919, adopted a resolution, published in _Izvestia_ (No. 97), which said, “The nationalization of commerce, owing to the pell-mell speed of the methods employed in carrying it out, has assumed with us extremely ugly forms, and has only aggravated the bad state of affairs in the circulation of goods in the country, which was poor enough as it was.”

These statements show that in the early part of last year the Bolshevist régime was in a very critical condition. Demands for the “liquidation” of the system were heard on every hand. Instead of this, the resourceful rulers of Soviet Russia once more revolutionized their methods. The period of nationalization we have been considering may be described as the first phase, the period of the rule of industry by the professional politicians of the Communist Party. When, in March, 1919, Leonid B. Krassin[53] undertook the reorganization of the industrial life of the nation, Bolshevism entered upon a new phase.

[53] Krassin’s first name is usually given as “Gregory,” but this is an error. His full name is Leonid Borisovitch Krassin. He is a Siberian of bourgeois extraction.

X

THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY--II

The second phase of nationalization may be characterized as the adoption by a political state of the purest capitalist methods. Krassin was not a Bolshevik or a Socialist of any kind, so far as can be learned. He severed his rather nominal connection with the Socialist movement in 1906, it is said, and, thoroughly disillusioned, devoted himself to his profession and to the management of the Petrograd establishment of the great German firm of Siemens-Schuckart. He is said to have maintained very cordial relations with Lenin and was asked by the latter to accept three portfolios, namely, Commerce and Industry, Transports, and War and Munitions. He agreed to take the appointment, provided the Soviet Government would accept his conditions. He demanded (1) the right to appoint specialists of his own choosing to manage all the departments under his control, regardless of their political or social views; (2) that all remaining workers’ committees of control be abolished and that he be given the power to replace them by responsible directors, with full powers; (3) that piece-work payments and premiums take the place of day-work payment, with the right to insist upon overtime regardless of any existing rules or laws.

Of course, acceptance of these conditions was virtually an abandonment of every distinctive principle and ideal the Bolsheviki had ever advanced. Krassin immediately set to work to bring some semblance of order out of the chaos. The “iron discipline” that was introduced and the brutal suppression of strikes already described were due to his powerful energy. A martinet, with no sort of use for the Utopian visions of his associates, Krassin is a typical industrial despot. The attitude of the workers toward him was tersely stated by the _Proletarskoe Echo_ in these words: “How Comrade Krassin has organized the traffic we have all seen and now know. We do not know whether Comrade Krassin has improved the traffic, but one thing is certain, that his autocratic ways as a Commissary greatly remind us of the autocratic policy of a Czar.”[54]

[54] Quoted by H. W. Lee, _The Dictatorship of the Proletariat_, p. 7.

Yet Krassin failed to do more or better than prolong the hopeless struggle against utter ruin and disastrous failure. He was, after all, an engineer, not a miracle-worker. Trades-unions were deprived of power and made mere agencies for transmitting autocratic orders; tens of thousands of useless politicians were ousted from the factories and the railways; the workers’ control was so thoroughly broken that there were not left in Soviet Russia a dozen workers’ committees possessing the power of the printers’ “chapel” in the average large American newspaper plant, or anything like the power possessed by hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of shop committees in our industrial centers.[55] But Krassin and his stern capitalist methods had come too late. The demoralization had gone too far.

[55] In view of the denials of the dissolution of workers’ control, circulated by _Soviet Russia_ and the whole body of pro-Bolshevist propagandists, it may be well to clinch the statements made on this point by quoting from an indisputable authority. In the issue of _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, November 13, 1919, appears the following paragraph:

“Schliapnikoff, Commissar of Labor in the Soviet Republic, writes: ‘The principal cause of the deplorable situation of the Russian industry is a total absence of order and discipline in the factories. The Working Men’s Councils and the Shop Committees, created with the purpose of establishing order in the factories, exercised an injurious influence on the general course of affairs by destroying the last traces of discipline and by squandering away the property of the factories. _All those circumstances put together have compelled us to abolish the Working Men’s Councils and to place at the head of the most important concerns special “dictators,” with unlimited powers and entitled to dispose of the life and death of the workmen._’”

Only a brief summary of the most important statistical data illustrating the results attained during the remainder of the year 1919, that is to say, the second phase of nationalization, can be given here. To attempt anything like a detailed presentation of the immense mass of available official statistical data covering this period would of itself require a large volume. If we take the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ for the months of October and November, 1919, we shall be able to get a fairly good measure of the results attained during the half-year following the reorganization of the system by Krassin. It must always be borne in mind that the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ is the official organ of the Supreme Economic Council and of the Ministries of Finance, Commerce and Trade, and Food. To avoid having to use the name of the journal in almost every other line, the statements of fact made upon its authority are followed by numbers inclosed in brackets; these numbers indicate the issues from which the statements are taken.[56]

[56] For the mass of translations covering this period the author is indebted to Mr. Alexander Kerensky.

Turning our attention first to the important subject of transportation, to which Krassin naturally devoted special attention, we find that on the entire railway system of Soviet Russia the number of freight-cars and trucks in daily service during August and September averaged between 7,000 and 7,500. Of this number from 45 to 50 per cent.--that is, from 3,500 to 3,750 cars--were used for carrying fuel for the railway service itself; transportation of military supplies took 25 per cent., from 1,750 to 1,850 cars; 10 per cent., from 700 to 750 cars, were used for “evacuation purposes,” and only 15 to 20 per cent., 1,050 to 1,150 cars, for general transportation (_215_). It is worthy of note that of this absurdly inadequate service for the transportation of general supplies for the civilian population, 95 per cent. was used for the transportation of wood fuel for the cities and towns (_229_). Not less than 50 per cent. of all the locomotives in the country were out of order at the beginning of November, 1919, and it was stated that to increase the percentage of usable engines to the normal level would require, under the most favorable circumstances, a period of at least five years (_228_). Despite this deplorable condition there was still a great deal of bureaucratic red tape and waste. At the meeting of the directors of the Supreme Council of National Economy, in September, Markov, a member, argued in favor of eliminating the red tape and waste. He pointed out that wood was being transported to Moscow _from_ the West and at the same time _to_ the West from the North. The Main Fuel Committee had rejected a proposal to exchange the supplies of wood and thus save transportation (_214_). River transportation was in just as bad a condition, to judge from the fact that the freight tonnage on the river Volga was only 11 per cent. of the pre-war volume (_228_).

To prove the humanitarian character of the Bolshevist régime its apologists in this country and in England have cited the fact that the Soviet authorities offered a prize for the invention of a hand-cart which would permit a maximum load to be pushed or drawn with a minimum expenditure of human strength. Quite another light is thrown upon this action by the data concerning the breakdown of mechanical transportation and the rapid disappearance of horses from Moscow and Petrograd. The number of horses in September, 1919, was only 8 per cent. of the number in November, 1917--that is to say, under Bolshevism the number of horses had declined 92 per cent. (_207_). Of course the decline was not so enormous throughout the whole of Soviet Russia, but it was, nevertheless, so serious as to prohibit any hope of making up the loss of mechanical power by the use of horses. Accordingly, we find arrangements for the organization of a rope haulage system for the transportation of coal and food. In the Bazulk and Aktiubin districts provision was made for the use of 6,000 carts to transport wood fuel, and 10,000 carts for corn (_228_). Similar arrangements were under way in other districts. From locomotives and steamers to transport food and fuel there was a return to the most primitive of methods, such as were used to transport the Great Pyramid in Egypt, as shown by the hieroglyphs. For this purpose the peasants were mobilized (_228_). The bodies of masses of men were substituted for horses and mechanical traction. _Thus was reintroduced into Russian life in the twentieth century the form of labor most hated in the old days of serfdom._

The fuel situation was exceedingly bad. Not more than 55 per cent. of the fuel oil required could be obtained, the deficiency amounting to over four million poods of oil (_221_). Only 33 per cent. of the fuel wood required was obtained (_221_). The production of coal in the Moscow region was 45 per cent. lower than in 1917 (_224_). To overcome the shortage of fuel in Petrograd a large number of houses and boats were ordered to be wrecked for the sake of the wood (_227_). To save the country from perishing for lack of fuel, it was proposed that the modest fir cones which dropped from the trees be collected and saved. It was proposed to mobilize school-children, disabled soldiers, and old and sick persons to collect these fir cones (_202_).

In the nationalized cotton-factories there were 6,900,962 spindles and 169,226 looms, but only 300,000 spindles and 18,182 looms were actually working on September 1st (_207_). On January 1, 1919, there were 48,490 textile-workers in the Moscow District; six months later there were 33,200, a reduction of 15,290--that is, 35 per cent. (_220_). In the same period the number of workers engaged in preparing raw cotton was reduced by 47.2 per cent. (_220_). In the metal works of Petrograd there were nominally employed a total of 12,141 workers, of which number only 7,585--that is, 62.4 per cent.--were actually working. Of 7,500 workmen registered at the Putilov Works only 2,800, or 37.3 per cent., were actually working on August 15th. At the Nevsky Shipbuilding and Engineering Works not less than 56 per cent. of the employees were classed as absentees for the first half of July, 70 per cent. for the second half, and 84 per cent. for the first half of August. That is to say, of those nominally employed at this important works the actual daily attendance was 44 per cent. during the first half of July, 30 per cent. for the second half, and only 16 per cent. for the first half of August (_209_). Since then the Nevsky Shipbuilding and Engineering Works have been entirely closed. It must be remembered that even during the Kerensky régime the metallurgical establishments in Petrograd District, which included some of the finest plants in the world, gave employment to more than 100,000 workmen as against 12,141 registered employees in September, 1919.

In the nationalized leather-factories of the Moscow District the output of large hides was 43 per cent. less than the output of 1918, which was itself far below the normal average (_227_). In the factories which were not nationalized the output of large hides was 60 per cent. less than in 1918. The apparent superiority of the nationalized factories indicated by these figures is explained by the fact that the Centrokaja, the central administration of the leather industry, gave preference to the nationalized factories in the supply of tanning acids, fuel, and other necessities of production (_227_). Just as in the metallurgical industry smaller undertakings had a better chance of surviving than larger ones (_211_), so in the leather industry[57] (_227_). In both cases the establishments not nationalized are far more successful than the nationalized. The output of small hides in nationalized undertakings fell by 60 per cent., and in the establishments not nationalized by 18 per cent. (_227_).

[57] Yet we find the Bolshevik, Bazhenov, writing in the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 50), in March, 1919, the following nonsense: “The only salvation for Russia’s industry lies in the nationalization of large enterprises and the closing of small and medium-sized ones.” Bazhenov is evidently a doctrinaire Marxist of the school to whom one ounce of theory is of more worth than a ton of facts.

The four nationalized match-factories in the northern region employed 2,000 persons. The output in October, 1919, was 50 per cent. of the normal output, the explanation being given that the falling off was due to the fact that large numbers of workmen had to be sent off into the villages to search for bread, while others had to be assigned to work in the fields and to loading wood for fuel (_225_). The manufacture of electric lamps was practically at a standstill. The Petrograd factories were closed down because of a shortage of skilled workmen and technical directors; the Moscow factories, because of the complete absence of gas (_210_). The sugar industry was almost completely liquidated (_207_).

In the report of the People’s Commissariat for Finance we get a graphic and impressive picture of the manner in which this ill-working nationalization was, and is, bolstered up. For financing the nationalized industries appropriations were made as follows:

First six months of 1918 762,895,100 rubles
Second six months of 1918 5,141,073,179 “
First six months of 1919 15,439,115,828 “

The report calls attention to the fact that whereas it had been estimated that there would be paid into the treasury during the first six months of 1919 for goods issued for consumption 1,503,516,945 rubles, the sum actually received was 54,564,677 rubles--that is, only 3.5 per cent.

Some idea of the conditions prevailing can be gathered from the desperate attempts to produce substitutes for much-needed articles. The _ersatz_ experiments and achievements of the Germans during the war may have had something to do with this. At all events, we find attempts made in the cotton-factories to use “cottonized” flax as a substitute for cotton (_207_). These attempts did not afford any satisfactory or encouraging results. In consequence of the almost complete stoppage of the sugar industry we find the Soviet authorities resorting to attempts to produce sugar from sawdust (_207_). Even more pathetic is the manner in which attempts were made to supply salt. This necessary commodity had, for all practical purposes, completely disappeared from the market, though on October 3d, in Petrograd, it was quoted at 140 to 150 rubles per pound (_221_). As a result of this condition, in several districts old herring-barrels, saturated with salt, were cut up into small pieces and used in cooking instead of salt (_205_). A considerable market for these pieces of salted wood was found.

We may profitably close this summary of the economic situation in Soviet Russia in October and November, 1919, by quoting from the report of the Chief Administration of Engineering Works:

If we had reason to fear last year for the working of our
transport, the complaints of its inefficiency being well
grounded, matters have become considerably worse during the
period under report. Water transport is by no means in a better
position, whilst of haulage transport there is no need to
speak.... The consuming needs of the workmen have not been even
remotely satisfied, either in the last year or in the current
year, by the Commissariat of Food Supply, _the main source of
food-supply of the workmen being speculation and free market_.
But even the latter source of food-supply of the workmen in
manufacturing districts is becoming more and more inaccessible.
Besides the fact that prices have soared up to a much greater
extent than the controlled rates of wages, we see the almost
complete disappearance of food articles from working-center
markets. _Of recent times, even pilgrimage to villages is of
no avail. The villages will not part with food for money even
at high prices._ What they demand is articles of which the
workers are no less in need. Hence the workers’ escape from the
factories (_220_).

Unfortunately, a good many of the concerns enumerated [in the
Tula District] do not work or work only with half the output,
in spite of the fact that 20 of the shafts working yield
considerable quantities of coal, 10 mines supply much raw
material (15 milliard poods of minerals are estimated to be
lying in this district), whilst there is also a large number of
broken lathes and machinery which can, however, be repaired.
Bread for the workers could also be found, if all efforts were
strained (the district used to export corn in peace-time). All
these possibilities are not carried into life, as there are
no people who could by their intense will and sincere desire
restore the iron discipline of labor. Our institutions are
filled with “Sovburs” and “Speks,” who only think of their own
welfare and not of the welfare of the state and of making use
of the revolutionary possibilities of the “toilers in revolt.”

In the light of this terrible evidence we can readily believe what Zinoviev wrote in an article contributed to the _Severnaya Communa_ in January of this year. In that article he said: “King Famine seems to be putting out his tongue at the proletariat of Petrograd and their families.... Of late I have been receiving, one after another, starving delegations from working men and women. They do not protest, nor do they make any demands; they merely point out, with silent reproach, the present intolerable state of affairs.”

We are not dependent upon general statements such as Zinoviev’s for our information concerning the state of affairs in Soviet Russia in January, 1920. We have an abundance of precise and authoritative data. In the first place, Gregor Alexinsky has published, in admirable translation, the text of the most important parts of the reports made to the Joint Congress of the Councils of National Economy, Trades-Unions and the Central Soviet Power. This congress opened in Moscow on January 25, 1920, and lasted for several days. Important reports were made to it by A. Rykov, president of the Supreme Council of National Economy; M. Tomsky, chairman of the Central Council of Trades-Unions; Kamenev, president of the Moscow Soviet; Lenin, Trotsky, and others. Alexinsky was fortunate enough to secure copies of the stenographic reports of the speeches made at this joint congress. In addition to this material the present writer has had placed at his disposal several issues of _Izvestia_ containing elaborate reports of the congress. At the outset Rykov dealt with the effects of the World War and the Civil War upon the economic situation:

During the past few years of Imperialistic (World) and Civil
Wars the exhaustion of the countries of Europe, and in
particular of Russia, has reached unheard-of proportions.
This exhaustion has affected the whole territory of the
Imperialistic war, but _the Civil war has been, as regards
dissipation of the national wealth and waste of material and
human resources, much more detrimental than the Imperialistic
war_, for it spread across the greater part of the territory of
Soviet Russia, involving not only the clashing of armies, but
also devastation, fires, and destruction of objects of greatest
value and of structures.

* * * * *

The Civil War, having caused an unparalleled waste of the
human and material resources of the Republic, has engendered
an economic and productive crisis. In its main features this
crisis is one of transportation, fuel, and human labor power.

Truly these are interesting admissions--here is “a very Daniel come to judgment.” The civil war, we are told, has been “much more detrimental than the Imperialistic war,” it has “caused an unparalleled waste of the human and material resources of the republic.” Is it not pertinent to remind ourselves that for bringing on the civil war the Bolsheviki were solely responsible? There was no civil war in Russia until they began it. The whole of the democratic forces of Russia were unitedly working for the reconstruction of the nation upon a sound basis of free democracy. They began the civil war in the face of the most solemn warnings and despite the fact that every thoughtful person could foresee its inevitable disastrous results. By Rykov’s confession the Bolsheviki are condemned for having brought upon Russia evils greater than those which the World War brought in its train. Of the transportation problem Rykov has this to say:

Before the war, the percentage of disabled locomotives, even
in the worst of times, never rose above 15 per cent. At the
present time, however, we have 59.5 per cent. of disabled
locomotives--_i.e._, out of every 100 locomotives in Soviet
Russia 60 are disabled, and only 40 capable of working. The
repair of disabled locomotives also keeps on declining with
extraordinary rapidity; before the war we used to repair up to
8 per cent.; this percentage, after the October revolution,
sometimes dropped to 1 per cent.; now we have gone up, but
only 1 per cent., and we are now repairing 2 per cent. of our
locomotives. Under present conditions of railway transportation
the repairs do not keep abreast of the deterioration of our
locomotives, and _every month we have, in absolute figures, 200
locomotives less than the preceding month_. It is indispensable
that we raise the repair of locomotives from 2 per cent. up
to 10 per cent., in order to stop the decline and further
disintegration of railway transportation, in order to maintain
it at least on the level on which it stands at the present
time. As for the broad masses of the population, the workers
and peasants of Soviet Russia, _these figures simply mean
that there is no possibility of utilizing any one of those
grain-producing regions, nor those which have raw material and
fuel, that have been added to Soviet Russia as a result of the
victory of the Red Army_.

According to Trotsky, Rykov’s figures, depressing enough in all conscience, did not disclose the full gravity of the situation. The real number of disabled locomotives was greater than the figures given, he said, for the reason that “we frequently call ‘sound’ half-disabled locomotives which threaten to drop out completely on the morrow.” Rykov’s statements do more than merely confirm those previously quoted from the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_: they show that from October to January there had been a steady increase of deterioration; that conditions had gone from bad to worse. The report proceeds to illustrate the seriousness of the situation by concrete examples of the actual conditions confronting the government:

We have a metallurgical region in the Ural mountains; but we
have had at our disposal until now but _one single special
train a month to carry metals from the Urals to central
Russia_. In order to transport 10 million poods[58] of metal by
one single train per month several decades would be required,
should we be able to utilize those scanty supplies of metal
which are ready in the Urals.

[58] One pood equals thirty-six pounds.

In order to deliver cotton from Turkestan to the textile
factories in Moscow, we have to carry more than one-half
million poods per month--up to 600,000 poods. But at this time
we have only about two trains a month; that is, scores of years
will be required for transporting under present conditions
from Turkestan those 8 million poods of cotton which we could
convert, but are unable to deliver to the factories.

The disorganized and demoralized state of the transportation system was only partly responsible for the shortage of raw materials, however. It was only one of several causes: “On account of the disorganized state of transportation we are unable to obtain cotton now, as the railroads are unable to carry it here. But even as regards those raw materials which are produced in the central parts of Soviet Russia, such as flax, wool, hemp, hides, even in these raw stuffs Soviet Russia is experiencing a severe crisis.” Attention is called to the enormous decline in the production of flax, the acreage devoted to this crop being only 30 per cent. of that formerly devoted to it and the yield very much poorer. Rykov offers as an explanation of this condition the fact that, as the Soviet Government had not been able to deliver to the peasants in the flax-producing districts “any considerable quantity of foodstuffs,” the peasants grew foodstuffs instead of flax. He adds, “Another reason why the peasants began to cultivate grains instead of flax was that the speculative prices of bread are higher than the fixed prices of flax at which the state is purchasing it.” He pours the cold water of realism upon the silly talk of huge exports of flax from Russia as soon as trade with foreign nations is opened up, and says, “_But we shall not be able to export large quantities of flax abroad, and the catastrophic decline in flax production as compared with 1919 raises the question whether the flax industry shall not experience in 1920 a flax shortage similar to the one experienced by the textile industry in cotton._”

Rykov calls attention to the decline in the production of hides for leather and of wool. During the first six months of 1919 the hides collected amounted to about one million pieces, but the total for the whole of 1920 was not expected to exceed 650,000 pieces. “The number of hides delivered to the government decreases with every succeeding month.” There was also to be observed “a decline in the quantity of live stock, especially those kinds which furnish wool for our woolen mills.” But perhaps the most impressive part of his report is that dealing with the fuel shortage. Though adjacent to large coal-fields, as well as to vast forests, Moscow in the winter of 1919-20 lacked fuel “even for heating the infirmaries and hospitals.” For the winter of 1919-20 the Council of People’s Commissaries had fixed the necessary quantity of wood for fuel to be produced at 12,000,000 to 14,000,000 cubic sagenes (one cubic sagene being equal to two cubic meters). But the Administrations which were charged with the work forwarded to the railroads and to the rivers less than 2,500,000 sagenes. It must be added that of these same 2,500,000 sagenes the Soviet Administrations were not able to transport to the cities and industrial centers more than a very small quantity, and “even the minimum program of supply of fuel for the factories of Moscow could not be carried out because of the lack of means of transport.”

Bad as this is, the coal-supply is in a worse condition yet. “Things are going badly for the production of coal and petroleum” we are told. Upon their reoccupation of the Donetz Basin the Bolsheviki found coal on the surface, ready to be shipped, which was estimated at 100,000,000 poods. “But until the reconstruction of bridges and re-establishment of railroad communications in the Donetz territory these coal-supplies cannot be utilized.” Of course the havoc wrought by war in the Donetz Basin must be taken into account and full allowance made for it. But what is the explanation of conditions in the coal-fields of the Moscow region, which from the very first has been under Bolshevist rule, and never included in the territory of war, civil or otherwise? Says Rykov:

The fields of Moscow not only have not given what they ought
to have given for the fuel-supply of Soviet Russia, but the
production of coal remained in 1919 at the same level as in
1918 and it did not reach the figure of 30,000,000 poods;
whereas, under the Czar at the time of the Imperialist War, the
Czar’s officials, with the aid of prisoners of war, knew how to
increase the production of coal in the Moscow fields to the
extent of 40,000,000 poods and even more.

This brings us face to face with the most vitally important fact of all, namely, the relatively low productivity of labor under nationalization of industry as practised in the sorry Utopia of the Bolsheviki. This is evident in every branch of industry. “When we speak, in the factories and mills, of the increase of the productivity of labor, the workmen always answer us,” says Rykov, “with the same demand and always present us with the same complaint, _Give us bread and then we will work_.” But the demand for bread could not be met, despite the fact that there was a considerable store of wheat and other flour grains. Whereas at the beginning of 1919 there was a wheat reserve of 60,000,000 poods, on January 1, 1920, the reserve was 90,000,000 poods. Rykov admits that this is really not a great deal, and explains that in 1919 the government had only been able to collect about half the wheat demanded from the peasants, despite the vigorous policy pursued. He says that “in the grain elevators there are reserves which assure the supply for workmen and peasants for three months.” This calculation is based upon the near-famine rationing, for Rykov is careful to add the words, “according to the official food rations.”

* * * * *

So, the whole reserve, if fairly distributed, would last until April. But again the problem of transportation comes in: “If the workers and peasants have until now received no bread, and if up to this time a food shortage exists in the greater part of the starving consuming localities, the cause does not lie in inadequate preparations, but in the fact that we are unable to ship and distribute the grain already carted and stored in the granaries.” As a result of these conditions the workers in the factories at mass-meetings “demand the breach of the economic front of Bolshevism,” that is to say, the re-establishment of free and unrestricted commerce. In other words, their demand is for the abolition of the nationalization policy. It is from the _proletariat_ that this cry comes, be it observed; and it is addressed to rulers who claim to represent the “dictatorship of the proletariat”! Could there be more conclusive evidence that Bolshevism in practice is the dictatorship of a few men _over_ the proletariat?

What remedial measures does this important official, upon whom the organization of the work of economic reconstruction chiefly depends, propose to his colleagues? All that we get by way of specific and definite plans is summed up in the following paragraph:

The Council of People’s Commissaries has already decided to
call upon individual workmen as well as groups of them to
repair the rolling-stock, granting them the right to use the
equipment which they shall have repaired with their own forces
for the transportation of food to those factories and mills
which repair the locomotives and cars. Recently this decision
has been also extended to the fuel-supply. Each factory and
each mill now has the opportunity to carry its own fuel,
provided they repair with their own forces the disabled
locomotives and cars they obtain from the commissariat of ways
and communications.

Was ever such madness as this let loose upon a suffering people? Let those who have dilated upon the “statesmanship” and the “organizing genius” of these men contemplate the picture presented by the decision of the Council of People’s Commissaries. Each factory to repair with its own forces the disabled locomotives and cars it needs to transport fuel and raw materials. Textile-workers, for instance, must repair locomotives and freight-cars or go without bread. Individual workmen and groups of workmen and individual factories are thus to be turned loose upon what remains of an organized transportation system. Not only must this result in the completion of the destruction of railway transportation, but it must inevitably cripple the factories. Take workers from unrelated industries, unused to the job, and set them to repairing locomotives and freight-cars; every man who has ever had anything to do with the actual organization and direction of working forces knows that such men, especially when the special equipment and tools are lacking, cannot perform, man for man, one-tenth as much as men used to the work and equipped with the proper tools and equipment. And then to tell these factory workers that they have “the right to use the equipment which they shall have repaired” means, if it means anything at all, that from the factories are to be diverted further forces to operate railway trains and collect food, fuel, and raw materials. What that means we have already noted in the case of the decline of production in the match-factories, “owing to the wholesale dispersing of workmen in the search for bread, to field work and unloading of wood.”[59] Of all the lunacy that has come out of Bolshevist Russia, even, this is perhaps the worst.

[59] _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, No. 225.

Rykov tells us that at the end of 1919 4,000 industrial establishments had been nationalized. “That means,” he says, “that nearly the whole industry has been transferred to the state, to the Soviet organizations, and that the industry of private owners, of manufacturers, has been done away with, for the old statistics estimated the total number of industrial establishments, including peasants’ homework places, to be around 10,000. The peasants’ industry is not subject to nationalization, and 4,000 nationalized industrial establishments include not only the largest, but also the greater part of the middle-sized, industrial enterprises of Soviet Russia.”

What is the state of these nationalized factories, and are the results obtained satisfactory? Again Rykov’s report gives the answer in very clear terms: “Of these 4,000 establishments only 2,000 are working at present. All the rest are closed and idle. The number of workers, by a rough estimate, is about 1,000,000. Thus you can see that both in point of number of the working-men employed as well as in point of numbers of still working establishments, the manufacturing industry is also in the throes of a crisis.” The explanation offered by Trotsky, that the industrial failure was due to the destruction of technical equipment, Rykov sweeps aside. “_The Soviet state, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Power, could not utilize even those lathes, machines, and factory equipment which were still at its disposal._ And a considerable part of manufacturing enterprises was shut down, while part is still working only in a few departments and workshops.” On every hand it is evident that shortage of raw materials and of skilled labor are the really important causes, not lack of machinery. Of 1,191 metallurgical plants 614 had been nationalized. The government had undertaken to provide these with about 30 per cent. of the metals required, but had been able to supply only 15 per cent., “less than one-quarter of the need that must be satisfied in order to sustain a minimum of our industrial life.”

Take the textile industry as another example: Russia was the third country in Europe in textile manufacture, England and Germany alone leading her, the latter by no large margin. No lack of machinery accounts for the failure here, for of the available looms only 11 per cent. were used in 1919, and of the spindles only 7 per cent. The decline of production in 1919 was enormous, so that at the end of that year it was only 10 per cent. of the normal production. We are told that: “During the period of January-March, 1919, 100,000 to 200,000 poods of textile fabrics were produced per month; during the period of September-November only 25,000 to 68,000 poods were produced per month. Therefore we have to face an almost complete stoppage of all textile production in central Russia, which dominated all the other textile regions in Russia.”