Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution/Chapter 2

by Émile Auguste Vandervelde

 

CHAPTER II
THE REVOLUTION IN THE FACTORIES

THE general impression received from a round of visits to the factories of Petrograd—the only ones that we had the opportunity of seeing—cannot but be somewhat vague and uncertain.

Innumerable conflicting forces are at work; probably their efforts will blend some day, but at present they are contra- dicting and counteracting each other. The action of some will only be momentary, while that of others will probably be durable. But how can we distinguish which are lasting and which transitory? What appears to be lasting to-day, to-morrow may be neutralized or completely annihilated by some other influence. Or else it may adapt itself to new laws and become fecund when we had thought it destructive. Some other force, the influence of which may be scarcely apparent at the time, may develop powerfully in the near future, and favourable or fatal consequences be the result. How can we attempt to deliver judgment in this formidable chaos from which a world will emerge? What do we know? What can we affirm?

We must wait and think, and compare events as they develop with our first impressions. . . .

But since necessity compels us to deal with this matter in these early days, we have but one resource, and that is to speak conditionally, always with a reservation, warning our readers that our statements are necessarily precarious and our conclusions uncertain.

1. The Industrial Youth Of Russia.

Russia will always be an essentially agricultural country. Nearly 85 per cent, of its inhabitants live by the cultivation of the soil or of the forests. But we must not conclude from that that the country is in its commercial infancy. Nor must we picture the typical Russian workman as a kind of village blacksmith or a shoemaker in a little town. He is, on the contrary, a workman in great, even ultramodern, factories. The giant factory predominates, and its plant is often up to date. Factories employing more than one thousand workmen represent a larger proportion in Russia than even in the United States. This is easily explained by the youth and the rapid economical growth of the ancient Empire of the Czars. The needs of national manufacture date only from yesterday, but they are developing with surprising force and rapidity. The factories, being of recent date, are planned on the latest technical designs, and as they are justified in anticipating an immense and rapid development of their business, these plans are conceived on a very large scale. That is the case in all parts of the country where industries already exist, in the Donetz as in the petroleum district of the Caucasus, and even near Moscow, where the textile industry is relatively old. But it is in Petrograd especially that the phenomenon is the most striking. We might find in other parts of the world, perhaps, more gigantic factories than the Poutiloff works, but nowhere, at least in the outskirts of any large capital, are there so imposing a number of enormous establishments, nor does there exist anywhere such a mass of workmen working in the interests of a mere handful of employers.

Were this statement but of technical interest, we should not insist on it, but we cannot blind ourselves to the gravity of its social influence. In the large Russian cities the classic conditions which accentuate the conflict of the classes and tend to aggravate it are present in their most acute form: vast agglomerations where revolutionary ideas foment; overcrowding of the population in the great works where physical contact, and still more, the community of work and suffering, make them conscious of their grievances and of their own strength; the contrast between the large numbers of those who obey and the small number of those who command.

Nor is that all. The population of the Petrograd factories is not a population of habitual town-dwellers, adapted to this city life that they are leading. They are peasants who have only recently left the country. This situation has been still further aggravated by the war, contrary to what has taken place elsewhere; indeed, most of the skilled workmen of long standing have been taken away from their usual work and requisitioned for artillery regiments or other special army work, of which they form the élite, as remarkable for their technical ability as for their splendid moral. But their place has been filled in the works by fresh contingents of peasants, who are now in an overwhelming majority. They arrive from all parts of the country, and especially from the villages near the big towns. They are of all races and of all civilizations. Next to a Finn we find a Tartar. They have been taken out of their proper environment, and there we see them uprooted, with no common traditions, without that restraint that custom brings. They have no sense of political liberty, since absolutism has prevented their acquiring it. They have but a rudimentary knowledge of political organization, their Trades Unions having before the war enjoyed a very precarious liberty, powerless to establish themselves on a solid basis.

That will give the reader some idea of the truly extraordinary quantity of explosive material thus massed together. ***** Does that mean that Russia is on the eve of this "social revolution" foretold by the theorists of Socialism? That would mean that we take a singularly superficial view of the case. A "labour" revolution would necessitate positive, constructive conditions; it would require a political and industrial capacity of which the urban proletariat of Russia has not given any proof so far, and which cannot be acquired in a day. The future of the country seems, moreover, likely to be determined rather by its agricultural situation, which directly interests the immense majority of its inhabitants, than by the state of its industry. It is, after all, the peasant who remains the real master of the situation.

Do we mean to say, then, on the other hand, that the material accumulated must inevitably explode, and that we are on the eve of a formidable conflagration, one of those social upheavals that convulse and devastate a country? We must certainly be possessed of singular optimism if we can cast such a hypothesis disdainfully aside. But it would be equally rash to decide that the explosion is inevitable. Russia is manifestly exposed to a very grave industrial crisis, but it appears far from impossible to deal with it.

We wished to see the Petrograd workmen in their factories, where they spend the greater part of their laborious existence. We talked long with them, and conversed also with their leaders and organizers; we were present at their meetings and took part in their discussions, and the result of our inquiries, which were as comprehensive as circumstances and the lack of time at our disposal would permit, has been that we have carried away a very distinct impression of the extreme good-will on the part of the most intelligent and the most technically skilled members of the working classes. As far as the masses are concerned, they show a very deep "social sense," which only needs fuller development. If the employers on their side are able, as one hopes they will be, to rise to a sense of their responsibilities, if the Government, that we may confidently expect to introduce many new measures, acts with wise and far-sighted energy, Russia will come victoriously through her present trials and set a great and beneficial example to the world.

 

2. The Claims of the Workmen.

It was neither his rate of pay nor the conditions under which he works that led the Russian workman to engage in the present revolutionary movement. The Revolution was from the first political, in the strictest sense of the word. It was directed against Czarism. Its aim was to win liberty. If any material consideration was mixed in it, it was at most a protest against famine that resulted from the bad organization of transport. We know, indeed, that the protests of women obliged to wait in queues during whole nights before the doors of the bakers, and the manifestations organized in the factories to support their claims were the immediate cause of the events that followed.

During the first days of the new era, in the intoxication of victory, the putting forward of economic claims was scarcely thought of. A Belgian employer told us that he had at once assembled his numerous staff to propose to them that a common agreement on certain points should be drawn up, on the basis of which they would eventually proceed to a revision of the scale of wages which the high cost of living had rendered necessary. But his staff had stopped him before he had well begun his speech, protesting that there could be no question of discussing such a matter, that since the Revolution all were brothers, and they only asked leave to do for their brother what they had heretofore done for their employer.

Nevertheless, Russian workmen were not long in arriving at a somewhat less idyllic conception of the social question. During the early days after the Revolution the workman was still in the streets, or if he happened by chance to go to his factory it was to take part in some meeting or to celebrate the triumph of the people's cause. Only when calm was in a sense re-established did he think seriously of resuming his regular work. But with the drudgery of daily toil he became conscious once more of his sufferings, of the weariness and the monotony of the long hours of work, the disgust for a life characterized both by the meagre pay and the constant irritation caused by the overseers and foremen, and with the renewed consciousness of his grievances there inevitably arose the will to end them.

Now one must not forget that the workmen in the factories were at that moment the masters of Russia; they were so in the full force of the term. The Soviet, which represented them as well as the soldiers, constituted the only political power capable of making itself felt in the country, for they alone had power at their disposal. They had their militia; they were closely associated with the soldiers; and especially they had cohesion and capacity for co-ordination. There were neither police nor armed guard of any kind; there was not even any regular authority or recognized moral authority, not even an existing traditional authority to oppose their will. Everything, in short, was in their hands. Can we be surprised that they sometimes abused their momentary power? If we will but reflect and take into consideration all the circumstances, we shall be astonished that they did not abuse it more often.

For taken all in all, the exaggerated claims, the acts of violence against em ployers and overseers, have been less numerous and much less serious than scared newspaper reporters would lead the public to believe. They have in any case been much less numerous than they would have probably been in any other country under the same circumstances.

*****

From the first there was keen discussion among the theorists of the movement as to the category in which the Revolution then just commencing should be placed. Was it a democratic or a social revolution? They argued the point warmly, as if it were more important to baptize the movement than to carry it on. Were the Revolution purely democratic, its domain was political, and it only indirectly affected the government of the factories. If it were social, on the other hand, it would have to settle the question of ownership, and it was the workmen's obvious duty to seize the factories. No one will be astonished, moreover, if we add that the workmen have never paid very much attention to such distinctions. They have certainly not limited themselves to making it purely political, but neither have they made themselves masters of the factories by appropriating them. They have simply exercised a practical authority. They have made their will predominate, a will which circumstances rendered irresistible.

The history of the labour hegemony in the workshops is full of curious incidents, some of them amusing, some tragic. We give one or two of the most characteristic, but as we fully realize the gravity and importance of the event with which we are dealing, after having described one or two picturesque incidents we shall pass on to a study of the deeper side of the question.

8. The Question of Overseers.

It was against the overseers and the foremen that the workman first made use of his newly acquired power. The duties of an overseer are as thankless as those of a non-commissioned officer. The rigid discipline of the workshop, the inexorable punctuality, may be necessary for the carrying on of the work, but the enforcing of it is hardly pleasant, and the position of the man who must constantly remind the workmen of their duties is not to be envied. The overseer is rarely popular, even when he is just, and is heartily disliked when he is unjust, brutal, or when he abuses his power, which is very great, to benefit those who curry favour and make life impossible for such as refuse to sacrifice their manly dignity. Now this happens more frequently than one would think in every country, and no one will be surprised when we say that in Russia it was more frequent than in any other country, first because political and police tyranny favoured it, even invited it in a sense, for abuses of power in all forms were prevalent; secondly, because in these more primitive surroundings, where highly technical capacity was rare among the workmen, the expert skilled overseer dominated the men under him more completely than in the factories of the West; and, finally, because a considerable proportion of overseers and foremen were foreigners—English, French, or Belgians—too often tempted in the naïveté of their national pride to look upon the Russian workmen as the representatives of an inferior humanity and to conduct themselves like the "civilizers" in the colonies.

There were therefore many "accounts to settle." Now the justice of the people is prompt. It is also liable to err. In many cases the innocent suffered with the guilty; many instances of private vengeance were settled on the pretext of public vengeance. Among those whose dead bodies were found hanged from some lamp-post or washed ashore by the waves of the Neva there were more than one assuredly who had in no sense merited the hate of which they were the victims.

But let us add that the cases of death, or even serious injuries, were fairly rare. If we believed the tales of some scared fugitives from the factories, we would imagine there must have been throughout Russia a veritable St. Bartholomew of overseers and managers, but we have already pointed out how rumour exaggerated to the point of ridicule even the smallest street brawls. We were told, for instance, that in a certain part of the Donetz thousands of victims had been slain. On making inquiry we learned that nearly all these supposed dead were still alive, and the real number of those murdered was something like eight or ten. It is difficult, even to-day, to give any accurate figure of the number of victims in Petrograd. There are many persons who have disappeared, but there is every reason to believe that most of these will turn up again when the present unrest has calmed down and they dare come out from their hiding-places.

It would prove our ignorance of the Russian workman did we represent him as thirsting for the blood of his employers. On the contrary, he has limited himself generally to giving those of whom he wished to get rid of the concilium abeundi, without other penalty for those who did not execute it with a good grace than that of being thrown out of the principal entrance, followed by a cheering crowd. A warning is added not to return, under penalty of more drastic measures.

In a number of cases the workshop staffs had recourse to the authority of the "Soviets" of workmen and soldiers to carry out their sentences of expulsion. The Soviet would pronounce sentence of banishment from the neighbourhood, or from the Government, and their militia saw that the sentence was carried out. This application of administrative exile, following on the workmen's claims, is not one of the least strange facts of the paradoxical situation created by the Revolution.

Let us hasten to add, moreover, that apart from these overseers exiled or driven away, or who had taken to flight, there is a considerable proportion—certainly much more than half—who have quietly continued carrying on their work. Those have, as a rule, been kept at their posts by the votes of the workshop, and this popular investiture has generally increased their authority. In some cases the workmen had begun by appointing a new overseer, chosen from among their ranks, but after having made the experiment they have put back in his post the original official, and these reinstated overseers, because they have proved conclusively and practically their suitability for the post, are among those whose authority is now held in the greatest respect and the best obeyed.

The idea of the rotation of employment seems to be one of those which appeared especially attractive during the early days of the Revolution to the less intelligent portion of the working class. It seemed natural and just to them that each one should take his turn in performing the hard, disagreeable tasks, and that each also should take his turn at directing. Skilled engineers were obliged to spend long weeks at manual labour. In some of the Donetz mines all the office staffs, the managing director included, had to go down into the shafts and taste the joys of swinging a pick, while the miners, many of whom were quite illiterate, sat gravely in the offices, occupied the directorial chairs, perched themselves on the high stools at the bookkeeping desks or even grouped around the table of the Administrative Council. But here again experience soon taught these would-be reformers that to undertake the direction of the production it was not enough for a workman to sit in the director's chair. When the pay-sheets had to be drawn up, orders for material placed, or the output regulated, they realized that technical knowledge was not altogether useless, and very soon installed the former officials in their places.

4. The Decrease in Production.

Apart from these temporary victims, a great number of managers had, as we have seen, been driven away by the staff. They left without hope of return, or at least of an early return. And thus Russian industry was deprived of much competency, a loss all the greater since technical capacity was already more rare than in old industrial countries. Moreover, the mobilization for special army services of a large number of skilled workmen had still further reduced the supply of skilled labour. The quality and quantity of the output could not but suffer. That is undoubtedly one of the causes of the decrease in industrial production of which the public has been so often informed in the Press. There are other causes, such as the ever-increasing lack of raw material, the transport difficulty, the impossibility of renewing or repairing worn-out machinery. But for the moment we shall only deal with the decrease in production resulting from the shortage of labour, which is supposed erroneously to be the chief cause.

Was there any real evidence of ill-will on the part of the work-hands? We have questioned many people on this subject, to obtain as accurate information as possible—industrials, engineers, officials, workmen. The replies, as one might expect, varied greatly. They were, however, much more favourable to the workmen than the rumours current in Petrograd would lead one to think, rumours emanating from persons who came into no actual contact with the factories and who got their information from journalists who were spreading such information throughout the world's Press.

Cases of real downright, evident ill-will rarely occurred. We mean by that, that there were few cases of factories producing less because the workmen deliberately limited the output. Large employers of labour have told us, on the contrary, that in the main the workmen are better disposed to-day than they were before the Revolution to help in the national defence by making every effort to increase their output.

But good-will on the part of the workmen does not count for much in a question of industrial production unless it is combined with perseverance, and whatever may be the good qualities of the Russian, perseverance has never been among the most striking. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The needs of the army and of the nation have been made plain to them, they understand the necessity for increased production if they would save their country, and they set to work with unaccustomed zeal, but one or two hours afterwards the opportunity for a discussion with some comrades arises, or for a manifestation in favour of the Revolution; in a word, the opportunity to waste time agreeably. Perhaps the first time the temptation is successfully resisted, perhaps even the second time, but it is not easy to go on resisting all the time, the more so as the authority of the overseer is no longer there to call them to order, and because recent events have created a disturbing atmosphere of general excitement and opportunities for distraction have become greatly multiplied.

What most strikes the foreigner, who has an opportunity of observing what is taking place in Russian factories, is the enormous amount of time that is consecrated to or wasted in discussions. On the slightest pretext two workmen will lay down their tools to exchange views on the subject of Lénin's policy or the latest decision of the Soviet. Soon other workmen will stop to listen, or to put in a word, and one need not be surprised, on returning an hour later, to find the whole workshop engaged in the controversy, with all the machinery stopped. It is not unusual, moreover, for the audience to be increased by men from other factories in the neighbourhood. It has been said that Russia has become the Kingdom of Speech, and nowhere assuredly is speech more honoured than in the factories.

Strange as it may seem, Russian employers make very little attempt to prevent this happening, much less than would be made in the same circumstances by their colleagues in the West. They seem to think the conduct of their employees quite natural in a way, and though they may not approve of it, they show, as a rule, less annoyance than one would expect. One of our party had occasion to remark this under rather amusing circumstances.

He had been asked to address the workmen of a large ironworks with a view to bringing home to them how important it was for Russia and the Revolution to maintain or, better still, increase its production, indispensable to the army. It had been arranged that the speech would be delivered at three o'clock, and that the day shift, which would be replaced at that hour by the night shift, would be invited to attend. What was the speaker's surprise on arriving at the meeting-place at about a quarter to three to see the men of the day shift already waiting. The employer explained, without the slightest outward sign of annoyance, that to be quite sure not to miss the speaker's opening sentences the workmen had knocked off at 2.30.

The address was nearly ended, when towards 3.30 there was a commotion, and the men of the night shift, who, after having waited for the late-comers in the workshop, arrived to take part in the discussion. The employer, in the most unconcerned way, explained to the speaker what had taken place, and asked him to begin over again for the benefit of the new-comers.

Towards four o'clock the speech was concluded for the second time, but the audience did not disperse, and naturally the night shift did not return to work. This was because the most interesting part of the programme had just been reached, the speaker's replies to questions from the audience. The questions were numerous and often very shrewd. In replying, the speaker insisted on the necessity for regular and sustained labour. The audience approved loudly and sincerely, but still did not go back to work. Towards five o'clock however, the speaker could not help remarking that it would be a good thing to give practical effect to the resolutions that had been passed by returning to work without further delay. Once more the audience acquiesced with enthusiasm, but asked the speaker to reply first to two or three more questions. That was done, and then followed another exhortation on the part of the speaker and another enthusiastic acquiescence by the audience, but on condition that he should reply to two or three more questions. It was getting on for six o'clock, and in the end the speaker firmly declared that he would reply to no more questions, that he would not take upon himself the responsibility for such a loss of time. "Why," said the employer in a tone of surprise, "another half-hour will not make much difference."

*****

Naturally it was during the early days of the Revolution that the loss of time in discussions, speeches, and workshop meetings was most considerable. As the enthusiasm died, more methodical work became possible, and the output increased. Regarding all those factories of Petrograd which we visited—and these were chosen among the largest—and in which we made the closest inquiries, we made the same observation; the output, which had diminished amazingly during the month of April, had increased during the month of May, often reaching a pre-Revolution level, and in many cases even exceeding it. The increase was general except in some rare cases, where causes, quite apart from the good-will of the workmen, such as the lack of raw material, prevented it. It is very striking to note that this increase took place especially in factories of skilled workmen. It was the technically skilled workmen who seemed to possess in the most eminent degree the moral qualities of the producer. Thus, in gun factories the skilled workers and polishers everywhere exceeded their pre-Revolution production in such a degree that it became necessary to proceed to a redistribution of work.

It would be very interesting to give statistics in support of these general statements, but we must limit ourselves to stating that the facts were laid before us: statistics that could be of interest with regard to military operations are naturally not destined for public use.

*****

The "fatal result" of the eight-hour day, even of the six-hour day, on the Russian production has been strongly denounced. The six-hour day is nothing more nor less than an effort of the journalistic imagination. Nowhere has it been seriously put into practice, and in no important district, in no large industry, has it even been seriously considered. As for the eight-hour day its effect has not been in any way disastrous. Before the war, work was carried on generally in two shifts of ten hours each, and in many places two hours' overtime was added. To-day they are working three shifts of eight hours wherever they can procure sufficient hands and the raw material necessary for continuous production.

Where these conditions exist, it is obvious that three workmen working successively for eight hours each produce more han two workmen each working twelve hours. On the other hand, when the output is limited by the scarcity of raw material, the question of working hours loses its importance from the point of view of the intensification of industrial production. There remain the cases where labour is insufficient. These are more rare than one would imagine in this country, that has not mobilized, as those of the West have done, its whole valid population, and where there certainly remain great reserves of unemployed labour, notably female labour. But it is undoubtedly true that in certain cases skilled labour is difficult to obtain in sufficient supplies to permit of a third shift. Very often, therefore, in such cases they go back to the pre-war system of overtime. In two factories at least we were assured that even now, in spite of special technical difficulties, the workmen were producing as much in eight hours as they formerly did in ten.

But we must admit that this instance was exceptional. And if, apart from those cases where skilled labour is rare, the system of the eight-hour day does not tend to diminish the total output of the country, it does dimmish the output per man. It thus increases the net cost; and this brings us to the question of wages.

5. The Rise in Wages.

Wages have risen considerably since the Revolution, and no one would dare state that they will not rise yet more. Before the downfall of the Empire the best machinists in Petrograd often earned only four roubles; to-day they earn generally fifteen or sixteen.

But to appreciate this enormous increase we must not lose sight of the fact that there had been no important rise since the beginning of the war, with the result that the increase in the cost of labour, which in other countries has been spread over three years, has taken place within three weeks in Russia.

In Russia, as in the West, this is due principally to the increase in the cost of living, which in the large cities and industrial centres has become incredibly high. It would be difficult to reckon it with the accuracy that the statistics of the Board of Trade permit us to obtain with regard to Great Britain. We do not know of the existence of any such document in the country we are discussing at present, but certain facts gleaned here and there allow us to give some idea of the enormous increase in the cost of living.

A Belgian workman who had lived in Russia for several years, who spoke the language perfectly, understood the customs, and was consequently not liable to be charged the fantastic prices that foreigners are sometimes made to pay, told us that he had paid two hundred roubles for a suit of very indifferent cloth to wear when off duty.

The price of coal has increased at least tenfold, thus making rents higher; for houses are generally let with heating included. When we consider the length and the severity of the Russian winter, we can easily understand the importance of this item.

Comfortably-off clerks in Petrograd, who before the war lived at the rate of two hundred roubles per month, have been obliged to practise many economies so as to manage to make ends meet with the six hundred and fifty roubles which they are spending to-day. We must remember that in all times of national crisis the cost of living increases much more in proportion as the mode of living is simpler.

In such conditions we can well believe that the workmen profited very naturally by the liberty they had achieved to demand an important rise in their wages. Unfortunately their claims in this respect, as one must expect on the part of a proletariat unaccustomed to economic negotiations, lacked co-ordination and therefore measure. The facility with which their first requests were granted incited them generally to ask more and more, and as employers, either from fear or weakness, or from some deeper motive, made but little objection to these demands, nor even troubled as a rule to discuss them seriously, it happened that certain categories of workmen increased their demands until in the end they assumed fantastic proportions.

Certain characteristic instances were mentioned to us. Day labourers, for instance, employed in peat-cutting in a certain district in the centre of Russia claimed a fixed rate of pay of one thousand roubles per month; and again, the workmen in a large factory in Petrograd having in a few weeks trebled their wages, further exacted that the measure should have a retrospective effect, and date from the outbreak of the war.

The method employed by these workmen to induce their employers to accede to their requests is worth describing. One fine morning a delegation composed of thirteen members of workmen appeared before the administrative council, who had been summoned by means of a special and urgent letter written at the request of the staff, and who had hastened to attend. The delegation were the bearers of thirteen sacks. One man, speaking in the name of his comrades, pointed out that they were earning on an average eight roubles more than they did before the Revolution, and that consequently they had been daily done out of such a sum in the past. There were five thousand workmen employed in the factory, so that meant that forty thousand roubles per day had been kept from them, in all twelve millions per year of three hundred working days, altogether thirty-six million roubles. The staff therefore asked the administrators to pay that sum into the treasury of the workmen's association, and they would undertake to distribute it. To facilitate the payment they left the thirteen sacks with the administrators, stating that the sacks were large enough to hold the amount either in gold or in banknotes, and they would come back for them the following day. Until then armed men would be on guard at the door, and would guarantee to the administrators that peacefulness and quiet which cannot fail to result from complete seclusion without interruption or communication from without. If, unfortunately, the sum should not be in the sacks at the appointed hour, the administrators would be placed in them themselves and the bags flung into the Neva, which flows conveniently near at hand.

One can easily imagine the consternation of the unfortunate administrative council at these simple words. They tried in vain to remonstrate, pointing out that the capital of the company was far below the sum required; that, in any case, they could not procure in twenty-four hours such an enormous ransom; and, finally, that if they were locked up they could not even take the preliminary steps necessary to obtain the sum. The reply was that the Company's safe was in the very room where they were sitting, that the directors had the key of it, and that, moreover, it was their business to deal with all financial matters. Then they were left to their own thoughts. Fortunately, however, they were able to inform the Ministry of Labour of their predicament. The Ministry had no material force at its disposal, and had the workmen persisted in their intention it is difficult to see how the Government could have prevented them from carrying out their plan. The Minister, however, assembled the delegates, and a few minutes' conversation sufficed to make them realize the absurdity of their demand and the impropriety of the methods by which they intended to ensure its success. Promptly abandoning their project with as good will as they had worked for its realization, they went off to release their prisoners, explained the mistake that had occurred, offered them their excuses, and all went well from that moment, the cordial relationship existing between the management and the workmen not having suffered in the least by the incident.

The story of the thirteen administrators and the thirteen sacks is one that we heard repeated most frequently. It is made use of to point out the ferocity of the workmen and the insatiability of their demands. Does it not, on the contrary, show the simple, childish good-humour that the Russian workman keeps even in his excesses? A word was enough to make these terrible rebels give up all idea of the thirteen executions they had meditated. Moreover, had they contemplated it seriously? At the same time they gave up as readily their thirty-six million roubles, exacting no fraction of it even. Is that not a proof that by reasoning with them and exercising a little patience, without much difficulty most of the foolish actions that are the accompaniment in Russia, as anywhere else, of the apprenticeship of liberty could be prevented? And since these same incidents are recounted over and over again, does it not show that they are much less numerous than pessimists would pretend?

In short, taking everything into account, it would be unfair to say that wages in Russia, at the level to which the Revolution has brought them, are too high. It is not true to say that they have determined the excessive cost of living. That had begun long before labour became dear, and has since become aggravated for reasons in many cases independent of this phenomenon. We did not find that anywhere in Russia the real wages paid were higher than in Great Britain; they were certainly lower than in America. The industry of the country, therefore, can bear them without suffering, on the condition that it is as productive as, for example, American industry. And as it disposes, as a rule, of very modern equipment, and as its concentration allows of the application of the latest methods, there is no reason why an intensive output should not be achieved if Russian workmen are technically and morally educated up to it. It is therefore rather in the question of industrial education than in that of the reduction of wages that the economic future of the country seems to lie.

6. The Parliamentarization of the Factories.

Russian workmen had early to look to the question of regulating and organizing the new power that they had just acquired. Their first claims were out of all proportions. They were thereafter discussed by deliber- ative assemblies, and presented by chosen delegates. These were delegates elected by the workmen, and who were charged to supervise the carrying out or help in starting these reforms.

The result is a series of representative institutions, or small industrial parliaments. We know, moreover, that though Russia will be without a Central Parliament until the Constituent Assembly meets, she presents, nevertheless, the most varied and wonderful collection of elective bodies, deliberating night and day, in all conceivable places and on all possible questions. There is a "Soviet" of officers and soldiers in each barracks, and in each unit at the front from a company to the group of armies. There is in every town a "Soviet" of workmen and soldiers. There is at least one congress of peasants representing in its turn thousands of local assemblies. There are Doumas in the towns and suburbs, not to mention the party congresses or the congresses of nationalities or professions. In short, the political life is, as it were, broken up, scattered in a veritable "dust of parliaments." How then could the factories stand aloof from the general movement? They also have their deliberative assemblies. They have even more than one kind. It would be very difficult to enumerate all the various committees that have seen the day and to indicate in what way each one came into existence, its method of election, its composition, and its precise functions. We must keep on general lines. In most of the factories, then, there are: (a) A Factory Committee.—It is elected by the universal suffrage of the workers of both sexes, without distinction of age or technical skill, and on the lines of the most absolute equality. It is elected either directly or indirectly; that is to say, by the intermediary of workshop committees, of which we shall speak presently. Its members may vary in number from a dozen in the small factories to fifty in the large ones. It meets generally during working hours. Its functions are complex; often it controls the whole activity of the establishment, but it does not pretend to direct it. It is not a council of administration; its role is rather like that of the Shareholders' Committee in a Limited Company: it supervises operations and states its views, not in the interest of the shareholders, but in that of the workmen. It is less interested in the financial results of production than in the conditions of work that it creates. The principal difference lies in the fact that the "recommendations" of the workmen are, under present conditions, much more imperious than those of the shareholders and that it is more difficult to evade them. Moreover, the factory council is in a sense a court of appeal for questions of discipline, which are in the first instance the department of the workshop's committees. Often it "confirms" the nominations of the director, or even elects him. In most big works connected with the army or the navy its rights in this respect are fixed by definite ruling. Moreover, it exercises practical power, for should the council refuse to recognize a manager, life would become impossible for him in the factory.

The functions of the factory council are often absorbing. In many cases a considerable proportion of the working day is taken up by its meetings; sometimes even these meetings absorb the entire day. We know of a building yard in Petrograd, employing eight thousand hands, where the council, composed of forty-three workmen, naturally all skilled men and earning sixteen roubles per day, sits exactly eight hours per day, with the result that its members are never at their machines or their bench.

(b) Workshop Committees.—These are to be found in all important workshops. The members are elected, as in the case of the factory committee, by universal suffrage. They exercise disciplinary power in place of the foreman. They have in general the exclusive right to hire, dismiss, admonish, and punish. The foreman exercises only a technical authority; moreover, he is often subject to the approval of the committee, or has even been elected by it.

(c) In many factories another committee is charged with classing the workmen as regards the wages—maximum, minimum, or average—to be paid them. Like all the others, this committee is elected by universal suffrage of the workmen, the employer being in no way specially represented in it.

(d) And lastly—and that is perhaps a farther departure from accepted customs—there exists in many places a factory committee of arbitration, to which disputes, individual or collective, between employers and workmen are finally submitted, which is composed solely of delegates elected by the workmen.

How does such a system work?

It would be ridiculous to say that it works well. But unquestionably it works better—or less badly—than it would under the same conditions in no matter what part of the old industrial world. That most certainly is owing to the complete absence of ill-will, to that instinctive kindness, that astonishing aptitude for maintaining elementary order, that sense of spontaneous sociability, which are inborn in the Russian people.

These workshop committees, charged with keeping order, certainly do not take the employer's point of view—we do not even say that they take a reasonable point of view; but those who have seen them at work admit that they bring to the accomplishment of their task genuine good faith. Workmen guilty of some piece of carelessness are really summoned to appear before their committee. Punishments are inflicted on them to which they are astonishingly sensitive, and which often produce more effect than the fines formerly levied by the overseers. If, moreover, the delinquent is recalcitrant and does not mend his behaviour he is eventually dismissed from the workshop. Rarely is he sent away brutally, but he is given to understand that he is a source of trouble to the committee, and employment is found for him outside the factory. In a machine factory employing upwards of two thousand workmen, the manager explained to us that workshop committees had thus led to the departure of about sixty undesirables, greatly for the good of the establishment, where now there reigns an atmosphere of peace and good-will. Even now the employers in general state that it is much easier to deal with the committees elected by the workmen than directly with the workmen, individually or in groups. The claims presented by the committees are generally less exacting than those of the delegation who have first submitted them, and when they are exaggerated it is generally easier to make them admit it.

It often happens that the committee is disavowed by the workmen, its resignation exacted, and thereafter they proceed to new elections. There is one such factory where, during the first weeks of the application of this system, the committee was renewed four times, but at each renewal the newly elected committee, faced with the same problems, acquiring the same experience, came to the same conclusions, and agreed to the same concessions, until finally the workmen, realizing that a further change would be useless, agreed to leave the last committee in office and to follow their advice. They had no doubt come to see themselves that the committee were right.

7. The Responsibilities of Power.

In short, after a relatively short lapse of time business habits tend to develop in the most intelligent of the working class a more real sense of their responsibilities, and there is good reason to hope that with reciprocal good-will between employers and workmen Russia may escape the industrial chaos which threatened her, and that the necessary development of her economic system will be accomplished without catastrophe. Though in the early days of the new government we had reason to fear formidable strikes and monster lock-outs, which would indeed have thrown out of gear the whole social machine, it is rather characteristic of the Russian that the wilful stopping of work in the factories has been very rare. There has been found nearly always at the eleventh hour some way of coming to an agreement and avoiding the cataclysm that seemed imminent, while every day that passes, every agreement that is concluded renders future agreements easier to accomplish. And it is not merely luck that has brought this about.

From agreement to agreement the present system will end undoubtedly by becoming organized and adapting itself to circumstances. Will it retain its chief characteristics, or will it altogether change its nature? In other words, will Russia achieve the parliamentarization of industry on a solid foundation? Will it be hers to herald the coming of this "workshop republic" dreamt of by certain social reformers?

Perhaps! We do not wish to bring to the examination of this question any Western prejudices which will not admit that things can ever be other than they have always been, and we are bound to notice certain analogies between the creation of the committees arising out of the Russian Revolution and those whose creation is recommended by the British committee charged to study the problem of industrial reorganization after the war, and which consists of the most experienced employers and workmen. At the same time we must remember that there are certain fundamental principles that one can never transgress with impunity, either in the economic domain or in the political, one of the principal being expressed in the following words: "No authority without responsibility."

Now, though the responsibility of the factory or workshop committee to the workmen who elect them is genuine, it is null with regard to the other interested parties. It is difficult, therefore, to conceive that they can exercise full power, the more so since the workmen thus represented do not accept themselves the responsibility for the production, as they would do, for instance, in a co-operative organization. What would happen did it organize the production so as to diminish the output, or to alter the quality, or even increase the cost of manufacture? We do not urge that the employers and the shareholders would suffer, though that consideration has its importance as long as the capitalist rule subsists and the owners of money play in national economics a part which, willing or unwilling, we must take into account. But we do urge that the consumer would suffer. Now the consumer is Mr. Everyone, and we can picture no system less democratic than that which would hand him over, bound hand and foot, to the sovereign will of the staff of each factory. Moreover, though one may profess to disdain this ethical consideration, we would soon find ourselves compelled to bow to economic fatality, this sanction of the rights of the consumer in the world of facts. Any industrial exploitation which did not supervise either the quality or the quantity, or the price of its production, would soon give way before the competition of better organized industry from without, and should any attempt be made to lessen the consequences of this by fiscal measures or by other Protectionist proceedings, it would lead to the paralysis of national production. Who, then, would be foolish enough to think that one can bring about the emancipation of labour by a system which would stop the economic development of the country?

We should indeed have expressed ourselves badly if we have led the reader to conclude from the foregoing remarks that we considered impossible, or even undesirable, the intervention of the workmen in the domain reserved up to the present to employers. We can make no more unfortunate mistake than to consider employers' functions as immovable and eternal. We should not dare to call ourselves Socialists did we not see in the total organization of labour by the workers themselves, for their profit, the aim in view. We are discussing just now only the question of what method to employ, and it must be admitted that the method which we have been criticizing at the moment has many grave objections. The working class, as a collective whole, can intervene in the industrial domain simply as organized consumers. Perhaps we shall have occasion to deal with this point later in connection with the co-operative movement. Even professionally, in its own industries, Western experience shows many examples of analogous intervention, but they have rarely achieved success unless they have taken into account the great principle of responsibility.

We could invoke, apart from co-operative production—properly speaking, where the employer disappears—the commandite ouvrière, where the workmen themselves assume the responsibility for the whole carrying out of the work, arranging its distribution among themselves, supervising and directing it, receiving from the employer the machinery and the raw material, and handing over to him the finished article, of which he limits himself to controlling the quality and the quantity. But in this commandite ouvrière the total cost of labour, the minimum output, the quality, the percentage of waste, and all the other important conditions are fixed by contract. The working collectivity is responsible for the carrying out of the contract, and if they wish to go in for speculation, they do so at their own risks.

We could still mention many industries where, under very diverse forms and in a varied degree, the workmen have obtained the right to choose their colleagues, but we must admit that the experience has, to a certain extent, been successful only when this right was given to a trade union; for in this case it is exercised, not under the control of the workmen of a single factory, but under the direction of the whole profession, represented by a powerful association, which has its traditions and its prestige to safeguard, and which would compromise the future of the work did it force the employment of incapable or lazy workmen. Here we would only draw attention to the great difference with regard to responsibility between the intervention of a trade union and the intervention of the working staff of the factory. We shall have occasion to refer to this again in the following pages.

 

8. Industrial Organization.

Russian workmen have tried for a long time to organize themselves industrially. They have had before them the example of their comrades in all industrial countries. If it had not been for the constant persecution of the advocates of trade unionism by the former government, doubtless the Unions of Petrograd, of Moscow, and Donetz would have had a greater development, and would have formed a policy very similar to the Trade Unions in England, Germany, or the United States.

This is important. If it be true indeed that only the arbitrary intervention of the police of Tsardom prevented the development of the Trade Unions, and that the working classes acting freely might have created here, as well as elsewhere these great organs for the regulation of economic conflicts, that it might have followed in this matter, as it has done in the matter of co-operation, the tradition of the modern proletariat, we can hope now that having acquired their liberty of action the Russian working classes will again follow the path from which they were drastically and artificially turned aside and will proceed rapidly. There is no serious student of labour problems, no matter to what school he may belong, who does not rejoice because the Trade Union favours the progress of the working class, while avoiding useless agitations. It does not certainly prevent the struggle between the classes in question, but it carries it along new lines, more orderly and decisive. We have no intention of writing the history of Russian Trade Unions. It has been dealt with very completely by several authors—as early as 1907 by Sbiatlevskié. Unfortunately it is impossible to-day to procure most of the publications concerning the heroic age of professional associations. On the other hand, no one seems to think (outside of the working classes occupied to-day with other work) of re-editing them, or at least selecting the important facts and publishing them in a new volume. We could wish all the same that the educated classes took more interest in a question which vitally concerns the country.

We shall only remind the reader that these professional Unions have had a former secret history that goes back a good way, and thereafter a public or semi-public history that begins with the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 (Old Style). From that time they have no longer been legally forbidden, and we find them springing up like mushrooms after a night of rain, in all industrial centres. Soon persecution followed, with the counter-revolutionary reaction. In the course of the last twelve years the Trade Unions have been dissolved in large numbers every time that Russia has traversed a reactionary crisis, and we know that these have been sufficiently numerous. In the intervals they have been submitted to a system of police interference that rendered their activity practically nominal. Such an association, duly "authorized," for instance, found itself forbidden for whole years to hold a general assembly. On the other hand, one that numbered ten thousand members would be granted permission to hold an assembly on condition that all the members were convoked individually, thus creating almost unsurmountable practical difficulties. They were not authorized to elect a body of delegates for the administration of common interests.

The metallurgists' Trade Union at Petrograd had during the last decade ten presidents and ten committees, its leaders being constantly imprisoned or exiled to Siberia. It has been dissolved five or six times. But in spite of that it has maintained its existence, and its members have kept in touch with each other even when the police suppressed the association. It has had a chequered career, dormant at times but never actually dead; it seemed impossible to destroy it because it answered a deep, elementary necessity, over which all the power of the Czar could not prevail. From the very beginning of the Revolution the organization has developed marvellously in the atmosphere of liberty. On May 1, 1917, it already numbered eighty thousand members; in the last phase of its legal existence in 1915, under the government of the Czars, it had only eight thousand.

The history of the metallurgists' Trade Union is that of all the others. All have experienced the same trials, and now have reached comparative prosperity. On May 1, 1917, round Petrograd alone there were sixty-one Trade Unions, of which more than half had been entirely reorganized and affiliated to a general Trade Union federation, their total membership reaching more than 180,000.

*****

Thus, side by side with the factory committees, with which we have dealt in the foregoing pages, organizations of older date, founded on a different principle, owing their existence to the experience of the working classes of the world, and answering such a need that even the Czar's rule could not prevent their formation, are rapidly developing. They deal with the same questions, solve the same problems, intervene in the same conflicts as the committees. We shall study presently the connection between these two series of organisms, but before going any farther we would like to point out to the reader that they are really two different organizations, not only with regard to their outward form, but in their very essence.

A man obtains a right to vote for a workshop committee by the sole fact of being a worker in the factory, without having to make any choice, without engaging himself to any adhesion, without any voluntary action. On the contrary, a worker is only admitted to membership of a Trade Union on his making the request and being elected, and on his agreeing to a determined course of action governed by fixed rules, the observing of a particular discipline; by consenting, in short, to the many responsibilities which this discipline entails, and of which the financial burdens are assuredly the least heavy. In a word, the member of a committee is simply in possession of a right; the member of a Trade Union pursues a definite aim, by constant, regular action, binding him to perform certain duties. The committee represents only the workmen of one factory, to the exclusion of all others. Whoever leaves one factory to go into another passes from the jurisdiction of one committee to that of a neighbouring committee. Even when the committees are federated they have none the less each a separate existence, and all their activities remain conditional to the particular factory for which they act. The Trade Union, on the contrary, groups, or endeavours to group, all the workmen of a collection of professions or industries without any distinction between those who work for different employers or in different parts of the country. One of the most striking points of the Trade Unions in all countries is that tendency which leads them towards centralization. The organizations of specialists which were formed at the beginning of the Revolution have been replaced by organizations open to extremely wide categories of workmen in machinery shops—metal workers, wood workers, labourers, transport workers, for instance; in short, local associations are replaced by national organizations. Matters had progressed so far that before the war, in a country as large as Germany, more than two million workmen were grouped into only fifty-three Unions, and of these more than two-thirds belonged to the six largest organizations. The Trade Union has thus the tendency to represent the general interests of the working classes, or at least the many common interests of large bodies of these classes.

For the same reason it avoids excessive claims, extravagances to which the committees are much more exposed. What the Trade Union demands from one employer it should be in a position to obtain from all the others. Experience teaches him that any amelioration of working conditions is not stable, and only merits being put into execution on condition that it can be generalized, and thus maintain the equality of employers in competition. "Undertake nothing that cannot become a universal rule of action" is the essential principle of practical Trade Unionism, the basis of the whole moral. The obligation to conform to the dictates of common sense, as shown by the complete and rapid downfall of associations that ignore this principle, is that not a form, and one of the most efficacious, of responsibility?

*****

Since Trade Unions and committees differ from each other most profoundly, even to the pitch of representing two forms of organization opposed, indeed almost contradictory, must we conclude that these two institutions are bound to clash, and that eventually one will overpower the other? It seems much more probable that one will end by absorbing the other in the course of an evolution which, while in a sense a conflict, will not necessarily have the character of an open combat.

Already we can notice clearly defined differences of opinion between their leaders. In the factories the members of the committees often belong to the Bolchevik party (Extremists); the Trade Union leaders in general hold more moderate views. And although the claims of the committees themselves may be generally less extreme than would be the claims of the workers in the factories did they act without intermediary, the Trade Unions, as they gain power, intervene constantly to advise the committees to act with prudence and moderation. One can note in this respect an essential difference between the attitude of the Labour Section of the Committee of Workmen and Soldiers, which can be considered to a certain extent like a federation of factory committees (although its members are elected by workmen directly) and that of the Federation of Trade Unions. It is very interesting to note that while the former continues to deal almost exclusively with the solution of political problems in connection with the working classes, it is the latter that more and more deals with the purely economic problems. It is the latter, notably, that now organizes the representation of workmen on the committees of arbitration where employers are represented by the general association of the factory owners. The Labour section of the Soviet was to intervene in this matter according to the original plan, and as the council of arbitration seems destined to become one of the principal organs of the working class in the capital of Russia, we can see the importance of this change of function.

It is the same thing in the factories; there is already a marked tendency to subordinate the committee to the Trade Union. In some parts the members of the committees are chosen from among the members of the Trade Unions. In most of the factories the Trade Union members are in the majority. It is becoming more and more the rule that before acting they should consult the Trade Unionist authority. We can foresee that soon they will be reduced to the role of the shop stewards in our Western workshops. It is true that even when the organization is powerful and well established it is not always easy to make these representatives of Trade Union authority in a particular establishment carry out the policy adopted by the association. The history of their rebellions and of the inconsidered and violent strikes which arose out of them form in all countries one of the most thrilling and, alas! one of the longest chapters of the history of labour. But in the end the general, moderating Trade Unionist idea prevails. In Russia, doubtless for a long time yet, the spirit of independence in the workshops will remain very marked, and Trade Union authority will be most precarious, but there is every reason to believe that in the end the latter will become stronger, and that matters will develop and finally be conducted pretty much as in the West.

9. Co-operative Organization.

Co-operative organizations have not had to suffer in the same degree as the Trade Unions from administrative and police interference. Thus their development has been more rapid and more intense. From 1896 associations of this sort were sufficiently numerous for the "general assembly of commerce and industry" of all Russia, which was held at Nijni-Novgorod, to be charged especially with examining the questions raised by their existence. After the Revolution of 1905 their growth was prodigious. They have to-day acquired a development which equals in many respects their development in some Western countries. The latest statistics that we have been able to obtain, that of January 1, 1913, said:

"About 7,500 co-operative stores are scattered throughout the Empire, forming a certain number of federations, dealing principally with the organization of wholesale purchase. The most important of these federations is that of Moscow, which has about six hundred societies.

"2,700 associations of butter-makers (co-operative dairies) are also grouped in federations (that of Siberia alone numbering close to three hundred associations).

"4,510 other rural co-operative associations,

"8,938 co-operative loan societies,

"3,287 savings associations,

"148 provincial societies for petty loans, whose mission seems principally to be to organize credit for the different classes of co-operative societies. They have a semi-official character, their management being chosen by provincial assemblies, and they are placed under the financial control of the Government.

"Finally, the People's Bank of Moscow, of which nearly all the shares are held either by big co-operative associations or by federations of associations which assure co-operative establishments of the most diverse kind either the necessary credit or the organization of their purchases, either the sale of their produce or the produce of their members' labour, notably home manufacture."

*****

During our visit to Moscow the greater part of our time was spent in visits to local co-operative associations, their federation, their wholesale department, magnificently installed in new buildings, their Co-operative Bank, and finally, their Co-operative Congress, which is soon to sit in a vast palace in the centre of the city.

We received a most reassuring impression. In the city there was a strike. The dvorniks (hotel doorkeepers) were marching through the city in procession. In the hotels all work was suspended, even in the kitchens; travellers had to make their beds themselves, and had to be satisfied with sandwiches at five roubles a dish (fr. 12.50); while the strike of public services was announced for the next day. Fortunately that did not take place.

In the co-operative hives, on the contrary, all the bees were busy working. They ceased work for a moment to welcome with brotherly cordiality their co-operative comrades from distant Belgium. It was with indescribable emotion that we saw on the walls photographs of the "Vooruit" and the "Maison du Peuple" of Brussels, positive proofs of the influence exercised by our own movement on the co-operative movement in Russia.

As far as we could learn from what we heard, Moscow seems to be essentially the capital of co-operation. The social influence that it exerts there is considerable. The co-operators sit side by side with delegates of the Soviet, of the municipality, and the other organizations in the assembly, which since the Revolution has taken over the direction of affairs.

There exists, moreover, in Russia a large number of co-operative groceries, which have sprung up under Muscovite influence, and which are developing rapidly even in the most distant parts. In the agricultural districts they are often in close touch with the co-operative dairies, the peasants exchanging their milk for the various goods of which they stand in need.

Co-operative butter-making has produced in Russia a veritable agricultural revolution, like that which in Denmark, for instance, has resulted from its great development. According to the founders of the co-operative Bank of Moscow, they are in a fair way to suppress private enterprises. This is what they say of the movement in Western Siberia:

"In Western Siberia, and especially within the radius where at present the butter-making is greatly developed, for a long time many factors favourable to the development of the co-operative movement and for its prosperity in the future have been in existence.

"This country, populated by enterprising peasants and owners of vast lands of superb natural pasturages, belongs to the finest cultivated part of Western Siberia; it is there that already existing associations should be utilized in order to favour their development, to ensure their future prosperity, and to deal with long-standing questions raised by the necessities of life.

"Co-operation in Siberia, founded on solid bases, has assumed a very special character. It came into being at a time when the economic organization of the people was about to collapse as a logical consequence of certain economic causes. It seemed like a reaction after the speculative gambling which had taken place in Siberia, and having arisen in the lower classes, among populations enjoying relative comfort, it showed from the very beginning an extraordinary force and power.

"The industrial butter-making has developed rapidly in Siberia, and even in 1894 butter-making establishments were increasing with astonishing rapidity. At first they were all in the hands of private owners, but the greed of the merchants and their speculations led to the production of an inferior quality of butter. The reputation of Siberian butter was greatly endangered, and this state of things, full of far-reaching consequences from an economic point of view, threatened to cause an irretrievable loss to the country. The co-operative system, which until that day had been merely desirable, then became a necessity for the population, and the butter-making works promptly passed from private persons to the artels.

"Let us note here the characteristic fact that the buyers were not as grasping as are most private buyers in similar circumstances. Without trying to exploit the difficult situation in which the proprietors of the factories were, they paid for these factories according to their proper value.

"To show the intensity of the co-operative movement, let us note that in 1903 there were in Siberia three co-operative associations of butter-makers, and that four years after, in 1907, more than two hundred co-operatives were in full swing. The substitution of co-operative companies for private owners in the ownership and in the management of the factories is not yet complete, but it will soon be.

"At present the Union of the artels of Siberia includes 220 associations of butter factories and forty-nine stores. It has its administrative centre at Kourgan, in the province of Tobolsk, and its branches at Pietropavlosk, Tchéliabinsk, Biysk, Barnoul, Kamiegne, and Omsk. The work is not yet finished in this district, but every year new factories come into the combination, and the artels open new stores. They hope, moreover, to open this year (1912) branches of the Union in the cities of Valoutorosk and of Ichime, and in the village of Taterskoye."

Side by side with these positive results of Russian agricultural co-operation let us mention here the projects of certain reformers. Now that the Revolution is going apparently to take up the distribution of land—or a large portion of the land among the peasants, the problem of cultivation on a large scale comes before us in an entirely new aspect. It had yielded up to the present decisive results: the large properties unquestionably produced more than the peasant holdings, and it is due to them especially that the exportation of cereals had such a real development. Will it be necessary to give this up, to the great detriment of agricultural output, or else limit it to the large properties exempt from expropriation, or on the contrary give peasant ownership up altogether, for the sake of efficiency in the agricultural output? It would seem that there is no democratic and satisfactory solution of this difficulty other than that of co-operative cultivation, extensive cultivation passing from private hands to those of the associations, as was the case with the butter factories. But all practical business men affirm that in the case of Russian land the difficulties are far more considerable. However, the experiments attempted on a large enough scale in Italy, and especially in Roumania, are on the whole encouraging, and with the help of the semi-communist habits of the Russian peasant perhaps the more vast experiment to which the young democracy seem to be heading may constitute one of its most interesting and original developments.

The savings and loans associations are, as we have stated, very numerous. Most of them help farmers to procure the funds necessary for the perfecting of their working of the land. They also obtain the credit necessary to allow them to hold over until spring that is to say, until the moment when the prices are at their best the sale of their wheat. That is a very important question in the agrarian industry of the country. To quote again from the report from which we have already given a long extract:

"It has long been known that in the autumn the peasants are always forced to sell in the market a great quantity of grain at a very low price, because, the supply exceeding the demand, the price of wheat goes down considerably. As every one knows, the sale of wheat in the spring is much more advantageous. But we shall not dwell at length on this fact here. We are not dealing, either, with the causes of this state of things. Let us note, however, that in Western Siberia there is, as a result of the great distances, of the fact that most of the places are very far distant from marketing centres, great difficulties in the transportation of the wheat to the latter. Groups of agents and corn-dealers have spread a network over this out-of-the-way part of the country. There they live and grow rich, thanks to the ignorance of grain-marketing conditions of the peasants in these distant parts of Siberia. It frequently happens that some corn-dealers will band together to create an artificial drop in the price of wheat, and thus force the peasant coming to the market from a distance to sell his wheat at a price already agreed on. Moreover, it is well known that the practice of fraud in the matter of weights and measures is carried on to a great extent to the detriment of the peasant-merchants. The evil has acquired a sort of right of naturalization impossible to deal with. There has even grown out of it a special type of commercial traveller, whose patrons think highly of him, and who is very well paid by them. These specialists manipulate so cleverly that the peasants can only raise their arms in astonishment when they learn that in a waggon of twenty pouds of wheat there are only eighteen or nineteen, and that when the price of wheat is fixed at one rouble per poud there is a difference of five to ten kopeks for each poud."

The remedy consists in assuring to the grower a credit gauged on his corn harvest. But that only solves one part of the difficulty. At the actual sale the peasant runs the further risk of falling into the hands of the middleman, unless the association comes again to his aid. Loan societies are therefore coming quite naturally to take up the question of the wholesale purchase of produce, and it is there undoubtedly that their activities can have the most important social consequences.

Let us note still further that these loan and savings societies are generally encouraged by the local authorities, and that the State comes to their aid by subsidies of important sums of money. We cannot close this rapid survey without mentioning the existence of numerous Societies of Arts and Crafts and industries carried on at home. The oldest of these are the associations of silversmiths, which exist mostly in Moscow.

 

10. Conclusions.

We would like to point out to the reader that we are not attempting to deal exhaustively with the social conditions in Russia. These are only notes taken in the course of the few weeks that we were able to spend in the land of the Revolution, and they are intended to give simply the impressions of bona fide observers who may claim some little experience in labour matters. It is only as such that these notes can have any value, and it would be rash indeed to try to draw many conclusions from them, so at least we shall have the prudence to reduce these conclusions to a minimum.

Those who only see in the present events in Russia the triumph of irretrievable anarchy are making a great mistake. Constructive forces are already at work, and if we look closely we can already see their results. What we have said of the Trade Union and co-operative movements prove the capacity of the Russian for organization. It is remarkable, but it has limitations. The peasant has inherited it from long series of ancestors, accustomed to rule in common all the affairs of their village life; the working-man brings it fresh from the country that he has just left. When it is necessary to form a queue before the door of the baker's shop, hundreds of women place themselves in the most convenient position without any police supervision. Crowds gather in some public place for a manifestation or a meeting without disorder, without shouting, as if they were imbued with some collective intelligence. The masses seem to understand responsibility, seem to conduct themselves, govern and rule their actions better in Russia than anywhere else.

But the capacity for organization of the Russian is for the moment limited; his experience does not go as far as the free practice of modern life, and the complicated circumstances of that are as yet not within his grasp. Though the peasant is fully aware of the solidarity that binds him to his village, he understands less the connection between his individual activity and the national life. He will share in a brotherly spirit his corn with a poor neighbour, and he will not even be aware that in refusing to sell his harvest he may reduce the neighbouring town to famine. The worker will give his life for his comrade, but it will never occur to him that he owes his work to the community, and that by refusing it or in reducing it in such a crisis as this he is exposing the whole country to a mortal danger. The vast republic is like a great body whose organs are vigorous and healthy but without sufficient co-ordination to assure the life of the whole.

Co-ordination may come. If we are not mistaken, it is already developing rapidly. Nations mature quickly in the trials of great revolutions. If it is only experience that Russia lacks, then present events are allowing the Russians to accomplish in a few weeks the progress which in ordinary times takes years. Certainly the future would be more sure had the leaders gained experience in the school of realities, had they lived in immediate contact with social facts; but their ideas have been formed in exile or in prison, and the former government has kept entirely out of public affairs—of all affairs—those who have neither been exiled nor incarcerated. They had to meditate; their existence has been spent in the world of ideas, and not in that of action. Need we be surprised, under such conditions, if abstract principles often dominate them, determine their attitude, and sometimes prevent them from seeing facts.

Now that they find themselves in new conditions the realistic spirit is developing rapidly. We may even say that it is developing with astonishing rapidity. During our short visit we were able to note an evolution in the way in which the best of the leaders viewed the Revolution. This applies both to those who are ruling the country, and to the more modest who in the factories are acting as counsellors to their comrades. We have already reported on the extreme good-will of every one, and their deep and sincere desire to do right. There is in the Slavonic soul a kind of nobleness that leads ft to seek for the truth simply, without obstinately holding to some preconceived idea. These are the really solid grounds for hope. There are some for fear. Already, no doubt, the reader has noted several, and we are going to call attention to one here. Russia can be rescued from its present chaos only by the efforts of every class. She must have the entire, unreserved co-ordination of all. Has this been acquired? In this respect there are some disquieting symptoms. It seems that in the commercial world and in certain political circles a policy of sulking the Revolution, of refusing it any help, has been adopted. It would seem that certain classes are inclined to leave it severely alone in the midst of its difficulties, in the hope that it will succumb to them, and that by favour of an early reaction the party that is lying low at present will come back to power. They are practising the policy of letting things get worse. There are employers who, instead of combating disorder in their workshops, leave it alone, as if they hoped that extreme disorder in the production would achieve their purpose and obtain for them again the power which they have lost. The same attitude can be noticed in a minority, fortunately not considerable, in all the domains of activity. We can say, in short, that we are witnessing a kind of strike of the citizens. It is, not to use a stronger expression, singularly imprudent, for it could lead to worse even than to a reaction of which it would be difficult to limit the result. It could bring in its train all Russia to a common and possibly irretrievable ruin.

But the Revolution is more vigorous than it appears to the superficial observer. Its necessity imposes itself more and more on those who at first were inclined to doubt its viability. It is carrying with it even those who were recalcitrant, and, taken all in all, events confirm so far the prophecy of those who see in the Russian Revolution the first act in a new and fecund era in the history of mankind.