February 25th.
I had a talk in the Metropole with Krasin, who is Commissar
for Trade and Industry and also President of the Committee
for Supplying the Needs of the Army. He had disapproved
of the November Revolution, but last year, when things
looked like going badly, he came to Russia from Stockholm
feeling that he could not do otherwise than help. He is an
elderly man, an engineer, and very much of a European.
We talked first of the Russian plans with regard to foreign
trade. All foreign trade, he said, is now concentrated in the
hands of the State, which is therefore able to deal as a single
customer. I asked how that would apply to purchase, and
whether they expected that countries dealing with them
would organize committees through which the
whole Russian trade of each such country should
similarly pass. Krasin said, "Of course that would be
preferable, but only in the case of socialist countries. As
things are now it would be very much to our disadvantage.
It is better for us to deal with individual capitalists than with
a ring. The formation of a committee in England, for
example, with a monopoly of trade with Russia, would have
the effect of raising prices against us, since we could no
longer go from a dear shop to a cheaper one. Besides, as
socialists we naturally wish to do nothing to help in the
trustification of English manufacturers."
He recognized that foreign trade on any large scale was
impossible until their transport had been improved. Russia
proposed to do her paying in raw material, in flax, timber,
etc., in materials of which she had great quantities although
she could not bring them to the ports until her transport
should be restored. It would, therefore, be in the foreigner's
own interests to help them in this matter. He added that
they were confident that in the long run they could, without
foreign help, so far restore their transport as to save
themselves from starvation; but for a speedy return to
normal conditions foreign help was essential.
The other question we touched was that of munitions. I
expressed some surprise that they should be able to do so
well although cut off from the west. Krasin said that as far
as that was concerned they had ample munitions for a long
fight. Heavy artillery is not much use for the kind of
warfare waged in Russia; and as for light artillery, they were
making and mending their own. They were not bothering
with three-inch shells because they had found that the old
regime had left scattered about Russia supplies of
three-inch shells sufficient to last them several years.
Dynamite also they had in enormous quantities. They were
manufacturing gunpowder. The cartridge output had trebled
since August when Krasin's committee was formed. He thought
even as things were they could certainly fight for a year.