GOVERNMENT INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE
THE SOVIET STATE
The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is composed of representatives of
urban Soviets, one delegate for 25,000 voters, and of rural Soviets, one
delegate for 125,000 inhabitants. This Congress is convoked at least
twice a year. There had already been six meetings. The Congress elects
an All-Russian Central Executive Committee of not more than two hundred
members, which is the supreme power of the republic, in all periods
between convocations of the Congress. It directs in a general way the
activities of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, considers and
enacts all measures or proposals introduced by the Soviet of Peoples’
Commissars, convokes the Congress of Soviets, and forms a Council of
People’s Commissars. This council in turn is entrusted with the general
management of the affairs of the republic and in this capacity issues
decrees, resolutions and orders, notifying the Central Executive
Committee immediately of all such orders or decrees.
There are seventeen of these Commissars, (1) Foreign Affairs, (2) Army,
(3) Navy, (4) Interior, (5) Justice, (6) Labor, (7) Social Welfare, (8)
Education, (9) Post and Telegraph, (10) National Affairs, (11) Finances,
(12) Ways of Communication, (13) Agriculture, (14) Commerce and
Industry, (15) National Supplies, (16) Supreme Soviet of National
Economy, (17) Public Health. Each Commissar has a collegium, or
committee, the members of which are appointed by the Council of People’s
Commissars, of which body Lenin is the president.
These committees act as the administrators of the nation, dealing with
ratification and amendments to the constitution; the general interior
and foreign policy of the republic; boundaries; the admission or
secessions of new members; the establishing or changing of weights,
measures, or money denominations; declarations of war or peace treaties;
loans, commercial agreements or treaties; taxes; military affairs;
legislation and judicial procedure; civil and criminal procedure; and
citizenship.
Local affairs are administered by local Soviets, in the following order:
Rural Soviets, of ten or less than ten members, send one delegate to the
rural congress, which in turn sends one delegate for each ten of its
members to the County Soviet Congress. This County Soviet Congress sends
one delegate for each 1,000 inhabitants (though not more than three
hundred in all may be sent) to the Provincial Soviet Congress, which is
made up of representatives of both urban and rural Soviets. The
Provincial Soviet Congress sends from its body one representative for
10,000 inhabitants of the rural districts, and one for each 2,000 voters
in the city, to the Regional Soviet Congress. This Congress sends one
delegate for each 125,000 inhabitants to the All-Russian Congress of
Soviets.
All these Congresses of Soviets elect their own executive committees for
handling local affairs, but in small rural districts questions are
decided at general meetings of the voters whenever possible. The
functions of the local Congresses of Soviets and deputies are given thus
in the Constitution: To carry out all orders of the respective higher
organs of the Soviet Power; to take all steps for raising the cultural
and economic standard of the given territory; to decide all questions of
local importance within their respective territories; and to coordinate
all Soviet activity in their respective territories.
Roughly speaking, the Supreme Council of National Economy, which is
established under the Council of the People’s Commissars, deals with the
organization and distribution of production. It coordinates the
activities of the federal and the local Soviets, and has the right of
confiscation, requisition, or compulsory syndication of various branches
of industry and commerce; it determines the amount of raw materials and
fuel needed, obtains and distributes them, and organizes and supplies
the rural economy. It works in close and constant touch with the
All-Russian Professional Alliances, and under its direction the latter
constantly regulates the wage scales in accordance with the rise and
fall of prices of commodities. When I was in Moscow the average wage
paid was 3,000 rubles per month, and in Petrograd 3,500. A member of the
Council of People’s Commissars received 4,500 per month, out of which he
had to pay rent and buy food and clothing. Lenin, as president, received
the same amount, which was equivalent to about $180 in American money.
All men and women of the republic belonging to the following classes are
allowed to vote after their eighteenth year: Individuals doing
productive or useful work; all persons engaged in housekeeping which
enables others to do productive work; peasants who employ no help in
agricultural labor; soldiers of the army and sailors of the navy;
citizens who are incapacited for work; and foreigners who live in and
are working for the republic.
Suffrage and candidacy are denied to persons who employ labor in order
to obtain profits; persons who live on an income, such as interest from
capital, receipts from property, etc.; private merchants, trade or
commercial brokers; monks and clergy of all denominations;[A] employees
and agents of the former police, gendarmes, or secret service; persons
under legal guardianship, or who have been declared by law as demented
or mentally deficient; and persons who have been deprived of their
rights of citizenship by a Soviet, for selfish or dishonorable offences
for the term fixed by the Soviet.
The Church has been separated from the State and the School from the
Church, but the right of religious or anti-religious propaganda is
accorded to every citizen. The government press has been freed from all
dependence upon capital in the form of advertising, and all the
technical and material means for publication, as well as for the
publication of books and pamphlets are free. Furnished halls, with
heating and lighting free, are given to the poorest peasantry for
meeting-places.
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Footnote A:
There have been some modifications of this regulation recently. I have
heard since my return to America that clergymen are given the right to
vote provided they are supported by the workers and not from
endowments.
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LAND NATIONALIZATION
The brief Land Decree of November 7, 1917, was replaced in September,
1918, by “The Fundamental Law of Socialization of the Land,” which has
already been enforced throughout the country except in the cases of land
owned by peasants and worked by the owner and his family. This land
decree has been enforced gradually, and perhaps less completely than any
other of the Soviet decrees, first because the energies of the
Government were diverted to a war of defence, and secondly, because the
land question would naturally take the longest to settle even in times
of peace.
The land decree provides that all property rights in land, minerals,
oil, gas, peat, medicinal springs, waters, timber and other natural
resources be abolished and the land given to the use of the entire
laboring population, without open or secret compensation to former
owners. The right to use this land belongs to those who till it by their
own labor, and is not restricted by sex, religion, nationality, or
foreign citizenship. Under-surface deposits, timber, etc., are at the
disposal of the Soviet powers, local or federal, and all live stock and
agricultural implements are to be taken over without indemnification by
the land departments of the Soviets. Infants, or minors, cripples,
invalids, or aged persons who would be deprived of their means of
subsistence by the enforcement of this decree are pensioned either for
life or until they attain their majority. Minors are given the same
pension as soldiers.
Land may be used for cultural and educational purposes; for agricultural
purposes, communities, associations, village organizations, individuals
and families; and for industrial, commercial and transportation
enterprises under the control of the Soviet power. It is given to those
who wish to work it for themselves, to local agricultural workers whose
plots are now too small, or who have been employed by land owners, and
to immigrants who come from towns or cities in order to work on the
land.
When the land was turned over to the peasants each one seized the
opportunity to establish his own little homestead. Since that time the
peasants have discovered the benefits of cooperative agricultural
production, and have established their own agricultural communes all
over the country.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MANY TRAINS CIRCULATING SOVIET PROPAGANDA
THROUGHOUT RUSSIA]
In the Orel Government there were 391 of these communes, covering 39,000
dessiatins,[B] with a population of 29,000 people. In the province of
Moghilev there were 225, with more than 11,000 people and 40,000
dessiatins of land. In the Vitebsk government there were 214, covering
60,000 dessiatins of land with a population of 60,000. In the province
of Novgorod there were 72, with 11,376 inhabitants and 22,253
dessiatins. In Kaluga 150, with 6,500 inhabitants, covering 12,000
dessiatins. Officials estimated that this number would be doubled before
the end of 1919. In the Petrograd Government 830 communes were
organized, with 17,000 dessiatins and 15,313 inhabitants, all of whom
were laborers. In Tula there were 78, with 5,465 workers, and 8,554
dessiatins of land.
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Footnote B:
A dessiatin is approximately 2.7 acres.
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LABOR LAWS
The Soviet Russian Code of Labor Laws passed by the Russian Central
Executive Committee in 1919 covers the whole field of Russian labor
activities. To workers in other countries some of the provisions will
appear drastic, but it must be remembered that Russia is still an armed
camp and that the war has disorganized industry, transportation and
almost every other form of endeavor. I was informed that every effort
was being made under these laws to coordinate the productive forces of
the country with a view to securing the highest possible production for
the pressing needs of the Russian people. When the war stops, as it no
doubt will in the immediate future, Soviet Russia will be faced with the
problem of diverting into productive channels its three million
soldiers, as well as other millions now engaged directly or indirectly
in the war. Just as we had our “Work or Fight” measures in this country
for the purpose of utilizing the nation’s human energy in a profitable
way in time of stress, so in Soviet Russia every effort is being made to
place the workers where the greatest results to the nation as a whole
will accrue.
In connection with the passage of these labor laws, it must be borne in
mind that the working people in Soviet Russia enjoy much more control at
the present time than do the same class of people in possibly any other
country. One must take into consideration the fact that these laws were
initiated by the unions themselves or their representatives, who shared
jointly with the political side of the Government the responsibility for
maintaining the new order. Many of the former so-called bourgeoisie of
the old regime, I was informed, have spent the past two years doing
nothing but live by speculation and they stir up trouble on the
slightest pretext against the new Government. It was primarily to reach
recalcitrants of this character that the compulsory provisions were
inserted in the code. The result of the passage of these laws did not,
so far as I could judge, diminish the enthusiasm of the Russian workers
for the new order, but on the other hand their energy seems to have been
stimulated, no doubt because they were beginning to feel that through
their various organizations this step had been taken for the express
purpose of forcing into production every man and woman in the country
capable of producing and helping to reconstruct Russia.
Article I of the code deals with compulsory labor. It provides that all
citizens of the Soviet Republic, with the following exceptions, are
subject to compulsory labor:
First, persons under sixteen years of age; second, all persons over
fifty years of age; third, persons who have become incapacitated by
injury or illness; fourth, women for a period of eight weeks before and
eight weeks after confinement.
All students are subject to compulsory labor at the schools. Labor
conditions in all establishments, Soviet, nationalized, public and
private, are regulated by tariff rules drafted by the trade unions in
agreement with the directors or owners of establishments and enterprises
and approved by the people’s commissariat of labor.
Article II, entitled “The Right to Work,” provides that all citizens
able to work have the right to employment at their vocations and
remuneration fixed for such class of work. The district exchange bureaus
of the Department of Labor Distribution, in agreement with respective
unions, assign individual wage earners or groups of them to work at
other trades if there is no demand for labor at the vocation of the
persons in question. All persons of the female sex and those of the male
sex under eighteen years of age have no right to work at night or in
those industries in which the conditions of labor are especially hard or
dangerous.
Article III, provides for the methods of labor distribution. Any wage
earner who is not engaged on work at his vocation shall register at the
Local Department of Labor Distribution as unemployed. An unemployed
person has no right to refuse an offer of work at his vocation,
providing the working conditions conform with the standards fixed by the
respective tariff regulations, or, in the absence of the same, by the
trades unions. An unemployed person who is offered work outside his
vocation shall be obliged to accept it on the understanding, if he so
wishes, that this be only until he receives work at his vocation.
Article V, makes provision for the transfer of a wage earner to other
work within the enterprise, establishment or institution where he is
employed. His transfer may be ordered by the managing authorities of
said enterprise, establishment or institution. The decision of the
Department of Labor in the matter of a transfer of labor may be appealed
from under the law by the interested parties to the District Department
of Labor or to the People’s Commissariat of Labor, whose decision of the
matter in dispute is final. In case of urgent public work the Department
of Labor, in agreement with the respective professional unions, may
order the transfer of a whole group of wage earners from the
organization where they are employed to another situated in the same or
a different locality. This is done, provided a sufficient number of
volunteers for such work cannot be found.
Under Article VI, which covers remuneration of labor, the law provides
that in working out tariff rates and determining the standard rates of
remuneration all wage earners of a trade shall be divided into groups of
skill, and a definite standard of remuneration shall be fixed for each
group. In determining the standard of remuneration for each category,
consideration must be given to the kind of labor, the danger of the
conditions under which the work is performed, the complexity and
accuracy of the work. Remuneration for piece-work is computed by
dividing the daily tariff rate by the number of pieces constituting the
production standard. Remuneration for overtime work shall not exceed
time and a half. During illness of a wage earner the remuneration due
him shall be paid as a subsidy from the hospital fund. The unemployed
receive a subsidy out of the funds for unemployed.
Under Article VII, which deals with working hours, provision is made
that the duration of a normal working day must in no case exceed eight
hours for day work and seven hours for night work, and that the duration
of a normal day, first, for persons under eighteen years of age, and
second, for persons working in especially hard or health-endangering
branches of industry, must not exceed six hours. In case the nature of
the work is such that it requires a working day in excess of the normal,
two or more shifts shall be engaged. Except in extreme cases work in
excess of the normal hours, or what is usually called overtime work, is
not permitted. No females and no males under eighteen years of age may
do any overtime work, and the time spent by those on such work in the
course of two consecutive days must not exceed four hours. All wage
earners must be allowed a weekly uninterrupted rest of not less than
forty-two hours, and on the eve of rest days the normal working day is
reduced by two hours. Every wage earner who has worked without
interruption not less than six months shall be entitled to leave of
absence for two weeks, and every wage earner who has worked without
interruption not less than a year shall be entitled to leave of absence
for not less than one month with full pay.
Article VIII deals with methods to insure efficiency of labor. The
standard output for wage earners of each trade and group is fixed by
valuation commissions of the respective trades unions. This article
provides that a wage earner systematically producing less than the fixed
standard may be transferred by the decision of the proper valuation
commission to other work in the same group and category, or to a lower
group or category with a corresponding reduction of wages. However,
appeal can be taken from this provision of the law as well as all other
provisions in the code.
Article IX provides for protection of life, health and labor of persons
engaged in any economic activity, and the carrying out of this part of
the law is entrusted to labor inspectors, technical inspectors and the
representatives of sanitary inspection. The labor inspection is under
the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Labor and its local
branches, which are the Departments of Labor, and is composed of labor
inspectors, elected by the councils of professional unions. The
inspectors are compelled under the law to visit at any time of the day
or night all the industrial enterprises of their district and all places
where work is carried on, as well as places provided for the workmen by
the enterprises, such as rooming-houses, asylums, baths, etc., and to
assist the trades unions and works committee in their efforts to
ameliorate in individual enterprises as well as in branches of industry.
This brief outline of the Code of Labor Laws, the full text of which
will be found in the appendix, shows how thoroughly the new régime in
Russia has gone into the question of organizing the labor power of the
country for production on the highest scale. I was told over and over
again by various officials of the labor organizations of Soviet Russia
and the Government officials as well, that what they were interested in
above all else at the present time was the organization of labor along
lines that would insure sufficient production of essential commodities
to meet the needs of all the people under Soviet rule.
TRANSPORTATION
Before the war there were in Russia 37,000 railway locomotives. At the
end of the war 13,000 were left. Of these, at the time of the Brest
Litovsk treaty, thirty-five percent were disabled. In the spring of 1919
the total number of disabled locomotives amounted to fifty percent.
Since that time there has been some improvement, and last August only
forty-seven percent of them were disabled. There is a great demand for
locomotives. Russia could use to advantage the entire product of the
United States for the next six years. Approximately the same conditions
prevail with reference to cars.
Practically the whole transportation system was given over to the
movement of troops and army supplies. In certain sections of the country
there was a surplus of grain, but no facilities to transport it to the
cities.
On the last stage of the journey to Moscow I had a vivid glimpse into
the transportation problem of Soviet Russia. Two or three hours out of
Smolensk we stopped at a small way station and hooked on seventeen cars
loaded with wood intended to relieve the critical fuel shortage in
Moscow. After five or six hours’ journey, with only brief stops, the
train made a prolonged halt. I got out to learn the cause of the delay.
The cars loaded with wood had been uncoupled from the train and men were
busy throwing the billets into the field by the track. The station was
crowded with soldiers. Word had been received to rush reinforcements
southward to meet the advance of Denikin. These cars were needed to
carry the troops.
“What about the wood?” I asked, “Isn’t it needed in Moscow?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “The nights are getting very cold in Moscow. But
Moscow must wait. The army comes first.”
Such incidents were happening daily, hourly, no doubt, all over Russia.
Always, they complained, the necessities of the war and the mobilization
hampered the productive enterprises of the nation.
INDUSTRY
While I was in Moscow the Government received a report from the Supreme
Council of National Economy to the effect that war industry was
progressing at full speed and producing sufficient supplies and
ammunitions for the army. In addition the departments of building
materials, fur, leather, fuel, metal, chemicals, and trade, had been
organized. There were fifty-one factories in the building material
branch alone, capable of producing 121,500,000 bricks, 2,000,000 poods
of cement, 870,000 poods of lime, and 510,000 poods of tiles. The
tanneries were running on the basis of 240,800 poods annually. The
department of forests had obtained a contract for twenty percent of the
fuel demand, in the Moscow Government alone. There were sixty-eight saw
mills and 128 planing mills running on full time. All paper factories
were working. The chemical department controls the paper, china, and
chemical production. The trade department supervised 175,000 workers and
had its own art industry museum.
The Government is planning the construction of enormous power systems,
one of which will be the largest in the world. They will also utilize
the water falls for great hydraulic power stations, all of which would
require great amounts of machinery from America.
CANALS
The Volga and Don canal will connect the Black and Caspian Seas and the
Volga river with the Baltic Sea. Canal Dredges are needed to build
these.
RAW MATERIALS
There are at present in warehouses in Russia 200,000 tons of flax, the
present market price of which, in London, is over $1,000 per ton. There
are also 100,000 tons of hemp. There is gold, timber, and ninety percent
of the world’s supply of platinum.
Many factories will be erected, great rolling mills, steel mills, etc.
There is no doubt but that Russia will eventually be able to produce
everything it needs. The country is thoroughly stocked with all kinds of
mineral products and it is merely a matter of time before it will be
entirely independent. It struck me that in the meantime the American
business men are missing a wonderful opportunity in these ready markets
for their machinery and equipment. Russia will be, in the course of a
very few years, a very strong competitor, whereas now it offers a vast
market.
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