Working Year of the Industrial Workmen in Days.
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Pre-revolutionary
Post-revolutionary
Increase since the Revolution
Per cent of Increase
Stoppages . Sickness Absence for other causes
Total of days absent
Days of rest Days of work .
Total
7-4 16-6
53 19
52
53 u-6
35-4
157 214
24
124
IOO
416
93
248
55 1 80
38
41
365
365
The table shows that, notwithstanding the large decrease in the number of holidays after the Revolution, the working year of the workman, owing to the increase of sickness, absence from work and stoppages, has decreased by 68 days, or 25%; and if, further, the length of the working day be taken in account, in 1916, including overtime 10-1 hours, and at the beginning of 1920, 8-6 hours, then the decrease of the working year amounts to 900 hours or 30 per cent.
The Bolshevik victory in Oct. 1917 added yet another ingredi- ent to the industrial ferment. The Marxist dictators, the indus- trial workers, were the chosen class, the leaders of the proletariat, and entitled therefore to carve out benefits and indulgences for themselves according to their own notions of right and expedi- ency. More especially they were keen to ransom the employers' class, not only by appropriating the lion's share in actual profits but by exacting compensation for advantages which had accrued to employers in the past, as well as vengeance for ill-treatment of the workers in the course of centuries. The inference from this conception of economic relations between working men and their former employers was the system of workers' control l which the Soviets started in their industrial policy. It meant that each factory and workshop had to be conducted in the future under the supervision and according to the dkections of a board of workmen, while the employers were degraded to the position of technical experts and banking managers.
The object of the peculiar combination between Capitalism and Socialism designated as " workers' control " was avowedly to enable the workmen to draw on the resources of the capitalist to the last drop, and in this complete success was achieved thanks to the servitude imposed on the " employer " who could neither withdraw nor oppose any decree of the workman's board. But the system had yet another effect, namely a complete indus- trial anarchy and consequent ruin.
The next stage was reached when the Soviets attempted to put an end to this anarchy by a regime of nationalization. 2
'The Workers' Control was established by the decree of Nov. 14 1917. It directed the production, sale and storage of products and of raw materials and the administration of the financial side of the business. It belonged to all workers by the intermediary of their elected institutions with the participation of representatives of the employees and of the technical staff.
The situation in the factories became chaotic, and the disorganiza- tion of the undertakings assumed the most extraordinary dimensions. The interference of the Workers' Committees made it quite im- possible to realize any scheme planned in advance. All programmes of economical policy were annulled by the " judgment " of the Workers' Committees.
1 In the course of a report delivered to the Moscow Congress by the Supreme Council of People's Economy in Jan. 1920, A. I. Rykov, the president of the Council, made the following statement :
" The nationalization of industry has been carried out pretty fully. In 1918, 1,125 factories and works were nationalized, and by the end of 1919 the number was about 4,000. This means that nearly all industry has passed into the hands of the state (Soviet) organs, while private industry has been destroyed, as former statistics show that there were up to 10.000 industrial undertakings, including cottage industries. These latter are not subject to nationalization, and the 4,000 nationalized factories and works include not only the larger concerns, but likewise the bulk of the average industrial concerns of Soviet Russia. Of these 4,000 undertakings about 2,000 are working at present. All the rest have been closed. The number of operatives is estimated approximately at 1,000,000, which is between one-third and one-fifth of the numbers of the proletariat in 1914. Both as regards the number of hands and the number of undertak- ings in operation the Russian manufacturing industry is likewise undergoing a crisis."
Nationalization could be introduced into practice only by deriving economic direction and control, not from the accidental and separate groups of workmen in factories and workshops, but from the national centre. This centre was embodied in the Economic Council of the people, supported locally by subordi- nate councils in the provinces and districts, and relying for the execution of its decrees on a vast bureaucracy of head offices (Glaski) and " centres."
It is difficult to form an adequate opinion as to the ramifications and numbers of this all-embracing bureaucracy. We have the evidence of its own members as to the actual working of the sys- tem. In theory it had to organize the repartition of raw materials, to assign means and draw supplies and to collect products in accordance with requirements. In reality the Soviet bureaucrats struggled with each other, stifled local opinion and individual enterprise, and had generally to record lamentable discrepancies between plans and achievements. 3
Bureaucratic nationalization proved as ineffectual as workmen's control in solving the problems of increased production and or- ganization of labour. Theoretically, the workmen in the na- tionalized industries had to be considered not as privileged beneficiaries but as disciplined citizens serving the Common- wealth. Attempts to translate this view into practice were made. Workmen were mobilized for industrial purposes, sent to the Ural or to the Donets fronts, subjected to military control and martial law, armies that had been fighting the Poles or Denikin were switched off to execute economic tasks. Trotsky developed the idea of the militarization of industry as the only means of saving the country from collapse. But the results were not encouraging. Workmen deserted from the towns and hid in the villages, while those unfortunates who were unable to leave Petrograd, or other industrial towns, went on strike, made demonstrations and riots in the face of ruthless repressions; even when they performed their hard labour, it proved miserably inadequate for lack of physical health and moral energy.
Altogether, industrial nationalization proved as much of a failure as agricultural nationalization. And so the Soviets had to retreat, here as there, to a position characterized by the aban- donment of all their economic doctrines and previsions. In 1921 Comrade Krassin was recommending in the West a programme that Lenin had announced to the loth Congress of Communists and to the Central Executive Council: capital and competent leadership were acknowledged as necessary forces in the process of industrial production: the national capitalists had been robbed and driven from Russia; therefore foreign capitalists had to be called in to take their place. They were promised guarantees against arbitrary expropriation " d la Russe " and they might think that they were less liable to succumb to it because they were not " comrades " but citizens of civilized states, and might count on the strong arm of their Governments. But the great inducement consisted obviously in the prospect of rapid prof- iteering on a scale commensurate with the risk incurred by those who ventured into the wolves' den.
In comparison with these gigantic schemes of exploitation other retrograde measures were rrodest and mild. Small capital- ists, even when Russians, were allowed to start shops, and indi- vidual enterprise was to be encouraged somehow, although Com- munism was not renounced as an ideal, and big undertakings were to be kept in the hands of the State. The introduction of
' From Jan. to June 1918, the Soviet regime at the Putiloff factory gave the following results:
Delivered Prevision
Engines, new 2 4
Engines, new type I 3
Engines, important repairs 2 10
Engines, medial repairs o 12
Carriages, 3rd class, new 2 4
Carriages, 4th class, new 3 13
Carriages, for goods, new 169 309
Tramways 3 9
The real productivity of the factory is from 3 to 10 times inferior to those of the scheme of production established by the superior Council of National Economy. (Report of Mr. Molitof to the. Petro- grad Soviet, Aug. 15 1918, Labry, 187.)
