The Revolution in the Factories
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
73
