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 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK
 
 BOLSHEVISM AT 
 WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 WM. T. GOODE, M.A. (Lam.) 
 
 Hon. M.A. (Manchester), Principal of Gray stoke Place 
 Training College, London; Sometime Head of the 
 Men's Training Department, Owens College, 
 Victoria University, Manchester; Special Cor- 
 respondent of " The Manchester Guardian " 
 in Finland in 1918, and in Finland, the 
 Baltic Provinces & Russia in 1919 
 
 "... nothing extenuate, 
 Or aught set down in malice." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT, I92O, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. 
 
 THE OUINN & BODEN COMPANY 
 RAHWAY. N. J.
 
 Annex 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 MOST of the following pages were prepared, along with 
 much other material, in Moscow, in July and August 
 of the past year. The interview with Lenin, and the 
 sections on Education, Justice, and Transport, are 
 printed substantially as they appeared in the Man- 
 chester Guardian, by the courtesy of whose Editor they 
 reappear. 
 
 In the changing conditions through which Russia is 
 passing any such studies must necessarily be imperfect, 
 and I do not claim for these anything more than that 
 they are as perfect as the time at my disposal and the 
 conditions would allow. 
 
 Their incompleteness is further increased by the 
 continued embargo laid by the authorities on my papers 
 and memoranda. But a happy chance has brought 
 copies of some of them into my possession, and I 
 hasten to give them to the public in the hope that they 
 may prove useful in clarifying opinion on a subject 
 which has been shrouded, up to the present, in 
 mystification. 
 
 WILLIAM T. GOODE. 
 
 LONDON, 
 January 1920.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD . v 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 II. INTERVIEW WITH LENIN .... 17 
 
 III. INTERVIEW WITH TCHITCHERIN ... 23 
 
 IV. BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY .... 28 
 V. BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND .... 40 
 
 VI. BOLSHEVISM AND LABOR .... 52 
 
 VII. TRADES' UNIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA . . 60 
 
 VIII. BOLSHEVIK FOOD CONTROL .... 69 
 
 IX. TRANSPORT IN SOVIET RUSSIA ... 77 
 
 X. BOLSHEVISM AND EDUCATION ... 82 
 
 XL BOLSHEVIK JUDICIAL SYSTEM ... 92 
 
 XII. BOLSHEVISM AND NATIONAL HYGIENE . 98 
 
 XIII. BOLSHEVIK STATE CONTROL .... 103 
 
 XIV. SCHOOL OF SOVIET WORKERS . . . 107 
 XV. A BOLSHEVIK HOME OF REST . . .113 
 
 XVI. CONCLUSIONS 119
 
 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 IN thinking over the problem of Russia it had been 
 borne in on me that a Government which could last 
 for nearly two years against the colossal difficulties 
 which have beset, and are still besetting, it, must have 
 some good reason for enduring. Up to the moment of 
 my departure from Reval I had heard nothing about 
 the Soviet Republic in which the word " destructive " 
 did not appear, and yet it seemed to me that, whether 
 for good or for evil, there must be a constructive side 
 to it. To find out what was the reason of the endur- 
 ance of the Bolshevistic Government and the particular 
 form its constructiveness was assuming seemed to me 
 therefore a completely sufficient reason for attempting 
 to reach Moscow. For I felt sure that the thing I 
 wished to arrive at could only be found by personal 
 contact with the Government itself. It involved the 
 putting away from one's mind of all preconceived 
 notions gained from newspapers, conversation, and 
 White Books, and studying on the spot the character 
 and mechanism of the Government. It involved also a 
 study of the conditions of life, of labor, of education 
 
 9
 
 10 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 in a word, of all those constructive processes which 
 make up the economic and social life of a country. It 
 involved an investigation into the conditions of manu- 
 factures and transport, and, as far as possible, into the 
 conditions of agriculture and the life of the peasant. 
 There was a further point which weighed with me for 
 much an investigation such as I wished to make 
 would perforce bring me into close contact with the 
 leaders of the Government and possibly with many 
 other men not directly concerned in the Government, 
 and this contact would give me an excellent oppor- 
 tunity of studying the men who are responsible for 
 what is going on in Russia to-day. It will be seen, 
 therefore, that I had proposed to myself to study Bol- 
 shevism at home in order to discover the secret of its 
 lasting and to estimate if possible its chances of con- 
 tinuing to last. 
 
 My first attempt to reach Moscow in company with 
 a Finn and a Dane proved unsuccessful, though I dis- 
 covered later that in my case a mistake had been 
 made. It involved nearly three weeks of intensely dif- 
 ficult traveling under circumstances that were hard 
 and wearisome. We tried to enter by Pskov, but being 
 turned back from there, we were helped by the 
 Esthonian commander to cross by Isborsk to Ostrov. 
 That bare statement must stand for a hideous journey 
 of eighteen hours by auto-lorry, farmer's droshky, and 
 on foot, through Isborsk village, Palkina, Griboulka 
 the last post of the Esthonians across No Man's 
 Land to Gribuchi, the first " Red " outpost, to Novo 
 Usitovo, and finally Ostrov. This was a " Red "
 
 INTRODUCTORY 11 
 
 brigade quarters, and from there, after a long argu- 
 mentative fight with the Commissary and the Staff, we 
 traveled by rail through Rezhitsa to Veliki Luki, 
 always under guard. Here we were held up while 
 pourparlers went on with Moscow, and in the end were 
 ordered back across the frontier by the same route 
 over which we entered. 
 
 Our progress had been comparatively swift, and this 
 setback caused me much soreness of heart, the more 
 so that I discovered it was due to the incredible folly 
 of the Finn, our leader. From him we parted at Walk, 
 from which place he went on to Riga, got himself over 
 the frontier by some means to Dvinsk, was recognized 
 at once, and is now in prison in Moscow. The Dane 
 and I returned to Reval, from which place I negotiated 
 by wireless with Moscow, being finally allowed to enter 
 Russia, taking with me Mr. Keeling. The Dane was 
 definitely refused. 
 
 The first journey, though a failure so far as Moscow 
 is concerned, was excellent from the point of view of 
 the opportunities it afforded me for observation of a 
 manifold kind. It proved that in this part of Russia 
 at any rate the land is being completely cultivated; 
 that crops promised to be good; that the countryside is 
 quiet, hardworking, normal; that in country towns 
 there is no anarchy, but orderly security and work-a- 
 day activities; that the transport system is working 
 fairly well in spite of the effects of the Great War; 
 and from the very varied nature of the posts through 
 which we passed, it threw great light on military ac- 
 tivity. So much, in fact, was gained from this journey
 
 12 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 that the opportunity it gave me, through failure, of 
 giving to the world the result of my observations (I 
 sent the story from Reval), partly consoled me for the 
 failure itself. 
 
 The second journey followed at first the same route 
 as the former, for I found myself at Pskov once more, 
 the town more dilapidated than ever. The Esthonian 
 colonel was once again our good friend, for he got us 
 along the chaussee to the last of his posts in quick time 
 by automobile, on the direct route to Ostrov. From 
 there, however, across No Man's Land, which here was 
 some 10 versts wide, was a loathsome journey: a fight 
 going on round us, and we laden like pack mules with 
 our belongings, toiling along in the great heat of the 
 falling sun. From that first " Red " outpost until we 
 reached Ostrov was a strain that left its mark, on me 
 at least, for many days, both mentally and bodily. 
 
 The reply to my radiogram was for me a passe- 
 partout, but the presence of my companion caused 
 the usual interrogatories and arguments with staffs 
 to be much fiercer than before. Finally we got as 
 far as Veliki Luki, and there this interminable inquisi- 
 tion was repeated and continued until word was sent 
 by the telegraphic talking machine that I was to pro- 
 ceed to Moscow alone, taking with me the credentials 
 of Mr. Keeling. This was disconcerting, but nothing 
 remained but to obey. I accordingly departed for 
 Moscow, taking with me the packet of papers, but on 
 my arrival the strain of the past four weeks brought on 
 a temporary collapse, and I took to bed for three days. 
 It was only at the end of that time that I learned that
 
 INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 the credentials presented by Mr. Keeling had been 
 refused, and that he had been sent back to the 
 frontier. 
 
 There followed for me a month of intense work 
 according to a program drawn up by myself for the 
 first time while in bed under the doctor's care. As 
 this program was purely my own, and as it was then 
 put on paper for the first time, it is obvious that there 
 could be no collusion between myself and the Bol- 
 shevik leaders, no preparation on their part. And I 
 followed out the scheme of work I had laid down, leav- 
 ing when it was finished, though I should have pre- 
 ferred to complete it by going across country to the 
 other fronts. 
 
 Moscow deserves a word to itself. The stories of 
 uprisings there and their effects, of the actions of the 
 Bolsheviks on the population, of the general terror and 
 starvation, had prepared me for the spectacle of a 
 devastated city, of great destruction, of an almost 
 complete cessation of normal life. Imagine then my 
 stupefaction at finding streets thronged with people 
 pursuing their daily business, trams running packed 
 with passengers, droshkies numerous and as extor- 
 tionate as in the old days, street markets as numerous 
 and as active as ever, and a general air of peace and 
 security over everything. The streets were clean, the 
 boulevards and public gardens well cared for, the 
 churches open for service constantly and announcing 
 the fact by their bells, and order maintained by police 
 who were all but invisible, and an armed soldier here 
 and there, generally occupied in smoking a cigarette.
 
 14 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 Of destruction the signs were small and infrequent, 
 mostly bullet holes in windows, chippings of the 
 plaster and ornaments of the facades, but in one open 
 place a mass of bricks which represented a large build- 
 ing destroyed in the rising of June 1918, along with 
 some tall houses in the vicinity. Bridges and churches 
 were intact, and the Art Galleries, to my joy, were well 
 cared for and even extended. The contrast between 
 the external aspect of Moscow and the stories preva- 
 lent in the West was indeed remarkable. 
 
 One feature of the streets was disconcerting. The 
 shops were mostly boarded up, save small shops where 
 traffic in small mixed articles went on, and hair- 
 dressers' establishments. Many places had closed be- 
 cause stocks were non-existent, others because the 
 chief distributing agencies were the Soviet shops in 
 every district. They were numbered, and were of 
 all kinds, even to chemists' shops, where goods could 
 be bought on cards. Soviet cafes and eating-houses 
 were open, as also a number of private ones, which, I 
 was informed later, would probably close as the Soviet 
 system became more firmly established. 
 
 But the old glitter of the streets had, because of 
 all this, disappeared, and it was the absence of the 
 ordinary spectacle of the shop windows which gave 
 a peculiar quality to street life. The great hotels were 
 either homes for ministries or were filled with the 
 employes of the Government, or students, or workers, 
 who lived there. And the great restaurants and clubs 
 had also been turned to the use of the Soviet or of the 
 workmen.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 The town, in fact, was cleaner, physically and 
 morally, than on my previous visits, but the general 
 puritanical air was a little depressing, a quality that 
 has been noted by others also. Life was hard, food 
 being sold at prices that seemed fantastic; but during 
 the month I was there I could not find more than a 
 reminder that food was scarce in the appearance of 
 the public I certainly did not find the evidences of 
 severe hunger and starvation which I had been led to 
 expect. And in the case of the children, among the 
 thousands I saw and studied there was a general air of 
 well-being, for the fullest care is bestowed on them 
 a fact diametrically opposed to the statements made 
 to me before leaving. In short, my experience of 
 Moscow was the death of many illusions previously 
 created in my mind. 
 
 I passed a month in fierce work, and then left to 
 try and reach home. From Moscow to Reval is, in 
 normal times, a two days' journey; it lasted with me 
 for twelve days. I returned to Rezhitsa, was there 
 held up because a fierce fight was going on over the 
 route of my return pass, a fight which brought about 
 the fall of Pskov into " Red " hands, and flowed right 
 across Isborsk. Willy-nilly I had to remain till a 
 fairly quiet spot could be discovered on the frontier 
 where I might cross, and it ended by my getting 
 through by Marienhausen and Alt Schwaneburg, 
 thence to Walk and Reval. The journey from Rez- 
 hitsa (Red) to Alt Schwaneburg (White) was long, 
 arduous, and peculiarly distressing; even yet I do not 
 like to refer to it. And once arrived at Reval my
 
 16 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 troubles, instead of ending, began, for after thirty-six 
 hours I was arrested by the Esthonian military officials 
 at the orders of the British authorities; and when after 
 thirty hours I succeeded in getting free, my liberty 
 was brief. I was lured soon after on to a British war- 
 ship and was carried off to the British naval station at 
 Bjorko, and kept a prisoner till I was landed at Sheer- 
 ness more than three weeks later. 
 
 The chapters of this book contain little of a descrip- 
 tive character, they are mostly close studies of the 
 Soviet system, and were prepared in Moscow. Not all 
 are here, for my papers are still detained. I make no 
 apology for putting the personal interviews with Lenin 
 and Tchitcherin first; they are highly important docu- 
 ments, deserving of study.
 
 II 
 
 AN INTERVIEW WITH LENIN 
 
 THE interview with Lenin had been a matter of some 
 difficulty to arrange; not because he is unapproachable 
 he goes about with as little external trappings or 
 precautions as myself but because his time is so 
 precious. He, even more than the other Commissaries, 
 is continuously at work. But at last I had secured a 
 free moment and drove from my room, across the city, 
 to one of the gates of Kremlin. I had taken the pre- 
 caution at the beginning of my stay to secure a pass 
 that set me free from any possible molestation from 
 officials or police, and this gave me admission to the 
 Kremlin inclosure. Entrance to the Kremlin is natu- 
 rally guarded; it is the seat of the Executive Govern- 
 ment; but the formalities are no more than have to be 
 observed at Buckingham Palace or the House of 
 Commons. A small wooden office beyond the bridge, 
 where a civilian grants passes, and a few soldiers, ordi- 
 nary Russian soldiers, one of whom receives and 
 verifies the pass, were all there was to be seen at this 
 entrance. It is always being said that Lenin is guarded 
 by Chinese. There were no Chinese here. 
 
 I entered, mounted the hill, and drove across to the 
 building where Lenin lives, in the direction of the large 
 
 17
 
 18 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 platform where formerly stood the Alexander statue, 
 now removed. At the foot of the staircase were two 
 more soldiers, Russian youths, but still no Chinese. I 
 went up by a lift to the top floor, where I found two 
 other young Russian soldiers, but no Chinese, nor in 
 any of the three visits which I paid to the Kremlin did 
 I see any. 
 
 I hung up my hat and coat in the ante-chamber, 
 passed through a room in which clerks were at work, 
 and entered the room in which the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Council of People's Commissaries holds 
 its meetings in other words, the Council Chamber of 
 the Cabinet of the Soviet Republic. I had kept my 
 appointment strictly to time, and my companion passed 
 on (rooms in Russia are always en suite} to let Lenin 
 know that I had arrived. I then followed into the 
 room in which Lenin works and waited a minute for 
 his coming. Here let me say that there is no magnifi- 
 cence about this suite of rooms. They are well and 
 solidly furnished; the Council Chamber is admirably 
 arranged for its purpose, but everything is simple, and 
 there is an atmosphere of hard work about everything. 
 Of the meretricious splendor I had heard so much there 
 is not a trace. 
 
 I had but the time to make these observations, men- 
 tally, when Lenin entered the room. He is a man of 
 middle height, about fifty years old, active, and well 
 proportioned. His features at first sight seem to have 
 a slight Chinese cast, and his hair and pointed beard 
 have a ruddy brown tinge. The head is well domed, 
 and his brow broad and well raised. He has a pleasant
 
 INTERVIEW WITH LENIN 19 
 
 expression in talking, and indeed his manner can be 
 described as distinctly prepossessing. He speaks 
 clearly in a well-modulated voice, and throughout the 
 interview he never hesitated or betrayed the slightest 
 confusion. Indeed, the one clearly cut impression he 
 left on me was that here was a clear, cold brain, a man 
 absolutely master of himself and of his subject, express- 
 ing himself with a lucidity that was as startling as it 
 was refreshing. 
 
 My companion had seated himself on the other side 
 of the table to act as interpreter in case of need; he 
 was not wanted. After a word of introduction I asked 
 what I should speak, French or German. He replied 
 'that if I did not object he would prefer to speak Eng- 
 lish, and that if I would only speak clearly and slowly 
 he would be able to follow everything. I agreed, and 
 he was as good as his word, for only once during the 
 three-quarters of an hour that the meeting lasted 
 did he stumble at a word, and then only for an 
 instant; he had seized my meaning almost imme- 
 diately. 
 
 I ought to state here that the thought of this inter- 
 view had engaged me from the moment I had entered 
 Russia. There were so many things I wanted to know, 
 scores of questions occurred to me, and to secure the 
 answers I longed to have would have required a dis- 
 cursive talk of hours had I begun my task with this 
 interview. But by leaving it to the last my month's 
 work had brought the answer to many of the questions, 
 and others had been settled by a radiographic interview 
 submitted from Lyons by a combination of American
 
 20 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 journalists. It behoved me therefore to utilize to the 
 best advantage the time rigidly apportioned to me, 
 wedged in between two important meetings. I had 
 therefore reduced all my curiosity to three questions, 
 to which the authoritative answers could be given only 
 by Lenin himself, the head of the Government of the 
 Soviet Republic. He knew quite well who I was; he 
 did not know what I wanted. There could therefore 
 be no question of preparation as far as he was con- 
 cerned. 
 
 I had spoken of my questions to only one man, the 
 Commissary who accompanied me, and he became 
 very depressed, and* gave it as his opinion that Lenin 
 would not answer them. To his unfeigned astonish- 
 ment, the questions were answered promptly, simply, 
 and decisively, and when the interview was ended my 
 companion naively expressed his wonderment. 
 
 The guidance of the interview was left to me. I 
 began at once. I wanted to know how far the pro- 
 posals which Mr. Bullitt took to the Conference at 
 Paris still held good. Lenin replied that they still held 
 good, with such modifications as the changing military 
 situation might indicate. Later he added that in the 
 agreement with Bullitt it had been stated that the 
 changing military position might bring in alterations. 
 Continuing, he said that Bullitt was unable to under- 
 stand the strength of British and American capitalism, 
 but that if Bullitt were President of the United States 
 peace would soon be made. 
 
 Then I took up again the thread by asking what 
 was the attitude of the Soviet Republic to the small
 
 INTERVIEW WITH LENIN 21 
 
 nations who had split off from the Russian Empire and 
 had proclaimed their independence. 
 
 He replied that Finland's independence had been 
 recognized in November 1917; that he (Lenin) had 
 personally handed to Swinhufvud, then head of the 
 Finnish Republic, the paper on which this recognition 
 was officially stated; that the Soviet Republic had 
 announced sometime previously that no soldiers of the 
 Soviet Republic would cross the frontier with arms in 
 their hands; that the Soviet Republic had decided to 
 create a neutral strip or zone between their territory 
 and Esthonia, and would declare this publicly; that it 
 was one of their principles to recognize the inde- 
 pendence of all small nations, and that finally they 
 had just recognized the independence of the Bashkir 
 Republic and, he added, the Bashkirs are a weak and 
 backward people. 
 
 For the third time I took up the questioning, asking 
 what guarantees could be offered against official propa- 
 ganda among the Western peoples, if by any chance 
 relations with the Soviet Republic were opened. His 
 reply was that they had declared to Bullitt that they 
 were ready to sign an agreement not to make official 
 propaganda. As a Government they were ready to 
 undertake that no official propaganda should take 
 place. If private persons undertook propaganda they 
 would do it at their own risk and be amenable to the 
 laws of the country in which they acted. Russia has 
 no laws, he said, against propaganda by British people. 
 England has such laws; therefore Russia is the more 
 liberal-minded. They would permit, he said, the
 
 22 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 British, or French, or American Government to carry 
 on propaganda of their own. He cried out against the 
 Defense of the Realm Act, and as for freedom of the 
 Press in France, he declared that he had just been 
 reading Henri Barbusse's novel Clarte, in which were 
 two censored patches. " They censor novels in free, 
 democratic France I " 
 
 I asked if he had any general statement to make, 
 upon which he replied that the most important thing 
 for him to say was that the Soviet system is the best, 
 and that English workers and agricultural laborers 
 would accept it if they knew it. He hoped that after 
 peace the British Government would not prohibit the 
 publication of the Soviet Constitution. That, morally, 
 the Soviet system is even now victorious, and that the 
 proof of the statement is seen in the persecution of 
 Soviet literature in free, democratic countries. 
 
 My allotted time had expired, and, knowing that 
 he was needed elsewhere, I rose and thanked him, 
 and, making my way back through Council Chamber 
 and clerks' room to the stair and courtyard, where 
 were the young Russian guards, I picked up my 
 droshky and drove back across Moscow to my room 
 to think over my meeting with Vladimir Ulianoff.
 
 Ill 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH TCHITCHERIN 
 
 Commissary of the People for Foreign Affairs 
 
 THIS interview is an abridgment of that originally pre- 
 pared, and is made from the rough notes which were 
 taken on the occasion when I met Tchitcherin for the 
 last time. It contains, however, the main points of the 
 conversation. 
 
 He read through the carefully prepared interview 
 with Lenin and agreed with it, considering it so funda- 
 mental that the Government generally would agree 
 with what Lenin had said. 
 
 On the subject of propaganda, he continued, the 
 very existence of the Soviet Republic, its continuing 
 to hold out, its example, these were the strongest 
 propaganda, far more powerful than any written ma- 
 terial. They constituted the fact which prevented the 
 Western Powers from leaving the Soviet Republic in 
 peace. The man in the street, he went on, when he 
 is suffering attributes his sufferings to God or to an 
 Order which it is impossible to change. But if he 
 should see the Soviet Republic where the workers are 
 masters, that would turn him into a revolutionary. 
 The worst campaign ever made is the campaign against 
 the Soviet Republic, for the West understands that if 
 the Soviet Republic can exist the peoples of the West 
 
 23
 
 24 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 will not long endure what they are enduring now. On 
 intervention, he said that those who are intervening 
 support anarchy and starvation, and then say that 
 where Bolshevism is, there are anarchy and starva- 
 tion. 
 
 On Lenin's suggestion of a neutral strip between 
 Bolshevik Russia and the small nations of the West, 
 he said that it had been adopted by the proper 
 authorities, meaning, I suppose, that it had been ap- 
 proved by the Government, but that if it were to be 
 applied in fact, there must be negotiations. For in- 
 stance, Esthonia must agree to it and negotiations must 
 be opened. He interpolated here that I could say that 
 the Soviet Republic is ready to conclude its military 
 operations and to open negotiations for this purpose. 
 In general, he said that these small republics had 
 been formed, and that an idea spread in Europe that 
 they were conquered by the Bolsheviks. Ukrainia, he 
 said, had not been conquered by the Bolsheviks at all, 
 not a single soldier had been sent there by the Soviet 
 Republic. It was Ukrainian soldiers in detachments 
 who freed Ukrainia from the reactionary forces which 
 were there before. That is why, he said, Denikin suc- 
 ceeds somewhat in Ukrainia (it should be remembered 
 that this interview took place at the end of August), 
 the Ukrainians are new, and not organized like the 
 Soviet Republic. Now there has been concluded a 
 military agreement for mutual help, but that means 
 something quite different to the organization of the 
 country. It means the unifying of the commands and 
 the sending of military help, but, he went on, Ukrainia
 
 AN INTERVIEW WITH TCHITCHERIN 25 
 
 must organize and bear the brunt of its own difficulties. 
 Up to the present Ukrainian armies are much younger 
 and newer and less organized than those of the Soviet 
 Republic, and consequently cannot defend themselves 
 so well. Denikin's operations, he declared, are mostly 
 turned against Ukrainia. The population is against 
 him, the Ukrainian army also, and the bigger his front 
 grows the more likely it is to break. He goes forward 
 because he has tanks and strong cavalry, but when the 
 Soviet Republic's operations begin seriously the Deni- 
 kin bubble will be pricked. 
 
 On the question of the giving of terms to the border 
 nations he said it would depend on the conditions in 
 these various republics. Where the population was 
 Bolshevik the Soviet Republic could not make terms 
 with White Guards. In Esthonia, he said, the fight 
 was at an end, it was going on only outside the country, 
 so that Esthonia was hardly a case in point. He was 
 very urgent in repeating that in the case of Esthonia, 
 Latvia, Lithuania, it was not the Soviet Republic 
 which conquered them, it was the people of the type 
 of the " Reds " who did it themselves, and the Soviet 
 Republic had allied itself with the various Soviet 
 Republics in these States after these had come into 
 existence. In answer to my question what would 
 happen in countries where the Soviet Republic was 
 dead (I had in mind the case of Esthonia), he said 
 there was always a possibility of coming to a pro- 
 visional understanding. He went on, that in agree- 
 ment with Bullitt, it was clearly said that where in 
 these countries there were Governments hostile to the
 
 26 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 Soviet Republic the population should have the possi- 
 bility of changing their Government if they wished. 
 It is a fundamental principle of the Soviet Republic 
 that the development of a people must be its own 
 work. For this reason, he said, no army was sent 
 into Finland to free the Finns; that was the work of 
 the Finns themselves. Russian troops were there, but 
 no Russian troops were sent. The whole business was 
 done by Finns. He confessed that Russians did take 
 part in the beginning in demonstrations, but they were 
 recalled by the Soviet Republic, and if volunteers went 
 they were not stopped; that he called a personal 
 matter. He ended up this part of the interview by 
 stating that where there is support from outside for 
 the White Guards, by which he meant the anti-Bol- 
 sheviks, the Soviet Republic cannot give moral support 
 to this help by entering into peace terms with such a 
 Government so long as it assisted from outside. The 
 Soviet Republic, he declared, was ready to enter into 
 agreements and negotiations with the Allies, but the 
 terms could only be settled according to the situation 
 prevailing at the precise moment when negotiations 
 took place. He made a final statement of policy of 
 the Bolshevik Republic. Its desire is to be left in 
 peace, to resume peaceful relations with other peoples, 
 and not to intervene in other countries. His Govern- 
 ment, he said, wants peaceful relations with all other 
 countries. The trade of the Republic is in the hands 
 of the nation, and it can trade with any kind of 
 commercial enterprise, a State monopoly, or a com- 
 pany, or a private merchant. It can entertain peaceful
 
 AN INTERVIEW WITH TCHITCHERIN 27 
 
 relations and accommodations with all. It can give 
 raw materials which are needed by the whole world, 
 and it badly wants machines itself.
 
 IV 
 
 THE BOLSHEVIK ORGANIZATION OF 
 INDUSTRY 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH MELIUTIN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSARY 
 OF NATIONAL ECONOMICS 
 
 HE is now Professor of Political Economics in the 
 Moscow University, and is at the head of a very im- 
 portant Commissariat, that dealing with industries. I 
 thought him best fitted to clear my ideas on the subject 
 of nationalization of industries a matter on which a 
 good deal of cheap wit has been spent and many vio- 
 lent statements wasted. He listened courteously and 
 patiently, and answered my questions without any hesi- 
 tation or reserve, giving me all the assistance possible, 
 in spite of being excessively busy, as are indeed all 
 the Commissaries of the people. 
 
 His department manages some 3,000 nationalized 
 plants, answering for 90 per cent, of the full pro- 
 duction of the country. These embrace mines in the 
 Moscow coal basin, producing 35 million poods a year; 
 textiles, mostly in Vladimir, Tver, Nijny Novgorod, and 
 Ivano-Vosnesensk; metals, in Nijny Novgorod Govern- 
 ment, in the north portion of Volga territory, Petro- 
 grad, and now Ouralsk. His statement covers about 
 
 28
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY 29 
 
 thirty Russian Governments, but does not include 
 Ukrainia; nor are small or home industries national- 
 ized. 
 
 Regarding the conditions under which the factories 
 are worked, he described the system as follows: The 
 head of every factory is a college of management of 
 from three to five persons, a mixture of workers and 
 specialists. But the people elected on this body must 
 be ratified by the special section of the Supreme Coun- 
 cil of National Economics at Moscow under which the 
 particular factory falls. 
 
 The 3,000 factories are divided into State trusts, as, 
 for instance, machine making, sugar making. In all 
 there are some ninety trusts, of which forty are con- 
 cerned with textile manufactures. Each of these trusts 
 comes under the management of the particular section 
 of the Supreme Council of Economics which is occu- 
 pied with the industries they represent. Of these sec- 
 tions there are sixty, out of which fifty are concerned 
 with production, ten with distribution, or are of a gen- 
 eral character (statistical, legal, inspection, etc.). 
 Control would seem to be pretty complete, since the 
 first elective management is controlled by a trust, 
 which in turn is controlled by a section, the whole 
 controlled by the Supreme Council. 
 
 I was curious about the trusts, and he replied that 
 each has its own administration appointed by the sec- 
 tion of the Supreme Council under whose jurisdiction 
 the trust falls. Further, that the function of a trust 
 is much the same as that of a board of directors of a 
 capitalist company. It distributes to the factories
 
 30 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 which form it raw materials, engineers; it regulates 
 their output and controls their financial operations. I 
 asked him plumply what his opinion was of this elec- 
 tive system, of its success in actual working. The 
 elective system, he said, might be absurd in any 
 country not centralized like Soviet Russia, but here 
 the Supreme Council has to confirm the appointment 
 of all candidates made by any local factory. It can, 
 in fact, control the election, and thus any absurd 
 results can be eliminated, while the association of 
 engineers and specialists on these bodies with workmen 
 is provided for through their governance by the chief 
 board of State trusts. 
 
 The Professional Alliances (Trades' Unions) or 
 unions of industries have a special interest in elimin- 
 ating any friction in the nomination of candidates, 
 and as far as possible all is done in conjunction with 
 the local professional alliances. Business ideas and 
 practices, he said, govern all the relations of trusts with 
 factories. The system goes further. It eliminates all 
 conflicts between workers and the factory manage- 
 ments. (This corresponds to Melnichansky's state- 
 ment that strikes are unrecognized; they are illogical, 
 and should not happen.) 
 
 And through this system the workers in a factory 
 become interested in their work, they are personally 
 conscious of the part they play in the efficiency of the 
 factory. And it is conditions of efficiency that are 
 the sole guiding motive for all, but especially for the 
 Supreme Council. 
 
 As to its success in working, he declared that under
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY 31 
 
 the conditions created by the Civil War, by the cutting 
 off for a whole year of supplies of raw material and 
 fuel, whatever stability there is in the industries of 
 Russia is due solely to this system; that in spite of 
 food and other difficulties there is great labor dis- 
 cipline, and that the full systematization of industry 
 gives the Supreme Council the power to maks plans 
 for production, to distribute orders where they can be 
 best carried out, according to resources in a word, 
 that it gives full knowledge of what can be done, and 
 where, for the best. Under this system full centraliza- 
 tion is reached and it has become possible to administer 
 industry according to special needs and to organize a 
 complete system of national economics. Its solidity is 
 best demonstrated by the ability to set up new plants, 
 and they have put up two new central electric stations, 
 various new plants, several new railways have been 
 built in Podolia, and in the Moscow Government a new 
 locomotive works, turning out two new engines in the 
 week of this interview. Of course, the system, like all 
 new systems, has to fight against the difficulties of 
 present conditions obtaining in Russia, and it has its 
 defects. Yet in an existence of less than two years 
 it has brought forward from the ranks of the workers 
 a series of excellent administrators, of managers, men 
 who have been placed on the Supreme Council in 
 fact, it is a system selective of the best brains of the 
 workers, from the masses up. 
 
 That, it seems to me, is high praise; but I put a 
 last question on the effect of this system on output. 
 As Miliutin said, the workers' output depends on food
 
 32 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 and conditions generally, it is a physical and physio- 
 logical proposition. Owing to difficult conditions 
 which we do not conceal, we have succeeded only in 
 some factories to raise the output, especially in those 
 working on war orders. And during the last year 
 industrial Russia has been living on the food of those 
 parts of inner Russia, which normally were unable to 
 supply surplus food. This surplus food came in ordi- 
 nary times from Ukrainia and from Ural, but these 
 had then been cut off. The conditions are not suffi- 
 ciently stable for a norm to be established, and yet in 
 spite of all there are a number of factories in which 
 there is an absolute increase in the production, which 
 as a conclusion confirmed the statement of Krassin, the 
 Commissary of Ways and Communications. 
 
 With these statements of Miliutin should be com- 
 pared the following description of a day spent in a 
 factory situated to the south of Moscow, where I met 
 directors, a workmen's committee, and the manage- 
 ment committee, in addition to three English mill 
 managers who had worked there continuously for 
 years. 
 
 Miliutin's remark on the selective nature of this 
 industrial system was borne out on this journey to 
 Serpukhoff. I met there an extremely intelligent 
 young workman, a former locksmith in the Konshin 
 mills, who had been elected president of the local 
 Soviet and was summoned to Moscow for consultation 
 by the Supreme Council. Also there traveled with me 
 three men, textile workers, who were now members of
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY 33 
 
 the Council of the Textile Trust. One of them ex- 
 plained lucidly in German the work of his trust, 
 besides throwing much light on the forward plans of 
 the Supreme Council of Economics. Here were clear 
 cases of a selection of good brains, due to the system, 
 for all four had been workmen. 
 
 THE WORKING OF A FACTORY IN SOVIET RUSSIA. 
 
 Pursuing my inquiries into the working of industries 
 under a system of nationalization, I took a journey 
 of from four to five hours by train, south to Serpukhoff, 
 where are the Konshin textile factories, to look them 
 over. The town, which is quite prettily situated, is 
 some three miles from the railway station, and is a 
 town of factories. The Konshin enterprise has four 
 mills, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and printing mills. 
 In normal times 15,000 hands are employed, and even 
 under the present stringent conditions some 6,000 are 
 working; so that it formed a good object-lesson in the 
 management of a huge factory under nationalization. 
 But it is not only a factory, it is almost a town, for 
 in these far-away Russian manufactories everything 
 has to be provided, not only for manufacture, but also 
 for the life of the workers, housing, schools, hospitals, 
 medical attendance, baths, meeting and recreation 
 rooms, farm, corn-mills and bakery everything. The 
 town can do nothing: it is the factory that does and 
 gives all. It generates its own electricity in a superbly 
 built and installed generating station, has built its own
 
 34 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 railway to a forest to supply itself with wood for fuel, 
 since naphtha and coal are cut off, and presents a 
 number of problems and opportunities which are en- 
 tirely lacking to a similar undertaking in Lancashire. 
 Its fabrics were well known before the war, outside of 
 Russia. The character of its present output has 
 changed for obvious reasons. 
 
 Among its mill managers are three men, from Lanca- 
 shire, and on the general direction chosen by the work- 
 men are two former directors, a director and the tech- 
 nical manager their election being an evidence of the 
 confidence they had generated in their workmen. Alto- 
 gether it was not only a place worth visiting, but from 
 its size and the character of the personnel it was likely 
 to prove instructive on the Soviet system of running 
 industries. 
 
 The technical manager was quite frank. According 
 to him the system, in the early days of its action, was 
 disastrous. The workmen, who are peasants drawn 
 from the surrounding villages, and who leave for tilling 
 or harvesting their land when these become necessary, 
 were unable to understand anything except that the 
 Revolution gave them the right to do as they pleased. 
 The output went down to 40 per cent., and chaos in 
 government ensued. But with experience, and by 
 changing the powers of the various committees, an 
 improved condition of things had come about, work 
 went on smoothly, though even yet there were causes 
 of trouble existing, and this year had seen the factory 
 and the system satisfactorily adjusted. 
 
 Each mill has its own workmen's committee, who
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY 35 
 
 are elected, and there is a management committee of 
 five members for the four mills, on which are elected 
 workmen, members of the Professional Alliance 
 (Union) and technical staff. Then, as this district is 
 a textile working district, the eleven cotton mills in it 
 are organized into a State Trust, which controls 22,000 
 workers. The Trust has a directing committee of nine 
 members, of whom three are elected by workmen, 
 three by the Professional Alliances, and three by the 
 local branch of the Supreme Council of National Eco- 
 nomics, which governs all industries. 
 
 This committee governs the eleven mills in all senses. 
 It controls their financial arrangements, and all esti- 
 mates of whatever nature must be put in six months in 
 advance; they are then submitted to the appropriate 
 section of the Supreme Council for ratification, finally 
 going before the Supreme Council of National Eco- 
 nomics itself. 
 
 Each item of these estimates can be examined by 
 the Trust Committee, and they are able to compare 
 items from one mill with corresponding items from 
 others. The scheme allows for complete control of 
 the distribution of raw material, of orders, and the 
 governing idea is that of correspondence between the 
 mills and mutual help. 
 
 The committee I met governed eleven cotton mills. 
 For those using flax other committees were formed, 
 and so on. I asked about the taking on of men or 
 their dismissal, and learned that it is really done in 
 the first instance by the workmen's committee in the 
 mills, discussed with the management committee, and
 
 36 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 is only controlled in a general way by the Committee 
 of the Trust. 
 
 The Trust Committee works hand in hand with the 
 Professional Alliances (Unions) in their local branch. 
 Delegates attend the meetings, and one member of 
 the Alliances has a vote in the proceedings. In this 
 way all reason for friction between them is removed. 
 It might be thought that this is guild socialism. I 
 was told it is not. The mills are not in the hands of 
 the unions, who are only partly controlling the in- 
 dustry. 
 
 But by the composition and working of the com- 
 mittees all friction is obviated. That this must be 
 so is obvious when one considers that every workman 
 in the mills, whatever his trade spinner, smith, etc. 
 is a member of the same Alliance (textiles), and is 
 fully represented on all committees. This formation 
 of unions by industry and not by trade has another 
 good quality. It prevents sectional strikes; further, 
 a strike in one mill need not affect other mills. 
 
 The workmen's committees have their hands full 
 with the labor discipline, observation of rules and 
 laws, matters affecting the health, housing, culture of 
 the workers; and the men I met, the chairmen and the 
 committee members, seemed highly intelligent, and 
 were evidently proud of their position. They control 
 yet another matter. Workmen are allowed by law to 
 proceed to their villages in search of supplies, and to 
 bring back amounts up to 2 poods in weight (80 lb.). 
 The lists of those people are drawn up and certified 
 by the workmen's committees, though it can be imag-
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY 37 
 
 ined what an element of uncertainty it places in the 
 hands of the management, especially when in addition 
 orders for mobilization of a certain percentage of 
 workers may arrive at any moment. 
 
 Workmen are paid according to very elaborate 
 tariffs, which have been prepared for all occupations 
 whatsoever. Of this I have spoken in my report on 
 the Commissariat of Labor. It is here that the cause 
 of present trouble exists. A rigidity of tariff allows no 
 margin within which the management can act; but at- 
 tention has been drawn to this, and a revision in the 
 sense required is being undertaken. 
 
 My frank discussion with the management, the 
 Englishmen, and the committees left the impression 
 that this huge concern was being managed success- 
 fully on the Soviet Committee system, and that in a 
 time of peculiar and great difficulty. The system 
 allows co-operation in industry between mills, prevents 
 friction between Professional Alliances (Unions) and 
 management, and stimulates the workers. That 
 socialistic management should stimulate emulation was 
 indeed a surprise. But I was told it is true, and that 
 an exhibition of comparative output at Moscow pro- 
 vides a sufficient incentive to competitive work. 
 
 A FURTHER NOTE ON INDUSTRIES. 
 
 From my long conversation with the three workmen 
 who are now members of the Textile Trust Committee 
 I gathered much that throws light on the condition and 
 prospects of industry.
 
 38 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 Thus this committee controls nearly 500 factories 
 engaged in textile manufacture, linen, cotton, cloth, 
 silk, rope, and thread: factories that are working to- 
 day. I have previously described how it is responsible 
 for the approval of the estimates of the factories con- 
 trolled by it. It was surprising to learn that decisions 
 had been taken of an anti-Bolshevik nature, e.g. in 
 cases where the committee was unable to supply the 
 thing needed dyestuffs factories were allowed to 
 buy from speculators; and in combustibles, authority 
 was given to each factory independently to supply 
 itself a thing I had seen in operation at Serpukhoff 
 and at the Moscow waterworks. Such things are con- 
 firmation from another quarter of my statement else- 
 where that the communistic practice of the Bolsheviks 
 is imperfect. 
 
 The buying of flax, first done by individual ex- 
 ploiters for export, then by the Co-operative Societies 
 for the same purpose, is now done by the Soviets, 
 under the Trust Committee. Much had been given 
 out to the cotton factories to work. It is cut into short 
 lengths to make it convenient for use in the cotton 
 machinery; in some cases machinery has been altered 
 with the same end in view. But the bulk of four 
 years' stock remains in hand, unexported, ready for 
 trade. 
 
 Like other trusts, this Textile Trust has in mind 
 the proper housing of the workers, and is planning to 
 secure it. For the development of the factories it is 
 to build light railway lines to connect them with the 
 main lines, and help also the workers. Some of these
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND INDUSTRY 39 
 
 have already been built, and returns in one year repay 
 the cost of building. 
 
 Talking of the condition and the future of the Rus- 
 sian industries, it surprised me to learn that even in 
 the midst of the civil war and all its attendant diffi- 
 culties and horrors, the Trust Committees and the 
 Supreme Council have a real forward policy. And 
 enterprise after enterprise was pictured out to me, 
 from which I extract only one. The great turf bogs 
 are to be exploited. Existing conditions have warned 
 them that Moscow must be independent for light and 
 heat of the Donetz basin and the Baku Wells. At 
 Bogorotsk, 70 kilometers from Moscow, a generating 
 station burning turf is at work. Another, similar, at 
 Schaturskaya, 90 kilometers off, began to function in 
 January. At Kashira, works for using the soft coal of 
 the Moscow province will generate 15,000 h.p. also 
 for Moscow. 
 
 It had been my intention to push as far as one of 
 these turf-burning stations, and see for myself. Time 
 did not allow. But there is sufficient in the interview 
 with Miliutin, the visit to Serpukhoff, and the reports 
 of these workmen, to disprove the statement that the 
 Bolsheviks have destroyed the industry of Russia.
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH SEREDA, COMMISSARY OF 
 AGRICULTURE 
 
 THINKING carefully over this long interview, I have 
 come to the conclusion that it was one of the most 
 significant. Russia, in spite of the industrialization of 
 many towns, and the partial industrialization of some 
 countrysides, is yet a land of peasant farmers, very 
 many millions in number, and the question of the land 
 is the question par excellence by which Governments 
 have fallen and by which Governments will stand. 
 
 Further, it showed me that the Soviet Republic does 
 not take up any subject of collective importance until 
 it feels itself competent to deal with it, but once taken 
 up, the treatment of it is as complete and minute as 
 human ingenuity can make it. Few loopholes of 
 escape are left, and the covering of the land with a 
 network of authorities, all acting under a centralized 
 general authority, insures that whatever action the 
 Soviet may finally take will be guided by as complete 
 a knowledge as it is possible to obtain. Lastly, as the 
 interview shows, where the introduction of a collective 
 system comes up forcibly against deep-rooted habits 
 and prejudices, the leaders are sufficiently subtle and 
 
 40
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 41 
 
 supple to proceed slowly, altering for the time being 
 the purely collective attitude, but trying by all means 
 of education and demonstration to remove the preju- 
 dices, reform the habits, and bring about the triumph 
 of collectivism. It is not only in matters affecting the 
 land, but in other directions also, that I have reason to 
 think that the purely communistic attitude is being, or 
 has been modified temporarily, with a view to its com- 
 pleter success later on. 
 
 Distribution of Land Its Ownership. After the 
 October Revolution some 25 million hectares of land, 
 formerly the private property of landowners, were 
 given over to the peasants. Before that Revolution 
 land had been seized irregularly, the peasants, weary 
 of the vacillations of the Kerensky Government, and 
 fearing that the promises of land made to them would 
 not be fulfilled, seized it, and the punitive expeditions 
 sent out by the Kerensky Government to take it back 
 led to the horrors of a Jacquerie, with which the world 
 is acquainted. But, on the whole, the amount thus 
 seized was not large, for the habits of the peasants, 
 formed through long ages, acted against forcible expro- 
 priation. So far as could be done, land was given by 
 the Soviet Republic to the peasants; the process of dis- 
 tribution is still going on, or the claims to land being 
 adjusted, by an army of 5,000 agricultural surveyors. 
 But already, as the elaborate cartograms of the subject 
 in the department of agriculture show, in two Govern- 
 ments, Astrakhan and Saratof, the distribution of land 
 among peasants is complete; in other Governments 
 complete in varying proportions.
 
 42 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 The Principle of Distribution arranges for giving to 
 a family the amount of land which it can work, and a 
 rough scale for the distribution can be at once got in 
 any district from the amount of land available for dis- 
 tribution, and the number of families requiring it. 
 But local conditions, character of soil, etc., make the 
 amounts given vary much. And whereas in some prov- 
 inces the needs of the peasantry can be fully met, 
 while in others, owing to density of population, they 
 cannot, the Commissariat of Agriculture is making ar- 
 rangements to solve this difficulty by transplanting 
 peasants. 
 
 Form of Tenure. According to the fundamental 
 land laws, the land is given to people who can utilize 
 it without the application of hired labor; thus the right 
 is created rather in the use that can be made of land 
 than in the land itself. For if a man ceases to work 
 his land, it lapses again to the State; also, a peasant 
 can leave his land to a son who will work it, if not, 
 as above, it once more lapses. And in the distribution 
 of assistance, preference is given to collective owner- 
 ship, above the individual, since the chief aim of the 
 Soviets is to establish the regime of collective work. 
 
 That does not mean that there is any forcible action 
 on the individual peasant there is none but by the 
 working of State domains, State farms, as models, and 
 by farm communes, by publishing the comparative 
 results, every effort is made to show the peasant the 
 advantage coming from collective working. Indeed, 
 the organization of assistance and the granting of aid 
 in the development of the land is no inconsiderable
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 43 
 
 part of the work of the Commissariat of Agriculture. 
 It works through the land committees which have been 
 set up in every province, to whom the communes can 
 make application for help, and have their cases exam- 
 ined, considered, and decided upon. This help is given 
 in many ways, in money, in implements, in the setting 
 up of repairing shops, since the shortage of metals and 
 combustibles does not allow of the manufacture of new 
 implements, in seeds, and so on, the return made by 
 the peasants being the corn raised and handed over to 
 the State monopoly. The provision and improvement 
 of seeds are in the hands of an organization under this 
 Commissariat, which is above all interested in increas- 
 ing the area of cultivation, which, since 1918, it has 
 actually enlarged. 
 
 The Controller of Food Supplies governs the supply 
 of the seed; distribution of it is the care of the land 
 committees. It seems that no instructions are given 
 to the peasant as to what he shall or shall not grow; 
 it is assumed that, with his accumulated hereditary 
 knowledge of his land, he knows best. But orders are 
 given to the agricultural specialists employed to urge 
 as strongly as possible modern methods of cultivation; 
 to maintain a close contact with the peasant, who is to 
 be led to consider the specialist as his friend and ad- 
 viser. To provide specialists, all agronomes, i.e. men 
 provided with special agricultural knowledge, are 
 called upon to register themselves and place themselves 
 at the disposal of the land committees, on pain of being 
 found guilty before the law. The Commissariat of 
 Agriculture is covering the country with a network of
 
 44- BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 technical stations, where work goes on in improving 
 the class of seeds; in breeding and improving the breed 
 of cattle; also of horses in State stud farms; in quality 
 of poultry; in apiculture; all of which is in close co- 
 ordination with the farm communes, State farms, and 
 with the peasants generally. Reports show that the 
 peasants respond; they apply for help, and begin to 
 learn the value of modern technique in farming. 
 Of this I had a more personal experience, to be de- 
 scribed later. Already there are some 5,000 communes 
 for collective farming, and an All-Russian Convention 
 of these farmers has been held. Of State domains 
 there are about 1,400 in the country, in size varying 
 from 400 to 8,000 hectares. These were mostly the 
 estates of former landowners, generally better organ- 
 ized and cultivated than the peasants' land; they are 
 now needed for a double purpose. They serve to in- 
 tensify the production of the country, and they are 
 demonstration farms, where the farmers can see the 
 results of the improved technique which is recom- 
 mended to them. One of the tasks of the Agricultural 
 Commissariat is to investigate the application of elec- 
 tricity to agriculture, and it has experimental stations 
 where commissions are working out the problem of 
 electrical application. 
 
 The Sharing of Crops. A good deal has been made 
 of the taking of the crops by the Commissaries of the 
 people, and of the results on the peasants, and I was 
 careful in inquiry on the point. A certain norm is 
 fixed and a sufficiency of corn is allowed for the needs 
 of the farmer and his family, the transaction
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 45 
 
 settled by the Commissariat of Food which also regu- 
 lates the reservation to be made for the supply of seed 
 corn. The balance goes to the State monopoly in ex- 
 change either for goods or money. As the State is also 
 the proprietor of all the industries, the nature of the 
 transaction can be seen. The price paid is a fixed one 
 made by the Food Control, which has to take into 
 consideration the conditions prevailing in the locality 
 the cost of production, and the prices of industrial 
 products in the district concerned. As the interview 
 with the Food Control shows, the full balance has no- 
 where yet been secured; much is hidden and held up 
 with a view to possible speculation in prices. 
 
 The Attitude of the Peasants. These were divided 
 up into three groups rich, middle, and poor. The 
 rich peasant is hostile to the decrees and the policy 
 of the Soviet. Any decrees which help the poorer 
 peasants must to that extent hurt him, and besides, 
 from the fixation of prices of produce he stands to 
 lose more than others; he can no longer safely specu- 
 late, hoard corn for a time of high prices, and hence 
 his resentment. With the middling class peasant it 
 is the policy of the Soviet to work in a spirit of friendly 
 co-operation; it is he who really counts most in the 
 question of the peasantry. As for the poor peasant, 
 it must be remembered that the Russian peasant is 
 extremely susceptible to all that affects his ownership 
 of land. He knows that he got land after the October 
 Revolution; in many parts of the country he has 
 already been reminded by the " Whites " that wher- 
 ever the power of the Soviets is overthrown, even
 
 46 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 temporarily, the rights and privileges of former land- 
 owners are restored. More and more the poorer peas- 
 ants are entering into the collective form of produc- 
 tion; when the Red Army passes they assist it with 
 food; they see that their interests are linked with the 
 retention of Soviet power. It had previously been 
 frankly confessed to me that there have been risings 
 of peasants, and the cause was confessed with equal 
 frankness. A year ago, in dire straits for food for 
 the center of Russia, owing to the blockade and the 
 advancing ring of enemies, the Soviet had to send Com- 
 missaries and soldiers into the country to take the 
 food. The necessity was great and something had to 
 be done, but the doing of it gave great umbrage to the 
 peasants concerned. It was this which produced the 
 rising in the Simbirsk and Samara Governments. 
 
 The Chief Task of the Commissariat of Agriculture 
 is the increase of the production of the soil in Russia. 
 " We believe that can best be done by the collective 
 working of the land, but we are not carrying through 
 any forcible socialization of the land, we are not forc- 
 ing any individual producer to enter any collective 
 form of production. On the contrary, we try specially 
 to preserve the individual freedom of the farmers, and 
 land committees and other agents of the Soviet Govern- 
 ment have received definite instructions to bring no 
 pressure whatever to bear on any individual farmer 
 to join any collective form of producing. We believe 
 that the collective producer can only be valuable pro- 
 vided he has become convinced of the advantages of 
 the collective process of production, and enters it con-
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 47 
 
 sciously and willingly. And while we are trying to 
 give to the peasants supplies of improved seeds, arti- 
 ficial manures, repairing shops, an improved breed of 
 horses and cattle, fowls and bees all that we are doing 
 is embarrassed by the fact that so many workers are 
 drawn off by war who would be better employed as 
 producers or instructors." The statement is so weighty 
 that I give it in the words of the Commissary. It is 
 a reply to the frequent criticism that the action of the 
 Soviet Republic is nothing more than the thrusting of 
 society into the communistic form by brute force. So 
 far as I can see this is not true; they know how to 
 concede, how to draw back and conciliate, and this 
 statement by Sereda shows the same mental process at 
 work in connection with the land. 
 
 Forestry. The forests are immense, covering 150 
 millions of dessiatines, of which formerly 100 millions 
 belonged to the Crown, 50 millions to private owners. 
 They have been taken by the State and are worked. 
 A general survey is being made of them by 2,000 sur- 
 veyors and 3,000 expert foresters, the value of the 
 wood settled, and the best way in which the forests 
 can be exploited. The peasants are not restricted in 
 the use of the forests, for the State has it at heart to 
 support home industries, and for these wood is neces- 
 sary. Besides which, it is forming " artels " work- 
 ing associations for the working of the forests, and is 
 giving to them credits. At the same time the question 
 of the forests has been brought before the Council of 
 the People's Commissaries, who in principle have no 
 objection to the granting of concessions of forests to
 
 48 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 outside people for exploitation. With a last hint the 
 interview closed, but this hint was significant. A law 
 is to be passed assuring to any foreigners who wish 
 to come and live in Russia as citizens land and the 
 means to live. Preference will be given to those 
 colonists who will undertake to work on a collective 
 system, and it is expected that they will prove an ad- 
 vantage to the agricultural system of Russia, by bring- 
 ing with them higher and better forms of production. 
 The department of agriculture has its eyes wide open 
 to any possibility of bringing improvement to the pro- 
 ductiveness of Russia. This question of colonists 
 shows it in one direction, and the network of stations, 
 farms, and all kinds of establishments maintained 
 through the length and breadth of the land, shows the 
 same intense desire. I had been so impressed by the 
 disclosure of the immense activity of this Commis- 
 sariat, that I followed up the interview by going out 
 some 20 versts into the country to inspect the nearest 
 of these stations to Moscow. There are 600 of these 
 farms, of which 1 70 are devoted to the improvement of 
 the breed of horses, 90 of pigs, and the rest generally 
 of cattle. They are controlled by a special sub-depart- 
 ment of the Commissariat, and the director of this sub- 
 department, a man of great ability, experience, and 
 extraordinary full life, took me out to Veshki, where I 
 passed the greater part of a day. It is a farm of 782 
 dessiatines, divided between plough and grasslands, for 
 much is done in improving the quality of seeds, 
 although Veshki has for its speciality the breeding of 
 horses and cattle, and to some extent pigs. Of horses
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 49 
 
 the farm possesses thirty-five, of which fourteen are 
 mares and two are stallions of the Flemish type 
 Brabangons three entire horses and two mares are 
 of a lighter type for use in towns for carriage work 
 generally; the rest are producing horses for farm work. 
 The animals I saw are superb creatures, and of the 
 produce of the farm I saw foals of one month, a month 
 and a half, one and two years old, excellent specimens 
 of careful breeding. The use of the horses is granted 
 to the peasants, who bring their mares to the farm. 
 Of cows Veshki specializes in two kinds, one a Swiss, 
 closely resembling the Alderney cows, and the other a 
 pure Russian, black with white face. One of the bulls 
 is a pedigree beast, and there are in all eleven of them, 
 mostly bred on the farm. They are housed, like the 
 herd of cows, in a byre of modern, hygienic construc- 
 tion which is in itself a lesson to the peasants. The 
 stabling for the horses, though good, is of older con- 
 struction and is to be replaced by newer premises. 
 The milk of the herd of cows is sent into Moscow to 
 the Food Control, for children and invalids. In pigs, 
 little is done here, but a beginning has been made with 
 English pigs of Yorkshire breed, which are preferred. 
 The establishment formerly belonged to a society for 
 breeding cattle; it was taken over by the Soviet and its 
 province extended. And if one multiplies the activity 
 of Veshki by 600, the number of special stations, one 
 has a glimpse of what is being done by the Soviet in 
 scientific improvement of matters relating to the land. 
 The stations are a living lesson to the peasants, who 
 can use the studs kept on them, and can buy at cost
 
 50 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 price from them the cattle and horses bred there. And 
 this extension of agricultural demonstration, its elabo- 
 rate and minute organization, and its direction by com- 
 petent experts, is the work of the Soviet Government. 
 The establishment contains 134 people, including 
 women and children, all living here. Its head is a fine 
 specimen of a young farmer from Podolia, very intelli- 
 gent, and speaking both French and German. He has 
 an assistant and also a representative of the Work- 
 men's Committee as special helpers, and there is also 
 the usual workmen's committee. I was intensely curi- 
 ous about the working of this committee, for I know 
 something of agricultural conditions and of agricultural 
 laborers and of farmers in England. I learned that it 
 consists of five members, with two deputies chosen to 
 act in case of illness of any of the five. It has as its 
 special province to look after the working discipline of 
 the farm; to see that the conditions laid down for labor 
 are observed; to look after the housing, food, cultural 
 work, and health of the laborers. But the manager 
 can act on his own discretion on all special questions 
 relating to the farm. It is he who can decide them 
 without reference to the workmen. Knowing some- 
 thing of the difficulties that arise in the management 
 of a farm, I thought that a beneficial reservation; 
 but on the subject of the committee I pressed the 
 manager still further. He confessed that its value 
 depended entirely on the intelligence of the men, that 
 many were incapable of acting on it with any good 
 effect, but that in spite of the varieties of intelligence 
 represented the system really acts, that the men learn
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE LAND 51 
 
 through it and their intelligence is increased. In proof 
 of this he mentioned the case of a Soviet milk farm 
 which we had passed on our way out. The manager 
 had been there for twenty-eight years, and on the place 
 being taken over by the Soviet he decided to remain. 
 He now prefers the system of workmen's committees. 
 The manager of Veshki seems confident of the good 
 that comes from the work of the farm, and regretted 
 humorously that he could not show me the difference 
 between the rye grown on the farm and that grown 
 by neighboring peasants because he said " this year 
 they are using our seed." And our road to Veshki had 
 taken us through a farm commune a collectively 
 worked number of farms on which the crops were 
 heavy and good, in striking contrast to others I had 
 seen in the country.
 
 INTERVIEW WITH SCHMIDT, COMMISSARY 
 OF LABOR 
 
 THIS Commissariat is one of the most important, and 
 as in the Soviet Republic the working classes hold the 
 supreme power, it was urgent to discover what action 
 they had taken concerning themselves, not as gov- 
 ernors, but as workmen. 
 
 The Commissariat does not lack work. It is con- 
 cerned with the enrolment and distribution of labor 
 throughout Russia; with the fixing of hours of work; 
 with making the tariffs according to which workers 
 are paid; with the protection of labor (factory in- 
 spection) ; with the support of the worker during tem- 
 porary inability to work (insurance against sickness, 
 disablement, complete or partial, accident or tempo- 
 rary unemployment) ; with pensions. It thus combines 
 the functions of Labor Exchanges, Factory Inspectors, 
 and National Insurance with us, with many other func- 
 tions, which require the action, with us, of Parliament, 
 or of the trades' unions themselves. The basis of this 
 Labor Commissariat is the Professional Alliances 
 (Unions by industries), from which the Commissariat 
 is built up. A college of nine is formed, of which five 
 
 52
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND LABOR 53 
 
 members are the representatives elected by the 
 National Council of Professional Alliances, four being 
 appointed by the Commissaries of the People, though 
 even here the Professional Alliances have the right to 
 challenge these appointments if they see fit. Laws to 
 be passed concerning labor are first passed through 
 the National Council of Professional Alliances, then 
 sent to the Commissariat of Labor to be ratified or con- 
 demned; if ratified, to be promulgated as law. 
 
 This constitution of the Commissariat insures that 
 the men who are making plans for labor are competent 
 for the task, men who are experts in their own branch, 
 while the elective system insures the active personal 
 participation of all the workers. 
 
 Hours of Labor. As at present fixed, are eight 
 hours daily for workers, and six hours daily for em- 
 ployes in offices. In trades that are dangerous to 
 health mines, gas factories the day is six hours 
 long; in the tobacco industry seven hours. Overtime 
 is not provided for, but owing to the stringency of 
 present conditions a concession of two hours per day 
 has been allowed, the pay being one and a half times 
 the ordinary pay. In Night Work the period is seven 
 hours on a shift, but neither women nor the young 
 workers are allowed to work on night shifts. 
 
 The age at which work may begin is sixteen, and 
 it is hoped later on to raise it. From sixteen to 
 eighteen years of age a six hours' day is fixed, and no 
 working of overtime is allowed. If the sixteen to 
 eighteen years' old workers do the same kind of work 
 as the older, they get the same pay; working six hours
 
 54 
 
 they get paid for eight hours. The remaining two 
 hours of an eight hours' day must be spent in schools 
 that are specially arranged for the workers' improve- 
 ment under Lunacharsky's scheme. As a temporary 
 measure, due to the conditions obtaining in this war- 
 time, it has been permitted for youths from fourteen 
 to sixteen years of age to work for four hours per 
 day, but only in those trades which are not preju- 
 dicial to health. The shop committees control the 
 schools. 
 
 These provisions for continued school instruction are 
 an improvement on American vocational schools, where 
 the full eight hours' day must first be passed in the 
 factory. 
 
 Rest. Every worker is entitled to forty-two hours' 
 rest a week, that is really one week-end; and after a 
 year's work he can further claim a month's holiday 
 with full pay. This at present is reduced to two weeks 
 owing to war conditions, but even here workers in dan- 
 gerous trades receive the full month's holiday. 
 
 Tariffs of Pay. These have been worked out en- 
 tirely for the various industries by each National Com- 
 mittee of the particular Professional Alliance (Indus- 
 trial Union). The tariff has to pass through the 
 National Council of Professional Alliances, and be pre- 
 sented to the Commissariat of Labor, which has to 
 determine how far it is in accord with the general 
 policy of the Soviet Government. The National 
 Council of the Professional Alliances, when each tariff 
 passes its control, has to determine whether it harmon- 
 izes with regulations worked out by other Professional
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND LABOR 55 
 
 Alliances. Tariffs are changed from time to time as 
 soon as the Tariff Committee of the National Council 
 finds that the cost of living is in excess of pay. 
 
 Social Insurance is an important section of the work 
 of the Commissariat. In the interview with Melni- 
 chansky I have described how a fund was raised with 
 which to begin operations. I now learned that the 
 system is non-contributory, the fund being maintained 
 by a 25 per cent, grant of the full amount of the 
 wages sheet made by the State, or by the private em- 
 ployer where the industry is not nationalized; more 
 being paid if the trade is hurtful to health. 
 
 This social insurance covers the whole life of the 
 worker sickness, invalidity, unemployment, accident, 
 old age pensions, and maternity. In cases of complete 
 loss of ability to work, accident or maternity, full 
 wages are paid. In the case of maternity the period 
 lasts for eight weeks before and eight weeks after the 
 birth of the child. 
 
 In cases of partial disability the amount paid varies 
 according to the percentage of disability. 
 
 Pensions for total disability, or invalidity, or old 
 age, vary in amount according to the average wages 
 of the trade in the locality concerned; but where 
 special treatment or care is required, an addition is 
 made according to the medical requirements on the 
 recommendation of a special committee which exam- 
 ines the cases. 
 
 A factory worker on reaching the age of fifty auto- 
 matically receives a pension, but other workers in less 
 exhausting occupations must, at sixty, present them-
 
 56 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 selves before a special committee, which decides to 
 what extent they are pensionable. Should they be 
 thought to retain 50 per cent, of their energy, they 
 still work; but if less, then they are fully pensioned. 
 This, I was told, is a temporary measure due to the 
 stringency of the time, and the shortage of hands; 
 it is not intended to be permanent. Every considera- 
 tion is paid by the Commissariat to the conditions of 
 labor, and efforts are made to reduce the damage to 
 health, by introducing new processes, when these are 
 within the means of the Commissariat. All matters of 
 sanitary value hi the housing of the worker come also 
 within the scope of its powers, and it has the task of 
 passing all plans for new buildings for workers. Their 
 effort in requisitioning houses of the rich and ap- 
 portioning the rooms as a temporary measure to meet 
 the very great requirements of the workers is one of 
 the things that has been strongly criticized. I myself 
 lived in a room in such a house, which shelters now, 
 instead of two people, a dozen workers of the Soviet. 
 There are not enough big buildings to house all the 
 workers. Most of them are far away from the 
 factories, but still all of them are inhabited by 
 workers. 
 
 Factory Inspection is now conducted by the workers 
 themselves, the Professional Alliances are choosing 
 and training men from among themselves who control 
 thus the industries for the department of the Protection 
 of Labor, a special part of the Commissariat. They 
 are charged with seeing that regulations concerning 
 hours and social insurance are observed, with taking
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND LABOR 57 
 
 children away from work in short, with the full duties 
 of a factory inspector. 
 
 The Enrolment and Distribution of labor is solely 
 in the hands of this Commissariat, which alone has 
 the right of supplying labor. Formerly the Labor 
 Exchanges were made up of representatives of pro- 
 fessional unions and of municipalities. These have 
 been re-formed into departments of registration and 
 distribution, acting through committees formed of rep- 
 resentatives sent by the various Professional Alliances. 
 When there was much unemployment, Labor Ex- 
 changes were needed. Since there is shortness of 
 hands they were re-organized as " Enrolment and Dis- 
 tribution Committees," which are also formed by com- 
 mittees of the alliances. The " Enrolment and Dis- 
 tribution Committee " has to enrol every citizen and 
 see to it that he shall work. When an exigency arises 
 there shall not be any idlers. They register all labor; 
 they supply all labor as applications are received from 
 the factories requiring it, though, as a temporary meas- 
 ure, in the case of the more responsible workers, such 
 as engineers, permission is given to factories to invite 
 workers; but once such an appointment is made, it is 
 registered under the particular trade to which it 
 belongs. 
 
 The Commissariat has thus complete control of the 
 labor market, and is able to eliminate competition, that 
 is the competition which is represented by men fighting 
 for a job, or trying to undersell one another. 
 
 At this point Melnichansky came in, and the inter- 
 view became a discussion of the system of labor control
 
 58 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 in its relation to a fully developed socialistic system. 
 It was extremely interesting, and produced some useful 
 information. The general tariff of pay, which runs 
 from 600 roubles a month for the lowest, up to 3,000 
 a month for the highest, is looked upon only as a 
 transition. Each revision of the tariff will aim at re- 
 ducing the difference between the highest and lowest. 
 The general tariff will be changed from the ist of Sep- 
 tember, 1919 the lowest wage being 1,200 roubles, 
 the highest 4,800. But even now 3,000 roubles a 
 month is not the highest wage paid. In cases where 
 specialists are required and men are invited to fill the 
 posts whose services are worth to the State more than 
 3,000 roubles a month, they are paid more, if approved 
 by a special committee of the People's Commissaries, 
 who have to consider the cases fully and decide on the 
 advantage of paying the higher sum. This, again, ap- 
 pears to me to be one of those numerous cases in which 
 the system during its early stages has been cut and 
 carved to meet difficult circumstances. Concessions 
 are made at present in order to insure the future suc- 
 cess of the socialistic principle. I mentioned the usual 
 criticism of socialism its destructive effect on emula- 
 tion, reducing all to one level. But the tariffs provide 
 for grouping the workers according to the intelligence 
 required in their work, with corresponding differences 
 of pay, and, the competition for bread gone, for the 
 minimum wage and the certainty of employment have 
 killed that, there remains a competition of interest in 
 work. This, with the opportunities given for study 
 and cultivation, results in the improvement of the
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND LABOR 59 
 
 worker, who changes his group and advances in the 
 scale. I was assured that this is already going on, 
 and that so far from being killed, inventiveness is 
 being stimulated and hidden talent developed. 
 
 These men look on the system of labor control not 
 as a dead weight on culture, but as a direct stimulus 
 towards it. And no one could mistake the genuine 
 emotion with which Melnichansky compared the posi- 
 tion of the worker under the Soviet Republic with his 
 own life in the United States, where he was a mechanic 
 in the metal industry, or with which he pointed out the 
 consciousness of opportunity that has come to the Rus- 
 sian worker who pants and strains to improve himself 
 and reach a full mental development. These men are 
 sincere, their emotion is sincere, and their statements 
 are confirmed in many cases by what I myself have 
 seen. The Russian, fundamentally patient and gentle, 
 possesses an extraordinary character capable of in- 
 tense enthusiasm and great efforts, and it would seem 
 that the change of regime, the new freedom, has pro- 
 duced a wave of conscious, not vague, enthusiasm, for 
 cultivation of his own capacities, and for use of his new 
 opportunities, which has already produced much and 
 looks like being enduring.
 
 TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN THE SOVIET 
 REPUBLIC 
 
 TRADES' Unions are here called Professional Alliances, 
 they embrace not single and local trades, but whole 
 industries. At the offices of the Moscowsky Council 
 of Professional Alliances I saw the Secretary, Melni- 
 chansky, who discoursed freely on this side of Soviet 
 life, and answered all my questions with the greatest 
 ease. As Secretary of this huge organization, I imagine 
 he is in the right place. He is soaked in his subject, 
 and had no need to consult any note or book during 
 the three hours the interview lasted. 
 
 The building where I found him in the center of 
 Moscow is so striking, both in itself and in the con- 
 trast between its present and its past, that it deserves 
 a word to itself. This Labor Temple (the building of 
 the Moscow Alliances or Unions), as it now is, is the 
 former palace for the meetings of the nobility, an im- 
 mense building containing suites of offices and a vast 
 marble staircase leading up to a gallery surrounding 
 two sides of a magnificent hall, where fetes used to be 
 given to the Tsar when he visited Moscow. It is, 
 perhaps, the largest hall in Russia; a noble oblong of 
 great height, finely proportioned. The sides are lined 
 with white marble pillars supporting the cornice, be- 
 
 60
 
 TRADES' UNIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA 61 
 
 hind them are two wide promenades, above them is a 
 gallery which runs round three sides. The old lusters 
 remain, and the lighting is continued by a con- 
 cealed fringe of small lights behind the edge of the 
 cornice. 
 
 My imagination quickly peopled it with a glitter- 
 ing throng of courtiers and nobles, splendid in dresses, 
 jewels and orders, and contrasted it violently with its 
 present use, filled with chairs for the meeting of con- 
 ventions, a big platform at the further end. It can be 
 made to hold from 3,000 to 4,000 persons, and I 
 thought that the workers of the Soviet Republic can 
 congratulate themselves on having as a home perhaps 
 the largest, and certainly the most splendid and signifi- 
 cant hall in the world. It was given to them by the 
 Government after the October Revolution. Its condi- 
 tion was dirty and unkempt, for it had been used 
 during the Great War as work-rooms for the making 
 of uniforms. But the workers cleaned it, and in some 
 places altered its decoration themselves, and in the 
 suite of rooms forming a long gallery the scutcheons of 
 nobility in the wall panels are replaced by shields bear- 
 ing the emblems of the Republic, the Professional Al- 
 liances, and various trades, modeled in plaster. And 
 in the center room of the gallery, where formerly were 
 pictures and emblems of the Russian generals of the 
 Napoleonic period, on walls and ceiling are now simple 
 red panels, against two of which are busts of Marx and 
 Lenin, resembling, but not particularly fine works of 
 art. In the part of the building given up to offices is 
 a fine circular council chamber, the meeting-place of
 
 62 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 the nobility, where the very chairs bear witness to the 
 former character of the place, for on their backs are 
 the heraldic emblems of former occupants. 
 
 The contrast between past and present is almost 
 stupefying, yet is so full of meaning, so indicative of 
 things that are happening here (where Commissaries 
 of the People are lodged in the Kremlin itself) and 
 in Russia generally, that it is worthy of careful note. 
 
 Melnichansky's lucid explanation of the Trades' 
 Union system under the Soviet I shall try to reproduce 
 as clearly as I can. 
 
 There is a difference between the Russian form of 
 organization and the English, where men are members 
 of local and special unions according to trades; or 
 the I.W.W., which runs a general mixed organization. 
 Russian workers are organized by industries, as metal, 
 wood, textile industries, embracing all trades. Thus 
 the Metal Workers' Union takes in some 290 trades. 
 But all are united in one central organization the All- 
 Russian Council of Professional Alliances. There are 
 thirty Professional Alliances, which unite all trades by 
 the industries in which they are employed. In most 
 of the cities (i) they are organized by localities; (2) 
 they are then united by Provincial Councils; (3) these 
 are connected by National Councils. There are thirty 
 National Councils, which are united by the All-Russian 
 Council of Professional Alliances. This, omitting the 
 part of the Ukraine, which is at present in the hands 
 of Denikin, rules some 3^ million members. This 
 organization has been largely developed by the Soviet 
 regime, for at the February Revolution there were
 
 TRADES' UNIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA 63 
 
 only three trades' unions in Moscow; but at the time 
 of the October Revolution all trades here had been 
 organized, and the present all-embracing system 
 evolved. 
 
 This conclusion seems to have been a natural one. 
 The Revolution of February was a purely political 
 one; the Tsar had been got rid of, but the condition 
 of the workers remained unchanged, and this political 
 character was retained by the Kerensky Government. 
 Strikes were in progress hi Moscow and all over 
 Russia to secure advanced wages in order to meet 
 the stringency of food prices. Nearer to the period 
 of September and October it was evident that strikes 
 should be avoided. A little consideration showed that 
 they would be to the advantage of the masters, whose 
 sources of profit, war orders, had dried up, and who 
 would have welcomed the strikes. Two months before 
 the October Revolution it was seen that the only thing 
 for workers to do was to fight the Provisional Govern- 
 ment and secure Government by Soviet, which would 
 be able to change the condition of the workers in rela- 
 tion to the changed economical condition of the 
 country. 
 
 It would also produce the effect of giving each 
 worker a direct interest in the governing body, in its 
 elections. For every man is a member of some alliance 
 (union), which elects its own member to the Soviet. 
 At the same time it elects the Executive Committee of 
 the Alliance, which, in turn, elects its members to the 
 Soviet, at least two, at most five, according to the 
 numerical status of the members of the Alliance.
 
 64 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 , There is thus a direct participation in the Govern- 
 ment, both of the alliance and of the country, for 
 the members are elected by and from the workers. 
 The Soviet, though superior to the organizations of 
 the Alliances, who require its approval before their 
 conclusions can become law, can thus devote itself to 
 the political development of the country, while the 
 Executive Committees can care for the conditions of 
 the industries they represent, and through the Central 
 Organization of the Alliances, for the economical de- 
 velopment of the country. 
 
 A question regarding rates of pay brought informa- 
 tion concerning strikes. These are not recognized. 
 Indeed, one must confess they would be illogical 
 you do not strike against yourself. Formerly, he said, 
 strike-breakers were considered as traitors to the cause 
 of the workers; now it is strikers or people wishing 
 to strike who are the traitors. In other countries 
 strikes were and are the only weapon in the workers' 
 hands for securing a change of conditions. Here, on 
 the contrary, the various Alliances have Tariff Com- 
 mittees, who follow the movement of prices, and, where 
 necessary, work out plans for changing the rate of 
 wages. These plans are passed through the Central 
 Council, thence through the Soviet, and so become 
 law. 
 
 On Hours of Labor and Rates of Pay I have already 
 spoken in " Bolshevism and Labor." 
 
 Unemployment and Sickness have been tackled by 
 the Alliances with success, though Melnichansky 
 frankly admitted their early difficulties, both in creat-
 
 TRADES' UNIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA 65 
 
 ing a fund and in finding out ways of distribution. 
 His frankness was but a repetition of what I have 
 constantly found the readiness to admit mistakes and 
 blunders, and to confess the difficulty of finding suc- 
 cessful ways and methods of action under conditions 
 of great stress. The school of experience of the leaders 
 of the Bolsheviks has been a hard one, but they have 
 profited by it. 
 
 They got over their difficulty of raising a fund for 
 insuring the worker against sickness and unemploy- 
 ment by requiring the proprietors of factories, all of 
 whom had done sufficiently well out of the war period, 
 to pay to a Central Committee elected by the Alliances 
 a sum equal to 4 per cent, of the total wages paid by 
 them, which provided a fund against unemployment; 
 and a further sum equal to 10 per cent, of the wages 
 sheet, which formed the fund against sickness. In this 
 way a fund was formed sufficiently large to begin 
 operations, which were the more necessary because of 
 the disorganization of industry and the unemployment 
 caused by the stoppage of the intense production 
 caused by the war. 
 
 A payment by the proprietors of wages for three 
 months to their employes who were not needed was 
 decreed, but on the plan that it should really be paid 
 only for half that period, the payment for the other 
 half being made to the Central Committee to 
 strengthen its funds. It was argued that the Russian 
 factory worker, being in most cases connected with 
 a village, would in six weeks, if he had not secured 
 work, have returned to his village. Unemployment
 
 66 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 generally is a thing unknown in the Soviet Republic; 
 in cases of workmen being out of work, they are fitted 
 with employment by the appropriate State Depart- 
 ment. But in the case of any fortuitous stoppage of 
 a factory, through, say, want of fuel, as has occasion- 
 ally occurred, this being a completely abnormal state 
 of things, the workmen's pay is continued by the 
 State. For sickness special committees elected by the 
 workers' Alliances cater. They provide the clinics, the 
 medical advisers, and the medicaments. But wider 
 affairs of a national kind, tuberculosis and the like, are 
 cared for by the State Department of Hygiene, on 
 whom devolves the duty of providing the necessary 
 sanatoria, advice, and treatment. Melnichansky re- 
 marked that it had recently been said in the West that 
 there was neither freedom of speech nor Press nor 
 meeting for the workers and Professional Alliances 
 under the Soviet. In the great hall I had just seen he 
 said they had quite recently called a convention of 
 Factory Committees, which, after discussion, had 
 elected a Central Committee to organize the best way 
 of distributing all supplies of food and clothing in 
 Moscow. A clear proof of freedom of speech and 
 initiative, anyway, for it was quite an untrammeled 
 convention. As for the freedom of the Press amongst 
 the workers, the dearth of paper causes curtailment, 
 but he gave me a copy of an excellent monthly issued 
 by the Central Committee, and of a weekly paper, dis- 
 tributed everywhere and devoted to the professional 
 interests of the workers. Besides these, every Pro- 
 fessional Alliance has its own monthly. In these the
 
 TRADES' UNIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA 67 
 
 fullest discussion is permitted. As for freedom of 
 meeting one might say it is an integral part of the 
 system, but not during working hours. They are de- 
 voted to work, not talk, and if meetings must be held 
 it must be outside the time allotted to work, in the 
 workers' own time. 
 
 Meetings of the Sovietists are held every week for 
 the discussion of political and economic topics, in 
 which the leaders take part for never did any people 
 so well understand the power of propaganda, the 
 spoken word, as these. And I myself have seen on the 
 walls of Moscow notices of a Menshevik meeting, a 
 proof that toleration is exercised, so long as it does 
 not lead to counter-revolutionary activities. 
 
 Questioned as to the relation between his organiza- 
 tion and the civil war, he declared that the efforts of 
 the Soviet to give to the proletarian the simple rights 
 of a man, to the worker a home, an income, and leisure, 
 to the peasant land and the right to cultivate it, were 
 destroyed at once in those parts captured by Denikin, 
 who carried on ruthless war against all Sovietists, and 
 reduced immediately the worker and the peasant to 
 their former condition. The Professional Alliances on 
 their part were helping they made a voluntary mobi- 
 lization of the workers from time to time, sending 10 
 per cent, of their members into the army; in parts of 
 the country nearer to the fronts raising this to 50 per 
 cent., and even at the front itself mobilizing the whole. 
 Women workers were equally subject to this mobiliza- 
 tion, taking up work for the Red Cross Service. He 
 himself, after spending some time in the work of this
 
 68 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 Central Organization, would depart for a period of 
 service at the front, returning afterwards to resume 
 for another period his official duties. 
 
 Conditions vary very much, according to him, in 
 different parts of the interior, and are likely to con- 
 tinue so until the chance of putting into practice there 
 the very real constructive ability shown in the great 
 towns has been given. Up to the present this recon- 
 struction in the interior has had to go side by side 
 with the destructive activity at the frontiers. 
 
 In conclusion he said, " You can see that we are not 
 the monsters the Western World persists in describing 
 us. I lived for six and a half years hi New York, and 
 other cities of the United States, a political refugee. 
 My home was in the Bronx, and in spite of the violent 
 nightly illumination of New York, I never went home 
 from a meeting in the Bowery, without keeping a 
 watchful eye in case of attack. Here in Moscow we 
 have no lights at night, yet you can cross the city in 
 any direction at any time of the night with perfect 
 safety." 
 
 He further said that only a revolutionary Govern- 
 ment could have produced such an effect. Its drastic 
 measures, shooting at sight, were directed against the 
 hooligans and bandits who came out in the social chaos 
 to rob and kill. And he declared that the bulk of the 
 shooting of which the world has heard so much was 
 of people of this kind. 
 
 Whatever they may have been, I can confirm, not 
 only from others' testimony, but from personal experi- 
 ence, Melnichansky's description of the order exist- 
 ing in Sovietic Moscow.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE BOLSHEVIK SYSTEM OF FOOD 
 CONTROL 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH SVIDERSKI, A MEMBER OF THE 
 COLLEGIUM OF FOOD CONTROL 
 
 THIS interview was for me one of the clearest and 
 most convincing. Sviderski is a master of his subject 
 in all its details, and the clearness of his replies, to- 
 gether with the sequential character of his statement, 
 made him impressive. But most striking of all were 
 the evidences of the minute care which has been 
 devoted to the problem of feeding the people, and the 
 elaborately strong organization which had been set 
 up. Of its results in actual experience I can speak 
 myself. There is in some parts, as I found at Ostrov, 
 and among some sections of the population, difficulty 
 in living. But the net result is, to me, a great problem 
 tackled under conditions of appalling difficulty, and 
 conquered, to a large and steadily increasing extent. 
 In this matter the honors are on the side of the 
 Bolsheviks. 
 
 The Soviet came into power in November 1917, and 
 ,the first question which it had to settle was whether it 
 should allow open bargaining, free trade in products, 
 or not. There was a great lack of products of prime 
 
 69
 
 70 
 
 necessity, with a consequent enormous rise in prices, 
 and under the Kerensky Government it had been de- 
 cided to maintain a monopoly of corn. The Soviet 
 decided to use this as a beginning of its system of 
 monopolies, the chief feature of its policy; for corn 
 was of the first importance, and in comparison any 
 other thing was of minor importance. 
 
 This policy, the fixing of prices for corn, meant 
 difficulties in a country of peasant farmers, but the 
 policy of the open market was out of the question. It 
 would make the stocking of corn by the State impos- 
 sible, and, further, it would allow the moneyed class, 
 the bourgeoisie, to buy in the speculative market, while 
 the workers would get nothing. So the Soviet was 
 faced with the task of building up on the ruins of the 
 old private purchasing power, and what was left of 
 the apparatus for purchasing of the Provisional Gov- 
 ernment, a new apparatus for purchasing on a much 
 larger scale. 
 
 The Apparatus. The apparatus of the Kerensky 
 Government employed 100-150,000 people. These 
 were taken over, though, like most of the officials of 
 the former regimes, they were guilty of sabotage. 
 The machine of Food Control now employs about 
 200,000 people all over the country, and the method 
 of their employment is another example of the 
 minute care with which the governing departments are 
 organized. 
 
 Thus there are 800 responsible workers distributed 
 over the provinces who have been trained and prac- 
 tised for six months under the Soviet Government to
 
 BOLSHEVIK FOOD CONTROL 71 
 
 take charge of provincial departments, etc. The Food 
 Control department further employs 400 groups of 
 agitators of twenty-five people each, men and women, 
 drawn from the provinces which are not self-support- 
 ing in the matter of corn, or as the Russian has it 
 " have no bread." These traveling squads of agitators 
 move about the country working on the minds of the 
 peasants and indoctrinating them with the idea of the 
 duty of setting free their surplus corn for use by 
 others. This is a necessary proceeding, for the peas- 
 ant is, as a rule, unwilling to part with his corn, and 
 the Soviet prefers to proceed by suasion, though, when 
 faced with a refusal to deliver corn, by law it can be 
 requisitioned. For this latter job an army of 40,000 
 men and officers has been formed, whose duty is to 
 enforce the law regarding surplus corn. 
 
 The Normal Process of obtaining this Corn is in 
 exchange for goods or money. From the Supreme 
 Council of National Economics the controllers of all 
 Russian industries the Food Control Department re- 
 ceives goods, already valued and inventoried, which 
 are distributed by its local organs through the co- 
 operative societies among the peasants in exchange for 
 corn. In 1918 1^2 billions of roubles' worth of goods 
 were distributed in this way at fixed prices. For the 
 control of the apparatus of Food Supply there exists a 
 Traveling Labor Section, consisting of 300 workers, 
 chosen by the various Professional Alliances. 
 
 Results of the System of Food Control. From 
 November 1917 to August 1918 the apparatus of the 
 Commissariat was not yet perfected, and only 30 mil-
 
 72 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 lion poods of corn could be stocked, an amount repre- 
 senting about one-tenth of the needs for the same 
 period. But from August 1918 to August 1919 the 
 Department had already been able to secure 108 mil- 
 lion poods, or about 40 per cent, of the needs, which 
 for the period were about 225 million poods (the pood 
 is 36 English lb.). 
 
 None of these 108 million poods of corn was pur- 
 chased under duress. The presence of a detachment 
 of the requisitioning army mentioned above was 
 always sufficient to cause sales to proceed smoothly, 
 though when these detachments were not present the 
 quantities of corn sold by the peasants would be 
 smaller than their legal due. The only requisitions 
 actually made were from private persons who were 
 removing by rail, speculatively, larger quantities of 
 flour than was allowed. 
 
 The extraordinary way in which the well-to-do Rus- 
 sian peasant, in spite of his ignorance and lack of 
 culture, responds to the varying political situation is 
 seen in the fact that when the position on the war 
 fronts grows worse or serious these peasants all over 
 the interior deliver less. They look upon Koltchak as 
 meaning for them a free speculative market, and hold 
 back their stocks hoping for high prices. On the tak- 
 ing of Tcheliabinsk from Koltchak, on the other hand, 
 food stocks came in at once. 
 
 Field of Operations. These 108 million poods 
 stocked between August I9i8-August 1919 were got 
 from a territory on which only eight governments, and 
 those the least productive, raise corn. From those
 
 BOLSHEVIK FOOD CONTROL 73 
 
 eight governments in pre-war times statistics show that 
 only 60 million poods of corn were exported yearly by 
 private persons, while from the same provinces be- 
 tween January 1917 and July 1918 (a period covering 
 the last months of Tsarism) 75 million poods were 
 drawn. But the Soviet Government from January 
 1919- July 1919 got 46 million poods of corn from 
 them a great advance. Of course, during the past 
 year there has been an absolute deficiency in the return 
 of corn for the whole territory held by the Soviet, not 
 including Ukrainia, where no stocks were made. It is 
 estimated at 40 million poods. Further, the 108 mil- 
 lion poods of corn obtained represent only 48 per cent, 
 of the available surplus, the remaining 52 per cent, 
 being hidden or used for purposes of speculation. The 
 Food Control has therefore only been able to alleviate, 
 not to satisfy, the needs of the population for bread, 
 and it was natural that the Professional Alliances 
 should call for preferential treatment of the workers 
 in the provision of food, since moneyed non-workers 
 could buy at speculative rates. And it was only after 
 the evidence of this that the famous categories classes 
 for food distribution were drawn up. But the experi- 
 ences of 1918-1919 show that the peasants are already 
 considering the delivery of corn as a duty, they are 
 becoming accustomed to the new regime, and the 
 realization of the present harvest will take place under 
 more favorable conditions. These arise partly from 
 the conviction of the peasants that Koltchak will not 
 be able to provide them with a speculative market, 
 partly from the fact that the Soviet Government will
 
 74 
 
 be purchasing over a larger territory always except- 
 ing Ukrainia. The Red Army, in defeating Koltchak, 
 has set free the provinces of Samara, Saratof, Oren- 
 burg, Ufa, and partly Ouralsk, which were formerly 
 occupied, but from which purchases can now be made. 
 
 In fact, could the whole national surplus be secured, 
 the Soviet Government would have a surplus of some- 
 where about 30 million poods over its needs. And 
 even if in purchasing it secures no more than its previ- 
 ous proportional rates, it will get from 250-300 million 
 poods of corn, and the needs of the country will be 
 satisfied. 
 
 THE CATEGORIES. Soldiers are outside the cate- 
 gories altogether. The men of the " Red " armies at 
 the front receive 1^2 lb. of bread daily (600 grammes), 
 when in the rear i lb. daily. 
 
 The First Category consists of workers, the heads 
 of departments and all responsible workers; these re- 
 ceive y 2 lb. of bread daily (200 grammes). This was 
 changed when I was there to 24 lb. daily. 
 
 The Second Category comprises all Soviet employes, 
 who receive J4 lb. daily (100 grammes). Changed to 
 ^lb. 
 
 The Third Category is for non-workers. Their por- 
 tion is y& lb. daily (50 grammes). Changed to % lb. 
 
 Children up to the age of Sixteen Years, quite ir- 
 respective of any other consideration, are given 24 lb. 
 of bread daily, free of charge. There have been times 
 when no bread could be given out. And even this July, 
 owing to the breakdown of a large mill, there were two 
 weeks when in some districts of Moscow no bread
 
 BOLSHEVIK FOOD CONTROL 75 
 
 could be distributed, though the smaller mills provided 
 sufficient for some of the proletarian districts. In 
 Petrograd there has been no discontinuance. In ad- 
 dition to the special regulations for children, the 
 families of "Red" soldiers will receive food as in 
 the first category, and some things will be gratuitous. 
 While, as the rouble has undergone steady deprecia- 
 tion, in buying from the peasants the former price of 
 corn which was 18 roubles a pood was on August 12 
 advanced to 60 roubles, though the selling price for 
 bread will remain as before. 
 
 Articles under Control are bread, sugar, salt, fish, 
 butter both vegetable and animal, meat, eggs, tobacco, 
 matches, tea, coffee, and sweetmeats. Textile fabrics, 
 ready-made clothes, shoes, oils for burning. All these 
 are distributed on coupons, and on the first list all from 
 bread down to eggs, inclusively, retain a fixed price for 
 the whole year. 
 
 The Actual State Monopolies are at present meat, 
 salted fish, salt, sugar, tea, and bread. Other products 
 are being purchased by the State, and at the same time, 
 with the permission of the Food Control Department, 
 by co-operative organizations. It is intended to extend 
 the State monopoly to potatoes and all kinds of fats in 
 the autumn. " It is important that the policy of Food 
 Control should coincide with the communistic pro- 
 gram, and should serve as a sound economic basis for 
 the Red Republic. But, it must be observed, that as 
 a result of the world-conflagration as affecting Russia, 
 no other policy would secure to the working masses 
 even their minimum needs. Ukrainia furnishes an
 
 76 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 example. The Food Commissariats of Ukrainia in- 
 dulged in a policy of compromise, tolerating the free 
 purchase of corn in a zone of 50 versts round the cities 
 of Kharkov, Kieff, and Ekaterinoslav. As a conse- 
 quence they were able to purchase in six months in 
 the whole Ukrainia under Soviet rule only five million 
 poods of corn, and they were unable to supply a suffi- 
 cient minimum ration to the workers of the three towns 
 and the miners of the Donetz basin. Through this the 
 powers of resistance to Denikin of these workers were 
 lowered. It is now agreed by the Ukrainian Govern- 
 ment that any purchases made in future will be made 
 on the plan adopted in the Great Russian Soviet Re- 
 public. Finally, said Svidersky, a complete and satis- 
 factory solution of the food problem a full supply of 
 bread and fats will only be possible when the victory 
 over Koltchak and Denikin is complete."
 
 IX 
 TRANSPORT: A VITAL NERVE OF RUSSIA 
 
 RECENT events in England must have convinced even 
 the most unreflecting observer that the life of the coun- 
 try depends on these two things, transport and food 
 supply, and that on the functioning of the first the 
 success of the second largely hangs. It is still more 
 true of a country like Russia, and to-day truer than 
 ever. With masses of people in the large towns, while 
 the food-producing districts are enormous distances 
 away, with many parts in north and west unable even 
 in normal times to supply their own wants in food, it 
 can readily be imagined that the effective working 
 of the transport system was the question above all 
 others for the Bolsheviks. If that failed, then all 
 failed. 
 
 From the first moment that I got into Russia I set 
 myself to observe as closely as possible the working 
 of the railway system as I passed through, and I con- 
 tinued the observation on the expeditions I made out 
 of Moscow. In Moscow itself I sought out the Com- 
 missariat for Transport and questioned him closely on 
 the condition of his department, his difficulties, and, if 
 any, his success. As he is a man of an unusual type I 
 got a frank discussion of the question. 
 
 The Great War had completely disorganized the 
 
 77
 
 78 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 Russian railway system. Apart from the actual waste 
 which war always causes there was the working of the 
 locomotives till the last ounce of their effectiveness was 
 exhausted, the absence of repairs, and the lack of spare 
 parts, for Russia relied largely on her Western neigh- 
 bors and supplies were stopped. To these must be 
 added the loss by destruction and damage of wagons. 
 The director of the Dviegatl Wagon Works at Reval, 
 an establishment employing in normal times some 
 5,000 men and working almost entirely for the Russian 
 market, told me that he estimated the loss of wagons 
 by Russia during the war at 600,000. If all these 
 things be added together, a picture can be formed of 
 the damaged, exhausted, and destroyed condition of 
 railway transport in Russia at the March Revolution, 
 1917. 
 
 On top of the condition I have described there was 
 added, as intervention in Russian affairs grew pro- 
 nounced and a ring of enemies formed around the 
 country, a further difficulty in the absence of fuel. 
 The Donetz basin in the south, the great source of 
 coal, was cut off; so was Baku, from which they drew 
 their oil. Motor transport, as second string, was there- 
 fore impossible, and indeed it is reduced to the strict 
 necessities of official locomotion, no private motor- 
 driven vehicle being allowed. 
 
 Instead of coal or oil or petrol as combustible, only 
 wood is used, with the double disadvantage of the 
 difficulty of procuring it and bringing it to the spot 
 where it is wanted, and of the lessening of the effective 
 power of the engines that burn it.
 
 TRANSPORT IN SOVIET RUSSIA 79 
 
 Apart from the railway and motors there remains 
 only horse transport. And, to anyone who knows the 
 condition of Russian roads and the distances to be 
 traveled, any question of horse transport except for 
 short stages from the towns is absurd. Besides the 
 ordinary movement of civilian travelers, which is by 
 no means stopped, there is the transport of food, the 
 supply of raw materials to the factories and the move- 
 ment of goods when made, the furnishing of the towns 
 with wood fuel, and, above all, the colossal military 
 transport of men, munitions, food, to all points of the 
 compass, and the necessity of transporting the debris 
 of war, wounded men, hospital trains all the para- 
 phernalia of a great war on top of the urgent necessities 
 of the civilian population, to be served by a depleted 
 and exhausted railway system. The problem was ter- 
 rific, and could only be faced, not to say solved, by 
 someone of colossal energy who was willing to sacri- 
 fice himself. And that man is Leonid Krassin. There 
 is here no question of politics it is simply the meeting 
 of a great need by the skill and energy of a competent 
 man. 
 
 He is a Siberian, in the prime of life, about forty- 
 eight years old, a highly skilled technician who was 
 formerly the general manager for all the Russias of 
 the Siemens-Schuckert Company. He sparkles with 
 fiery energy, but his dark hair and full beard are 
 becoming gray, and his face is lined with the tension 
 under which he lives and works. And, speaking of 
 him purely as a railway administrator, it seems to me 
 that he has accomplished the almost impossible. For
 
 80 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 the transport system works and replies with tolerable 
 success to the calls upon it. The military require- 
 ments, and they are fmmense, are met; the factories 
 are still working, partly, either in the manufacture of 
 munitions or in their own speciality; food is brought 
 to the towns and is despatched to the furthest corners 
 of the country in the quantities that are possible; and 
 still, though depleted, passenger traffic is maintained. 
 This last is, naturally, best between the great towns, 
 and one train each way, with passenger carriages, is 
 run daily. Apart from that, people ride in the goods 
 wagons, traveling just as the soldiers do. Whether it 
 is they have been out buying food or doing business, 
 the numbers who wish to travel seem greater than ever. 
 Trains, of whatever kind they may be, are always 
 packed like an egg, and I have constantly seen people 
 riding on the steps, platforms, and even, with true 
 Russian nonchalance, on the tops of carriages. But 
 they travel. 
 
 The permanent way as I saw it in the west and in 
 the neighborhood of Moscow is in good condition, like- 
 wise the stations, though I saw some which bore the 
 marks of righting; carriages are kept fairly clean, but 
 there is little lighting at night. For sleeping, one lies 
 on the bare seats, or the bunks, or, as nearly always 
 happens, on the floor in carriage or corridor. The 
 immense goods wagons are used for transporting sol- 
 diers as in the Great War, and most of those used are 
 in fairly good condition, others roughly mended, and 
 on sidings it was common to see others again broken 
 down.
 
 TRANSPORT IN SOVIET RUSSIA 81 
 
 Krassin's difficulties were great. In the early days 
 of the transformation of the workmen's conditions it 
 was well-nigh impossible to get anything done, or any 
 line to function properly. But, he said, he refused to 
 take the post unless he could be master. And, bit by 
 bit, he has reduced the chaos to something like order, 
 has leashed the political Commissaries who worked 
 side by side with his technicians and engineers, and 
 has, in some measure, provided for the vital wants of 
 the country. Alexinsky, whom I interviewed at Reval, 
 is bitterly anti-Bolshevik, but he expressed much the 
 same opinion of the service in the north, and called 
 Krassin a competent administrator. 
 
 This vital nerve, though not healthy, is yet not 
 mortally attacked.
 
 EDUCATION AND ART UNDER THE 
 BOLSHEVIKS 
 
 As one whose life has been spent largely in educational 
 work of all kinds, I was naturally keen to discover the 
 attitude of the present Russian Government towards 
 education. Russia is a mass of illiteracy and ignorance 
 greater than any other part of Europe, and on the 
 treatment of this problem the final stability of any 
 Government will depend. The importance of educa- 
 tion was fully recognized in the great French Revolu- 
 tion, and I wondered to what extent the leaders of this 
 last Revolution had realized the deadly seriousness of 
 the issue. Accordingly I took an early opportunity of 
 seeking out Lunacharsky, the Commissary for Educa- 
 tion, and followed this by talking on more than one 
 occasion with Professor Pokrovsky, the historian, who 
 is Assistant Commissary. 
 
 Lunacharsky is one of the few Commissaries who 
 live in the Kremlin, and I waited for him in what 
 was a veritable king's ante-chamber, with its stately 
 ornamentation and furniture, and a sign of the times 
 a woman clerk with a typewriter. He is a man of 
 middle age (most of the Commissaries seem to be verg- 
 ing on the fifties), dark in hair and complexion, ex- 
 tremely energetic, and, as I soon discovered, full of 
 
 82
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND EDUCATION 83 
 
 enthusiasm for his work. It is something novel to 
 discover an educational director who retains a con- 
 tagious enthusiasm for the matter of his department, 
 with a wide vision of its possibilities, and who has at 
 the same time a certain practical skill in administra- 
 tion. I ought to add that Lunacharsky is also, among 
 a crowd of practised speakers, one of the best and most 
 persuasive Bolshevik orators, no mean additional 
 qualification for the task set him. 
 
 There can be no doubt at all that the Bolsheviks 
 are fully aware of the seriousness of the Russian edu- 
 cational problem and of its importance for their ideas, 
 system, and life. They have tackled it with a large- 
 ness of vision that is striking. They are aiming at 
 removing the illiteracy of the peasants and bringing 
 the folk-school into direct contact with village life, at 
 providing classes and courses in technical and artistic 
 instruction for the workers, at the foundation of a 
 popular university system which will, if the former 
 universities hold aloof, do to a large extent what these 
 should have done, at cherishing the old schools of ar- 
 tistic culture in ballet, theater, and painting in a 
 word, at meeting what seems to be springing up in 
 Russia to-day, a wave of intense desire for instruction 
 of all kinds, which, if carefully treated, may produce 
 results of the very first value for Russia and for the 
 world at large. Strange as it may appear, it is recog- 
 nized that your ignorant citizen is a national danger, 
 and that one of the first duties of the State is to help 
 in removing his ignorance. 
 
 In 1911 I was in Moscow visiting educational insti-
 
 8* BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 tutions, and, indeed, one Zemstvo school in a neighbor- 
 ing village still contains English pictures which I sent 
 as a memento of my visit. While there I discovered 
 that a society which had been formed for the purpose 
 of assisting the scholars of the village schools with 
 simple, decent reading-books and help in the teaching 
 of arithmetic, all at the society's expense, had just been 
 suppressed, and its members were subjected to every 
 form of vilification and persecution, public and private, 
 that it is possible to conceive. A further effort to 
 establish a club-house and library, to which village 
 teachers could come in their holidays and study and 
 improve their knowledge of town life, was struggling 
 against the opposition of the authorities. As between 
 1911 and 1919, the honors are therefore with the 
 Bolsheviks. 
 
 Money has been voted freely. The six months' 
 Budget seemed colossal till the buying power of the 
 rouble was considered, but even then it was very large, 
 and provided amply for the demands of the Commis- 
 sariat. The first practical step was in the direction of 
 village education. And here sound sense led the opera- 
 tions. Efforts were made to bring the peasants them- 
 selves into the educational movement, to catch and 
 keep their interest. For this the school was made into 
 a " working school," in which, in addition to the in- 
 struction in the processes of reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, the school work was brought into relation 
 with all the operations of village life. What that 
 means is best understood by those who have lived in 
 the villages and have seen the multiplicity of opera-
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND EDUCATION 85 
 
 tions which villagers, who have largely to suffice for 
 their own needs, have to perform. Besides agricultural 
 concerns they must be expert in woodwork, ironwork, 
 the growth and preparation of their own flax and wool, 
 spinning and weaving, and other things. 
 
 The new " working school " teaches and helps in 
 all these, besides concerning itself with gardening and 
 farming, and it can be easily imagined that, however 
 slowly, the peasants are becoming interested in an in- 
 stitution from which they gain so much. The best 
 proof is in the many hundreds of school buildings 
 which have been recently built by the peasants them- 
 selves, and the best guarantee for the continued ef- 
 fective progress of the improvement is in the admirable 
 provision made in Moscow for the training of the 
 teachers for these " working schools." 
 
 In the Ekaterinsky Square is a huge building, for- 
 merly a boarding school for girls of rich families. It 
 has a park, and gardens of many acres in extent. Here 
 are collected 300 peasant instructors, selected by local 
 Soviets from all the corners of Russia. They live in 
 the building, which is large enough to supply living- 
 rooms, classrooms, workshops, living and class room 
 space for a fairly big school of children of both sexes, 
 who are the experimental body. The directors, a 
 woman and a man, are educators of proved ability, 
 .great human sympathy, and unbounded enthusiasm. 
 All the operations of the working school are taught 
 theoretically and carried out practically in the work- 
 shops, the power of imparting the instruction being 
 gained by practice with the children. The necessary
 
 86 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 house functions and the cultivation of the immense 
 garden, the growth and improvement of seeds and 
 types of plants, are carried out by the peasant students 
 and the children solely. 
 
 The result is a happy activity that made me almost 
 envious. The value of it must be seen from the fact 
 that, their course finished, these instructors depart to 
 their own villages to spread the work. The children 
 were mostly from the working class. At first there had 
 been some difficulty, but when I was there (I went a 
 second time alone for a long visit) all was harmonious. 
 The children were in the very best of health and con- 
 dition, their behavior was admirable, and their intelli- 
 gence developing fast. 
 
 One other thing is occurring in this school which was 
 hardly in the original program. I saw an instance, in 
 the section of the workshops devoted to art, of unsus- 
 pected talent having been discovered among these 
 peasants. And it may well happen that in this way 
 talent that would otherwise remain hidden and lost 
 may be discovered and trained for the benefit of 
 Russia. 
 
 Professor Pokrovsky, in talking of these peasant 
 students, paid them a high tribute. He said: " Among 
 all my audiences I reckon them to be the very best." 
 
 For town and factory workers classes and courses 
 in technical subjects and art have been set up. There 
 is a great demand for them, and to supply accommo- 
 dation use has been made of large houses and the halls 
 of the great restaurants and clubs which have been 
 commandeered. Music and dramatics also are studied.
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND EDUCATION 87 
 
 and as there is a great upspringing of taste for the 
 theater, the numbers of entries in Moscow and Petro- 
 grad are surprisingly large. The age of beginning 
 work is sixteen, and then the working day is only six 
 hours till the age of eighteen, the remaining two hours 
 being spent in study. Later it is hoped to raise the age 
 of beginning to eighteen. But in the present dearth of 
 workpeople permission has been granted for work to 
 begin at fourteen for four hours a day, on condition 
 that the remaining four hours of a working day are 
 spent in these classes. It these regulations I can 
 see nothing but a good intention towards the 
 youth of Russia and a careful safeguard against any 
 abuse. 
 
 Conferences of teachers are held, and I attended 
 one of country teachers in Moscow. They were of 
 all ages and both sexes, well dressed and ill dressed, 
 civilians and soldiers, one in uniform with one foot 
 bandaged and the other bare hundreds of them, met 
 to discuss the share the teachers would take in mobili- 
 zation, and whether they would not undertake the 
 raising of the necessary percentage themselves. It 
 was a valuable instance of the way in which the Gov- 
 ernment treats openly and frankly with the teaching 
 body, as well as an indication of their estimate of the 
 value of teachers to the new regime. 
 
 Lenin, whom I saw then for the first time, came 
 unattended to the conference, and spoke for an hour 
 on the duty of each to work individually for the up- 
 lifting of Russia. His presence there was a criterion of 
 the estimate placed on educative work.
 
 88 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 If there is little to be said of the middle-class schools, 
 the secondary system, it should be remembered that 
 the Soviet Republic is a Workers' Republic, and that 
 its Government is little likely to spend thought on 
 institutions which are, as they would say, bourgeois 
 affairs. And the crying need of Russia is, as they 
 recognize, the removal of the illiteracy of the lower 
 population. 
 
 An educational expert can easily pick holes in 
 Lunacharsky's schemes. The courses and programs 
 are summary; the accommodation and equipment are 
 often more summary still. But the Russian masses are 
 for all practical purposes a new people requiring new 
 methods, and the summary nature of the equipment 
 does not trouble a Russian. Grant that, and I think 
 my estimate of the work follows logically: that there 
 is here a realization of the danger of the dense igno- 
 rance of the millions of peasants; that with clear 
 vision of the possibilities a great effort, new in some 
 of its phases, is being made to remove it, and already 
 with some success. As time goes on and mistakes 
 are rectified, that success will increase. The work 
 has no specifically Bolshevik tendency; numbers of the 
 teachers are non-Communist, but the percentage of 
 those who accept the Bolshevik creed, already large, 
 grows, in consequence of the work, steadily greater, 
 and who is to say where this movement will end? 
 
 But this is not the whole of the work of the Com- 
 missariat of Education. The usual picture of a 
 socialistic community is one of gray, dull quality, 
 devoid of all the glow and color that come from art.
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND EDUCATION 89 
 
 The reality, so far as Bolshevist Russia is concerned, 
 is quite the opposite. The four great art schools, two 
 in Petrograd and two in Moscow, have been national- 
 ized, and students choose their own professors. The 
 classes function, with a great impetus given to the 
 teaching of the most modern painters, and results at 
 which Lunacharsky smiled a little. But the class work 
 would seem only to have received a tonic shock from 
 the change, and ultra-modern forms of expression will 
 find their own level. To students was given the work 
 of preparing the town decorations for the public fetes, 
 and here again the taste of the day after to-morrow 
 seemed to be in the ascendant for the time being. 
 The true estimate seems to be that this form of art, 
 instead of being dead, is more lively than ever, and 
 that exaggerated forms of expression do but reflect the 
 great mental and spiritual turmoil caused by the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 Theaters are nationalized, and a special committee 
 of the Commissariat, as well as a sub-committee of the 
 Moscow Soviet, look after them. But the famous 
 ballet and the even more famous Art Theater of 
 Moscow have been left to themselves and function as 
 before. Drama, vaudeville, ballet, opera go on, the 
 chief difference being that audiences are changed. 
 They are composed of people who go for the love 
 of the theater, not as a boring social convention. In 
 the distribution of tickets made through the workers' 
 committees workers have the best chance, and with im- 
 proved economic conditions and greater leisure they 
 avail themselves of the opportunity with a will.
 
 90 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 The Moscow Soviet maintains concerts of admirable 
 chamber music at small cost, and audiences are large. 
 But their most striking effort is the provision of seven 
 theaters, in gardens and elsewhere, where on Sunday 
 afternoons special performances are given free for chil- 
 dren only. I went to one in the Zoological Gardens, 
 where I saw some 2,000 children of all ages up to 
 fourteen intensely interested in " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 I went among them specially to note their appearance 
 and condition, and came to the conclusion that they 
 would compare favorably with a similar audience of 
 London children. One thing should be noted. Art 
 knows no politics, and the great artists, actors, and 
 singers work as before, with the change, as repeated 
 often to me by very different people, that they are de- 
 lighted with the appreciation and enthusiasm of their 
 present audiences, and prefer them. 
 
 Russia is rich in great collections of treasures of 
 art. My heart had sunk when, with my head full of 
 Western stories, I thought of what might have hap- 
 pened to them. An interview restored my equanimity. 
 The treasures of the Alexander and the Hermitage 
 Museums had been carefully packed and transported 
 to Moscow for safety. They would have been housed 
 there, but as they belong to Petrograd, it was decided 
 not to rob that city of its beautiful property, but to 
 restore them when conditions favored. The Tretia- 
 kovsky Gallery in Moscow is richer than ever, and 
 when I was there was crowded with visitors, largely 
 soldiers, who were being taken round by practised 
 guides. Other collections had been formed from the
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND EDUCATION 91 
 
 treasures in private houses, and the greatest care was 
 taken of them. Lastly, the old palaces were retained 
 as museums of architecture, decoration, and furniture; 
 the most elaborate care had been spent on them, and 
 they had been visited by vast crowds. 
 
 I had to confess that Bolshevist rule, so far from 
 meaning the death of art, had produced conditions 
 that are likely to stimulate it, and the attitude towards 
 it is best expressed in a phrase let fall by Lunacharsky 
 when talking of the theaters, the ballet, and the collec- 
 tions " We have here the materials of a splendid cul- 
 ture which we would not willingly see die."
 
 XI 
 
 BOLSHEVIK JUDICIAL SYSTEM 
 
 CHARGES against the Bolshevik system of justice (or 
 injustice) had been so pronounced that I found it im- 
 possible to believe that any real judicial system could 
 exist. And, once there in Russia, I made a determined 
 effort to discover the facts whether there were any 
 system, the form in which it had crystallized, and the 
 extent to which it functioned. The Extraordinary 
 Commission, of which so much has been heard, excited 
 my curiosity greatly. 
 
 In my long sitting with Kamenev, the President of 
 the Moscow Soviet, I had discussed the Bolshevik 
 judicial system. He talked freely concerning it, and 
 gave me a detailed description. Indeed, he talked so 
 fully that at the end he turned and asked why I had 
 questioned him on the subject, since it was not his 
 department. I explained that I had come to him with 
 this object among others, and that I was grateful for 
 his vivid and lucid explanation. I was more grateful 
 later on, for going to see the Commissary for Justice, 
 Kurski, I had in my mind and in my notes the 
 Kamenev conversation to act as a control on what I 
 then learned. The two explanations coincided, with 
 the difference that the head of the Department of Jus- 
 
 92
 
 BOLSHEVIK JUDICIAL SYSTEM 93 
 
 tice was naturally able to supply details which 
 Kamenev did not possess. 
 
 Hegel's cynical remark that the only thing we learn 
 from history is that people do not learn from history 
 is not quite true here. The Bolsheviks have a system 
 of courts, and that system is founded on what they 
 learned of the practices and necessities of the French 
 Revolution. They have two tribunals: one a People's 
 Court for ordinary civil and criminal cases, the other 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal with special functions. Of 
 these, only the People's Court is intended to be per- 
 manent. There is a temporary third court, the Ex- 
 traordinary Commission, charged with the conduct of 
 cases of counter-revolution, of peculation, sabotage, 
 and misuse of power by officials; but in effect its main 
 task has been the cases of counter-revolution. 
 
 Material and formal jurisdiction in Bolshevist 
 Russia is best explained by throwing it into two 
 periods, the first during the months of November and 
 December, 1917, when the people's judges only re- 
 ceived general directions, according to which judg- 
 ments were to be given. And during that period the 
 fundamental State laws published were the decree that 
 all power in the Russian Republic belongs to the 
 Soviets; another decree abolished all former courts; 
 another fixed the working day at eight hours, and an- 
 other related to marriage and divorce. 
 
 The second period began in 1918 with the detailed 
 regulation of all laws e.g. a code of laws relating 
 to family relationship; a code of labor laws; a code 
 of laws concerning the people's courts. There is
 
 94 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 nothing haphazard about the drawing up of these 
 codes. Some of them I have gone through and found 
 to be extremely precise, minutely elaborated docu- 
 ments. The labor code, e.g., had been drafted first by 
 the Professional Alliances' (Trades' Unions), then dis- 
 cussed by the Commissariat of Justice and the Con- 
 vention of the Soviets, before being adopted. It had 
 first appeared in the Regulations of Tariffs i.e. rates 
 of pay regulations which represent an immense labor 
 in classifying and grading occupations and providing 
 for appropriate rates of pay a practice which knocks 
 on the head the idea of the Soviet Republic as a place 
 where all are on one level, receiving one and the same 
 remuneration. Indeed, it is far otherwise, and the 
 minute gradation of these tariffs is one of the sources 
 of labor troubles; they are too fixed, and so allow no 
 margin for the vaguer cases where one grade shades 
 off into another. There would seem to have been 
 necessity for the code of regulations concerning 
 people's courts, seeing that some 4,000 of them func- 
 tion in Soviet Russia; each district has from three to 
 five of them. In Moscow alone there are fifty or fifty- 
 two people's courts, which in 1918 dealt with some 
 90,000 criminal cases and with a further list of 40,000 
 civil cases. The maximum penalty which they can 
 inflict is three years' imprisonment. 
 
 The revolutionary tribunals seem to have gone 
 through two similar stages, gradually becoming com- 
 petent and acting under specified conditions. But at 
 first the parallelism which existed between the two 
 kinds of courts led to overlapping of function, espe-
 
 BOLSHEVIK JUDICIAL SYSTEM 95 
 
 daily in the provinces. When the Commissariat of 
 Justice undertook by regulation to define the com- 
 petency of these revolutionary tribunals it limited them 
 to the fight with counter-revolution. But in the con- 
 fusion which existed and the misunderstanding of their 
 competency they did not deal with the counter-revo- 
 lution. It was this failure which led to the extension 
 of the powers and of the field of the Extraordinary 
 Commission. 
 
 This Extraordinary Commission, about which and 
 whose head so much has been written and said, began 
 to function at once after the Revolution of October- 
 November, 1917. It was not till later that the regu- 
 lation was passed which gave to the revolutionary 
 tribunals alone the right of passing capital sentences. 
 It was impossible at first to regulate this Commission, 
 and excesses took place; many death sentences were 
 passed by its Presidium. It was the desire to stop 
 these which led to the passing of the regulations limit- 
 ing and defining the powers of the courts, and it is 
 particularly stated in the Code of February 1919 that 
 the Extraordinary Commission has no right of passing 
 death sentences except in the case of the taking of 
 armed bandits in flagrante delicto, or in cases of an 
 uprising in places where the Commission is working. 
 It is easily conceivable that in the political condition 
 of the country even this regulation opens the door to 
 abuses, and in the hands of unscrupulous men could 
 be turned into an engine of revolutionary tyranny and 
 destruction. 
 
 In 1918 there were thirty- two revolutionary tri-
 
 96 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 bunals at work. They dealt with cases of counter- 
 revolution, sabotage, espionage, peculation, pogroms, 
 bribery and forgery, and illegal use of Soviet docu- 
 ments, in number more than 12,000. In 50 per cent, 
 of the cases a verdict was reached; 14 only of the 
 verdicts were death sentences; the rest were dismissals. 
 
 Their last codes, those on the land laws and on in- 
 heritance, which has been practically abolished, they 
 consider themselves to be their most important legal 
 move. 
 
 From the estate of a deceased person property up 
 to the value of 10,000 roubles is allowed to pass to 
 his relatives, the rest lapses to the State. And even 
 here care is exercised that the inheritance shall pass 
 in the first instance to those relatives who are unable 
 to support themselves, or are only partly able. But 
 the law is a blow at inheritance in the usual sense. 
 
 On the merits or demerits of the Bolshevik judicial 
 system I offer no opinion. My information was not 
 procured solely from the two men mentioned. I 
 "talked on the subject with many people who were 
 quite unsuspicious of my motive, and I looked into 
 their codes and their court records, which can be pro- 
 cured easily in Russia. I only show that they have a 
 system which has been the work of legal minds, for 
 there are jurists as well as professional men of all 
 kinds among the leaders. Its chief quality would seem 
 to be a certain simplicity. By a stroke of irony the 
 people's courts aim not only at punishment of evil 
 but also at reformation of the wrong-doer! A first 
 offender is set free on condition that he must not fall
 
 BOLSHEVIK JUDICIAL SYSTEM 97 
 
 again. Should he do so, he pays the penalty of his 
 second offense together with that to which his first 
 crime rendered him liable. 
 
 As for the two temporary tribunals, they are justi- 
 fied on the ground of necessity. They say that as they, 
 the Bolsheviks, were working for the materialization 
 of their ideals, they had to have in their hands a 
 machine for counteracting their enemies. Hence, on 
 the French model, the revolutionary tribunals; hence 
 the Extraordinary Commission. That explains, but 
 does not condone, the excesses to which the formation 
 of these courts led. That there were excesses is proved 
 by the care with which the Bolsheviks have tried since 
 to regulate the powers and control the functions of 
 these courts. For the final assessment of responsibility 
 in the matter the world must wait for the future his- 
 torian of the Russian Revolution who shall have the 
 full evidence in his hands.
 
 XII 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE PEOPLE'S HEALTH 
 
 ALL who knew Russia in Tsaristic times were quite 
 well aware of the evil condition into which the health 
 of the mass of the population had fallen. The bureau- 
 cracy paid little attention to the needs of public 
 hygiene, and the almost invincible ignorance of the 
 peasants made them bitterly hostile to any attempts 
 at improvement by philanthropic individuals. Their 
 housing also was extremely bad, especially in the towns 
 which were industrialized and which contained a large 
 proletariat population. This last point is one that 
 has struck the Commissariats of Labor, Industries, and 
 the Trades' Unions with peculiar force, and one part 
 of their duties is the improvement of the conditions 
 under which the working population lives. In the 
 matter of health the Bolsheviks show that they ap- 
 preciate fully the existing conditions, and have a scien- 
 tific forethought of the dangers which lie ahead if these 
 conditions are allowed to continue. 
 
 There were in existence under the old regime medi- 
 cal departments and medical attendance for the well- 
 to-do and officials, and quite naturally there were 
 medical practitioners in the country, but for gen- 
 eral national hygiene no thought whatever was 
 taken. 
 
 98
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND NATIONAL HYGIENE 99 
 
 Under the Kerensky Provisional Government a 
 Medical Council was created, largely a consultative 
 body which drew up plans, but so little of practical 
 value was done that the Bolsheviks, when once they 
 were able to turn their attention to the subject, had a 
 clear field; and as the Soviet Republic is a Workers' 
 Republic, it is evident that the major part of their 
 attention would be directed towards the improvement 
 of hygienic conditions and the provision of medical ad- 
 vice, treatment, and medicines for the workers. After 
 considerable trouble, for the experimental stage lasted 
 a long time, the whole of the medical services in the 
 Soviet Republic have been brought together under 
 one head and formed into something which corresponds 
 roughly to the British Ministry of Health, whose chief 
 is Dr. Semashko. Under him, in Moscow, the town 
 has been divided into districts, the doctors have been 
 largely nationalized and apportioned to the various dis- 
 tricts, hospitals have been either created or improved, 
 special clinics set up polyclinics also while the 
 needs of mothers and of children have received the 
 fullest consideration, and ample provision for them is 
 in process of being made. 
 
 That some such development must happen one can 
 see from the fact that the principle of general sick- 
 insurance had been accepted. Under that every citizen 
 of the Soviet Republic has the right to demand free 
 medical assistance from the State, and to get free medi- 
 cine, treatment, and hospital accommodation, with 
 in case of necessity a convalescent period in a health 
 resort. The State, therefore, had to provide that the
 
 100 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 principle could be carried out in practice. In the 
 maternity department, under Dr. Lebedev, a lady 
 doctor, the most elaborate arrangements have been 
 made for the provision of accommodation for the 
 mother eight weeks before the birth of a child with 
 a corresponding period after the birth, which period 
 can be extended, if necessity arises, until the child is 
 .weaned. While in the hospital the mother, if she be 
 a workwoman, is still paid, the care bestowed upon 
 her as a mother being a gift of the State. 
 
 A number of such houses are already functioning 
 and others are in prospect, the difficulty of arranging 
 for the full practice of the scheme being considerably 
 increased by the state of war. 
 
 For children special hospitals again are to be 
 created, but one a heritage of former times is in 
 operation in the south of Moscow. I visited it, and 
 neither in this country nor America have I ever seen 
 a hospital better arranged, better equipped, or better 
 managed for its particular purpose. Sick children can 
 be taken there and left; mothers can, in infectious 
 cases, remain with their children if necessary; there 
 is a clinic to which some hundreds of mothers go daily 
 for advice, receiving at the same time the appropriate 
 medicines, and in some cases the appropriate food for 
 the child; a hall in which some instruction is given by 
 the doctors to audiences of mothers in the management 
 of their children, with an extremely interesting and in- 
 structive set of diagrams and a small museum. With 
 all this there is also a special department for the recep- 
 tion and sterilization of milk, which is given out to
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND NATIONAL HYGIENE 101 
 
 the mothers requiring it. On this question of milk 
 Dr. Lebedev told me that they had in mind the erection 
 of a central station which should receive the milk from 
 the Soviet farms, sterilize it, and distribute it, to the 
 number of very many thousands of portions daily. 
 At present this sterilization is done in the smaller hos- 
 pitals like the one I have described. In the huge 
 building where this maternity department of the Com- 
 missariat of Social Maintenance is housed, the upper 
 floor an admirable hall well suited for the purpose 
 has been adapted for a permanent exhibition of all 
 matters relating to the birth, food, dressing, treat- 
 ment, and exercise of young children. The hall had 
 been prepared, the installation begun, several very 
 good artists had been pressed into service to assist in 
 preparing the diagrammatic illustrations which are 
 necessary; it looked to me that when finished Moscow 
 would possess a permanent hygienic exhibition capable 
 of indefinite extension, such as very few countries 
 have. 
 
 It is intended that the same kind of work shall 
 be extended to the provincial towns. In the mean- 
 time efforts are being made to get committees together, 
 headed by properly qualified medical men and women, 
 in the various towns in order to lead the way to the 
 installation of houses, and provide the properly quali- 
 fied assistants who are necessary. This is wise, for 
 more harm than good would be done by the employ- 
 ment of heterogeneous people in a matter so serious. 
 
 This Commissariat of Hygiene or of National 
 Health is already doing a very large work, for the
 
 102 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 general medical services of Moscow is complete; but 
 its programs are much less developed than those of 
 some other Commissariats; it has to go slowly because 
 its success depends entirely on a trained body of scien- 
 tific people, and where these are not to be found they 
 have to be provided. The service has a further draw- 
 back in the great scarcity of medicaments in Russia. 
 These have invariably been imported for the greater 
 part from abroad, very largely from Germany. The 
 closing of the frontiers has prevented any further entry 
 of drugs, and the shortage is so serious that the Rus- 
 sians have been attempting to manufacture some 
 articles for themselves, with indifferent success. A 
 considerable amount was expended in smuggling medi- 
 cines from Germany, but the general result is that I 
 have among my memoranda four closely-typed large 
 folios of the drugs which are in immediate great re- 
 quest, and which they are quite unable to procure. 
 
 On the whole subject one can say that the unification 
 of the services has produced a certain simplicity which 
 helps in the administration; that the problem of 
 hygiene is fully realized ; and that the efforts made are 
 already successful so far as they have gone, but that 
 a vast amount remains to be done which cannot be 
 undertaken properly until conditions are altered.
 
 XIII 
 BOLSHEVIK FOOD CONTROL 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH LITVINOFF 
 
 Member of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, charged with the 
 Western Division, Member of the Commissariat of State 
 Control. 
 
 THE question of the Control of the Machinery of Gov- 
 ernment had been intriguing me. The usual idea in 
 Western Europe is that in the Soviet Republic there 
 can be no control, that each department acts as a law 
 unto itself, with anarchical results. The opportunity 
 of a long journey gave me chance of learning from a 
 member of this Bureau that the reality is far other- 
 wise; that there is in full action, in Russia, a system 
 of control, completer, more insistent, and more effec- 
 tive than in any other country. In justice to the 
 leaders of the Soviet Republic, it must be confessed 
 that they do not shield themselves, no official is spared, 
 from a control that is minuteness personified, as will 
 be seen from the following exposition. This Bureau 
 controls finances and the budget; the efficiency of de- 
 partments; the efficiency of their acts; and it has the 
 power of compelling departments to improve their 
 work. It Can stop overlapping or duplication of work; 
 
 103
 
 104 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 should it think a department unnecessary, it can sup- 
 press it, and this has already been done. 
 
 It sees that the decrees (laws) are kept by officials. 
 Should it find that an official is not working properly, 
 it can recommend his removal, and acts as prosecutor 
 in the case of evil-doing officials. It prevents over- 
 staffing (I thought of some of the Ministries set up in 
 England during the war), and it sees that the wages of 
 officials are paid according to the Tariffs. Its powers 
 extend to all departments, to the Chief Executive Com- 
 mittee, to the Commissaries of the People themselves 
 none are exempt who are officials, for it does not 
 concern itself with private persons. But for officials 
 and officialdom it is the Supreme Control. 
 
 It goes even further. Every departmental bill to be 
 presented to the Council of People's Commissaries 
 must be agreed to by the Department of State Con- 
 trol, especially if it is a Finance Bill. 
 
 The department is subdivided into 
 
 Distribution. Largely concerned with Food Supply, 
 Agriculture, Railways, Post, etc. At the head of these 
 are specialists who are expert in the business of their 
 departments. 
 
 Production. Controlling the Supreme Council of 
 National Economics, and therefore all industries. 
 
 Protection of Labor. Supervising Labor, Hygiene, 
 Rent, Prisoners of War, etc. 
 
 Administration. Controlling the local Soviets; the 
 Commissariat of the Council of the People's Com- 
 missaries; the Moscow Soviet. 
 
 From which it can be seen that not only no indi-
 
 BOLSHEVIK STATE CONTROL 105 
 
 vidual official, but no individual department down to 
 the far-away local Soviet, can escape the net drawn by 
 this Bureau of Control. I find little room left for the 
 dream of anarchical, go-as-you-please tendencies here. 
 
 But in addition to its duties and powers as a con- 
 trolling body, it functions also as Instructor. Where 
 necessary it sends down its expert to the local Soviets 
 to instruct officials in the best way of performing their 
 duties, thus positively, as well as by its negative con- 
 trolling function, maintaining a high level of official 
 performance. I came to the conclusion that it would 
 be no easy matter to become a satisfactory servant of 
 the Soviet. While I could not but admire the spirit 
 which prompted the men of the Soviet to lay this disci- 
 pline upon themselves, to prove themselves worthy of 
 the principles they profess, I confess that the reality 
 of this control, so diametrically opposed to the current 
 idea of Bolshevik action, gave me a disturbing, if an 
 illuminating, shock. 
 
 Lastly, it adds to its duties that of adjudicator of 
 complaints. It contains a Central Bureau of Com- 
 plaints, with branches in every Commissariat and in 
 every local town where complaints can be lodged. At 
 first I did not see whither this was tending. But the 
 explanation is simple. It is important to maintain 
 public confidence in the justice of the system of gov- 
 ernment, so recently introduced, and if any citizen 
 considers himself to be harmed by any official it will 
 be promptly considered and settled. For, to avoid 
 long and complicated procedure in the courts, this 
 Bureau possesses summary powers, and as a conse-
 
 106 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 quence the validity of a complaint is swiftly settled. 
 The plans seem to me to be excellent, and they cer- 
 tainly are admirably fitted to strengthen confidence in 
 the new form of government. For, whereas in its posi- 
 tion of controlling organ it affects officials only, here 
 it stands as the link between people and officials. 
 
 In one of the Bureaus of this department dealing 
 with complaints in Moscow I saw the system at work, 
 and can testify to the swiftness and directness of the 
 procedure. But at the same time the thought pre- 
 sented itself that the excellence of the Bureau will 
 depend entirely on the character of the men who work 
 it, a criticism which I found myself making often, and 
 one which the Bolsheviks confess themselves.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE MOSCOW TRAINING SCHOOL FOR 
 OFFICIAL WORKERS 
 
 OR, AS IT IS CALLED, THE CENTRAL SCHOOL OF 
 SOVIET WORK 
 
 A CHANCE remark put me on the track of this School, 
 and I spent a day there investigating. It had been 
 in existence for about three months, and is a proof of 
 the swiftness with which the Central Executive acts 
 when the necessity of action is imposed on it. The 
 great building of the Moscow Merchants' Club was 
 taken over, a hurried installation (yet incomplete) of 
 classrooms and lecture halls made, and the immense 
 building overflows with 700 students being trained to 
 act as Soviet workers in the provinces, and 600 
 students of the School of Party Work, which has been 
 instituted by the Central Committee of the Socialist 
 Party. 
 
 The students are selected by the local Soviets, and 
 are nearly all peasants, the sprinkling of intellectuals 
 being very small. Among them are about 100 tribes- 
 men, Kalmucks, Bashkirs, and sixty Cossacks. 
 Among these latter are ten prisoners of war taken 
 from Koltchak, who will return as local workers for 
 the Soviet as the provinces are freed from Koltchak's 
 
 107
 
 108 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 rule. The students are housed, fed, and are given 5 
 roubles a day for personal expenses, but at the same 
 time many receive their full pay from the local Soviet 
 which sent them to Moscow. For food they are placed 
 outside the categories, and receive i Ib. of bread a day, 
 with sugar and other food, tobacco, linen, and all neces- 
 saries. Both men and women are chosen, the women 
 being housed separately. Some few students who are 
 physically damaged live in the School building, for the 
 rest, rooms are found in some of the former great 
 hotels, which are now hives of Soviet workers. 
 
 The courses last about four months; in the School 
 only theory being taught, for practical work the 
 students are taken out into departments that are 
 actually functioning, which they study on the 
 spot. 
 
 There are special courses for Cossacks, about sixty 
 in number, of eight weeks long, followed by an exam- 
 ination. Of this Cossack section the present one is the 
 second. The first counted eighty Cossack students, of 
 whom at the close of their course fifty-five were sent 
 out as workers. The School of Soviet Work prepares 
 students to act as secretaries of local Soviets, and man- 
 agers of sections concerned with land, education, rail- 
 ways, etc., under the local Soviets, while the work of 
 the Party School is devoted chiefly to the position, re- 
 quirements, and indoctrination of the middle class of 
 peasants, whom it is the aim of the Central Executive 
 to lead gently into socialism, as their number and posi- 
 tion in a country like Russia make them an important 
 political factor. The fact of not being a socialist is no
 
 SCHOOL OF SOVIET WORKERS 109 
 
 bar to entry, neither of Soviet students, many of whom 
 are non-party, nor of professors, who are all well- 
 known men, and many of whom are not socialists. 
 
 As the country needs these workers badly, a severely 
 practical spirit has guided the arrangement of pro- 
 grams and lectures. The work is divided into sections, 
 corresponolin^ to the various Commissariats, and a 
 student enters the section in whose work in the prov- 
 inces he wishes to labor. It is intensive teaching, and 
 from what I saw of it, it is good. Thus, the Agricul- 
 tural Course comprised in one week's work studies in 
 cattle, forestry, the land question, and co-operation in 
 agriculture, where lectures were given by specialists. 
 The Transport Section, again, in one week tackled 
 electrical railways, the special transport of animals, 
 permanent way building, railway administration, and 
 railway exploitation, all again under well-known pro- 
 fessors and engineers. 
 
 The Section of Food Control for the week when I 
 was at the School had for program the coupon system, 
 the Soviet food policy (by Sviderski, one of the Col- 
 legium of the Food Control, an admirably competent 
 man), organization of the supply of the population in 
 connection with the nationalization of production, the 
 participation of the workers in production, corn re- 
 sources, and the determination of the corn surplus, 
 transport in connection with food. Among the lec- 
 turers in this section are two socialists. 
 
 The Co-operative Section during the same period 
 studied the organization and practice of co-operation, 
 legislation for co-operation, and joined with the previ-
 
 110 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 cms section in Sviderski's lecture on food control. 
 There are many sections, but I give these four pro- 
 grams, to some of which I listened, in order to show 
 the line of thought which governs the working of the 
 School, where study goes on from ten to twelve 
 o'clock, then a break for dinner, followed by work 
 from 2 to 6.30, with supper, and ending with work in 
 seminar classes in which students join in investigating 
 some point in connection with their class work, or 
 thrash out a complete subject. Even the lectures are 
 followed by discussion between the lecturer and his 
 students on questions that bear on the topic of the 
 lecture, either posed by the lecturer or by the students. 
 As a student may not enter before eighteen years of 
 age, the general level of intelligence is pretty high, 
 even though the academic qualification may be small. 
 But care has been taken in this direction also, and 
 facultative courses in mathematics and Russian lan- 
 guage and grammar are held. While for the students 
 in the sections of Food Control, State Control, Finance, 
 Agriculture and Co-operation, in all about 250 
 students, there are obligatory courses in general book- 
 keeping, of fifty hours during the four months of the 
 course, a further special course of thirty hours toward 
 the close of their time. And at the end there will be 
 an examination, and a prompt sending of satisfactory 
 candidates to work in the provinces. All this sounds 
 bald and unconvincing. What I should like to convey 
 is the feeling I experienced as I went from room to 
 room, from some sixty Cossacks listening with rapt at- 
 tention to their lecturer, to a great hall containing
 
 SCHOOL OF SOVIET WORKERS 111 
 
 600 Communist Party students, who not only received 
 a good lecture from Novsky, but carried on an ener- 
 getic discussion afterward, which they only stopped in 
 order to welcome the English stranger within their 
 gates; from Sviderski's historical sketch of the rise of 
 food prices, dealt with a masterly grip of the subject, 
 to an interesting talk with the lecturer who is in charge 
 of the special courses for the sixty Cossacks. My life 
 has been spent largely in lecture-rooms, and I know 
 well when an audience is worth the name. Spending 
 a time among these eager students I caught the thrill 
 that every experienced lecturer feels when he is talk- 
 ing to an intent, sympathetic, and comprehending body 
 of people. They justified their interest in one huge 
 class by breaking into warm applause at a point made 
 by the teacher. These men and women are exactly 
 of the same type as those in the Manual Training 
 School whom Pokrovsky described as his very best 
 audience. I can well believe the warm tribute paid to 
 these, unasked, by one of the professors. But it is 
 not mere talk: that point I would stress. The written 
 essays of the students, the animated discussions, the 
 seminar practice in research, the practical study on 
 the spot of the working of the subjects, be it railways, 
 manufactures, administration or what not these safe- 
 guards provide for the practical direction and utiliza- 
 tion of the studies. 
 
 And soon will come the period of making a balance- 
 sheet of work, estimating the failures and mistakes, 
 noting the good work, the success of the methods in 
 a word, of taking stock before once again filling the
 
 112 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 huge building with eager students. And the reflection 
 forced itself upon me: if, every few months, all these 
 hundreds of workers are to be poured out into every 
 corner of Russia, working for the successful adminis- 
 tration of Russia on the Soviet system, for the indoc- 
 trination of the peasants with the ideas of socialism, 
 and all of them eager to serve, young, bubbling over 
 with enthusiasm if this is so, what is to be said of 
 the system under which they have been called into 
 being, of the leaders who are far-sighted enough to 
 set such value on educated workers? 
 
 The fact that the work is proceeding at high pres- 
 sure does not matter, nor the fact that the installation 
 is summary, and that work and installation go on side 
 by side; nor that all is done with a simplicity of ar- 
 rangement that would horrify an English University 
 professor all this is of no consequence. The only 
 thing that matters is the spirit in which the thing is 
 done, and that, if the young president of the students 
 who came to give me a handgrip and a fiery word at 
 parting is any prophet will be invincible.
 
 BOLSHEVISM AND THE HEALTH OF THE 
 WORKERS 
 
 A HOME OF REST KEPT BY THE MOSCOW SOVIET AT 
 
 ILINSKOE, THE SUMMER PALACE OF THE 
 
 FORMER GRAND DUKE SERGIUS 
 
 I WISHED to see Professor Timiriasev, and learning 
 that he was staying at a sanatorium 35 versts from 
 Moscow, I accepted an invitation to go out and see 
 him, little expecting the experience that awaited me. 
 We motored rapidly out, never being far from the 
 river, getting gradually into finely diversified country, 
 and ended by driving for miles through a magnificent 
 double avenue of limes to a sort of park gate. In 
 reply to my questions I then learned that we were 
 bound for the summer seat of the late Grand Duke 
 Sergius. 
 
 This is a large, unpretentious, two-storied building 
 with extending wings, built on the height of a gently 
 sloping bank above the Moskva River. The wings 
 continue into two terraces, and the river front has an- 
 other covered terrace, all being intended solely for use 
 during the hot Russian summer. The view from the 
 river terrace is singularly reminiscent of Richmond 
 Hill. A deeply wooded bank falls gently to the river. 
 
 113
 
 114. BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 which here makes a big curve like the Thames above 
 Richmond, while the opposite bank rises in rolling hills 
 that are thick with forest, but broken here and there, 
 affording the most picturesque perspectives. Away on 
 the right beyond the furthest visible point of the- river 
 can be seen the Grand Duke's winter house. Woods 
 surround Ilinskoe, in which easy walks are arranged 
 in all directions, and the soothing peace and beauty of 
 the situation make it not only a desirable residence, but 
 fit it exactly for its present use it is a sanatorium, a 
 home of rest maintained by the Moscow Soviet for 
 the use of the workers of Moscow. Where formerly 
 were two people, waited on by an army of servants, 
 were now 150 people of all kinds enjoying a well- 
 earned rest for a longer or shorter period; famous pro- 
 fessors and chauffeurs, high officials and children, 
 Soviet workmen and women, workmen with their 
 families, and the chairman of the co-operative machine 
 of all Russia; some staying a month to recuperate after 
 illness, others there only for the week-end or for the 
 Sunday but all on special medical permission. My 
 companion was a Commissary of the People, whose 
 departmental work was so heavy he could take no holi- 
 day, but had instead obtained permission to spend 
 partial week-ends here. 
 
 The life is perfectly simple, simple perhaps with 
 a simplicity that could hardly exist outside Russia, 
 but pleasant, cheerful, and eminently restful. The 
 gentle green tracks in the dense woodland are ideal 
 for tired people, the river affords bathing, and for the 
 more unable or unwilling there are easy-chairs on the
 
 A BOLSHEVIK HOME OF REST 115 
 
 terrace, with a glorious view stretching away in front 
 for the trouble of looking. The very house repaid 
 the trouble expended in walking about it. It had 
 formerly been an imperial seat, had passed in the first 
 half of the nineteenth century into the hands of a very 
 wealthy man with revolutionary tendencies, and at the 
 end of one of the wings is a small pavilion in which 
 the famous Hertzen used to live. Then it went to 
 Alexander II, whose cabinet and writing-table were 
 still there, and was given by Alexander III to the 
 Grand Duke Sergius; finally, it has fallen to the 
 Moscow Soviet to hold it and use it as a home of rest. 
 Its furniture and decorations remain as they were, 
 and they throw a striking light on the simplicity, to use 
 no other word, of the taste of its former imperial 
 owners and users. At the end of one of the wings a 
 gentle sloping track leads into the forest, and after 
 about 300 yards to a queer-looking turreted building 
 of two floors, which was used as a library. It con- 
 tains a number of family portraits of a very mediocre 
 order and library cases of books, added to by the 
 various owners, but of which very many bore the 
 ex libris plate S.A. Sergius Alexandrovitch the last 
 of them. There was a very good selection of French 
 literature, with well-chosen types of the modern 
 schools, a smaller English and German set, and many 
 Russian. Some of the books were illuminating they 
 bore in pencil the date of their confiscation; they had 
 then been bound and added to the library. Some small 
 cases in which were curious and worthless collections, 
 albums of family photographs, such as can be found
 
 116 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 in a suburban or provincial home in England, and some 
 simple furniture, completing the furnishing. The 
 whole was carefully catalogued. 
 
 I was taken over this by Professor Pokrovsky, who, 
 with his family, had rested here for a couple of days. 
 But I had come to see Professor Timiriasev and 
 sought him out. The famous botanist, who is a well- 
 known member of the Royal Society, had been ill and 
 was resting in Ilinskoe. He and I talked of the intel- 
 lectual classes and the university staffs, of their atti- 
 tude to the Soviet rule, and of the part they were 
 playing with regard to the new life in Russia. I told 
 him of my investigations into the programs of 
 Lunacharsky and Pokrovsky, of my visits to schools, 
 and of the opinion I had formed of the work that is 
 going on. He, for his part, expressed admiration not 
 only for the schemes, but, as he said, for the progress 
 that has been made with them in a time that can be 
 reckoned in months. But of the intellectual classes, 
 and the professors in the great universities, he de- 
 plored the attitude. According to him, it is only a 
 minority that are working whole-heartedly with the 
 Soviet Government. The majority are more or less 
 hostile, though he thought it was only a question of 
 time for them to come round to a more favorable esti- 
 mate of the existing Government. As I mentioned the 
 popular universities that are being founded and the 
 technical classes that are so largely followed, he said 
 that the attitude of the professors was really suicidal, 
 that their politically uncompromising attitude might 
 leave them in the position of professors without
 
 A BOLSHEVIK HOME OF REST 117 
 
 students. He sees and approves of the great awaken- 
 ing among the masses of Russians of the keen desire 
 to learn and to develop their faculties. And he insisted 
 again on the ground that had been already won, the 
 progress made in spreading enlightenment. It may 
 well be that the prevailing method in the Tsaristic 
 times of selecting professors for the universities ac- 
 counts for the irreconcilable attitude of the present 
 remnant. A man of pronounced political opinions 
 could hardly obtain a chair, or if obtained, he had 
 difficulty in retaining it. As a consequence reactionary 
 professors were chosen, who think probably that their 
 chances of promotion or retention, under Koltchak 
 or Denikin, would be certainly imperiled by working 
 for the Soviet Republic. The presence of two famous 
 professors, a botanist and an historian, in this home of 
 rest crowded with men, women, and children of all 
 types and of all stages of mental development, yet so 
 completely at home, and finding nothing strange in the 
 juxtaposition, seems to me to be, in a measure, typical 
 of the aim of the Soviet power. The equality at which 
 it aims was there without any jarring. All were served 
 alike, and good manners obtained all round. The only 
 difference noticeable being the respect shown by the 
 young members of the party toward the intellectual 
 eminence of men like Timiriasev and Pokrovsky, 
 whose lives have been spent in public service. The 
 only title heard was " tovarishtch " comrade no 
 matter to whom applied, and this, though it strikes 
 queerly at first, ends by making its own appeal it is 
 so useful and all-embracing. And a moment's thought
 
 118 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 of the use formerly made of the vast green fields be- 
 tween river bank and forest opposite the terrace front 
 of the house Sergius used to send for soldiers, who 
 had to march the 35 versts from Moscow to parade 
 here and relieve his boredom with the cheerfulness 
 and joy around me, made me glad indeed to have such 
 a day with others in one of the homes of rest of the 
 Soviet Republic.
 
 XVI 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 THE Western world has yet to gain a correct view, a 
 clear perspective, of the men and forces operative in 
 the present Soviet Government of Russia, and I shall 
 try to draw together the impressions made on me by 
 my investigations both in the various Commissariats 
 and in visits to institutions in active work, and by my 
 contact with the men at the head of affairs, hoping that 
 it may help in the formation of this view. First, Men 
 and their Policy. They are men of grip, both of the 
 political situation and of the executive office of which 
 each one is the head. Their avowed aim is the preser- 
 vation of the effects of the Revolution, and through 
 them the setting up of a new social order. To this end 
 they recoil from no act deemed necessary, and this is 
 one of the sources of their power. It is usually said 
 that they are engaged in setting up a system of Com- 
 munism. They are no such fools. They are fully 
 aware of the impossibility of such an immediate 
 change; and, as Lenin says, " the Communist who 
 wishes to set up a Commune now is no Communist." 
 That is, I think, a profoundly true view, and it explains 
 the concessions made in practice, and the form which 
 the Government of Russia temporarily takes. 
 
 The chief Commissaries are Communists, the 
 strongest element supporting the Government is Com- 
 
 119
 
 120 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 munist, but very many who are at work for the Soviet 
 are not Communists; many are non-party men, but in 
 most cases they work that the Revolution may not be 
 a failure, seeing in the Soviet Government at present 
 its only safeguard. The ultimate aim undoubtedly is 
 a Commune, but the process by which that end is to 
 be attained is the slow setting up of a State capitalism 
 the State as sole proprietor. There are many things, 
 such as the payment made for corn, the allowance of 
 rest, the payment of salaries to workers, the purchas- 
 ing of food, and so on, which are all concessions, away 
 from Communism, but which can be allowed in this 
 transition stage of setting up State proprietorship, but 
 which will disappear when the State finds itself in a 
 position to take up these matters and absorb them 
 once for all. This again is a proo* of the sound judg- 
 ment of the leaders. Unless pressed by immediate 
 necessity, as in land and food, a department of the life 
 of the country is not handled until it can be done so 
 effectively; and in the meantime complete nationali- 
 zation and private enterprise go side by side, until the 
 time and conditions are ripe for the State to intervene 
 once for all. 
 
 The usual idea of a chief Commissary as a dema- 
 gogue who has made himself the head of a public 
 department, a post for which he is totally unfitted, 
 is a farcical travesty of the truth. Many of these men 
 have full technical qualifications for the post they oc- 
 cupy. To mention only a few, Krassin (Ways and 
 Communications), Lunacharsky (Education), Miliu- 
 tin (National Economics), Tomsky and Melnichansky
 
 CONCLUSIONS 121 
 
 (Trades' Unions), and many others, men who have 
 in addition great energy and driving power, who have 
 already produced vast results under difficulties which 
 would have crushed smaller men. They have de- 
 stroyed a corrupt bureaucracy; in replacing it, they 
 have made mistakes, have had to grope their way 
 painfully through the chaos of this overturn. They 
 confess it, but they learned by their experience and 
 their system gained by their mistakes. Another West- 
 ern calumny needs exposing. These men are pro- 
 foundly simple in dress, food, life. In that respect 
 they are true to the principles they profess. The 
 alleged orgies are lies. The truth is that they live 
 a life of work to which that of a convict is as child's 
 play, and many of them bear evidences of the terrific 
 strain under which they live. While as for the piling 
 up of money, one has but to say that the highest 
 salary on the tariffs of pay is 3,000 roubles a month, 
 and that Lenin himself has a salary of 2,000 roubles, 
 for that gibe to disappear. Let us at any rate be 
 just. 
 
 They have set up " the dictatorship of the pro- 
 letariat," a phrase which is a fully developed bug- 
 bear to Western nations who use it as the complete 
 explanation of Bolshevism, the raison d'etre of the 
 Soviet Republic. A little thought will put the matter 
 in its right light. The " dictatorship of the pro- 
 letariat " is not a policy, it is but a means to an end, 
 a process in the achieving of a policy. Hard experi- 
 ence of the disastrous results of a coalition of workers 
 and bourgeois showed the danger of losing the effects
 
 122 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 of the Revolution, while little change was produced in 
 the condition of the masses who had made that Revo- 
 lution. The rule of the bourgeoisie was the rule of a 
 minority and disastrous at that. The workers took 
 power and imposed their will, the rule of a majority, 
 to be continued as long as necessary. For it is recog- 
 nized as only a temporary expedient. When Soviet 
 rule is fully recognized and established, as there will 
 be no classes, the dictatorship of any particular part 
 will be illogical. It is used at present as the necessary 
 means of insuring the stability of the Government, and 
 of acting effectively against all attempts to overthrow 
 it. Finally, it is flung at the Soviet Republic as a dis- 
 honorable thing that among its Commissaries are Jews. 
 Improving on that some go so far as to make Jew 
 and Bolshevik convertible terms, and of the hideous 
 results of this slander reports from the south and west 
 of Russia are full. Well, in any body of Russian revo- 
 lutionaries there have always been Jews, and in this 
 last great Revolution there were also Jews. And 
 among the Commissaries there are Jews. But why 
 should not a race which among the Russian nationali- 
 ties has always distinguished itself by its ardor for 
 culture find a place where ability and knowledge are 
 of the first value? The very utmost that can be said 
 is that Jews are found among the prominent men of 
 the Soviet Republic to an extent greater than the pro- 
 portion they bear to the entire population. The fol- 
 lowing numbers speak for themselves: Out of eighteen 
 Commissaries of the People, only one is of Jewish 
 blood, and of 115 members of the Government, only
 
 CONCLUSIONS 123 
 
 eight are Jews. But I have also seen them as privates 
 and officers at the front, as local Commissaries and 
 officials, and wherever I have seen a Jew there in 
 number infinitely greater have I seen other Russians. 
 The cruelty of this slander can only be properly ap- 
 preciated on the spot in Russia, where it is used to 
 justify the most hideous cruelties and revolting bar- 
 barities committed by Poles, by the soldiery of Denikin 
 and of Koltchak on the Jewish populations who fall 
 into their power. Of these, authenticated docu- 
 mentary reports and photographs have been in my 
 hands. 
 
 One last remark on the question of the men of the 
 Soviet Republic. If any hopes in the failure of these 
 men have been founded on the slanderous descriptions 
 of them circulated in the west of Europe as self- 
 seekers, gluttons for personal pleasures and for money, 
 German agents, and bloody monsters after my con- 
 tact with them and their work, I feel convinced those 
 hopes are doomed to disappointment. 
 
 Organization (Political). Through the local Soviets 
 this extends to the smallest Commune in the country. 
 It is little realized in the west of Europe the strength 
 of the grip which the Soviet system has on the country, 
 growing stronger month by month. Its minuteness is 
 astonishing, and very little can escape its notice or in- 
 fluence. The usual impression of the system of 
 Soviets is a mass of committees acting independently 
 all over the country, an anarchic condition of local 
 authorities. The reality is far otherwise. From the 
 Central Executive, through provincial, town, and dis-
 
 124 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 trict Soviets there is close and constant connection. 
 Frequent congresses are called in Moscow to which 
 delegates of the various Soviets are summoned so that 
 action shall be co-ordinated and made appropriate to 
 the various districts. While in the control of industries 
 the way in which the Professional Alliances, who are 
 also largely concerned in the composition of the 
 Soviets, are involved in the various stages of work- 
 men's committees, management, trust, and section 
 committees right up to the Supreme Council of Na- 
 tional Economics, insures the same sort of close organi- 
 zation of all industrial matters, and as these are closely 
 connected with political action, it can be seen what a 
 compact organization obtains. As Miliutin said, the 
 industrial system selects the best brains from among 
 the workers, and I have come across proof of his claim, 
 so that the men who are working the organization are 
 tried and proved men. Further, the State Control 
 Department not only controls most effectively all of- 
 ficial action and responsibility, but instructs how best 
 to carry out official duties. From all this it can be 
 seen clearly that the idea of a widespread anarchy of 
 authorities is entirely wrong, the reality being an 
 organization, political and economical, of very close 
 tissue, the whole being so strongly connected that, as 
 I said, the life of the country is in its grip, and little 
 or nothing can escape its influence. The chief agent 
 in the spread of the principles of Soviet government 
 is of course propaganda, but propaganda of a versa- 
 tility and a completeness never before experienced. 
 The Communist Party, which is the fighting element
 
 CONCLUSIONS 125 
 
 in the Soviet power, is, in itself, organized in a for- 
 midable fashion, and from time to time sends its chief 
 members, whatever may be the office they hold, into 
 the country whenever the action of the Government 
 needs presenting, explaining, or supporting. The men 
 must obey the call. And when it is considered that 
 these men are powerful speakers and. past masters in 
 the art of managing an audience, the effect of this 
 manceuver can be imagined. The call to special service 
 affects all members of the party, and once given is 
 always obeyed. This voluntary discipline, which is 
 quite rigid, makes of the Communist Party a corps 
 d'elite for political propaganda. They are the spear- 
 head of the movement which supports the Soviet Re- 
 public, and, consequently, the Social Revolution. 
 Strong precautions are taken before anyone is admitted 
 to the party, and once admitted he is soon aware that 
 he has not entered upon a heritage of privileges, but 
 only of duties, arduous duties. He is enjoined to live 
 up to the professions of the Communist Party, and 
 any lapses are severely treated. For if a case of evil- 
 doing occurs among officials and is to be punished, if 
 the defaulting official be a non-Communist, he may 
 be sentenced to hard labor, but if a Communist, he is 
 shot. He atones for the discredit he has brought upon 
 the Communist cause by his life. This is a point which 
 should be considered as against the common report 
 which puts the Sovietists and all their supporters as 
 an undisciplined mob. My strong impression is one of 
 iron discipline and a self-abnegation in the political 
 cause to a degree to which I have hitherto been quite
 
 126 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 unaccustomed. In Moscow itself meetings are held 
 weekly in which the leaders assist, and district Soviets 
 and district party organizations also maintain a stream 
 of meetings every week, all tending in the same direc- 
 tion. I myself attended one of these local meetings in 
 the Presnia quarter. The audience was about 1,000 
 strong, all workmen, workwomen, and soldiers, who 
 sat through long speeches by party workers. Work- 
 men and delegates showed their interest by sending up 
 many questions to the chairman, and all this after 
 having held a party conference in the same theater. 
 Anyone could attend the meeting, and there seemed no 
 check on any expression of opinion; while the orderly 
 character of the proceedings was most marked. These 
 meetings, which provide excellent debating grounds on 
 the general situation, are eminently educative in a 
 political sense for the public attending them, and they 
 sustain the feeling of the workers which is undoubtedly 
 one of the great supports of the Sovietists. This same 
 propaganda goes on at the front under chosen leaders, 
 and when the teachers are mobilized their function is 
 largely to assist in this particular sort of work. The 
 stream is thus steady, full, and incessant. But the 
 organization of propaganda is not confined to the 
 spoken word. The kinema and the poster are pressed 
 into service, and though some of the posters are weak, 
 there are large numbers which are strikingly effective, 
 the artists succeeding in arresting attention and fixing 
 the poster's appeal at a glance. Maps on a very large 
 scale, regular bulletins in chosen wall spaces, abound 
 in the city. You cannot go far without receiving some
 
 CONCLUSIONS 127 
 
 impression of political value. And the Soviet has gone 
 still further in fixing monuments, temporary and per- 
 manent, which are meant to affect the mind through 
 the appeal to the eye and the artistic sense. But one 
 of the experiments which is, in my opinion, likely to 
 have far-reaching results on the entire population of 
 Russia is the school for training Soviet workers, in 
 which also is a party school of the Communists. It 
 is near the end of its first session, but will become 
 a permanency after a stock-taking conference on 
 methods and results, which conference is itself a proof 
 of the strong political sense and pedagogic instinct 
 which are guiding the school. Outside the party 
 school, non-Communist opinions are no bar to a 
 student's entry, nor a professor's activity, the sole re- 
 quirement being a loyal desire to work for Soviet rule 
 and for maintaining the results of the Revolution. But 
 the effect of turning out into every corner of the 
 country three times a year 700 workers and future 
 officials of the local Soviets, and 600 Communist 
 workers among the peasants, can be easily imagined, 
 especially when it is remembered that these students 
 come from all the nationalities existing in Russia, are 
 largely peasants, and return to their own localities 
 when their course of training is finished. Political 
 propaganda is, to my mind, complete, for it covers all 
 the life of Russia; intense, for it is led by competent 
 and determined men; and all-pervading, for I have 
 met with evidence of it even in the small outposts of 
 the extreme front. 
 
 Organization of the Commissariats. I have inter-
 
 128 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 viewed the Commissaries on the work and scope of 
 their departments, and I have seen with my own eyes 
 the minutely elaborate organizations built up during 
 the last twenty months. The number of employes is 
 enormous, and among them are many former bourgeois 
 and many non-party men and women, but the headship 
 of departments and of sub-departments is in the hands 
 of convinced supporters of the policy and aims of the 
 Soviet. Whatever mistakes have been made in the 
 past are corrected in the light of experience, and there 
 is nothing haphazard about the functioning of the great 
 departments of the Government. The Revolution 
 overthrew the bureaucracy with all its corruption, and 
 the Sovietists have no intention of allowing a similar 
 state of things to grow up under their rule. There 
 existed under the old regime a timid body of control. 
 The Sovietists have taken it, expanded it, and turned 
 it into a formidable machine, which actively controls all 
 departments of State, including finance, all the people 
 employed, from the Commissaries of the People down- 
 ward, the composition of departments and their ef- 
 ficiency. It prevents duplication, overlapping, need- 
 less expenditure, and acts as prosecutor in cases where 
 faults have been committed. It is really the supreme 
 controlling influence in the State, for through its 
 branches it extends to all local Soviets, while through 
 its Bureau of Complaints it takes cognizance of all 
 cases of people who complain of harm at the hands of 
 an official, and thus generates a feeling of confidence 
 in the justice of the Government, in the minds of the 
 people even when practised against its own members.
 
 CONCLUSIONS 129 
 
 For the State Control does not meddle with private 
 persons, its province is the officials. In all this there 
 is, to me, a sincere desire to purify official life and 
 function which corresponds ill to the grotesque carica- 
 tures of Soviet government which had become familiar 
 to me during the past two years. 
 
 Organization of Transport. On this vital matter I 
 think my report of the interview with Krassin, the 
 Commissary, speaks sufficiently clearly. The position 
 was, and is yet, one of great difficulty owing to the 
 exhausted condition in which the Great War left the 
 railways, the impossibility of filling up the gaps in 
 material, and the tremendous demands upon the rail- 
 ways which have been maintained ever since. When 
 these things are taken into consideration I think that 
 Krassin has worked wonders, for he has maintained 
 passenger services, though depleted, met the require- 
 ments of food control, and has most successfully moved 
 and supplied troops over immense distances, all with 
 the combustion of wood alone. A thing which came 
 recently to my notice gives perhaps the best proof of 
 the efficiency he has introduced into the system. In 
 the provinces retaken from Koltchak the harvest is 
 unusually heavy, and for its collecting the assistance 
 of 50,000 men was required. It was decided to send 
 them, and though these provinces are on the eastern 
 front, whose military demands are very heavy, in a 
 fortnight 20,000 were sent down to harvest, without 
 any dislocation of the already vast service for military 
 purposes. This question of transport is really the key 
 to the solution of the problem of the organization of
 
 130 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 supplies for the population. To convey supplies to 
 the districts on the fringe of Soviet territory, which as 
 a rule do not raise a sufficiency of food for themselves, 
 is difficult, and depends on the efficiency of the trans- 
 port system. It accounts for differences I have myself 
 experienced, e.g. in the west I found people eating 
 oil-cake, while here, in the center, we have black bread, 
 in what to me, an Englishman, is a sufficient quantity. 
 But the harvest is plentiful, and if it can be gathered, 
 I have come to the conclusion that Soviet Russia has 
 passed through its worst period, the future can only 
 be an improvement. This view is supported by my in- 
 vestigations in the Department of Food Control. As 
 showing the care shown in details of organization it 
 should be noticed that the immense system of co- 
 operative agencies in Russia is to be called in aid. 
 Brought into a unified organization they will be the 
 instrument of the Government in the transactions for 
 corn with the peasants, and will be the means of dis- 
 tributing the goods or money allotted in exchange for 
 corn. As a consequence of this astute move the Chair- 
 man of the Co-operative Committee guarantees after 
 harvest a pound of bread per person per day. Should 
 this prove true, it will be a triumph of successful 
 organization for the Department of the Food Con- 
 trol. 
 
 One last word on the transport service its general 
 condition. Russia is supplying all she can, under the 
 conditions imposed on her, in reparations and manu- 
 facture of new material. But the destruction and 
 wearing out of lines and rolling stock caused by six
 
 CONCLUSIONS 131 
 
 years of war are so great that the requirements are 
 colossal in amount. An engineer, formerly head of an 
 industrial enterprise in Petrograd, estimated that were 
 trade relations reopened with Russia she would be 
 a purchaser of locomotives, wagons, spare parts, 
 machines for factories with their spare parts, and 
 machines for agriculture to the extent of 25 milliards 
 of roubles! Going through what is one of the largest 
 textile factories in Russia, I mentioned this to the 
 directors, and was told that it was probably true, but 
 that it was impossible to give more than an approxi- 
 mate estimate of the vast needs of Russia, but that 
 as for their own factories they had before the war put 
 out orders to a million roubles for machinery and spare 
 parts not one bit of which had been received, and that 
 there were now six years of additional loss, wear and 
 tear and destruction to be made good. 
 
 Finally, my investigations point to an organization 
 of all departments of the Government which is strong, 
 compact, and closely interwoven. It reaches every- 
 where. It is also very supple, for through it, action, 
 which in Great Britain would be delayed through par- 
 liamentary action, is here undertaken with peculiar 
 swiftness and effect. 
 
 SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES OF THE SOVIET REPUBLIC 
 
 Here I have taken particular instances of the ac- 
 tivity of the Sovietists concerning which fixed im- 
 pressions have been produced in West Europe by 
 reports, stories, and by more or less official statements,
 
 132 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 and have compared them with the realities existing 
 here. 
 
 Children. One of the things most carefully im- 
 pressed on me just before leaving Reval was that 
 in Moscow I would find no children under ten 
 years of age. All younger, I was informed, were 
 dead. 
 
 The truth is that both Moscow and all parts of 
 Russia I have visited swarm with young children, from 
 babies in arms upwards. And in no country in the 
 world with which I am acquainted is so much care 
 and thought lavished on children by any Government 
 as here in Russia. In saying that I speak with expert 
 knowledge, for my life has been spent in educational 
 work. Up to the age of sixteen food and necessaries 
 are supplied gratis, according to the rate of the highest 
 category. Whoever else may suffer from the strin- 
 gency of conditions, it is certainly not the children. 
 Education is gratuitous, and has been placed on a foot- 
 ing and planned with a lavishness that bids fair to 
 cope successfully in the future with the dense igno- 
 rance of millions of illiterates. 
 
 Working schools, popular training classes, people's 
 clubs and associations, technical classes and schools, 
 popular universities continue the work, and everything 
 is planned and much is already done to gratify the 
 thirst for knowledge and improvement that exists 
 among the young. That, at any rate in Moscow, there 
 is no need to arouse. It has arisen spontaneously. 
 And it must exist in the provinces, seeing the ease 
 with which large numbers of peasants, men and
 
 CONCLUSIONS 133 
 
 women, youths and adults, can be selected for specific 
 training as workers. It looks to me as if the Revolu- 
 tion has produced among the masses of the people an 
 explosion of desire to eat of the tree of knowledge. 
 The carrying off of children in colonies to the country 
 in summer is a movement that tends toward physical 
 improvement, and at the same time relieves the food 
 difficulty in towns, by taking the children where food 
 is more plentiful. And it gives opportunities to the 
 older ones of learning to help in the work of the fields. 
 In any case, the guiding motive is the improvement of 
 child life, which has led also to the giving of meals 
 in schools, which when their children are not taken 
 to the country are kept open, that the meals may not 
 be intermitted. And while all this care is poured out 
 on the rearing of the young, an equal amount is be- 
 stowed on provision for their recreation and amuse- 
 ment, a work which is crowned by the functioning of 
 seven theaters in Moscow on Sunday afternoons solely 
 for their benefit. The commencing age for work is 
 sixteen years, and up to eighteen years two hours 
 of the working day must be spent in class study by 
 law. Later it is intended to raise the age of beginning 
 work. Here is shown continuously care for those of 
 tender age. 
 
 For Infants the beginnings of an elaborate system of 
 care are made in maternity, the medical treatment, 
 nursing and feeding of the little ones, on a scale which 
 when perfected will be unique. Lastly, for all the 
 activities concerning the young there have been ample 
 appropriations of funds made, None of them need
 
 134 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 suffer from a stinting of the money necessary for their 
 full working. 
 
 Women. So far as emancipation has any meaning 
 it is accomplished here. Women work on the same 
 conditions and on the same pay as men; they act in 
 all capacities. The myth so industriously propagated 
 of the nationalization of women is by this time ex- 
 ploded, even in West Europe, but I may as well say 
 that nowhere has it created so much astonishment and 
 amusement as in Russia. Another bugbear socialistic 
 free love is equally laid by the heels. Marriage is a 
 civil contract, though no restrictions are placed on 
 the religious function. But the best guarantees for 
 the formation of the normal marriage-tie are the im- 
 provement in pay and conditions of life of the workers, 
 and the possibility of obtaining a justifiable divorce. 
 They also act in another direction in the improvement 
 of social order. For, speaking of Moscow, open pros- 
 titution seems to have disappeared. It may have be- 
 come secret, but the fact remains that the open plague 
 of the streets of London, Paris, and all the great 
 capitals of my acquaintance has gone. Probably the 
 real reason is the economic one. The improvement of 
 the lot of the worker in Soviet Russia has removed one 
 of the inducements to prostitution ; while in instituting 
 repressive measures, the Committee of the Depart- 
 ment of Hygiene, which has charge of the subject, has 
 among its members representatives of the Domestic 
 Servants' Professional Alliance, in accordance with the 
 rules of the Soviet. This is a measure that works, as 
 might be expected, for good. The worst cases are,
 
 CONCLUSIONS 135 
 
 where possible, collected in camps and taught to work, 
 after which they are given the opportunity of a self- 
 respecting life. In some curious way, Soviet rule thus, 
 instead of justifying the descriptions of it as a pande- 
 monium, seems to work for orderliness and decency. 
 Every traveler who knew the old Russia is well 
 acquainted with the hordes of professional beggars, I 
 have no desire to picture Russia as in the millennium, 
 but in justice it must be said that though there are 
 beggars, they are much less in evidence than for- 
 merly; in some places I found none at all; and that 
 steps are to be taken to abolish this pest of the Russian 
 towns by placing those who are able-bodied in houses 
 to work, the incapable in houses to live. In fact, the 
 order which reigns in Moscow is an improvement, not 
 a deterioration. The security is so complete that one 
 can cross the city at all hours with perfect impunity, 
 and, it must be remembered, that there is no street 
 lighting at night, fuel is too scarce and dear. The 
 police have been replaced by a militia, who in contrast 
 with the streets of London or Paris, seem almost 
 invisible; but order is maintained. 
 
 Lastly, there is the question of the requisitioning of 
 the houses of the rich and apportioning them in apart- 
 ments to workers. Moscow, with an ordinary popu- 
 lation of 1,200,000, has always had a bad reputation 
 for the housing of its workers, while on the other hand 
 it possessed great palaces of the nobles and rich mer- 
 chants, clubs, hotels, and restaurants on a princely 
 scale. The Revolution and the fixing here of the Cen- 
 tral Government have produced a great increase of
 
 136 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 the population, which the state of war and movements 
 of troops also intensify. The Soviet Republic is a 
 Workers' Republic, and, to meet its temporary in- 
 ability to house decently the workers, for building 
 operations are difficult, the houses of the rich, clubs, 
 etc., were taken and their rooms apportioned. Some 
 of them are occupied by various Commissaries or by 
 sub-departments of the Commissariats. Training 
 classes, workmen's clubs and associations, political and 
 educational centers, are housed in others. The remedy 
 is drastic, but the disease was bad, and had to be 
 treated promptly. And many of the proprietors had 
 fled and abandoned their houses. The intention is to 
 build houses for the proper hygienic accommodation 
 of the workers; in the present time of inability to do 
 so this requisitioning was the only resource. And it 
 has produced one good effect: where before were 
 housed but few people, are now many thousands under 
 conditions that are infinitely simpler. 
 
 One by one my early impressions have vanished. 
 Contact with the reality has brought the conviction 
 that the rule of the Soviet Republic, so far as it affects 
 children, women, and the departments of social order 
 and security, makes for improvement and not for 
 deterioration. Already there is noticeable improve- 
 ment to be seen, and if continued, it bids fair to be able 
 to tackle successfully problems that have been too 
 much for the older Governments in the West.
 
 CONCLUSIONS 137 
 
 CULTURE UNDER SOVIET RULE 
 
 One of the criticisms usually made of a socialist 
 community is that it must of necessity be a dismal 
 affair of uniformity, with cultivation disappearing, or 
 being maintained at the level of an elementary school. 
 The glories of art would altogether vanish, in fact the 
 texture of a socialist society would admit of only the 
 crudest and most inartistic color. I had myself been 
 so anxious about the treasures of Petrograd and 
 Moscow, not to mention the vast private collections, 
 that I took special pains to learn what had become of 
 them, and whether the usual criticism showed any 
 signs of becoming true. The best answer to my fears 
 was the reply of the Commissary of Education to my 
 questions on this subject, " we have here a rich culture 
 which we would not willingly lose." And so far from 
 losing it, care is taken to preserve it lovingly, and to 
 use and extend it. 
 
 The great collections, public and private, of Petro- 
 grad were carefully packed and placed in safety in 
 Moscow, where, but for the feeling that Petrograd 
 ought not to be robbed of its own, they would find 
 a permanent home. In Moscow the Tretiakovsky Gal- 
 lery is not only maintained, it has been extended from 
 private collections and by buying; while the great 
 palaces filled with treasures of art are maintained as 
 museums for the pleasure and improvement of all. In 
 nationalizing the theaters, care has been taken to 
 preserve the independence of the famous Ballet 
 schools, and of the celebrated Moscow Art Theater.
 
 138 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 The fullest opportunity is given to them to continue 
 working on the lines that have brought them their 
 great reputation, while for the other theaters nationali- 
 zation would appear to have brought only one change 
 a vast and appreciative audience of those to whom 
 formerly the theater was almost " forbidden fruit," 
 for the tickets are distributed through the workers' 
 associations. There is, at least here in Moscow, a 
 strong movement of taste toward the theater. The 
 reason of it is hard to find. It is catered for by special 
 committees of the Commissariat of Education, and of 
 the Moscow Soviet, with results both for children and 
 adults which will astonish any who see them. The 
 same can be said of music, which, as a popular educa- 
 tive recreation, has taken on a similar extension. So 
 far from artistic culture being moribund, it appears to 
 have taken a fresh lease of vigorous life. The four 
 great art schools of Petrograd and Moscow, while be- 
 ing nationalized, have been opened to new influences, 
 and their students are stimulated by being allowed to 
 provide the decorations for the official fetes; while the 
 first monuments to be set up by the Republic, of men, 
 and of symbolic emblems, give more than a hope that 
 this form of artistic appeal will be controlled by a 
 real and a good taste. To the enjoyment of all these 
 cultivating pleasures come now a mass of people 
 enabled by their greater leisure and improved condi- 
 tion, not only to become aware of them, but to use 
 them; in strong contrast to their condition under the 
 old regime, when they were not only ignorant of the 
 cultivating pleasures of art, but were cut off from all
 
 CONCLUSIONS 139 
 
 approach to them. Russia has never lacked genius in 
 any form, certainly not in art, and so far from de- 
 stroying culture and genius, it looks as if the Socialist 
 Republic, by giving greater opportunities of approach 
 to art, greater leisure for enjoying it, greater chances 
 of application to it, would be far more likely to 
 discover and bring out genius that but for it would 
 have died unnoticed. 
 
 SUMMING UP 
 
 The sum total of my investigations can be quickly 
 expressed. I have not found the millennium far from 
 it but the reality is far otherwise than the stories 
 circulated at home would make one believe. The 
 Government is strong. On a priori grounds it could 
 be argued that a regime which can hold out for two 
 years under the appalling conditions obtaining in 
 Russia must be strong. But I have evidence of its 
 strength and of the elaborateness of its organization. 
 And it grows stronger. The men in power are sincere, 
 fanatical, if you will, in the strength of their adher- 
 ence to the principles of the Revolution. This they 
 regard as the opening stage of the world's next period 
 of evolution the socialistic. Given this, they are 
 capable administrators, profiting by the hard experi- 
 ence they are gaining, quick and supple to make the 
 changes which that experience indicates. And with 
 all that, they are men of simple life, working at in- 
 tense strain, submitting voluntarily to a discipline of 
 iron and a self-imposed system of control that is com-
 
 140 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 plete to an extreme degree. If the tyranny which in 
 the west of Europe it is repeatedly said exists here 
 really does exist, it is not evident. And whatever may 
 be the rigidity with which laws are enforced, it is the 
 same for all. There is not one rule for the govern- 
 ing class and another for the workers: here all obey 
 alike. Instead of anarchy I find a peaceful occupa- 
 tion with the daily business of life in town and coun- 
 try that is astonishing. Orderliness is most marked, 
 and abuses which were the plague spot of Russia are 
 beginning to disappear; while the efforts of the Gov- 
 ernment for the uplifting of the people, physically, 
 morally, and intellectually, are surprising in character, 
 extent, and success. I find an industry, broken by six 
 years of war and the lack of necessaries, yet function- 
 ing and providing in spite of everything for the wants 
 of the people partly, for the army wholly. And its 
 directors are breaking out inventively, starting even 
 now new enterprises and planning great extensions for 
 the happy time they hope and believe is ahead. As 
 for the spirit of the people, I have said that I have 
 not found the millennium, but I find at the back of 
 this Government a mass of the workers solidly. Of 
 the peasants one-third supports the regime, and an- 
 other third will probably find that its interests rest 
 with the success of the present system. Of the edu- 
 cated classes a portion, a minority, works harmoniously 
 with the Soviet rule, for they see that it is neither 
 mean nor base, but honestly striving for a new, whole- 
 some, and happier social system. The greater part 
 of them are resentful or hostile, and I think that the
 
 CONCLUSIONS 141 
 
 older and richer members are likely to remain im- 
 placably hostile to Bolshevism. In any overturn of a 
 social order there is bound to be resentment and anger 
 from those who suffer in the change. And in the con- 
 ditions prevailing in Tsaristic Russia it is easy to see 
 who were the people who would suffer most in pocket, 
 pride, and position from a change. But that resent- 
 ment does not shake the Government, nor do I think 
 that it, of itself, ever will; while, and the point is im- 
 portant, the continuation of the attacks from the out- 
 side is making the resistance of the socialist stronger, 
 it is adding, as their helpers and comrades, non-party 
 men, and now even the men of the parties who were 
 opposed to Bolshevism, the Mensheviks and the Social 
 Revolutionaries. 
 
 The Communism which the leaders are out to estab- 
 lish is, at present, imperfect. The pressure of circum- 
 stances, traditions, and habits has been too strong and 
 has led to concessions which transform the commu- 
 nistic character of the movement, even while one looks 
 on. And the final transformation of the Bolshevistic 
 regime into something acceptable to the majority of 
 the Russian people is denied by the policy which places 
 a ring of enemies round the country and closes the 
 frontiers hermetically to the modifying influences of 
 commercial relations and intercourse. 
 
 This brings up one last point the action oj the 
 Allies regarding Russia. 
 
 In supporting Koltchak, Denikin, Balakhovitch, and 
 Judenitch in their anti-Bolshevik campaigns, they have 
 been supporting men who, whatever their personal
 
 142 BOLSHEVISM AT WORK 
 
 character and intentions, are surrounded by the heads 
 of the old regime and by many of its underlings, all 
 eager to restore the old conditions, to reduce peasants 
 and workers to the circumstances of Tsaristic times, 
 and replace the former social order. The small border 
 States have been subsidized to the same end, and when 
 they, with a keener sense of the realities than that of 
 their subsidizers, refuse to do more than maintain their 
 own integrity, the prize dangled before them the rec- 
 ognition of their independence is withheld. 
 
 The purpose of this support announced to the world 
 is the destruction of the Bolshevist Government, hop- 
 ing thus for the disappearance of Bolshevism. This 
 is a confession of ignorance, for Bolshevism is a spirit- 
 ual phenomenon, and as such is impervious to bullets. 
 The Soviet Republic may be destroyed, but Bolshevism 
 would not, for that, disappear. 
 
 The contrary effect is being produced, and Bol- 
 shevism grows stronger for the isolated position in 
 which its expressed form is kept. 
 
 The blockade is therefore the greatest enemy of the 
 purpose of the blockade, and the whole policy is futile. 
 For the accompanying campaign oi calumny has de- 
 feated its own ends by making thinking people in the 
 long run see good where all is not good, excellence in 
 things open to criticism, white where the Western chan- 
 celleries call out black. 
 
 No amount of atrocity-mongering by violent ex parte 
 statements can remove the blood-guiltiness of the 
 proteges of the Allies; no amount of calumny can 
 destroy the fact that the Russian Revolution is at
 
 CONCLUSIONS 143 
 
 bottom a moral, even a puritanical revolution, making 
 for simplicity and purity of life and government; and 
 no amount of pressure can fit the Russian people with 
 a Government framed and forged in the West. They 
 must find their own. And that they cannot do until 
 the subsidized civil war is brought to an end, and the 
 transforming influences of the Western World are 
 freely felt across frontiers once more open to inter- 
 national traffic. 
 
 THE END
 
 
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