The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1918-04-29
Professor Ross
Reports on the
Conditions in
Great Russia

New York, April 29.-Prohts of Rus
sian factory owners are to be limited
to five or six per cent on their invest
ment and the manufacturers are to be
required to reinvest quarter of their
profits, under the Bolshevik economic
plan as outlined by Leon Trotsky, now
Russian minister of war and marine,
in an interview with Prof. A. E. Ross
of the University of Wisconsin.
Professor Ross was sent to Russia
by the American Institute of Social
Service to study the social conditions
of that country and has reported his
conclusions to the institute. The Boil
shevik revolution took place while
Prof. Ross was in Russia. Trotsky
was foreign minister when he explain
ed the Bolshevik economic program.
SIS it the intention of your party to
dispossess the owners of industrial
plants in Russia?" Professor Ross
aked him.
mo-" Trotsky replied. "We are not
ready yet to take over all industry.
That will come in time, but no one can
say how soon. For the present, we
expect out of the earnings of a facto-
ry to pay the owner 5 or 6 per cent
yearly on his actual investment. What
we aim at now is control rather than
ownership"
what do you mean by control ?"
Il mean that we will see to it that
the factory is ri not from the point
of view of priykte profit but from
the point of view of social welfare
+democratically conceived. For exam
pie, we will not allow the capitalist to
shut up his factory in order to starve
his workmen into submissiveness or
because it is not yielding him a profit.
If it is turning out an economically
needed product, it must be kept run
ming. If the capitalist abandons it he
will lose it altogether for board of
directors chosen by the workmen will
be put in charge. Z
again control implies that the
books and correspondence Of the con-
Germ will be open to the public so that
henceforth there will be no industrial
secrets.
do you propose that the profits
earned by a concern shall be divided
among its workers." asked the pro-
lessor.
mo-" said Trotsky, "profit-sharing
is a bourgeois notion. The workers
in mill will be paid adequate wages.
All the profits earned will belong to
society. 1t is only pure profit that
would be divided"
"Where will the money come from
that will build new factories ?"
eve can impose on the capitalist to
whom we allow a dividend of five or
six per cent on his capital the obliga-
ton to reinvest in some industry a
part-say rs per cent-of what he re-
ceives.
"If in Russia you hold the capital
lists down to five or six per cent while
in other countries they can hope for
twice or thrice as much return, won't
Russia be stripped of capital?"
"They won't be allowed to remove
their capital from Russia at will" said
Trotsky significantly.
81 submitted this Bolshevik program
to various Russian economists and all
agreed that the Russian workmen are
too ignorant and short-sighted to con-
form to the sound principles which
may be held by their leaders," added
Professor Ross. Conscious of being
masters of the industrial properties,
they will not submit themselves to
indispensable discipline. They will not
follow the counsel of technical men
and they will eat up the capital, so
that before the factories have been
long in their hands it will be impossi-
BILE to keep them going"