The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1920-04-24
Shah Chaos or Reconstruction
in Europe Follow the Great
World War?
That Its Industrial Life Has Not keps
Pace With Its Agricultural Has
Been Fatal to countrys
Prosperity.
Article XVIII.
BY FRANK coMERFoRo.

4
that number Of peasants and vii
layers come to the cities and towns
to work for a part Of the year in the
industries. They retain their peasant
status and their domiciles In the vii
lagos. In 1910 there were only forty
| cities In the Russian empire with a
| population of from $4,000 to 10O, 600 :;
only four cities with a population of
| over 100000.
| Poverty forced upon the Russian
people the cooperative spirit In a
great, long strain people can stand up
together better than alone. 1t Is the
Idea Of consolation in companionship.
1t is principle of mass psychology
that a group of men will dare to do q
thing, to stand a suffering or a dan
| ger that no individual in the crowd
| would undertake alone. The Russians
have suffered from the dawn of his
tory, and one of the oldest institutions
| OF Russian life is the Artel. The Artel
very much resembles the cooperative
| society Of western Europe, with this
difference, that the cooperative soci-
| ETY. I'm Europe and America is the out
Il
| da 1t was the unprecedented result
Of necessity. 1t is the difference be-
tween one who is hungry because he
Ia dieting and one who is starving be-
cause he is without food.
| The workers Of Russia have suffered
the same slavery the peasants have en-
| dured. The maximum wage has been
| starvation pay. So when the work
| Ing men from a province come to q
city to work in the textile industries
| or as carpenters, masons, etc, they at
l once unite in groups Of from ten to
| fifty persons, rent a house. keep a
common table, elect an elder of the
| Artel, to whom each one pays his
share Of the expense. All over Rus
STA one finds the Artel-in the cities.
In the lumber camps, even in the
prisons. When a building Is to be put
up an Artel ~ organized. When a rail-
road is being built an Artel is formed.
In some instances the Artel resembles
a labor union, In that the arrangement
| Of the terms Of employment Is made
by a delegate >r committee appointed
by the Artel.
Live In S4uaIor and Misery.
Village life Is primitive. The vii
layers live out Of the world. The vii
lagos are very small, particularly I'm
| the extreme Moth. The houses are
generally cheap wooden shanties. Ow
ing to the great danger of fire, the vii
lagos generally cayer q large area of
ground. The HOUSES are scattered and
struggling. The conveniences found
even in the American tenements are
| unknown. There is no chance for
cleanliness. They live and sleep In
crowded, smoky, unfinished houses.
Furniture-they haven't what we call
furniture, even what the poorest farm
tenant In America would call furnish
ings. A board for a table a shake
down for bed.
Russia's Industrial life has always
been out Of balance with her agncul-
tural life Notwithstanding her riches
| Of raw material and her great posi-
bilities for q successful industrial life.
Russia has continued to be a nation
with 81 per cent farmers, 7 or per
cent permanently engaged In industry,
and or per cent OF peasants who
devoted part of the time to work in
| the industries. 1t has been said re-
peatedly that the imperial Russian
government from the time Of Peter the
| Great has been unceas sing In it's efforts
for the creation and development of
home manufactures. All Of the evil
| dence I have examined refutes this
/ statement. There never has been any
security to the worker in Russia. The
only protection he has had has been
his interest in the family allotment.
| He could go back there and be hun
| CRY; in the city starvation was the
danger.
The czars put every obstacle in the
| way Of education and Of course this
| prevented the growth of industry.
In 1902 the principal industries in
| Russia, representing all OF the facto-
| rtes throughout the empire, Of which
| the annual production was valued at
| more than 81 900. were textiles, food
| products, animal products, wood. pa
| per, chemical products, ceramics, min
| ing, metal goods miscellaneous. and
| all Of these employed only 2,259, 773
| workers.
Led Up to BoIshevik Problem.
This dwarfed, stunted, paralyzed
| side of Russia-its industrial side
| has direct bearing upon conditions in
| Russia today and is an important part
/ of the problem Of the bolshevik gov
| eminent.
T nation to be economically normal
| must have balanced agricultural. man.
I ufacturing and commercial sides II
| these three departments of activity
are not propOrtfOnately developed the
nation is economically a cripple. Rus
STA has been and is in this sense an
l. nm Eau~@h Dm