The Connecticut labor press. (New Haven, Conn.) 191?-1921, 1920-01-24

ship principle, this argument was, OF
course perfectly logical.
An overwhelming majority of Rus
sian labor unionists including all skilled
and semi-skilled labor are not and were
not Bolshevists for labor unions were
dissolved at the very beginning of Boil
shevist rule so that their resistance to
the new despotism counted for nothing
What we have in Russia now is rule
of handful of Bo1shevist dictators
supported by fairly efficient Red Army
of conscripts and mercenaries which is
given backbone by about. 10 per cent
of fanatics.
From the point of view of efficient
Prussianism the new industrial system
is working better than the old. But it
has by no means brought back Russian
industry to the level it occupied before
they came into power. For example, in
the same Nevsky works referred to
where the productivity of the working
men had fallen to one-flfth it has been
raised again to 31a times its low point so
that 1t is now about 70 per cent. of nor
NAL (No. 25o, "Severanaya Kom-
muna."l
So I'm the Tula Munition Works,
after the old premium system Of wages
had been restored, the productivity of
the works and of labor rose to 20 per
cent. of what it was in 1916" (Report
of the Bolshevik, Rykov, "aIzvestia, No.
467.)
After two years of constructive
work" the Bolsheviki have reduced Rus
sian industry to two-thirds its efficiency
when they took charge This is not ali
the. evil they have done, for they lost
fully year and half of valuable time
at the low production level of one-third
to one-ffth of normalEthat is where
the factories were working, which is
only in small proportion of the whole
number, as above shown.
The struggle going on within the
ranks of labor in Soviet Russia will best
be disclosed by the following excerpt
from the editorial which appeared in the
"Severanaya Kommuna" on the 30th day
of March, 1919:
AT the present moment tremen-
dous struggle is going on within the
ranks of the proletariat between two
Numerically opposed currents. Part OF
the proletariat, numerically in the great
majority, still tied to the village, both in
material as well as theological respect,
is in an economic sense inclined to
Anarchism. 1t is not connected with
production and not interested in its de-
velopment.
"The other part is the industrial,
highly skilled mechanic, who fights for
new methods of production.
by the equalization of pay, and by
the introduction of majority rule IN the
management of the factories, supposed
to be policy of democracy, we are only
saving off the limb on which we are
sitting, for the flower of our proletar-
lat, the most efficient workers, prefer to
go to the villages, or to engage in home
trades, or to do anything else but re-
main within those demolished and dusty
fortresses we call factories. Why, this
means in its truest sense dictatorship
of unskilled laborers!"
"The skilled mechanics of Russia in
their majority never did belong, nor do
they now belong, to the Communist
(Bolshevist) party. They have remained
in the ranks of the Menshevist wing of
the Social-Democratic party and in the
Party of Socia1ists-Revo (Re-
port on the Conference of Labor Dele
gates of the City of Petrograd) -
CAS- a result, the leaders of the Soviet
government in 1919 began to realize the
fallacy of their policy, and a new wage
scale was introduced by decree of the
Peoples Conlmissaries, founded on the
principle of extra pay tor skill. L ne
higher skilled a workingnan or en-
ploye-the more he is to earn This
wage scale was introduced on the lst
of March, 1919, (No. GO, "Severanaya
Kommuna"). According to this scale,
there are to be 27 classes of workers.
The lowest, unsllilled class of laborers,
domestics, and so forth, receive coo
roubles per month (1st class), GOO
roubles (2nd c1ass), etc.
Higher employees, specialists, are put
in the last classes GO to I'D, and re-
ceive from 1870 to 200 roubles a
month"
The differentiation between skilled
and unskilled labor is therefor ap-
preaching once more the normal. But
the reader must not be deceived by the
large number of roubles mentioned. The
value of Bolshevik rouble is only a
few American cents.
The relation of Bolshevism to the Ia
Dor unions underwent a change last
spring at the same time. The labor
unions against the protest of all the
leading organizations had been merged
with the state; under the new policy
the labor unions were totally abolished
by the state, as we see from the follow
ing evidences:
I-..-