Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1920-05-06
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction
in Europe Follow the Great
World War?
RUSSIA OUT OF BALANCE
That Its Industrial Life Has Not Kept
Pace With Its Agricultural Has
Been Fatal to Country's
Prosperity.
Article XVIII.
BY FRANK COMERFORD.

nently" to call attention to the fact
that a number of peasants and vii
layers come to the cities and towns
TO work for 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
population Of from $4,000 to 100000 !;
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. It is the
idea Of consolation in companionship.
1t is a principle of mass psychology
that a group of men will dare to do a
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
ETY. in Europe and America is the out
growth Of an economic trend. In Rus
STA it was the unprecedented result
of necessity. It is the difference be-
tween one who is hungry because he
is 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
a starvation pay. SO when the work
Ing men from province come to a
city to work in the textile industries
or as carpenters, masons, ETC., they at
once unite in groups Of from ten to
fifty persons, rent 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 is organized. When rail
road is being built an Artel is formed.
In some instances the Artel resembles
labor union, in that the arrangement
Of the terms Of employment is made
by delegate or committee appointed
by the Artel.
Live in SquaIor and Misery.
Village life is primitive. The viii
layers live out of the world. The vii
lagos are very small, particularly in
the extreme north. The houses are
generally cheap wooden shanties. Ow-
ing to the great danger of fire, the vii
lagos generally cover a 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
1ngs. A board for a table, q shake
down for a bed.
Russia'S industrial life has always
been out of balance with her agricul-
tural life Notwithstanding her riches
of raw material and her great posi-
bilities for a successful industrial life
Russia has continued to be a nation
with 81 per cent farmers, or per
cent permanently engaged in industry,
and 3 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 unceasing 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 cars 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-
ries throughout the empire, of which
the annual production was valued at
more than $1,000, 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 Bolshevik 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 bolsheyik gov
eminent.
A nation to be economically normal
must have balanced agricultural, man.
ufacturing and commercial sides. If
these three departments of activity
are not proportionately developed the
nation is economically cripple. Rus
Ma has been and is In this sense an
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