The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-07-14
BATH IN MOSCOW
 COSTS THREE MILLION RUBLES
By ANNA LOUISE STRONG, International News Service Staff
 COITeSDOnGenL

COrrespondenS.
 Moscow, July 14-I have just paid three million rubles for bath. Cleanliness comes high in Moscow. Everything else does. too. everything costs regular New York prices and ther some.
 After all. three million rubles is only seventy-five cents, not too much to Lay in America. But have been spoiled by my year in Europe. Every thing in Germany Is cheap dirt, if you know the language and where to buy. Moscow is the most expensive capital in Europe.
 It is expensive even for foreigners with good American dollars. We folks have been accustomed since the war to exchanging our good money for lot of paper money in just buying up, the country. Russia isn't going to let us do it. There are quite a lot of old New Workers who Russia, and they don't intend to be held up by anyonel They intend to do the holding upi
 I told a commissar at Minsk how comparison to Russia, and he replied dryly: "But that is just selling Ger many away. Germany has to on ac- count of the reparations. But we do not have to sell out Russia" Russia tried first to offer commun- ism to the world-a system in which everyone would work hard and be given free of charge whatever he needed. She couldn't make her in duStries run on that basis. Partly this can be blamed on the war. the blockade and the famine and partly, as the communists themselves say Because there were not enough hon est people who would refuse to ac- cept from society more than they returned. We must train up the next generation"
 "State Capitalism" So Russia has now retreated to what she calls "state capitalism" money, to produce goods and sell them, to charge much as they can and make any fortunes they can pile up- But let no one believe that this is capitalism as we have it in Amer ica. For the Government itself is l out in industry, competing in every | line.
 The Government rnns the key in- | dustries and the biggest factories all over Russia; it runs them to make money. It sells the product for the market price and pays the workers 1 according to what they produce. It | intends to make all the money it can. | to build up its surplus and to use 1 that surplus for developing Russia. Russia toward commrsaionisn. that | depends on what happens fp the rest | of the world. AS long as the rest l of the world is on capitalistic basis I | trade, Russia intends to have money
 and pay her own way.
 1 Meantime she keeps up a running 1 fight with the speculators. The
 speculators had the best of it during | the Winter, for the Governments re-
 sources were drained to fight the fa-
 mine. The speculators hoarded | grain in hope of a rise; they specu- | lated wildly in rubles, which sank | every few days to half their previous
 value. Everything was tumbling. 1 Advertises Bread Loan. | Then suddenly. observing the chance of good harvest, the Government advertised ten-milion-dollar bread
 loan. selling at a low price flour to l denly made the paper ruble good
 since you could pay paper rubIes for l food seven months ahead; it cut the price of flour and forced the specu- | shows every sign of being over sub-
 scribed, which is quite a mark ot
 confidence of the people in the finan- cial power of their Government. But how can the Russians them.
 selves pay the high prices charged
 for everything? Germany has tc
 keep her railroads bankrupt because
 if she charged enough to run them the
 Germans could not afford to. ride. Al
 countries whose money is worth little
 in the world market have this prob lem.
 But Russia can dare do things which the other countries cannot, be | cause all her essential workers art
 on Government rationS and have ;prac
 tically free lodgings and free trans portation when on public business They should worry about rising prices Let foreigners and speculators mak, money and pay money; there is an 1 other and a safer standard in Rus
 sia, along with the money stand i arI,
 A girl know works as Governmen : stenographer; she got nine dollars las , 1 month in wages. She refused al
 offer of five times that sum to worl for a private concern; she preferred the security of rations and lodging Incidentally, she believed in he