Evening star., 1924-08-09
ARTICLE VII.

Russia's alleged business comeback,
l reported in a previous article, is
largely bolshevist bunk and what lit
tie there is of 1t is due almost exclu-
sively to private business men and
private initiative. If further proof
than the apprehensive refusal of the
bolshevist leaders to monkey with the
private capital basis Of business activ-
ity be required. it is only necessary
to study the situation of the great
key industries-coal, iron, steel, steel
products and railways.
These happen to be the ones which
the bolshevists reserved for exclusive
Communist operation when throwing
the rest OF the business field open to
private initiative under the new eco
nomic policy and furnish the index
figures on which estimates of the
business activity and prosperity Of a
nation are commonly based
They are able to live only by tax
ing In each others washing" and are
operating under tremendous deficits
met from the state treasury-the
price paid by the peasantry and pri-
the boys'-in other words. for the
skilled Communist workmen. This
Hover of the proletariat," which
comprises the fighting nucleus of the
Russian bolshevist party, is largely
concentrated in these branches of in
dustry, particularly in the great steel
WORKING and MISUNDERSTANDING plants
or Moscow, Leninegrad and other in
dustrial centers.
l have gone TO considerable diff
Guilty in assembling the statistics and
Information on which this message is
based and which differ greatly from
the propa ganda dope usually put out
Tor foreign consumption. They come
from bolshevist experts reporting to
the government, and l believe they
err on the side of overoptimism
Dzerzhinsky. head of the extraordi-
nary commission intrusted with
formulating the industrial program,
at any rate challenged some of the
estimates on production and produce
tivity submitted to his commission as
unduly favorable.
The Coal Industry.
Take coal mining first This funda-
mental industry is kept alive only by
an order to the railways issued last
December to discard wood and oil and
use coal for fuel exclusively Under
this order the government railways
took 81 per cent of the 100000 tons
of coal shipped from the Donetz dis
RUSSIAN
coal. during the first half of the oper-
ative year, october to March inclu
sive. The percentage is now far
higher, rs to 80 per cent, as the con-
sumption, aside from railway, is de-
creasing owing to the high cost Of
the coal. 1t is costing the railways
millions. aside from the initial cost of
converting many locomotives into
coal burners, and is particularly
wasteful for railways which, like the
~ n o tpn -sal h1,, III
versts from the nearest coal supply,
but run through vast forests or those
in close proximity to the southeast
ern oil fields. The Murmansk line, at
that, could not get coal hauled in the
winter and had to import a lot of
English coal The visitor to Russia
too, loses a picturesque feature of his
entry into Russia-the fireworks dis
plays from the car window as the old
wood burners hauled the train through
the Russian night.
The cost of mining is wastefully
high. Miners wages are about half
the pre-war level, but owing to the
low productivity of the individual
ance and other social benefits. 60 per
cent Of the price of coal is labor cost
At the pithead in the Donetz coal
costs $40 ton. The railways, haul
ing II loss charge about $3.50 ton
to Moscow. almost double that to
Leninegrad. If it goes by sea it en-
counters another prohibitive charge
of sl90 per ton for loading from car
to ship at Mariupol, the Black Sea
port for the DonetZ
Any one willing to listen to boil
shevist optimists can hear a lot of
talk about a developing export trade
in Donetz coal. l have seen dozens of
reports about contracts just on the
points Of being concluded with Tur-
key, Greece, Italy, France and Eng
land. They fall through On the cost
problem. The ARGOS concern. the Lon
don branch of the governmental for
eign trade monopoly, negotiated one
contract at $11.35 per ton f. o. b.
Mariupol, but backed out when it
learned that the bare f. o. b. cost
Mariupol, without any profit or mar
gin for safety, was s13.25. The best
illustration Of the emptiness of the
export idea Is that the Russian COM
mercial fleet in the Black Sea, after
careful study Of the governments ap-
peal, decided to have its bunkers this
year shipped in again from England
because fuel from the nearby Donetz
would cost it $150,000 more.
Iron and Steel.
Iron and steel production are
equally failures under bolshevist