The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-06-24
az ANIsE.

BY ANIShs
MOSCOW, June 1-(Ry Mail. -
"Our little artel is doing fine. We are
getting in wages two or three times
the union scale. We are beating the
state factory right out of business.
Why? Because with us we are work
ing for ourselves and over there they
are working for a boss"
Sounds like good old I. W. w. talk
from out west. But it isn't 1t is a
worker from a little Petrograd mirror
factory talking. It illustrates the
competition now going on, carefully
watched and guided by the Commun-
ist party, in testing out what forms
of production will give most satisfac-
ton to the workers and most help to
bring in the future Communist state.
State Trusts Too Ambitious.
State trusts are one of those forms.
And state trusts have been successful
far beyond the expectations of three
years ago, when the new economic
policy was adopted. But state trusts
develop their own problems and
weaknesses. Last winter, for in
stance, it was found that the state
trusts, in their natural desire to ex-
pand and get new machinery as rap
idly as possible, were charging such
enormous prices that the peasant and
worker simply could not buy. The
only mechanism for controlling this
was applied once year by the COM
mands Of the central government, but
this was too infrequent. A more flex-
ible, more intimate control was de-
manded for this reason Dserjinsky
was put in charge of the department
of national industry to work out the
united front of state industry. But
that's another story
There is another weakness in state
trusts. The opponents of Commun-
ism have always declared that it de-
stroys individual initiative. They
overlook in this the extent to which
big capitalism itself destroys the per-
sonal initiative of the vast mass of
workers. But it is still true that, in
present, what the industry gains in
extent and monopoly control is partly
Offset by loss in individual energy.
A more developed society may be ex-
pected to produce more socially intel
ligent and hence more Loyalty ener-
getic workers for state ends; but pres
ent society has still the inheritance
of capitalism and Russia is no excep-
ton to this.
Problem Of Small Industry.
In large industries, such as oil, rail-
roads, mines and basic resources gen
orally, the loss of individual interest
is more than made UP by the mass or
ganization under state monopoly. But
in small industries, where Russia can
not yet afford first-class managers, or
even always honest managers, for
every little factory, here personal mi
tiative is very important And here
state industry is in danger of losing
out to private energy-or would have
been except for the artels.
The artel, like the cooperative, is
a time-honored Russian form of or
ganization, now especially encouraged
by law and used as one of the wings
on the front against private capital.
But while the cooperative is an or
ganization of consumers, thru which
it is hoped to compete out of exist
ence the private retailer, in those far
distant peasant villages which the
state cannot directly handle without
undue bureaucratic machinery-the
artel is an organization of working
men for purposes of production.
I'm our artel we make mirrors"
said the workingman to me. I'VE buy
up old mirrors at large junk sales of
big hotels and other buildings; we
regrind and recut and resilver them
and turn them out like new mirrors.
We own our own factory; we bought
it at an auction sale from the govern
ment for much less than it was worth,
because it went bankrupt under other