The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 8, 1924, Page 8

The Job VERY month the organization of Russia improves, under the stim- ulus of the new economic policy ana the continued peace. When I first entered Russia, in August, 1921, at the beginning of the famine, I car- ried my own bedding and food with me, and prepared for disinfection at the journey’s end. Nine months later, in June, 1922, when again I entered, there was already on the fast trains an attempt to provide blankets for those who had none, but sheets were only available for the first comers, I succeeded. in getting one sheet, which appeared to have been washed, but not ironed, By mid-summer, even a year and a half ago, it was possible to take || trips in. all directions without fear of disease. A strong and well or- ganized health department, reinforced at last with hospital and disinfecting supplies thru. the American Relief Administration, had cleaned up the centers ef disease along the railroads. Until autumn there were regulations against tnaveling south of Moscow without a certificate of inoculation against cholera, but step by step, as the months advanced, the area of cholera was limited. Travel Is Easy, At present, travel is easy and not very expensive thruout Russia. I have been so far north as the Arctic Circle, three days above Petrograd, visiting mica mines and feldspar quar- ries; and as far south as the Crimes, where the entire coast is one great health resort under the Department of Health. I have been to the oil fields of Baku, where 157 new wells were being drilled, and where pro- duction. was steadily increasing ac- cording to a program which will reach pre-war about 1925, from the pro- ceeds of the fields alone and without foreign capital. I have been in Tiflis, capitol of the Caucasus, which suf- fered less from civil war than any city in the Soviet Federation, and which is gay with home-woven silks and delicious nougat and Georgian wine. To Kiev also I have been, the ancient capitol of the Ukraine, which endured during the civil war some sixteen bombardments, as it changed hands to Germans, Poles, Denikin, and many other bands, but which is now rebuilding its shattered dwellings under the capable and sacrificing di- rection of a tired-looking youth named Vidensky, who dreams of mak- ing here on the banks of the Dneiper the greatest garden city of the world. In all these directions, and in many others—out across Siberia. to Vladi- vostok or Peking, southeast across the plains of Turkestan to the heart of Asia—traffic is regular, equipped with sleeping-cars and dining-cars, and, most surprising of all, on time. The Russian trains run slowly, but for the past year, traveling in all directions, I have not once been no- ticeably late. An accumulated delay of two hours on a four days journey to Baku, reduced by one hour on the following day’s run to Tiflis, is some thing that might happen on any American railroad. City Life Improving. City life in Russia has also vastly improved. The stores all over Mos- cow are open, and many of them have the appearance of flourishing greatly, tho others close spasmodical- ly from time to time, saying that they have been ruined by their heavy taxes. Under the hotel where I lived in Moscow was a bakery which would do credit to any American city. Some thirty or forty varieties of bread and rolls might be obtained here fresh every morning. Inhabitants of the hotel above developed extreme indi- viduality of choice among raisin breads, whole wheat, French rolls, and various mixtures of rye and white flour. Clothing also has improved percep- tibly! Two years ago I saw a red soldier in the Minsk railway station, barefoot, holding his rifle by a piece of rope. The following winter, peas- ants in the Moscow market were, in genera}, rags wound round their feet with string. Now, everybody wears shoes, mostly-of Russian make, rang- ing from high boots to sandals, Large, newly painted stores of the State Tex- tile Trust display cotton goods of all kinds from sheerest voile to velveteen and corduroy. s Prices were high this past summer, tho I myself, never discovered the fabulous prices I have heard others uote, such as $35 for a pair of merican made shoes and $150 for an ordinary suit of clothes. I bought in September, a satisfactorily pair of of Rebuilding Russia low shoes for $9, and wide blue linen for a dress at sixty cents a meter. A little higher than New York prices, and this in a country where wages were still from $29 to $75 a month and where all food products were exclusively cheap. The Swinging Pendulum. The peasant was highly discontent- ed at these prices, which in some re- ancy between the cost of grain and the cost of manufactured articles that he had to pay more to: buy sacks for cumulated her own reserves, which, altho far below her needs, yet put her in a much better situation than two years ago. ; The case of the State Bank illus- rates the drastic measures used in the restoring of Russia. The bank start- ed two years ago with a capital of ten million dollars worth of paper; a year later it had twenty millions hundred and forty millica dollars worth of bank notes, backed half by gold and half by commercial paper. his grain’than the grain itself was|For a year, the bank was allowed to worth. . The previous harvest, the| pursue a “robber policy” towards the first good return after the great fa-|industries. It loaned paper roubles mine, had paid'the peasant well, for ‘to the fur trusts, and took in return _ What Lenin Thought of Wilson (At the opening session of the Second Congress of the Communist International at Petrograd, July 17, 1920, Lenin made a report on the international situation, Analyzing the book by Maynard Keynes on the “Economic Consequences of Peace” published a short time before, he took the occasion to speak of Wilson and Wilsonism.) * * a | DO not believe that a Communist or revolutionary manifesto in general, could compare, by its vigorous language, with pages. of Keynes dealing with Wilson and Wilsonism. Wilson was the idol of the lower middle class and of the pacifists of the Keynes sort, the idol of the big personages of the Second International and even of the Second-and-a-half International, who were overcome with joy over the ‘Fourteen Points’ and eyen published very scholarly tomes on the reasons of the Wilsonian policy, which was destined, according to their hopes, to save social peace by recon- iling exploiters and exploited thru social reforms. “Keynes shows Wilson in the situation of a fool, and describes the fading of all his illusions from the moment of first contact with the real policy of capital as conceived by Clemenceau and Lloyd George. ‘ “The laboring masses now see more and more clearly by their daily experience, and the erudite pedants might have drawn the conclusion from the very book of Keynes, that the roots of the Wilson policy spring from an ecclesiastic emptiness and a lower middle class phraseology implying a total lack of understanding of the class struggle.” gions, displayed such great discrep-| worth of gold; now it is issuing one the price of food was relatively high, at the cost of the city workers. Last autumn the pendulum had swung in the other direction. The pendulum will swing back and forth in this way for several years to come until there is a reserve of capital in Russia, either thru foreign loans or thru the slower process of gradual accumulation within the country itself. There will be periodic “economic crises,” each one a little less severe than the one before. For Russia is pulling herself up out of a condition of utter exhaustion such as no one in America can adequately vis- ualize. It is enough to say that no nation in the modern world ever car- ried on an extended war without bor- rowing heavily on the future, in order to pay for munitions and uniforms and soldiers, But Russia, in the long years of war that followed the revo- lution, had no means of securing loans or any sort of credits. When peace at last came, and with peace, the actual planning of indus- try, which took the form of the new economic policy, there was in all Rus- sia no reserve either of materials or money, which could take the place of credit. . Drastic Measures Used. Only by drastic measures can in- dustries accumulate capital, since they cannot borrow from abroad. For the coming year it is quite possible that state industries will again run below cost in order to distribute goods widely and enable the peasant to produce. Thus jerkily, and throw- ing its reserves of strength to the point of greatest strain, has Russia managed to do a phenomenal account of reconstruction without any capital to start with. It has been a forced process, not one of choice.. Two years ago she was already offering terms to foreign capital, in many ways more profitable terms than she is of- fering now. For now she has ac- New York By proud New York and its The hard blue sky overhead and the west wind, blowing, Steam-plumes waving from sun-glittering pinnacles, And deep streets shaking to Manhattan, zoned with ships, the cruel Youngest of all the world’s great towns, Thy bodice bright with many a jewel, Imperially crowned with crowns. . . Who that has known thee but shall burn In exile till he come again To do thy bitter will, stern Moon of the tides of men! pounds sterling in London, where the By ANNA LOUISE STRONG city. Houses, streets and side-walks are repaired in every direction; in one summer 100,000 square yards of city paving in Moscow wefe repaired. Yet Moscow had no taxes and no possibility ef issuing city bonds, the only two methods of finance known to the modern city. She wanted city loans, but the conferences at Genoa and the Hague failed to secure them. She has .rebuilt herself by the rents from her stores.and market-booths, which, since the revolution, are muni- cipal property. The large apartments where people live do not yet pay profitable rents to the city, but thru various forms of contract their rents provide for their own repairs and im- provements. These contracts are drawn in such form that it pays peo- ple to repair quickly, since they get the use of the improved property over aterm of years without other charge than that of repairing. State Control of Housing. The state keeps ultimate legal own- ership of all land, renting it out on certain terms of taxes to peasants or maintains ultimate legal title. to build- ings, tho it may give up these rights over long terms of years or leases. The state keeps control of basic trans- port and basic resources. And fin- ally, the state keeps rigid control of exports and imports, far more rigid than any tariff America has ever ex- perienced, using this control to build up some necessary industry, or to establish a gold reserve thru favor- able balance of trade, or to allow entrance, under pressure, for cheap goods for the peasants. The general policy of reconstruc- tion remains the same; but the de- tails may swing li a pendulum every six months or year, éausing confusion in the interpretation of Russia by the outside world. For Russia has not furs were sold. It exacted not-only|the reserves of capital necessary to interest, but half of the profits on| provide for unbroken advance in any such transactions. At the end of a one field; nor is she willing to sacri- year the ery of the industries led to|fice permanently her cotton industry, a relaxation of this policy; but mean-|for instance, to the peasant’s imme- time the State Bank had a gold re-|diate need of cheap clothes. She serve, which has since given Russia: a stable coinage, the first war-in- jured country jg Europe to attain it. Gold a Possible. The drastic folicy of control of exports and imports has also made the gold standard of money possible in Russia. No imports are allowed but articles of primary necessity. Trac- tors and trucks, for instance, may be imported; but automobiles are-classed, not indeed as luxuries, but as articles of secondary necessity. portant government purposes may they be imported into Russia. Even necessary goods, such as cotton cloth and shoes, are severely limited, if they can be produced within Russia. This policy is not only for the pur- posqd of protecting the revival of: war-ruined industries, but to improve the balance of trade. As a result of this policy, Russia’s exports during the past year have exceeded her im- ports by forty-five million dollars, a result which a year ago seemed in- credible in this war-ruined land. It is this excess of exports over imports which gives her a gold reserve of American dollars and English pounds. The rapid repairs in Russia’s Cities, noticeable to anyone who has lived there for two years, are achieved by. still another method. Two years ago, the car lines of Moscow and Kiev and other cities had practically ceased |running: the water works were so ruined that water pressure came only to the second floor in the hotel where I lived; the houses were incredibly dilapidated. Now the Moscow car line has built twenty-five miles of ex- tensions, paid for from earnings; the water pressure is good thréut the By JOHN REED man-piled Matterhorns, the million-river: Only for im-}! uses her reserves at the point where strain seems greatest, and as soon as either the bank or industry or agri- ‘eulturé seems capable of standing extra pressure, the reserves are ruth- lessly removed to another weaker point. Thus the whole country strug- gles forward and will contfnue to do so, even if she receives no aid from any foreign land. Foreign aid would, however, make the process of recon- struction steady and without the jolting strain which now accompanies it, > A Workers Corporation serving The Workers of SOVIET RUSSIA wants you as A Shareholder _ A practical way by which you CAN HELP RUSSIA Comrade Lenin wrote to Pres. Sidney Hill- man of “RAIC”: ( “I am heartily thankful to you for the aid you have given us.” You Can Do as Lenin Advised: HELP BUILD THE NEW RUSSIAN CLOTHING INDUSTRY 10 makes you a shareholder bog be paid in $1 instal- For further information : address: RUSSIAW-AMERICAN NADUSTRIAL CORPORAT/ OV NODE. WtH S7REET SAENI- YORK”, r '