Russian Workers and Workshops in 1926

Front matter

BY

WILLIAM Z. FOSTER

Price, 25 Cents

Foreword

FOREWORD

This pamphlet is a report of a visit to mills, mines, and factories in the Soviet Union. Its aim is to present a general and authentic picture of conditions as one finds them in a trip through various Russian industrial centers of today. It is not a detailed study of industry, but a series of often quite miscellaneous facts, figures, and impressions gathered as we went along. Although the pamphlet aims primarily to illustrate conditions in present-day Russian industry, it also deals with other working class institutions, such as the Communist Party, the trade unions, co-operatives, workers' clubs, theaters, courts, etc., just as we met them on our journey, thus giving a broader picture of the workers' lives in Soviet Russia. After completing the recital of our trip proper, a chapter has been added dealing with the economic and political situation generally in Soviet Russia. Our trip covere the following cities: Ekaterinoslav, Stalino, Kharkoff, and Leningrad, in the order named. My wife Esther sand I visited the first three towns together in the order named. On the trip to Leningrad we were accompanied by Alex Bittelman and his wife Eva.

American workers have been lied to on an unprecedented scale about the Russian revolution. Every phase of it has been malevolently distorted and garbled. All the rag-tag and bob-tail supporters of capitalism, from employers to reactionary trade union leaders, have shared in this campaign of misrepresentation and villification of the first revolutionary government of workers and farmers. If this pamphlet contributes even in a small degree towards sweeping aside this curtain of lies and slander and towards giving American workers some idea of the tremendous progress being made by the working class in the Soviet Union, it will have fully served its purpose.

Chicago, May 1, 1926.

Chapter I: Ekaterinoslav

CHAPTER I

Ekaterinoslav

Ekaterinoslav, the first stop on our trip, is located on the Dneiper in the Ukraine, about 800 miles south of Moscow. It is an important industrial center. This is evidenced by the fact that although the city proper has only about 200,000 inhabitants there are no less than 81,000 trade union members in the city and its immediate vicinity. During the period of acute revolutionary struggle, from 1917 to 1921, Ekaterinoslav was a storm center. It changed governments 18 times, Denikin, Machno, Petlura, Skoropadsky, as well as the Bolsheviki, rotating in control of this city. At one time there were three distinct governments in Ekaterinoslav, located in different sections of the city, and all warring against each other. The place was badly shot up during these civil wars, and it still bears many traces of the devastation.

Early on a Sunday morning in April of this year, we arrived in Ekaterinoslav after a 30 hours' ride from Moscow. We were met at the depot by a committee representing the Ekaterinoslav Central Labor Council and led by the secretary of that organization, Smirnoff. They gave us a glowing greeting. An arrival on the same train was a French metal worker named Geram. He had an interesting mission. He came from the north of France, where is located the steel company which formerly owned great steel mills in Ekaterinoslav and other Ukrainian cities. Bitter at the loss of its plants and eager to make propaganda generally against Communism, this company is now assiduously spreading a choice collection of lies amongst its thousands of workers in France, alleging that the Russian workers are making a complete failure of operating its former mills. Geram came to Ekaterinoslav to check up on these lies and to get the real facts. It may be said now that during his stay he gathered enough information to refute the false stories of the French employer and to greatly surprise his fellow metal workers in France by the success being made by the Russian workers. He joined our party. We all climbed into an automobile and made a wild dash to the Spartacus Hotel—a wild dash is the right expression, for in no other country do automobile chauffeurs drive at such breakneck speed as they do in Soviet Russia.

A Co-operative Convention

It being Sunday, we could not visit the industries, so we took in various other institutions. The first was a local convention of representatives of the Ekaterinoslav co-operatives. About 200 delegates were present. The reports of the officers showed rapid progress, which is characteristic of the tremendous growth of the co-operative movement throughout Soviet Russia, on the land as well as in the cities. A few figures from these reports will show how the Ekaterinoslav workers are building their distributive system:

Year ending | Year ending | Increase

Oct. 1, 1924 | Oct. 1, 1925

Sales for year (roubles) | 2,224,000 | 9,206,000 | 314%

Number of employees | 371 | 1043 | 206%

Number of stores | 47 | 194 | 313%

In the five months since last October this splendid showing had been still bettered. Improvement was made in every direction, The total sales for the five months were 9,456,415 roubles, or more than for the whole previous year; 15 new stores were established, and the sales turnover per employee was increased from 2,016 roubles per month, the average of the previous year, to 3,027 roubles per month.

The Ekaterinoslav co-operatives, thus expanding, have out-distanced the N. E. P., or private stores. But the convention delegates were highly critical of the management and insistent upon still greater efficiency. For hours the workers, employed mostly in the steel mills, criticized every detail of the business and offered many suggestions for improvement. Some complained that the buying prices were too high, others that the selling prices were too low or too high on certain articles, that there were too many employees, that the lines of commodities were not complete, etc., etc. The officers Keenly noticed the criticisms and suggestions made and will be held to account to attend to them. The convention was a splendid illustration of how democratically and successfully the Russian workers are building this important link in their new society, the distributive system. We were inspired. In Soviet Russia even a co-operative convention can be thrilling, so dynamic are the workers in action.

A Revolutionary Trial

In the evening, after the co-operative convention, we proposed to pay a round of visits to the Workers' Clubs, which are playing an important role these days in the Soviet Union. But first we dropped in for an hour or so to attend a trial of counter-revolutionists then in progress. As we approached the place we found a crowd of at least a thousand people striving for admission. The trial was talking place in a theater, which was evidently chosen for its spaciousness. The place was packed from pit to gallery. The court was being held on the stage, the whole being draped with red. Many a play had been shown upon this stage, but this time it was the scene of an actual drama from real life.

The defendants were four, a priest, a worker, an intellectual and a nondescript N. E. P. man. They had been recently arrested and were accused of having organized pogroms against the Jews and generally acting as murderous agents of Czardom in pre-revolutionary days. The evidence against them was overwhelming. Witness after witness testified against them, showing graphically how their villainous activities had resulted in the death of many people, the Ekaterinoslav pogroms organized by them having been among the worst of their kind in old Russia. The prisoners sat stolid, apparently crushed by the damning stories that poured from the lips of the witnesses. It was a vivid rectal of revolutionary heroism on the one hand, and of counter-revolutionary treachery on the other. On either side of the prisoners stood Red Army soldiers with naked swords. The massed crowd of workers listened breathlessly to the stories of the murders committed by the prisoners. In the early days of the revolution such rats as these four would have been given short shrift and an early firing squad; but now, with the workers uncontested mas- ters of the situation, they would probably be let off with short sentences. We did not remain till the end of the trial.

From time to time trials of such murderers and spies, who were a prominent prop of the Czarist regime, take place in various cities in Soviet Russia, as fast as some chance or other brings about the exposure of these vermin. A few weeks before, in Moscow, we attended the trial of one Krott, a provocateur in Irkutsk before the world war. At the same time, in the very next room, two ex-Czarist officers were being tried and convicted of brutally murdering a soldier in 1913. Little did these two worthies think when they cold-bloodedly shot down that peasant lad 13 years before that the day would come when they would have to face a Workers' Court and make amends for their crime. They were given two and three years each in jail. The workers, victorious in the revolution, are inclined to be merciful even to such unspeakable creatures, now that their fangs are drawn and they can do but little harm.

Workers' Clubs

Important institutions in the various cities of Soviet Russia are the Workers' Clubs. These are the real social centers of the workers. There is nothing comparable to them in capitalist countries. They are equipped with innumerable departments for the education and entertainment of the workers, such as libraries, schools, theaters, gymnasiums, chess rooms, billiard rooms, rifle ranges, etc. They are maintained by the unions, either by individual unions where these are large enough, or otherwise by a combination of unions. They are tremendously popular. They exist in all the industrial centers and are rapidly on the increase. Tomsky, the head of the All-Russian Trade Union Central Committee, recently stated that during the past two years the number of these clubs has increased 120%. Usually the workers pay small membership dues, 10 or 15 cents per month. The clubs as a rule are located in great mansions or other splendid buildings that were formerly the palaces of the rich.

In Ekaterinoslav we visited three of such clubs: that of the metal workers, that of the building trades, and a general Workers' Club. All are splendid institutions. They were so thronged with workers that it was often difficult to thread our way through the innumerable rooms and departments. All three have big theaters and that night were running moving picture shows. The metal workers’ club, enormously popular, is located in the steel mill district. The building workers have outgrown their present establishment and are building a magnificent structure near by. The general workers’ club, with 4,000 members, is located in a former capitalist club house. The furnishings are rich and luxurious. The club has a regular maze of rooms, all devoted to various forms of education and pleasure. In these three centers of proletarian culture and enjoyment, we made speeches of greeting and were enthusiastically received by the workers, So ended our first day in Ekaterinoslav.

The Steel Mills

Ekaterinoslav is an important steel center, with several large mills. Bright and early on our second day we started out to see these mills, eager to learn at first hand how the workers are getting on with the great task of conducting a modern steel industry. We visited two big plants a few miles out of town, on the banks of the Dneiper. One, the Petrovsky mill, employs 18,000 workers, and the other, the Lenin mill, employs 5,000, The larger plant was named after the president of the Ukraine, who was formerly a worker there. Both plants were owned before the revolution by Franco-Belgian capitalists, who promptly fled the country in 1917 when the workers dealt their death blow to capitalism in Russia.

As we looked out over the the vast array of stacks, furnaces, and mills comprising these gigantic steel works, we were reminded of Pittsburgh or Youngstown. It was difficult to realize that the workers actually had full control of these industries and, without previous experience, were operating them. But immediately we entered the offices that great revolutionary fact was made quite clear to us. Workers' control fairly cried out to us from all sides. Pictures of Lenin and other revolutionary leaders decorated the walls. The whole atmosphere was intensely proletarian. The first place we went to was the office of the Communist Party factory nucleus, which has a membership of 2,200 besides the 2,400 members of the Communist Youth organization. The next section of the general offices that We visited was the headquarters of the factory committee of the Metal Workers' Union, which has a membership of 22,500 in the plants. Besides the technical leaders of the industry, we also met representatives of the various other working class organizations, such for. example as the M. O. P. R., or Red Aid, the international organization for the defense and protection of political prisoners, which has 12,000 members in the mills.

How do the workers operate these gigantic steel mills? As in the case of other industries, there are three elements to the management: the Communist Party, the trade unions, and the Soviet Government. The Government, through its organ, the Supreme Economic Council, selects the technical management of the plant, which is responsible for the actual operation of the industry; the trade unions look after the interests of the workers; and the Communist Party, the political organization of the workers, is the enlivening force in every phase of the institution, although not taking an official part in either the technical management of the industry or the direction of the unions. In the event of disputes between the plant management and the unions over wages and working conditions, which sometimes occur, they are referred first to the regional committee of the Metal Workers’ Union, and eventually, if still unsettled, to the Ministry of Labor. In these two plants there was a record of 600 minor disputes in six months. Of these, 60% were won by the workers in direct conference with the management, and of those referred to higher bodies, 95% were eventually decided in favor of the workers. Strikes are of course unknown. The Russian workers' organizations control the government and through it own and operate the industries. Hence, for them to strike would be simply to strike against themselves.

We were shown through the plants by representatives of the Metal Workers’ Union, accompanied by a number of technical engineers. One did not have to go 50 feet in order to realize’ that the workers were running the place. And they were carrying on their tasks with a vim and enthusiasm that workers never show under capitalism. We were astounded at the activity to be found in all departments. If an American capitalist, fed up on the theory that the workers cannot operate modern industry, could just get a glimpse of the way those Russians were working, he would have a sad awakening. These steel mill workers, even as the workers in Russian industry generally, are proving beyond all question of doubt that the working class can operate the industries under free conditions of labor far more efficiently than the capitalists can with their slave system.

We were especially interested in figures dealing with the mills’ production. On this point the engineers gave us detailed information relating to production of the blast furnaces, rail wire, plate, rod, and other rolling mills. For four full-years, from 1917 to 1921, these mills, sharing in the utter paralysis of the metal industry which was brought about by the civil war and the capitalist blockade against Russia, were either shut down completely or operated at a negligible percentage of their capacity. Only in 1923 did the mills really get under way again, and then in the face of tremendous difficulties. At the time of our visit production in the Petrovsky mill was about 80% of pre-war and the Lenin mill 100%, de%spite the crippled condition of the mills. During the past year production increases of 50% or over were made in most of the departments, and during the coming year an increase of 60% is planned for the big Petrovsky mill. Four of the five big blast furnaces were in operation. The fifth under repairs, will be blown in on May 1st.

Everywhere in Russia industries a cry is going up for capital to develop the mills, mines, and factories. It is a veritable "capital famine." Wherever we went the industrial directors and engineers complained of a lack of funds for development work. The Ekaterinoslav steel mills were no exception. Nevertheless they are contriving to do a tremendous amount in the way of expanding their capacity. The workers keenly realize the need to modernize the mills. They are building a big power plant and a whole series of new furnaces and other extensions and improvements which, in the next couple of years, will add at least 50% capacity to the plants. As an indication of the tempo of development, the plant engineers gave us the following table showing the amount of money spent on improvement work. The table is in roubles, a rouble being worth about 51 cents in American money:

Year end. | Year end. | Year end.

1913 | 1919–22 | Oct. 1, 1924 | Oct. 1, 1925 | Oct. 1, 1926

1,866,588 | nothing | 140,392 | 741,046 | 3,587,000

It was interesting to note the general attitude of the industrial engineers in these and other plants we visited. I was surprised to see the apparent interest that these technicians took in the accomplishments and prospects of the plants. The great majority of the engineers in the Russian industry are from the old, pre-revolutionary days. In the revolution their sentiments were all for the employers and they took a determined stand against the rule of the workers. Occupying key positions, their years' long strikes and sabotage were enormous factors in paralyzing the industries and preventing their recovery. The struggle between the Russian workers and the technical engineers, the former trying to start the industries and the latter to block them, is a classic in the history of the world's class struggle. The workers have won. The revolution is a success. The engineers must work. Some do it with a good grace; others are manifestly out of sympathy with the new order. The workers are taking no chances. They place no reliance in the old engineers. They are rapidly educating new engineers, all of them Communists. Many technical schools are being developed. The one organized iin connection with the two plants in question has 400 day students (who put in four hours study and four hours work daily in order to ground themselves simultaneously in theory and practice) and 250 night students.

I imagine that upon one occasion at least we put the sentiments of the engineers accompanying us to quite a strain. We were passing through a steel mill department and, as often. happened, the workers wanted to know who we were and to hear a word from us. So we gave them a few minutes' talk. The only ones who could translate French and English were the engineers. It must have been quite a job for them to translate our revolutionary speeches; but apparently, judging from the reaction of the workers, they did their job passably well.

Although every effort is being put forth and every possible rouble invested to increase production in the Ekaterinoslav steel mills, money is not stinted in looking after the immediate welfare of the workers. Wages in these plants are on the average of 80% of pre-war rates. A 20% increase was given the workers in January. It is expected to exceed the pre-war wage rate in six months. Considering their many privileges, the workers are already far ahead of pre-war conditions, The 8-hour day is now universal, as against the 12-hour day before the revolution. Ail the workers get a two weeks' vacation yearly on full pay, except those at heavy or unhealthy work, who receive a month's vacation. Even in this respect could be noted the wonderful strengthening of the economic system that is going on in every direction. In 1923 only 30% of the heavy workers got the regulation month's vacation; in 1924 it was increased to 60%, and 1925 to 100%. During the past year 2,363 workers went to the union rest houses, for vacation places, for an average period of three weeks free of charge. Schools are maintained to teach the adult workers the mechanical trades and the elements of education, The plants have installed a large library, an excellent hospital, and a laboratory to study diseases of the industry. Safety appliances and practices have been widely introduced. The number of accidents yearly in the plants has been cut from 72,472 in 1918 to 18,702 in 1925.

The housing problem was always a bad one for the workers in these steel mills, there being little local accomodation and great numbers of the workers are forced to travel from 5 to 15 miles. The workers are now attacking this difficult problem in earnest. Last year, despite the general shortage of resources, 160 modern two and four-family houses were built convenient to the mills. The building program for the next three years provides for the erection of 3,000 more of such houses, The workers are extending and improving the street car line, and are carrying out a dozen other plans to relieve the housing and transportation problems. In every way they are improving their living standards.

Under Czardom the workers in these great industries had no social center; they were not allowed to get together in any way for their mutual education or enjoyment. But now, under the Soviet system of government, they are building an enormous Palace of Labor. It will cost 800,000 roubles and will be finished by the end of the year. The meeting hall will seat 6,000 workers and the theater 2,500. The building will contain a whole series of schools, libraries, clubs, dining rooms, etc., so extensive in scope that workers in capitalistic countries can hardly conceive of such an elaborate working class institution.

The foregoing paragraphs give at least a faint idea of how the revolutionary steel workers of Ekaterinoslav are meeting and mastering the many problems thrust upon them from every side in the great task of building the new proletarian society. The progress they are making and the enthusiasm they are showing are on a par with that of the workers generally in the industries throughout Soviet Russia.

The Local Labor Leaders

After our visit to the steel mills we met, in the evening, with the Central Committee of the Local Trades Council, which had been called together to greet us. These trade union leaders are also for the most part the leading elements in the local Communist Party, the Soviet, the Co-operatives, and the various other proletarian organizations. What a keen body of men and women, and how different from the American type of labor leaders. Communists all, a few years ago they fought rifle in hand to overthrow Czarism and capitalism, and now they are building the new workers’ society in the face of a world of difficulty.

Geram and I spoke; he on France and I on the United States. How keenly they questioned us. As usual they were especially interested in the United States. I had to answer at least 40 questions, in which the questioners showed how closely they followed international developments. They even wanted to know the exact relations and differences between company unions and B. & O. Plan unions, of which developments they had already become familiar in a general way. I wondered how it would be until a gathering of trade union leaders in an American industrial center the size of Ekaterinoslav would consist of such splendid revolutionary fighters as these. They gave us warm greetings for the workers of France and the United States.

A Railroad Shop

Being a railroad worker, I was interested to learn how the Ekaterinoslav railroaders are conducting their section of the industry. So together with the heads of the local railroad union, and parting company with Geram, we visited the big Ekaterinoslav railroad repair shops. We were accompanied by Melnikov, formerly a member of the I. W. W. in Chicago, and now an official of the Union. First we visited the union headquarters, which is located in a score or more rooms in the same big building as the general administration of the railroad. This is the typical arrangement. In Soviet Russia the union is considered as indispensible to the operation of the railroad as is the technical administration. Hence, both are commonly housed together. What a shock it would be to haughty American railroad capitalists, Atterbury for example, to see the American. railroad unions established in the beautiful office buildings of the general administrations of the American railroads. And what a still greater shock it would be to see the heads of the railroad administration and the unions in the United States as members of the revolutionary Communist Party. That is the situation in Soviet Russia.

We visited every department in the big shops, which now employ 1,800 workers. As usual we were deeply interested in the vital question of production. Some of the American workers will wonder why. But the answer is simple. One of the most important social processes now going on in all the world is the struggle of the Russian workers, in the face of monumental difficulties, to master the problems of operating and building their industries. The fate of the Russian revolution, and profound consequences to the world’s labor movement, depend upon whether or not they succeed in this great task. This explains why, in every plant we visited on our whole trip, our first attention was always directed towards learning whether production is being successfully carried on.

The Ekaterinoslav railroad workers are making a splendid showing. Production is now at about 110% or better of the pre-war rate and is being constantly improved. In 1921, at the depth of the crisis in industry, 2,800 workers in the shops made heavy repairs on an average of but one locomotive per month. 1926, 1,800 workers make heavy repairs upon 13 to 14 engines per month. Before the war 1,700 workers in these shops made heavy repairs on an average upon 163 engines per year, with a nine hour day and 10% overtime. Now, 1,800 workers, with eight-hour day and no overtime (in Soviet Russia overtime is taboo), are making heavy repairs on 160 engines per year. Besides the work is now being done very much better than previously. Before the war, despite the fact that the locomotives as a whole were newer, each locomotive averaged only 40,000 kilometer of road work per each light repair, as against 49,000 kilometers at the present time, and they averaged for heavy repairs only 142,000 kilometers as against 168,000 now. An equally good showing is being made with repairing freight cars. The "dead" locomotive problem is solved. In 1913 there was an average of 13% of locomotives out of commission. This was nor- mal. In 1920, the number mounted to 50%. Now it is reduced to 16% and is rapidly going lower. Traffic on the railroads, an important line of 2,200 kilometers, exceeds the pre-war volume. In 1913 the road operated 48 "pairs" of freight trains of 50 cars each; in 1926 it is operating 45 "pairs" of trains of 75 cars each. It is only one indication of many that the Russian workers have mastered the tremendous problem of rehabilitating the ruined railroad.

Average wages of the workers in the shops are at approximately pre-war standards and are rapidly rising. There are wide differences between the wage rates of the unskilled and skilled, due primarily to the great shortage of skilled labor. The policy of the trade unions is to eliminate these differences as quickly as possible by raising the wages of the unskilled more rapidly than those of the skilled. The locomotive drivers are the best paid wokers on the railroad, making about 200 roubles per month. Last year the general average wage of the shop workers was 56 roubles, it has since been raised to 82 roubles and further advances are in prospect.

Much of the work in these railroad shops, as is also the case in many other Russian industries, is done upon a piece-work basis. This fact will shock some American workers who only know the piece-work system under capitalism, where it is a scheme to fatten the exploiters at the expense of the workers. But in Soviet Russia the situation is completely different. There is no exploiting class. The benefits of increased production flow to the workers, not to greedy capitalists. Hence the workers accept the piece-work system now when an increase in production is so vitally necessary to the progress of the revolution. They are the sole beneficiaries of it. For the same reason they also welcome the Taylor system, labor saving machinery, and other means of increasing their output, whereas in the United States and other capitalist countries, where the benefits of such innovations go to the employers, workers instinctively oppose them.

All the railroad workers, road and shop, are members of one national industrial union, which has system organizations on each of the 27 railroads in the Soviet Union. These system organizations are divided into branches. The Ekaterinoslav branch has jurisdiction over all trades for 225 miles of road. It has 15,500 members and 41 sub-branches. The Ekaterinoslav shop section branch has 2,200 members and 11 sub-branches, organized not according to crafts, but shops, such as the blacksmith shop, foundry, wheel shop, office, power plant, etc. A general shop committee connects all these sub-branches. It carries out all the economic, cultural, and other work of the union locally. The well-knit, revolutionary industrial union of the railroad workers, embracing all categories of railroad workers, makes the unions of American railroad workers, split into 16 autonomous organizations, look very primitive.