Russia as It Is

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 114, 11 February 1928, Page 17

Russia as It Is

How Brains Fare in the Workers’ “Utopia”

A writer in the “ Round Table ” gives a vivid picture of the middle classes as they live to-day. It cannot fail to make a deep impression. The writer says: —

I 1 ts /y OST of them have become subordinate Government officials, or, I w / H to use e new stoc k term—‘official’ being redolent of Tsarism I n ’ s al, at!iema—-‘Soviet servants.' The State is a jack of all A v Ja. trades and the sort of work on which a member of the old middle class happens to be employed is a matter of chance, but as long as he gets enough pay to keep body and soul together it is all the same to him. He doesn’t care whether it is in the Finance Department, the Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Agriculture, or a trading concern. “His main object in life is to keep his job and after that if possible ‘to better himself.’ With that his ambition comes to an end. The Russians arc a naturally gifted race, and the energy and the wiles to which a brain worker in a Government office wlil resort to get a rise of salary, or a transfer to a better paid post are amazing. The waste of time would also be heartrending were it not that this wire-pulling has to be done out of work hours. ' “There is certainly little opportunity during them, for his nose is held tight to the grindstone. His work may be useful, but there is plenty of it and it is not his place to criticise. On the contrary, he pays the Party lip service, but it has no delusions about his attitude. It knows it is prompted simply by the instinct of self-preservation, and it trusts him no further than it can see him. It lias no reason for sparing the old educated classes, and its deliberate aim is to get the most it can out of them. “For brain workers, except employees in the railway and transport services who have just gone back to an eight-hour day—in anticipation, people believe, of an impending general increase—the Communist working day is six and a-half hours. It lasts from 9 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. in winter and from 8 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. in summer. Light refreshments may be taken at noon provided that work is not interrupted. If you are late in the morning, even if it is only a minute, the penalty is a reprimand for the first offence, a warning for the second, and dismissal for the third. In practice, however, these penalties are only imposed on the ‘bourgeois,’ the ‘proletarian’ is treated leniently, and the Communist goes scot free. “All employees, whether in Soviet or private employ, arc insured against illness. None the less, the educated Soviet servant goes in dread of falling sick. Everything he does is looked upon with suspicion, and inability to work is often put down to a lack of goodwill, even to ‘counter-revolntioiiariness.’ He has to appear before a medical board, and if they do not pass him sick he is open to the charge of malingering. At best, he knows that the unavoidable disturbance caused to the routine of the office by his absence will annoy his chief, but worst of all is the fear of losing his job should he be often, or long away. He may in that event easily find himself superseded when he gets back. So, with anxiety to goad him he struggles on often at the cost of grave injury to his health. “At 3.30 p.m. sharp, though he may only have a single figure to add to complete a balance-sheet, the Soviet brain worker throws down his pen and crowds with the rest of the staff to the door. In the morning there is less of a squash, as employees begin to trickle in as early as 8.30 a.m. As no excuse is taken for being late from the educated worker he is in a state of perpetual anxiety lest his wornout watch or the tram should let him down. As a precaution he allows himself to walk to the office. Weaklings and women, moreover, may be squeezed out of the overcrowded morning trams. “It is different at the end of the day. Everyone then rushes off at the same time, with a hubbub and confusion that can easily be imagined. Overtime is forbidden by the labour code—one of the few laws in which every citizen willingly acquiesces. After his prolonged fast, moreover—for the mid-day refreshment is only a snack—everybody is in a hurry to get home to dinner, which Russians usually have at 4 p.m.

“But it must not- be imagined that when he gets home the Soviet servant’s labours are over. Several days a week he has to bolt his food and hurry off lo some meeting or other. As attendance is, in point of fact, obligatory, these meetings are really so much extra work, the only difference being that he is paid for what he docs at the office, whereas he has himself to pay for the privilege of spending his spare time in this uncongenial way. Now and then the subject may be something to do with his regular work, but usually it is a trade union meeting, or a sitting of a ‘voluntary' association like the ‘Society in Aid of Aviation and Chemical Welfare,’ of the ‘Society for Exterminating Illiteracy,’ of ‘Aiding Foreign Revolutions,' etc., etc., and he lias to give something to all of them.

“He may think it as well, too, to be sometimes seen at public meetings staged by the Communist nucleus of the institution for which he works, or he may try to ‘acquire merit’ with his superiors by rubbing up his ‘political grammar’ (the current name for the theory of Communism), or by learning to sing the ‘lnternationale.’ or, again, having wriggled into a job for which he has no qualifications, he may feel it prudent to master its rudiments, if there are suitable classes available. Or, again, some new act of aggression on the part of Great Britain against the workmen’s and peasants’ State may render it necessary for him to go and register a fiery protest, and when British coal miners, who are far better off than himself, strike he has to insist on contributing to their support. In short, a member of the old educated class must to-day be. an accomplished diplomat.

“But, it may be asked, is there no off lime? There are both ‘days of rest’ (Sundays and Church holidays) and ‘holidays’ (revolutionary festivals), On two of the holidays, May-day and November 7 (the anniversary of the revolution) he marches about in processions. At worst, however, this only costs him boot leather, or possibly a soaking. These functions were, moreover, at one time not so bad as names were noted at the start, and people could take the first chance of sloping off home. But this defect has been put right. There is now, much to everybody's disgust, a second roll-call at the end. “Then every employee gets a fortnight's holiday in the summer. The Soviet servant usually spends his at home. As he has no money 'his only alternative is, if there is room, to go to his trade union rest-house in the country, or on the outskirts of the larger towns. The better classes, however, generally prefer to stay at home, for there is no rest for them like a short respite from the barrack-like atmosphere which permeates the rest-house as well as the office, and although there arc some good rest-houses others arc of poor quality.” After dealing with the manual workers and the peasants, the writer in the "Round Table” concludes :—

“One question, however, is sure to be asked. What are the prospects of Bolshevik rule lasting? No one can at the moment answer that question. From the economic standpoint a critical time must undoubtedly be approaching. The peasants, who constitute 85 per cent, of the population, arc necessarily the basis of Hie whole system. How long will they continue to produce the corn which is essential for the purposes of the Bolsheviks, if they cannot get what they want with the proceeds?

“Then the Soviet Government has borrowed money in the shape of short loans or credits, and in a year or two a considerable part of it will, they say, have to be repaid. Will these credits be renewed? Yet far larger credits arc in any case imperatively needed not only to renew worn-out factories and railways, which were seized without compensation in the early days of the revolution, and to build new ones, but also for development work of every kind. For Russia is for economic purposes a new country, and as thirsty for capital as the United States was 100 years ago.

“Under the surface no doubt dissatisfaction is growing politically. 'I he remnants of the old upper classes are small, but the workmen, and even the peasants, arc developing more independence of character under the Bolsheviks. 'I he renewal of the executions shows that the authorities are themselves by no means free from anxiety. There is another symptom, too, which counts for something—a reviving sense of humour. There is even an Opposition. Hitherto, it is true, it has only taken the form of a split inside the Party itself, but it makes one think of the old saying about the house divided against itself. “Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to attach too much importance to these things. The conditions are radically different from our own. Russians are long-suffering to an extent that is inconceivable'to ourselves. Their passivity conies from centuries of tyranny. Whatever may eventually happen it is safe to say, however, that it will not take the form of a return to the old regime. There is no wish to go back, but even if there were it would be impossible. The revolution has gone too deep into the bones of the people for that. “The writer's view is that, unless, of course, Russia should be involved in another foreign war, the change is more likely to be gradual than catastrophic. Possibly it will take the form of a broadening of the base of the pyramid as the crumbling process which has already attacked the apex continues. At the moment, at all events, the fact remains that there is no rival in sight. Notwithstanding their differences among themselves, and although thy have been obliged to forsake many of the Communist ideals with which they started, the Bolsheviks in this, the tenth year of their reign, still hold the field unchallenged.”