RUSSIA TURNS TO RIGHT

Evening Star, Issue 23685, 19 September 1940, Page 7

RUSSIA TURNS TO RIGHT

BOLSHEVIST IDEALS DROPPED When the Kremlin recently ordered Soviet workers to stay on their jobs six instead of the usual five days a week another pillar of the Bolshevist revolution crumbled (states a writer in the ‘Christian Science Monitor’). One by one economic, monetary, social, and labour innovations which were introduced in bewildering contrast all over Russia following the overthrow of the Tsar in 1917 have been either revised or have disappeared entirely. Many have given, way to far loss radical practices similar to those operating in the “ bourgeois ” countries. Nor is it tho first time that the Soviet work week has been revised. When tho Communist theory in Russia was being strictly' adhered to, and before tho Five-year Plans were first put into operation, the customary seven-day week was abandoned and a five-dav week adopted. SIX-DAY WEEK RESTORED. Sundays wore abolished and one day out of the five was allotted to rest. Soon, however, it was found necessary to extend the week to six days, with fivo working days instead of four and ono day of rest. This system remained in effect until the recent change This second change was said to havo been made necessary to keep in step with tho increased production of other countries, which had adopted longer working hours and more working days. Thus, stating that “ we need more metal, coal, oil; more aeroplanes, tanks, and guns,” the Government AllITnion Central Council of Trade Unions boosted the number of working days to six, increasing the total of working hours from 35 to 18. Tho rest day is provided by extending the number of days in tho week to seven. This is only one of a long list of departures from labour practices and theories introduced in tho early days of the Bolshevist Republic. WAGE POLICY REVERSED. Early in the Bolshevist era wages were governed by tho share-and-sharc-aliko idea, and wage-levelling was practised. But in recent years this policy was completely overturned in favour of ono of paying wages based on “ the equal duty of all to work according to their ability, and the equal right of all toilers to receive according to tho amount of work they have done.'’ Former Socialists fought for wages based upon tho amount of time put in. But in 1932, between tho first and second Five-year Plans, the head of the Soviet Trade Unions declared, “ tho basic system of the remuneration of labour in our country is the piece-work system, pure and simple.” Thus the skilled worker now receives as much as 10 times the wage of tho unskilled one, and the pay of officials in ■responsible positions is still higher. Limitations on wage-earning for Communist party members havo now been liquidated and the individual incomes of a few “ pace-makers ” in piece-work competition so-called “ Stakhanofftzy ” —are often in fivo figures. Inequalities in wage levels which were avoided in tho early E Ishevist era are plainly visible now in different labours and professions, where salaries vary from 150 roubles a month to several thousand roubles. Artists and scientists receive tho highest salaries. AGRICULTURAL AIMS CHANGED. Lenin as a political leader of the early Bolshevist State declared gold would bo made worthless in Soviet Russia. And until 1935 the distribution of all principal commodities was carried out on tho barter basis through a card system, making currency almost superfluous. Official theories and proposals which in tho twenties foresaw the, abolition of currency, however, were soon forgotten. Tho general income tax which was early proclaimed as tho chief source of State revenues has since given way to the so-called turnover tax a tax on all commodities which is actually progressive downward, so that the poor man pays more in proportion to his salary than tho rich man—from which now comes four-fifths of the State’s income.