Wage Slavery Under Socialism.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 February 1922, Page 3

Wage Slavery Under Socialism.

AVHERE NATIONALISM HAS FAILED. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League). ' The out and out bed-rock class eon- ; aeious revolutionary socialists who have indoctrinated much of the Labour movement, never tire of talking about wage slavery as attached to l the individualist system of society. “Adopt Socialism and abolish wage slavery” is their constant cry. Well, Russia has aodpted Socialism and our Extremist Labourites hold it up as a shining example to the toiling masses. As a commentary on this state of mind we may take the statements of the British Labour Delegates, who have visited Russia, and reported on what they actually witnessed there. NO INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM. Mrs Phillip Snowden says:—“What I hated most in the regime - was the sup-

pression of liberty. “The conditions are closely approximate to those of some phases of slavery. Before the Bolshevist regime people could at least move about from town to town and leave their work if they wanted. Now they cannot —they must stay where they are. Tf, on the other hand, they are ordered to go to a.nothor part of the country and refuse they are sent to prison.” The Honourable Betrnnd Russell says:—“lndustrial conscription is, of course, rigidly enforced. Slacking is severely punished by confinement in prison, or a penal settlement.”

Alderman Turner says: —“Work is compulsory. There is no right to strike. A mail may not change his job without the permission of his Trades Union. In fact, compulsion is one of the Bolshevist gods.” The International Labour Review says:—“Disciplinary courts had, among other rights, that of transferring a workman to the lowest wage; scale for a period not exceeding a. month and of sentencing workmen to hard labour in oases of insubordination or of ordering them to be. confined in a concentration camp.” “Further powers were given these Courts in April 1920, that persons absent from work without leave should be fined 15 per cent, of tile monthly wage, or award in kind, for the first day’s absenoo, 25 pci’) cent, for the second, and 60 per cent for the third, and, in addition should bo obliged to make up tho lost time. Absence for more than three days wuld be treated as “sabotage.” THE WAGES THEY GET.

Instead of money wages, the Russian workmen are paid mostly in rations. Tim International Labour Review shows that in the Industrial centres the Naionalizod Factories and Works could not supply half the quantities of goods to pay the workmen in kind, which means that the workers could Hot got their wages. 'Die Government food ration provides the following dietary:

Breakfast:—Coffee or tea substitute, black bread.

Afternoon :—Thin soup with kasha (millet seed meal which is palatable and nourishing when properly cooked), and occasionally have a dried herring or small portion of meat. Supper:—Bread and coffee. NATIONALISED WORKS A FAILURE.

The Socialist cry of “Nationalise” was miet in Russia by nationalising all the big industries. The home and small industries were left in private hands. What has occurred in the Government factories is that the workers being ill treated and starved have deserted wholesale. On a compulsory draft for railways, transport and food production "'bore 219,922 men wore required, only 79,(G0 could he secured. The average number of days lost per worker in 1929 through absence in the factories was 09.0. The workers being starved have deserted and the working stall’ have been depleted. “With the decay of State Industries, the .borne and small industries have increased. The definite status of the small industries was accepted by the fourth Congress of Economic Soviets in May 1921. Under this new scheme the ta.sk of supplying the population with manufactured goods devolved upon the home and small industries, while the output of such Nationalised industry as still exists is restricted to the needs of the State. Thus these industries have practically displaced the former system of State industry, of former—large—scale industries have to that extent been transformed into independent producers middlemen. THE LESSON FOR US.

For our people the lesson is that in Russia the principle of socialism has resulted in the worst form of wage slavery in existence, with the attendant evils of starvation and death on a stupendous scale. The nationalising of industries has proven a failure so that the Soviets havt been forced by hard experience to the exploitation ot the natural resources by foreign capital, the reversion to individual control of industry and the placing of personal initiative before the machine made God of socialism—the all powerufl State.