SOVIET RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1921, Page 5

SOVIET RUSSIA.

HOW LABOR SUFFERS. The economic system of the Bolsheviks is, says a Russian correspondent, founded on the distrubution of, work by the State; the worker not being at liberty to choose the kind of work he is to do. The complicated police supervision and espionage make it almost impossible to evade forced labour. Nevertheless, in spite of all their decrees and severity, the Soviet authorities cannot obtain the necessary number of workmen. They are trying to cope with this labor crisis in two ways. First of all, tljey try to raise the productivity of labour, and secondly, they increase the number of workmen by means of conscription. Contrary to all the theories of Socialism, the Bolsheviks have long ago adopted the system of piecework, and at the present time they have worked out a system of premiums for higher output, and are applying it everywhere. What they are principally interested in, however, is the problem of increasing the number of workmen. All the inhabitants have been provided with “work books,” which have become their passports. Every work book has the Soviet coat-of-arms on the first page with two mottoes : “Whosoever Will not work, neither shall he eat,” and “Proletarians of all countries, unite !” Then comes detailed information concerning the holder of the book ; his age, occupation, under whose jurisdiction he i£, and notes >of compulsory labour performed. Without such a book the inhabitants of Soviet Russia cannot move a step, cannot get either ration cards or permits to travel from one town to another, and if there are no entries of work done, the holders will be sent to the “Labour Deserters’ Committee,” which imposes war-time penalties, i.e., considers labour deserters as deserters from the army. As a matter of fact, the inhabitants of Soviet Russia are now serfs of the State like the Crown serfs in Russia before the liberation of the serfs on March 17, 1861, with the exception that then such serfs were not shot for not doing their work, and had more rights (and especially the right of disposing of the fruits of their labour) than the inhabitants of a Socialist State in the twentieth cen- *