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WAGE SLAVERY UNDER SOCIALISM.

WHERE NATIONALISATION HAS ' FAILED. The out-and-out bedrock class-con-scious revolutionary socialists who have indoctrinated much of the Labor movement, never tire of talking about wage slavery as attached to the individualists system of society. “Adopt Socialism and abolish wage slavery” is their constant cry. Well, Russia has adopted Socialism, and our Extremist Laborites hold it up as a shining example to the toiling masses. 4s a commentary on this state of mind we may take the statements of the British Labor delegates who have visited Russia and reported on what they actually witnessed there. , NO INDSUTRIAL FREEDOM. Mrs. Philip Snowden says:—“What I hated most in the regime was the suppression 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. If, on the other hand, they are ordered to go to another part of the country and refuse they are sent to prison.” The Hon. Bertrand Russell says:— “Industrial conscription is, of course, rigidly enforced. Slacking is severely punished by confinement in prison, or a penal settlement.” Aiderman Turner says:—“Work is compulsory. There is no right to strike. A man may not change his job without the permission, of hie trade union. In fact, eomplsion ie one of the Bolshevik gods.”

The International Labor 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 labor in cases of insubordination or of ordering them to be confined in a concentration camp. Further powers were given these courts in April, ’920, that persons absent from work without leave should be fined 15 per cent, of the monthly wage, or award in kind, for the first day’s absence, 25 per cent, for the second, and 60 per cent, for the third, and, in addition, should be obliged to’ make up the lost time. Absence for more than three days would be treated as sabotage.” THE WAGES THEY GET. Instead of money wages the Russian workmen are paid mostly in rations. The International Labor Review shows that in the industrial centres the nationalised factories and works could, not supply half the quantities of goods to pay the workmen in kind, whch means that the workers could not get their wages. The 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 a email portion of meat. Supper.—Bread and coffee. NATIONALISED WORKS A FAILURE.

The Socialist cry of “Nationalised” was met in Russia by nationalising all the big industries. The home and small industries were left in private hands. AVliat has occurred in the Government factories is that the workers, being illpaid and starved, have deserted wTio’ie-sa-le. On a compulsory draft for railways, transport and food production, where 219,922 men were required, only 76,040 could be secured. The average number of days lost per worker in 1920 through absence in the factories was 69.5. The workers being starved have deserted, and the working staff has been depleted. With the decay of the State industries, the home 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 task of supplying the poplation with manufatffured goods devolved upon the home and small industries, while the output of such nationalised industry a« 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 proved a failure, so 4 hat the Soviets have been forced by hard exprience to the exploitation of the natural resourco-s by foreign capital, the re rcrsion to individual control of industry, and the placing of personal initiative before the machine made god of socialist idealism—the all-powerful State. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.)

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19220311.2.93

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 11

Word count
Tapeke kupu
749

WAGE SLAVERY UNDER SOCIALISM. Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 11

WAGE SLAVERY UNDER SOCIALISM. Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 11

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