TURN TO RIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1940, Page 6

TURN TO RIGHT

BOLSHEVIK IDEAS DROPPED ANOTHER REVOLUTION PILLAR CRUMPLES. DECISIVE CHANGES IN POLICY. (By Professor Wassily Leontieff, Sr., in “The Christian Science Monitor") 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.

One by one economic, monetary, social, and labour innovations which were introduced in bewildering contrast all over Russia following the overthrow of the Csar in 1917 have been either revised or have disappeared entirely. Many have given way to far less radical practices similar to those operating in the “bourgeoise" countries. Nor is it the first time that the Soviet work week has been revised. When the Communist theory in Russia was being strictly adhered to, and before the Five Year Plans were first put into operation. the customary seven-day week was abandoned and a five-day week adopted. SIX-DAY WEEK RESTORED. Sundays were 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 five working days instead of four and one day of rest. This system remained in effect until the recent change. This second change was said to have been made necessary to keep in step with the 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 All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions boosted the number of working days to six, increasing the total of working hours from 35 to 48. The rest day is provided by extending the number of days in the week to seven. This is only one of a long list of departures from labour practices and theories introduced in the early days of the Bolshevist Republic. WAGE POLICY REVERSED. Early in the Bolshevist era wages were governed by the share-and-share-alike idea, and wage-levelling was practiced. But in recent years this policy was completely overturned in favour of one 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 the amount of work they have done.” Former socialists fought for wages based upon the amount of time put in. But in 1932 between the First and Second Five Year Plans the head of the Soviet Trade Unions declared. _ “the basic system of the remuneration of labour in our country is the piecework system, pure and simple." Thus the skilled worker now receives as much as ten, times the wage of the unskilled one, and the pay of officials in responsible positions is still higher. Limitations on wagc-cariting for Communist, party members have now been liquidated and the individual incomes of a few "pace-makers" in piece work: competition—so-called “Stakhanofftzy"—are often in five figures. Inequalities in wage levels which were avoided in the early Bolshevist era are plainly visible now in different labours and professions where salaries vary from 150 rubles a month to

several thousand rubles. Artists and scientists receive the highest salaries. Alexander Tolstoi, well-known Russian author, for example, is said to. have received an income of more than 1,000.000 rubles. AGRICULTURAL AIMS CHANGED. Lenin as a political leader of the early Bolshevist state declared gold would be made worthless in Soviet Russia. And until 1935 the distribution of all principal commodities was carried out on the barter basis through a card system, making currency almost superfluous. Official theories and proposals which in the twenties foresaw the abolition of currency, however, were soon forgotten. The general income tax which was early proclaimed as the 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 the rich man —from which now comes four-fifths of the state's income. Probably one of the most decisive changes in fundamental Soviet policy took place in the field of collectivised agriculture. Early practice deprived the farmer of practically all private ownership, while the knowledge that his entire crops would be taken by the government quenches most of his incentive to produce.