The product turned out by the ivorkers in the factories is minimal, as one can understand from the standard of life. But this is frequently regarded by the government as sabotage, and the communist cell in the factory, which has to watch over it, often denounces the worker for sabotage. For this they are then punished.
The rations (payok) to which the workers are entitled in a locomotive repair shop which I inspected, are, per month: 25 Ib. flour (1 Russian Ib. equal to 400 gram or .88 Ib. American weight) ; 1 Ib. oil; 8 Ibs. fish; 5 Ibs. groats; li/2 tobacco; 2 Ibs. sugar; 14 Ib. coffee; 1% Ib. salt. But the workers do not receive these rations regularly. When I visited the factory, the shop committee was just in session, and they complained that during the previous month the workers had not received any oil and not enough flour.
If the workers do not get enough they try to procure more through private channels. The bakers take dough with them home in their long pockets. Their women make small cakes out of it and sell them in the market. The bread carriers steal the ready baked bread ; I spoke with one of the carriers, who told me quite openly that if he did not do this he could not exist. The same thing other workers do, who are employed in other branches of industry. Everybody tries to pull through in ways that are permitted or not permitted.
Perhaps many a person will ask the question why the workers do not buy what they need. This is not exactly possible, because they simply cannot pay the prices that are asked in free trade. The workers receive from 3,000 to 10,000 rubles per month. The meal in the factory is not expensive; its costs only about 20 rubles. Similarly the prices of the things which they receive in their rations are very cheap. Also the prices for everything received from the government are very low, so that, if the workers received sufficient from that source, they would get along very well with their money, yes, they even could save a good deal of money. But the reason they receive such a high wage is because the rations are not sufficient. When they are compelled to pay 500-600 rubles for a pound of bread in the market and from 5,000-6,000 rubles for a pound of butter, then they would have to earn 100,000 rubles per month if they want to* come out right.
Of the mentioned 312,000 individuals of the bourgeois elements, which according to the Rosta statistics are to be found in Moscow, there are also many wretched persons, which deserve any name but bourgeois. In the summer, visitors to the second congress of the III. International could see men and women lying in the streets at night, sleeping. If you asked these people why they slept in the street, they answered that they wanted to be the first in the morning when the bureau was opened to get their allowance of railway travel. These people then went to> the railway and traveled to the surrounding villages, in order to buy milk and, if possible, other things which they later sold in the Moscow market. At the railway stations one can later see hundreds of ragged persons, who have traveled a long way for from two to five liters of milk (1 liter equal to 1.76 pint), in order to sell it later for a small gain, and, too, always in danger of being arrested. Milk distribution is so poorly organized that thousands fetch a liter a piece from the village, instead of one bringing a thousand liters of milk, as is done in Berlin. In spite of the overwhelming centralism they have not been able to arrange this. Disregarding this highly irrational supply system there is not a spark of the socialist spirit to be seen in it. The bolsheviks have not yet even made arrangements for a communal milk supply, such as is introduced in Berlin for children and for the sick' and then they want to talk about communism and call themselves con>munists !