Volume X. Number 9. JUNE, 1918 Per Copy, 10 Cents Per Year, 75 Cents Canada, 87 Cents Clubs (5 or more) 5 Cts. per Copy; 50 Cts. per Year Studies in Social Progress — IN — The Gospel of the Kingdom RUDOLPH M. BINDER, Editor JAMES H. ECOB, Contributing Editor Under the Direction of a National Committee * These Studies are arranged for adult classes in churches, Sunday schools, Y. M. C. A/s, and in connection with universities, colleges and theological seminaries; also for advanced students of social progress in social settle¬ ments, civic organizations, etc. The Studies are published monthly, and contain a special lesson for each week in the month, so that they can be used by classes meeting either weekly or monthly. CONTENTS The Significance of Health HEALTH AND THE BODY HEALTH AND THE MIND HEALTH AND THE SPIRIT HEALTH AND THE FAMILY HEALTH AND INDUSTRY % Report of Prof. Edward A. Ross to the American Institute of Social Service on fiiTT^ission to Russia— March 30, 1918 PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SERVICE BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK OCT 1 91918 Copyright, 1918, by the American Institute of Social Service, New York Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, October 21, 1908 National Advisory Committee Strniks in Progress It is understood that the Committee is not responsible for the details of the lessons or of the management, but is a general Advisory Committee representing the various denominations. RUDOLPH M. BINDER, PhD., Chairman JOHN COLEMAN ADAMS, D.D. BISHOP C. P. ANDERSON, D.D. THE REV. GEO. A. BELLAMY W. C. BITTING, D.D. W. D. P. BLISS, D.D. CHARLES R. BROWN, D.D. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. RUSSELL H. CONWELL, D.D. JAMES H. ECOB, D.D. PROF. C. P. FAGNANI, D.D. BISHOP SAMUEL FALLOWS, D.D. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D. BISHOP D. H. GREER, D.D. DEAN GEORGE HODGES, D.D. IRA LANDRITH, D.D. THE REV. WALTER LAID LAW, PH.D. FRANK MASON NORTH, D.D. NATHANIEL M. PRATT, D.D. PROF. W. RAUSCHENBUSCH, D.D. MR. ROBERT SCOTT PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOR, D.D. PROF. HARRY F. WARD, D.D. PRES. HERBERT WELCH, LLD. PROF. HERBERT L. WILLETT, D.D. GEORGE U. WENNER, D.D. PROF. W. H. WYNN, Ph.D., D.D. BISHOP EUGENE R. HENDRIX, D.D. ACHIEVE BIG THINGS! Half the joy of life lies in achievement, the deep satisfaction that comes from accomplishing the things that are worth while. Everyone of us has a vast reserve of spiritual, mental, and physical energy, only waiting to be developed. Learn how to make use of your latent abilities by reading PERSONAL POWER the thought-stirring book by Keith J. Thomas that points the way to accomplishment and success. It calls forth all that is best in you, separates the essential from the non-essential, lights and keeps burning the flame of ambition. Thousands of men and women have become bigger, better, finer by reading it. This Remarkable Book Will Surely The Power to Absorb and Make Use of Daily Experiences— The Power to “Size Up” Human Na¬ ture Accurately— The Power to Concentrate— The Power of Precision— The Power of Efficiency— The Power to Make Men Think and Act— The Power to Overcome Environ¬ ment— 8 vo, cloth, $1.75; by mail, $1.S Funk & Wagnalls Company, Help Develop Your Latent Powers The Power to Achieve Social and Business Success— The Power to Persuade and Domi¬ nate Others— The Power of Poise— The Power that Comes from Self- confidence— The Power of a Strong Personality— The Power of Winning Speech— The Power to “Make Good”— . Money back if not satisfied. 354 Fourth Avenue, New York STUDIES IN SOCIAL PROGRESS E\^ v0 ' e 136 REPORT OF PROF. EDWARD A. ROSS TO THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SERVICE ON HIS MISSION TO RUSSIA—MARCH 30, 1918 Note: Professor Ross went to Russia to establish relations between Russian and American social agencies, and to interpret the spirit of the revolution impartially. Owing to the sudden upheaval under the Bolsheviki, the first object was unattainable and he had to confine himself chiefly to the second.'— Editor. Only one opportunity for service pre¬ sented itself during my stay there, and, strangely enough, it was rather out of my line. Knowing something of the variety of national units which had been brought un¬ der the authority of the Tsar and of the desperate struggle these units had made to preserve their nationality despite the steam roller methods of Petrograd, I predicted in print last March (1917) that only under a federal system could Russia continue to hold together. On my first visit to Petrograd I found very little understanding of what federalism is or how it would solve the problems of preserving unity. Professor Milioukoff told me that Russia was un- .suited to the federal form of government, and the professor of Constitutional Law in the University gave it as his opinion that mot fifteen persons in Petrograd understood what a federal system is. In October, however, the Cossack Con¬ gress declared for a federal republic and by the time I returned to Petrograd in December, political disintegration was ad¬ vancing at such a pace that there was much inquiry as to the workings of a fed¬ eral union. Accordingly, at the request of Mr. Corse of the New York Life Insur¬ ance Company, I prepared for the Ameri¬ can Committee on Publicity, of which he was chairman, a paper under the title “The United States of Russia,” setting forth the blessings of the federal system in this country and showing what benefits Russia might derive from it. It was translated in Russian and Mr. Corse declared it would be used so as to reach millions of readers. Whether he was able to obtain for it all the hope for publicity I do not know. As regards linking up agencies for prac¬ tical social progress in Russia and in the United States, my mission was a total failure for reasons which, I suppose, are pretty well understood by all of you. Events took a course altogether different from what had been anticipated. The direction of affairs was taken out of the hands of those who were the dominant men in Rus¬ sia at the time the Institute sent me. In¬ stead of the creation of the institutions and instrumentalities for social progress in the customary sense of the term, there ensued a struggle for a complete overturn and the rule of the working class over the propertied class. Disorganization and dis¬ integration advanced with great rapidity until the greater revolution of last Novem¬ ber—which was a social rather than merely a political revolution. Then came a strug¬ gle to establish the authority of the new Government and to curb the spirit of an¬ archy, which had become rife. There are indications of late that the new order feels itself strong enough to begin in good ear¬ nest the task of social reconstruction. I reached Petrograd just after the Bolshevik rising of July 17 and 18 and found conditions extremely unfavorable for my mission. The leaders of the Con¬ stitutional-Democrats, nicknamed “Ka- dets,” to whom I bore numerous letters of introduction, were out of office. The army was giving up positions without a struggle. The peasants were holding back their grain, and food was extremely scarce and dear. Everyone was worried and unable to con¬ template anything but the dark future im¬ mediately ahead. Nobody knew what an hour might bring forth. Professor Miliou¬ koff after a long conversation invited me to lunch with him the next day, but when I arrived at the appointed hour I learned that he had been summoned to an import¬ ant conference of his party. Rodzianko likewise gave me an appointment but was unable to keep it on account of a crisis in the Duma of which he was president. IN THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM 135 which is generally enforced. Years ago a woman in a textile-mill in New England tended two slowly running looms. Later, as the hours of work grew less, the number of looms was increased to four or six, and now an operative is expected in some mills to look after twelve or even sixteen. This work is not heavy; there is little muscular strength required. It is rather the constant and steady application of the mind, the keen use of the eyes, which exhaust and wear out the body. The whole nervous system is so intently directed to the details of the work while the machinery is running at high speed that the worker is at night not only tired out, but nearly exhausted. During a recent strike in a shirt-waist factory in New York the girls complained because ten years ago they had been watching one needle, running at the rate of 2,200 strokes a minute, but were now required to watch from two to twenty needles on a machine, some running as high as 4,400 strokes a minute. The thread may catch, a needle may break, the material may draw—any number of things may happen— consequently attention must be continuous and intense. Every minute counts, since the work is piece-work. The total vitality ex¬ pended in eight hours is greater than that required formerly in twelve. In many cases the output per operative is from two to four times larger than formerly within the same hours. If the periods of rest are not suf¬ ficiently long, fatigue incurred day by day lowers vitality, frequent and heavy colds occur, illness results, debility follows, and the worker is ready for tuberculosis or some other disease which will issue in death. One of the most serious results of under¬ mining health through continued fatigue is the shortening of the life of operatives who do not die as a direct result of overwork. Frederick Hoffman estimates that “ the pe¬ riod of industrial activity of wage-earners generally, but chiefly of men employed in mechanical and manufacturing industries, should properly commence with the age of fifteen and terminate with the age of sixty- five.” He finds, however, that out of every 1,000 males living at the age of fifteen, only 444 survive until the age of sixty-five, while 556 die before that age is reached (Social Adjustment, by Scott Nearing, p. 182). Attainable Conditions: This waste of human lives need not occur, and its occur¬ rence is a sad commentary on our social in¬ telligence and control. We apparently still prize goods more than men, profits more than human happiness, completed output more than a full vitality. There is certainly no need for five per cent, of our population to be constantly suffering total impairment through fatigue and four per cent, to be constantly sick. It is entirely possible to have a man work eight or ten hours a day at a moderate speed and make a living wage for himself and a fair profit for his employer. This has been done in many industrial plants, with good results to all concerned. Increasingly workingmen are looked upon as human be¬ ings. This means a closer relation between employer and employed, a human relation in¬ stead of one of profit and loss. Through the introduction of safety-devices, of better ventilating-systems, and more hygienic work¬ ing-conditions the health of employees will be improved. The reduction of high profits through higher wages and shorter hours without the compensating u speeding up ” will not seriously interfere with capital; it will, however, vastly improve human caliber and social good-will. This has been done in many cases, and it can be done in all. It should be entirely possible that a work¬ man not only keep in good health, but re¬ turn to his family in a cheerful mood, with enough vitality left in him to be pleasant and agreeable to his wife and to play with his children. There is a vast difference, so¬ cially and individually, between the worker who c'an hardly drag himself up the stairs of his tenement, is curt and morose to his family, and is shunned by his own children, and the man who is tired, but not exhausted, from his work, has a pleasant word for everybody, and is joyfully met by wife and children. The former may have a larger output to his credit and be more profitable to his employer; the latter is in every way a larger social asset. For, to repeat a statement made in the April num¬ ber : “ The real wealth of a country consists, not in its purchasable goods, but in the num¬ ber of its physically, mentally, and morally healthy men and women.” IN THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM 137 After a valuable talk with the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences he invited me to come to him as often as I liked but I did not avail myself of his invitation be¬ cause two days later he was unexpectedly appointed Minister of Education and I real¬ ized he would be overwhelmed with new duties. I was again in Petrograd after the Bolsheviki conquest of power and found that it had acted like a continental upheav¬ al, altering all elevations. Who had been low was now high and who had been high was now low. There had been a complete change in Russia's “Who's Who." When I undertook to present my remaining let¬ ters of introduction, I found that five of them were addressed to persons under ar¬ rest and others to persons who were in hid¬ ing. Far from aspiring to influence in any way the social movement in Russia, the men of light and leading were occupied with caring for the safety of themselves and their families. New leaders, to be sure, had come to the fore, but they were busy with the primary tasks of overcom¬ ing opposition to the proletarian dictator¬ ship and restoring order, and could give no attention yet to social questions. My report, therefore, must be a review and interpretation of Russia’s recent de¬ velopment rather than a forecast of re¬ construction. The reasons why the political revolution of March was succeeded by the social revo¬ lution of November are not difficult to pen¬ etrate. Owing to historical causes there is in Russia an extreme concentration of wealth. When I went about in Moscow or Rostof I would see so many well-shod, well-groomed people despite the prohibitive cost of clothing, such quantities of beauti¬ ful furs, Karakul caps and broad Karakul overcoat collars, there was such a whir of automobiles and such a free use of iswost- chiks; calling on a University professor, I was ushered into such noble high-ceiled handsomely furnished rooms of a type very rare in the abode of an American scholar, that I exclaimed, “What a rich country this is!" But when I went about in the rural villages and marked the coarse gar¬ ments everyone wears, the tiny houselot, the insignificant outbuildings, the preval¬ ence of the one-room or two-room isba, the absence of pleasure vehicles and pleas¬ ure horses, the lack even in villages of sev¬ eral thousand souls of any place of public amusements, bowling alley, billiard room, sweets shop or ball ground; when in the peasant hut I missed floor, floor cover¬ ings, furniture, pictures, curtains—every¬ thing that goes to make a home, I ex¬ claimed, “What a poor country this is!" The riches one meets in churches, mon¬ asteries, palaces and pleasure cities like Moscow and Petrograd, signify not that Russia is a rich country, but that there is a vast area to draw from and that the sys¬ tem of concentrating wealth is wonderfully efficacious. The autocracy, the bureauc¬ racy, the captive Church, the “safe" teach¬ ing, the class distinctions in the law code, the tax system, the tariff duties, the censor, the police, the spies, the Cossacks and the exile system—all were parts of “one stu¬ pendous whole" devised to concentrate as much as possible of the good things of life tit the thin apex of the social cone and to roll as much as possible of its burdens up¬ on its broad base. The system, rather than natural differences in ability or character, is the key to Russia’s broad social con¬ trasts. Roughly speaking, about one-third of the agricultural land in Russia is in the hands of 110,000 noble landowners whose ancestors were granted their estates by the Crown on condition of rendering military services which for a century and a half have been dispensed with. At Emancipa¬ tion fifty-six 3^ears ago, the former serfs came into possession of less than one-half of these estates (by paying for the land at a price from 50 to 100 per cent, above its value), and have always felt that the rest of the soil should have been turned over to its actual tillers. In the meantime the peasants have developed a fierce hunger for land. They have multiplied rapidly as ignorant and hopeless masses always do and the share available for each member of the village continually shrinks. Few of the noble land owners, known as pomiest- chiks, do anything for agriculture. In gen¬ eral they are parasites recognized to be such even by the Kadet leaders’ All the 138 STUDIES IN SOCIAL PROGRESS parties agreed that the pomiestchiks must go and differed only as to compensation. The Kadets pointed out that these estates bore mortgages to the extent of 40% of their value and that, if compensation were not made, at least to the extent of the mortgage, the bottom would drop out of Russian credit institutions. Turn now for a moment to the lot of the Russian workingman. When factories be¬ gan to spring up in Russia, the Romanoffs became accomplices of the capitalists in holding workmen down with a ruthlessness long since abandoned in Western Europe. Unions of wage earners to promote their economic interests were stamped out. Even when some employers wanted the work¬ men to be given the right to organize so that there would be authorized representa¬ tives of the men with whom they could make a stable agreement, the government refused lest such organizations become centers of political movements. The gov¬ ernment at times patronized mutual bene¬ fit societies among wage earners, but would tolerate no association that might lessen profits. Nor would it allow the workmen to 1 quit work in concert. Forced in 1905 to recognize their right to strike, it nulli¬ fied this concession when a year or two later it felt itself firm again in the saddle. A strike was treated as a seditious out¬ break, calling for stern measures. Through his spies among the men, the employer would learn in advance the da}' and hour of the walkout and when the strikers inarched out of the works, they would be met by gendarmes or Cossacks who would dis¬ perse them with clubs and whips and throw their leaders into jail if they did not send them to the front. The orthodox political economists used to insist that supply and demand determine wages, so that unions and strikes can have nothing to do with it. If this were so, Rus¬ sian workingmen lost nothing by being de¬ nied these means. As a matter of fact many hundreds of millions of rubles went yearly to the employer just because he kept out of their hands such weapons as union and strike. In 1912, when raw immigrant labor commanded $1.65 a day in the industrial centers of the United States, this class of labor was paid about 30 cents a day in the industrial centers of South Russia. I met a machinist who had worked all over South Russia and never got more than 85 cents a day. In the United States he started at $2.75 a day and in five years never received less. After allowing for a slightly higher cost of living in the United States and bearing in mind that employers reckon Russian skilled labor as 25 or 30 per cent, less efficient than American, it seems safe to say that before the Revolution the share of his product that fell to the Russian workman was less than a third of that re¬ ceived by the American wage earner. Of course the employer’s share was swelled by just so much as he kept from his workingmen; so it is not surprising that the Russian capitalists netted a far higher profit than is customary in Amer¬ ica. I talked with no men of affairs who did not judge that 20% per annum was as common a rate of profit for the Russian manufacturer as is 10% for the Ameri¬ can manufacturer. The hundred ruble shares of industrial companies were quoted at 300, 400 and even up to 1,000 rubles, indicating an anticipated annual earning of 18, 24 and, in cases, up to 50 per cent. While such high profits are partly due to a comparative scarcity of cap¬ ital in Russia in relation to opportunities for its profitable investment, there can be no doubt that the American wage earners, armed with the legal rights to organize and to strike, and equipped with the intel- gence to use them, have drawn to them¬ selves a much larger fraction of their pro¬ duct than the Russian employer yielded to his ignorant and cowed wage slaves. Such is the effect of democracy upon the distri¬ bution of wealth. With the fall of the Tsar, the Kadets came into power, for, being a tolerated party, they were organized and on the spot, while the leaders of the more radical groups were in prison or in exile. Now the Kadets thought of the Revolution as a bestower of liberties. The}' spoke for the comfort- ably-off class whose chief grievance against the old regime was that it stifled liberty of thought and speech, of agitation and or¬ ganization. But the common people IN THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM 139 thought of the Revolution as a bringer of economic relief. To the peasants it meant more land, to the wage earners more wages. The Kadets agreed that the old regime was iniquitous but failed to draw the obvious conclusion that the distribution of wealth which grew up under it must partake of its character, must be iniquitous, too! When I was in Moscow in August, everybody I talked with agreed that the Revolution had gone “a little too far” and that there was a shift of opinion in the direction of the political right. I took this as gospel until I* got out among the peasants and found radical progress marching steadily ahead while Kadet scruples and warnings were laughed at. I saw that the bigger revolu¬ tion was yet to come. Now why was it that out among the masses opinion took a direction more rad¬ ical than any of the Kadet makers of the Revolution had anticipated? Certainly last March no one looked for a proletarian dic¬ tatorship and the violent redistribution ot land and capital. I think the cause is the introduction of a factor which was not present when the first Revolution took place. It was the returning revolutionists —at least a hundred thousand strong—who gave it the radical stamp. Bear in mind that the hundred thous¬ and or so Russians with solid learning and well-trained minds are encompassed by perhaps a million of half-baked who have graduated from gymnasium and attended university. In the University, despite the excellence of their professors, the latter profit little because of the badness of their foundation. This foundation is bad be¬ cause the government in its endeavor to get a “safe” product wrecked secondary education. The ministers of education tried all sorts of experiments with the curricu¬ lum, their sole motive being to curb the growth of liberal political ideas. Gradu¬ ally the solid studies were cut out, while little of value was put in their place. When these poorly prepared young people come to the University, they can not do work of real University character. They never get into the more advanced and intensive work of the seminaries. They attend lectures, memorize texts and cram to pass examina¬ tions. Of the body of students, perhaps a tenth obtain a genuine University educa¬ tion. The rest, incapable of close thinking, are guided by memorized formulae. Now the Marxian philosophy provides clear, simple formulas as to social evolution and for the last twenty years, nine-tenths of the Russian students have accepted these formulas and employed them with but lit¬ tle reflection. The revolutionists were chiefly of the intelligentsia, all young when they came into the conflict with the bureaucracy and practically all Socialists. What now would happen to those forced to pass their years in Siberia imprisoned, at hard labor, or banished to some remote district? Is it not likely that the doctrines for dis¬ seminating which they were persecuted would thenceforth seem sacred in their eyes? In any case there was no oppor¬ tunity for them to correct their formulas by an intensive study of the Russian com¬ mon people and their real needs.. Such studies ended with their arrest, and in Si¬ beria they lacked libraries, teachers and stimulating association. So they made no advance in economic or sociological wis¬ dom, but remained under the power of their adolescent ideas. They came back last spring embittered against the order that had persecuted them, enjoying an immense influence because of their suffering, and proceeded to preach the simple but inade¬ quate formulas of their youth. Still worse was the influence of the revo¬ lutionists who returned from foreign coun¬ tries in which they had found refuge. They were most numerous in Switzerland and especially German Switzerland (Bern). Many were in Paris, a few in England. Germany had no great number for she dis¬ couraged their coming fearing the effect on her own people. America got few rev¬ olutionists save the Jews, who for certain reasons preferred this country. Now these refugees lived and associated much with one another. Many, in fact, learned noth¬ ing whatever of the language of the coun¬ try they lived in. They studied neither the Russian common people nor the people of the country they lived in, but incessantly discussed with one another socialist doc- 140 STUDIES IN SOCIAL PROGRESS trines, read socialist literature and split in¬ to schools which carried on a newspaper and pamphlet polemic against one another. This made them clever in using and de¬ fending their ideas but gave them no deep¬ er knowledge of the tendencies and needs of the Russian rural population. As for the effort thinkers are making to reach a rational interpretation of society, they ig¬ nored it because it did not emanate from avowed socialists. So naive was their use cf authority that my ship mates would meet my statistics from the United States Census with the demur, “But the New York Call says. ...” So it came to pass that these two streams of revolutionists, from Siberia and from abroad, who had been violently deprived of the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the Russian masses and who for the most part therefore continued to revolve within their early formulas, poured into Russia and loving their countrymen, at once set to teach them what to demand and how to back up their demands. That is why we are confronted with the amaz¬ ing spectacle of a people half-literate, in¬ experienced, six-sevenths agricultural, try¬ ing to introduce Marxian socialism which is the outgrowth of industrial capitalism and machine industry! The machinery for a proletarian control had already been provided by the organiza¬ tion of the workmen and soldiers, and lat¬ er of the peasants. By organizing first, these elements gained a broad running start over the propertied class and now there is no likelihood of the bourgeoisie overtak¬ ing them. Following Petrograd’s example and led by repatriated exiles and refugees the working people in every important cen¬ ter formed a Council (Sovyet) of dele¬ gates chosen by groups o’f workers. For instance of the Sovyet of Nijni Novgorod a delegate may be sent by every factory with fifty or more workmen. The big con¬ cerns are allowed representation for every 500 workmen or workwomen. And fifty persons in the same craft or calling may come together and pick their delegate. Any class of employees—even book-keep¬ ers and bank-clerks—have a right to repre¬ sentation. On the other hand doctors, law¬ yers, clergymen, engineers, merchants, cap¬ italists and landed proprietors are not con¬ sidered as belonging to the proletariat. About one-sixth of the Sovyet is composed of deputies named by the various proletari¬ an parties, Social Revolutionists, Social Democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks), Populists, etc. The soldiers of the local garrison by companies name deputies to the soldiers’ Sovyet. These two Sovyets in Nijni Nov¬ gorod maintain a joint executive commit¬ tee composed of thirty workmen and twen¬ ty soldiers, which meets perhaps twice a week. Of the thirty working-class mem¬ bers perhaps twenty give their entire time and are paid the equivalent of their ordin¬ ary wages. There are sub-committees look¬ ing after conditions of work, disagreements between employer and employee, strike ad¬ justment, employment bureaus, etc. Once in two or three months there meets in Petrograd a congress composed of one delegate for every 10,000 workingmen, and this Congress, in co-operation with a like body representing the soldiers, names an Executive Committee of 250 members which sits almost continuously in Petro- grad. Since the incorporation into this Committee of an equal number of deputies chosen by the Peasant’s Congress, it speaks for the masses as no other'agency in Russia. The terms Menshevik and Bolshevik or¬ iginated in a split in the Russian Social- Democratic Congress in 1903. Bolshevik means member of the majority; Menshe¬ vik, member of the minority. In time Menshevik came to mean one who wants the Russian laboring class to be a power¬ ful element in a bourgeois state, while the Bolshevik would establish a state in which the bourgeoisie shall have no share. When on the morrow o’f the March Rev¬ olution, councils of Workmen’s and Sol¬ diers’ deputies spread from Petrograd to all the centers in Russia, the Menshevik parliamentarians were naturally their lead¬ ers. They were right on the ground while the persecuted Bolsheviks were scattered far and wide over the globe. Then, too, they had been in the Duma and could medi¬ ate between the Duma-created Provisional IN THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM 141 Government and the surging masses of workingmen. Their original revolutionism having been toned down by experience and many disappointments, men like Tcheisze and Skobelef formed a link between mid¬ dle class and lower class. They could be counted on to sit tight on the lid of the boiling pot. They believed in their hearts that the masses were too ignorant to be trusted with power. They considered the Sovyets for which they spoke not as a rival of the Provisional Government but as a watch-dog of the Revolution until the Constitutional Assembly should aonvene and take all the power to itself. The Bolsheviks on the other hand saw in the Sovyet organization a means of realiz¬ ing government by the people. When we talk of “the rule of the people,” we mean all the people, captains of industry as well as laborers.. Our sole stipulation is that the former’s vote shall not count for more than the latter’s. But to the Bolshevik “people” means something that would at once lose its purity if the bourgois were a part of it. He divides society into the “people” who wear soft shirts, and the “ bourgeoisie” who wear white collars. Our democracy is built on representa¬ tion by areas. The Bolshevik is suspicious of this amorphous structure as lending it¬ self readily to plutocracy. Rather let peo¬ ple group themselves by occupation when they choose their representative and then he will really stand for something. As for those of no occupation, who do not work for their living, why should they be let in to obfuscate or corrupt this green democ¬ racy? Why should the “people,” once they have all power, tolerate in their councils the disturbing presence of their irrecon¬ cilable enemies, whom they intend to make go to work? There have been many states run by property holders to the utter ex¬ clusion of toilers, but the present Sovyet state is the first in the world’s history run by toilers to the utter exclusion of prop¬ erty-holders. Not alone the propaganda of returned radicals brought the Russian workmen and soldier to the cry “All power to the Sov¬ yets /’ but as well the failure of the Ker¬ ensky ministries to give the masses what they wanted. Even an all-socialist minis¬ try did not turn over the estates to the peasants or stand up for the factory com¬ mittees. Then, too, the Constitutional As¬ sembly, which was to be the final arbiter between classes, was postponed and again postponed. The Korniloff uprising in Sep¬ tember caused popular sentiment to veer sharply to the left. Still Kerensky and his group failed to stem the rising tide by an immediate summoning of the Constitution¬ al Assembly. There were no signs of peace. The Allies remained deaf to Kerensky’s plea for a revision of their war aims. In¬ ternal reforms, land and labor, were shelv¬ ed till the Constitutional Assembly should act and no one expected it to spend less than two years on them. So in November the lid blew off the seething caldron of dis¬ content, the Kerensky Government fell and the Sovyet Republic arose. Among the first acts of the Bolsheviks in power was to square their debt to the left wing of the Social Revolutionists, their ally in the coup d’etat. The latter would accept only one kind o’f currency—the ex¬ propriation of the private landowners with¬ out compensation and the transfer of all their lands into the hands of the peasant communes. The Bolsheviks themselves as good Marxians took no stock in the peas¬ ants’ commune. As such, pending the in¬ troduction of socialism, they should per¬ haps have nationalized the land and rented it to the highest bidder, regardless of whether it was to be tilled in small par¬ cels without hired labor or in large blocks on the capitalistic plan. The land edict of November does indeed decree land nation¬ alization ; however, the vital proviso is add¬ ed that “the use of the land must be equal -ized—that is, the land must be divided among the people according to local condi¬ tions and according to the ability to work and the needs of each individual,” and fur¬ ther “that the hiring of labor is not per¬ mitted.” The administrative machinery is thus described: “All the confiscated land becomes the land capital of the nation. Its distribution among the working people is to be in charge of the local and central au¬ thorities, beginning with the organized ru¬ ral and urban communities and ending with the provisional central organs.” 142 STUDIES IN SOCIAL PROGRESS Although their land policy is, first of all, a means of gaining and holding political allies, the industrial program of the Bol¬ sheviks expresses their dearest social aims. What constitutes this program I was able to learn from high authority. About a month after the Bolshevik revolution I had a talk with Trotzky. After telling him 1 was interested in his economic program rather than his peace program, I asked: “Is it the intention of your party to dis- posess the owners of industrial plants in Russia?” “No,” he replied. “We are not ready yet to take over all industry. That will come in time, but no one can say how soon. For the present, we expect out of the earnings of a factory to pay the owner 5 or 6 per cent, yearly on his actual investment. What we aim at now is control rather than own¬ ership.” “What do you mean by ‘control?’ ” “I mean that we will see to it that the factory is run not from the point of view of private profit but from the point of view of social welfare democratically conceived. For example, we will not allow the capital¬ ist to shut up his factory in order to starve his workmen into submissiveness or be¬ cause it is not yielding him a profit. If it is turning out economically a needed pro¬ duct, it must be kept running. If the capi¬ talist abandons it he wdll lose it altogether, for a board of directors chosen by the workmen will be put in charge. “Again ‘control’ implies that the books and correspondence of the concern will be open to the public so that henceforth there will be no industrial secrets. If this con¬ cern hits upon a better process or device it will be communicated to all other con¬ cerns in the same branch of industry, so that; the public will promptly realize the utmost possible benefit from the find. At present it is hidden away from other con¬ cerns at the dictate of the profit-seeking motive and for years the article may be Icept scarce and dear to the consuming public. “ ‘Control’ also means that primary re¬ quisites limited in quantity such as coal, oil, iron, steel, etc., will be allotted to the dif¬ ferent plants calling for them with an eye to their social utility. On a limited stock of materials of production, concerns that produce luxuries should have a slighter claim than those which produce neces¬ saries. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he added, “we are not ascetics. Luxuries shall be produced, too, when there is enough of fuel and materials for all the factories.” “On what basis will you apportion a lim¬ ited supply of the means of production among the claimant industries?” “Not as now according to the bidding of capitalists against one another, but on the basis of full and carefully gathered sta¬ tistics.” “Will the workmen’s committee or the elected managers of a factory be free to run it according to their own lights?” “No, they will be subject to policies laid down by the local council of workmen’s deputies.” “Will this council be at liberty to adopt such policies as it pleases?” “No, their range of discretion will be limited in turn by regulations made for each class of industry by the boards or bureaus of the central government.” “Do you propose that the profits earned by a concern shall be divided among its workers?” “No, profit-sharing is a bourgeois notion. The workers in a mill will be paid ade¬ quate wages. All the profits earned will belong to society.” “To the local community or to the cen¬ tral government?” “They will be shared between the two according to their comparative needs.” “What will be shared—everything above running expenses? Or will you set aside something for depreciation, so that when the plant is worn out there will be money enough to replace it?” “Oh, of course, it is only pure profit that would be divided.” “By sticking to this principle you can keep up the existing industrial outfit. But in some branches—say the making of mo¬ torcycles or tractors—new factories are called for to supply the expanding needs of the public. Where will the money come from that will build these new factories?” IN THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM 143 •‘We can impose on the capitalist to whom we allow a dividend of five or six per cent, on his capital the obligation to reinvest in some industry a part—say 25 per cent, of what he receives.” “If in Russia you hold the capitalists down to five or six per cent, while in oth¬ er countries they can hope for twice or thrice as much return, won’t Russia be stripped of capital?” “They won’t be allowed to remove their capital from Russia at will,” said Trotzky significantly. “Besides, do you imagine that capitalist control is going to survive every¬ where save in Russia. In all the European belligerent countries I expect to see a social 1 evolution after the war. So long as they remain in the trenches, the soldiers think of little but their immediate problem—to kill your opponent before he kills you. But when they go home and find their family scattered, perhaps their home desolate, their industry ruined and their taxes five times as high as before they will begin to consider how this appalling calamity was brought upon them. They will be open to the demonstration that the scramble of cap¬ italists and groups of capitalists of foreign markets and exploitable ‘colonial’ areas, imperialism, secret diplomacy and arma¬ ment rivalry promoted by munition makers, brought on the war. Once they perceived that the capitalist class is responsible for this terrible disaster to humanity they will arise and wrest the control from its hands. To be sure, a proletarian Russia cannot get very far in realizing its aims, if all the rest of the world remains under the capitalist regime. But that will not happen.” “Everywhere in Russia I go I find a slump of forty or fifty per cent, in the pro¬ ductivity of the workmen in the factories. Is there not danger of an insufficiency of manufactured goods if the workmen of each factory follow pretty much their own gait?” “The current low productivity is a natur¬ al reaction from the labor-driving charac¬ teristic of the old regime. In time that will be overcome by standards of efficiency being adopted by each craft union and the denial of the advantages of membership to such workmen as will not or cannot come up to these standards. Besides, collectiv¬ ist production will make great use of the Taylor system of scientific management. It has not been popular among the proletariat because as now applied it chiefly swells the profits of the capitalist with but little ben¬ efit to the working man or the consuming public. When all the economy of effort it achieves accrues to society as a whole, ’t will be cheerfully and generally adopted, and premature labor, prolonged labor and overwork will be abandoned because need¬ less.” I submitted this Bolshevik program to various Russian economists and all agreed that the Russian workmen are too ignorant and short-sighted to conform to the sound principles which may be held by their lead¬ ers. Conscious of being masters of the in¬ dustrial properties, they will not submit themselves to indispensable discipline. They will not follow the counsel of technical men and they will “eat up the capital,” so that before the factories have been long in their hands it will be impossible to keep them going. I am often asked the question whether Lenine and Trotzky are not agents of Ger¬ many. I have no means of knowing, but I found no one who in private conversa¬ tion avowed such a belief. The bourgeois newspapers were full of such charges but the initiated paid no attention to them. Let me observe, furthermore, that these lead¬ ers are responsible for everything they do to a delegate body of 250 genuine Russians and if they have sold out their country these Russians have been unable to per¬ ceive the fact. Our natural grief and indignation at Russia’s betaking herself out of the war should not blind us to the true nature of what has taken place. The word “betray¬ ers” does not fit here, for those who tore up the treaties with the Allies were not the same persons as those who signed those treaties. In Russia elemental forces are at work which are as little amenable to moral obligations as an earthquake. There is no power in Russia which in the absence of foreign aid has the least chance of overthrowing the Sovyet Gov¬ ernment. The Cossacks have ceased to re- 144 STUDIES IN SOCIAL PROGRESS sist and the bourgeoisie are impotent to do anything for themselves. The estates, no doubt, have been divided among the peas¬ ant communes and nothing but foreign con¬ quest can tear them from the moujiks. There will be a certain flow from city to country in order to share in the new agri¬ cultural opportunities. The estates yielded a fourth more per acre than the peasant land, so until the peasants have better im¬ plements and draft animals, the estates will yield less than hitherto. With the masses so ignorant and in¬ expert in organization, and the state cor¬ roded with the graft and inefficiency in¬ herited from the old regime, one cannot imagine public capitalism succeeding in Russia. Such an experiment should be tried only by a more developed people. If low productivity and waste cause the things produced by the factories to be very scarce and dear, the disgusted peas¬ ants may in time lose faith in the Trotzky- Lenine program and throw their support to a party that believes in private capital and individual enterprise. If the capital¬ ist entrepeneur should be let in again, it would be only for the sake of his social services. He would be subject to many restrictions in the public interest and would not be allowed to become master and exploiter, as he has been, in such marked degree as under the old regime. The new land policy is reactionary rather than progressive. Communal land holding is a drag on the advancement of the rural population. The Russian peasant lacks the valuable economic traits developed un¬ der the private ownership of land, and he will never be a self-reliant member of so¬ ciety until he gets them. Said an Ameri¬ can agricultural machinery agent who has spent thirteen years in Russia. “The peasant is a hard worker in the rush season, but not thrifty. He does not keep chores for a rainy day or a dull season in farming. Between whiles he is absolutely idle.” Another side light comes from a Lutheran pastor bred in Courland.. “The peasant is land hungry because he has no idea he can increase his produce by a more intensive cultivation. Unless he goes over to individual ownership and intensive farm¬ ing, the estates of the pomiestchiks will last him but a little while and then he will be as badly off as ever.” The equalization of the use of land and the prohibition of the hiring of labor kills economic ambition in the country and makes for agricultural stagnation, rural inertia and excessive multiplication. Rus¬ sia will never be able to free herself from mass poverty, unrest and explosion till she adopts, with ample safeguards of course, the system of individual property in the soil. Professor Walter, of Brown University, will write the lessons for July; Professor Hill, of New York University, for August, and Professor Furness, of Vassar College, for September. 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