peasants, and 15 per cent are intellectuals. Although fourteen out of the sixteen Peoples' Commissars of two years ago were professional men or university graduates, yet this class is held under suspicion unless they have been seasoned in prison or enlisted in the cause before the revolution of 1905. The trade unions are an integral part of the machinery of state organization. They have their representatives in nearly all important industrial and political bodies. They have the right to nominate candidates for nearly all important offices in industry or government, in the management of each factory and trust. By the Labor Code of 1922 they are given large powers in fixing wages, working hours and conditions of labor. Where labor demands, as it frequently does, increased wages, shorter hours or better working conditions, labor also, as represented in industrial management and government must answer the question, Where is the money to come from? As yet there has never been enough to go round, never enough to carry out the reforms for education, social insurance, and increased wages which all desire. The worker in Russia has more power and less wages than in other industrial countries. Thus far he has succeeded in securing favorable labor legislation and industrial and political control, but not in the production of enough "surplus value" to improve his economic condition.

Members of the trade unions are given special privilege in education, in schools for workers to prepare them for the universities, to which they must be admitted after a three-year course without examination.

The government has aimed at and achieved a large measure of social equalization. In general, a single standard of living has been established. Apart from a few secret profiteers no gross inequalities of fortune exist, for the

reason that all are poor together. Life has been levelled down rather than up. Lenine and the Soviet leaders get a salary not exceeding two dollars a day, with certain allowances and privileges. They are men of simple life, who daily sacrifice for a cause that has for them the force of a religion. But in many respects the early decrees and efforts of the Party to achieve power, privilege and comfort for the working class have failed.

In some cases, such as social insurance, the legislation remains but is still partially ineffective, owing to insufficient funds. In other cases new legislation has withdrawn the privileges granted to the workers, which proved harmful or impossible of fulfillment. An example of this is found in workers' control of the factories. This was tried and proved a failure under existing conditions, as it did later in Italy, and as it did in the Russian army when soldiers' committees endeavored to take the place of the officers. It is difficult to conduct an orchestra by a divided committee or soviet; someone has to beat time and be the sole director for the moment.

On November 14, 1917, a Workers' Control Decree gave the workers almost complete supervision of industries, including the purchase and sale of raw materials and manufactures. After disastrous experiences of mismanagement, in May, 1921, the law was repealed, workers' control was abolished, individual management was restored and in some instances former owners were put in charge. On December 28, 1921, the central committee of the Communist Party, in agreement with the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, adopted the following resolution covering largescale industry: "Conditions in Russia unquestionably demand concentration of all power in the hands of the management of the factories. The direct intervention of

trade unions in the management of undertakings is also inadmissible."

There is now a steady evolutionary development of labor within revolutionary Russia. Forced labor has been abolished. Membership in a trade union is no longer compulsory, but it is almost universal because there are so many advantages of membership and such limitations placed upon "free" labor. Strikes are no longer forbidden as antirevolutionary. Competition is now resorted to between the state and co-operative and private industries, while scientific management, piece work, special rewards for excellence and many other devices to stimulate production are resorted to.

There is also a growing tendency toward the recognition of certain rights of private property in Russia. In a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Council in May, 1922, citizens were granted the right to hold property which had not already been municipalized and to transfer it by rental contracts. Private persons can acquire land on a forty-nine-year lease from local authorities and build upon it. Individuals may hold all movable property, including capital, factories, shops and personal property. Security of copyright, inventions and trade-marks were restored. Property may be mortgaged or bequeathed to one's family up to the value of $5,000. Property expropriated by revolutionary laws was not restored. But with increased intercourse and trade relations conditions in Russia are constantly approximating those of other nations.

An impartial perusal of Labor Legislation in the Labor Code of 1922 reveals the fact that the new Government of Russia in five years has produced a more advanced body of legislation on paper than many other countries in a century. Almost the first law passed was for an eight-hour day

1 Labor Conditions in Soviet Russia. International Labor Office, Geneva, pp. 48, 49.

and a forty-eight-hour week, a law which a century after the industrial revolution has never been enacted in Britain or America. Work is limited to 8 hours for day work, 7 for night work and 6 for unhealthy industries. Every worker has the right to a weekly rest of 42 hours, if possible on Sunday. Women are safeguarded from night work, overtime and unhealthy industries. Provision on full wages is made for mothers for 8 weeks before and 8 weeks after confinement. Créches or homes are provided for the Ichildren of workers.

For young persons the normal working day must not exceed 6 hours from 16 to 18 years, and 4 hours for 14 to 16. Children under 14 are not allowed to work.2 In glaring contrast to the factories in China, Japan, and the backward states in America, the writer saw no child workers in any factory in Russia.

An elaborate plan of Social Insurance is provided by levying from 12 to 28 per cent of the wage bill upon all industries, state or private. This covers the cost of sickness, accidents, incapacity for work, forced unemployment, confinement for women, old age and burial. "The Russian proletariat has taken as its motto the complete social insurance of salaried workers as well as the poor in the towns and villages." Until industry becomes more profitable, however, and more successful in production, funds are inadequate for the fulfillment of more than a part of this program.

We may look upon Russia as a vast laboratory for social experiment. In a world fettered and bound by conservative custom and tradition, with its incubus and inheritance

1 Izvestia, October 31, 1917, No. 212. Authorization for work overtime in certain cases specified by law may be obtained temporarily through the trade union or labor inspectorate for men over eighteen.

2 The labor laws in this chapter are taken from the Russian Labor Code published in 1922.

of medievalism and absolutism, its uncorrected results of a laissez-faire industrial revolution, its enormous injustices and inequalities, its masses often in poverty and ignorance, without adequate opportunity for expression or self-realization, it may be of some real value to have at least one country free to test certain theories by a system of trial and error. In so far as they are true they will eventually succeed, but where they are false they will finally fail. If we have open minds we shall learn much both from the success and failure of the good and the evil in Russia. We repeat that even as they had the sagacity to profit by their mistakes and adopt a new economic policy, so they and the new world of labor may yet learn valuable lessons in this great laboratory of life. If Russia finally succeeds industrially she will make a profound impression upon the world.