Manufacturing in Russia
I
I FIRST became acquainted with the Russian factories in the fall of 1919, and it has been interesting to compare their condition then with their condition now.
Of one thing there is not the slightest doubt: in my two years’ acquaintance with Russia, there has been not the slightest improvement. On the other hand, the destruction has gone steadily on. Personally I am convinced that the rate of destruction is now greater than ever before. This is not hard to understand.
On my arrival in Moscow Lenin had given me liberty to travel, and to see and understand the production and transport system. In return for this opportunity to get acquainted with labor under Bolshevism, he asked me to tell him when I saw conditions not in accordance with American practice. Therefore, my long personal letter to him, in which I said that the factories of the Moscow district wore not producing, and that there was no prospect of any production in the immediate future. ‘The Red Army has won at the expense of the industries — the bone and sinew of our modem life. The result is almost complete exhaustion of the ways of communication and production. Most of your men in power in the industries are without experience or technical education. It is hard for me to see how it is possible for them to succeed.’ The reasons were obvious: a painful shortage of trained workmen, raw material and fuel, clothing and food for the workers, and transport. I also pointed out to him that the fact that the few remaining workmen were spoiled was equally serious. During the three years of the Revolution the propagandists had been preaching to them that now they were the owners and proprietors, and that, in the future, they were to live in luxury and idleness, as they were told the previous owners had done.
This constitutes a serious problem for future Russia. The present generation is so demoralized that there is no hope of their ever doing any satisfactory work. But this is not all: for the educational system has completely broken down under the Bolsheviki. The moral foundation, also, is destroyed, so that no one in the rising generation is being prepared for the rebuilding of destroyed Russia.
I was then asked to spend some time with Krassin, at this time Commissar of the Department of Ways of Communication. I took a look at the railway shops, the locomotive and car-building factories, and so forth. I found the condition here no better than in the other factories, although a greater effort was being made to keep the railroads running. One day I was talking with one of the former railroad managers about Persia. I remarked that it was to me very strange that Persia, a country larger than the German Empire, had no railroads. ‘True,’ he said, ‘but here in Russia there is a sixth of the world’s land-area with no railroads: but we are accustomed to them and feel their loss. Our industrial and economic life is built around our transport, and without it we are paralyzed.’ Krassin saw and understood the situation; yet it seemed desirable to him to continue to support the Bolsheviki.
It is common knowledge that there have been no exports, and almost no imports or production. This prepares one for the ruin everywhere. One is surprised by the almost complete absence of traffic, both passenger and freight, — especially the latter, — from the railroads. The commerce of the nation is dead. All the business houses of the cities are closed — except the very few small ones which have recently opened up. The pavements and sidewalks are in painfully bad repair. The buildings of Russia are constructed of cheap, sof( brick, with bad mortar, and plastered over the outside. Now that this has been neglected for six or seven years, the plaster is falling off and the moisture and frost are doing their destructive work. Roofs are leaking, through lack of repair and paint. Machinery and equipment are in bad repair and getting worse daily. With no repairs, the destruction is very rapid. And what is especially discouraging is that no one has any interest in anything but seizing, as best he can, the absolute daily necessities. There is a feeling among all the people that the experiment must sooner or later fail, and they feel, therefore, that anything that they do to support a system which is fundamentally wrong is worse than useless.
Take the big Amo automobile factory in Moscow, which was built by private capital under special encouragement from the old government. This is a very fine factory, with good transport, and buildings designed and built to accommodate this business. They have a complete equipment of the finest American machinery. Here the Bolos have a fine chance to succeed in factory-organization and production — except that Russia does not need autos as badly as it needs simple farm-machinery, clothing, fuel, and general household supplies. But Bolshevism will always waste much of its time on some fantastical whim, rather than on the practical necessities.
For full operation the factory would require about 6000 men — mostly skilled auto mechanics. At the time of my first acquaintance with it, it had about 1000 men, but only two or three skilled auto mechanics. They had no raw material and very little fuel. They were doing very little repair-work. The old government had bought a lot of White trucks for the war. As these were broken, they were sent to this factory and dismantled, and the good parts assembled into good trucks again. After a while, how ever, they ran short of motorparts and had some ninety trucks without motors. They decided to build a motor. They worked all winter trying to get one good motor-cylinder casting. They failed every time, partly because of lack of skill and partly because of absence of proper material.
The manager at this time was a rather able Russian engineer. He was hindered, however, on one side, by a management committee of ignorant workmen who had authority over him. He had no power to hire, discharge, or discipline without their consent. On the other side, he was given conflicting orders by the Auto-Building Department in Moscow, the Auto-Repair Department, the Food-Operating Department, the Food-Repair Department, and the Army Repair and Operating departments. All his holidays he spent at hard physical work with a gang of men about the factory, on the theory that all should be made to do some physical work.
I saw this factory again in June of this year. They had about the same number of men, but there was no sign of improvement. They have no basis on which to build — no fuel, no material, no trained workmen, no adequate transport. The new manager was threatening to quit if he did not get a proper place to live and better food. The factory has never been completed, and no one knows enough of the requirements of auto-building to be able to complete it. There is no incentive to work, and pay is entirely independent of production.
The Bromley Brothers factory in Moscow is also worthy of notice. It is one of the oldest industries, and was founded by an Englishman. They had good modern manufacturing methods before the Revolution, and they never stopped during the Revolution; therefore they had a chance to retain their old working force. It is not surprising, then, that the factory is still one of the best. They made machine-tools for other factories, and small gasoline motors. In the summer of 1919, this factory had the foresight to go into the country and prepare its winter woodsupply. In the fall, when they started to bring the fuel to their factory, the entire supply was confiscated by the War Department. Thus they had to struggle under fuel-shortage, both for fuel and for power.
It is such methods that have absolutely killed all initiative and thrift. If anyone, by energy and care and foresight, provides for himself, what he has is taken away and given to the shiftless, the careless, and the indolent. The peasant does not dare to procure or raise for himself two cows or horses or pigs. If he does, one is forcibly taken, and either confiscated by the government or given to his shiftless neighbor. The production of this factory consisted of axes and wood-cutters’ tools. But the production was extremely low — even in this department, perhaps, only five per cent of what it should have been under normal conditions. Mr. Bromley, the former owner and manager of the plant, worked in a government office, and the plant was being played with by this inexperienced committee of workmen.
Another comparatively ‘good’ plant in Russia is the International Harvester Company, near Moscow. It occupies the singular position of being the only plant of which I have heard that has not been ‘ Nationalized.’ Because the Bolos control the labor, the material, the fuel, the transport, and the product, they are in practically the same boat with all other factories. The chief difference is that the old management has succeeded in retaining some measure of control of the production. Their Soviet has meddled in housing, in food, in social affairs, health, and the rest, but the old manager has insisted that, when it comes to a technical matter of plant-operation, this belongs strictly to the technical staff.
The factory has a fine little hospital. The village tried to ‘Nationalize’ this, but the manager fought, and saved it for his employees, who appreciate it. Had it gone to the village, it would have been destroyed in a few weeks, and no one would have profited. There was a lockerand wash-room, with an individual steel locker for each man, and neat enamel wash-basins, with hot and cold water. The factory Soviet began an agitation for individual wash-basins as being more scientifically sanitary. This continued until the manager found a cure. One morning he stationed himself at the gate and grabbed each man who came in who had not washed since the previous day and said, ‘You did n’t wash last night’; for the shop-grease was still on his face in the morning. He found at least 75 per cent in this condition. After continuing this shaming process for a few mornings, they dropped the individual-basin fad.
Throughout the Revolution the factory never closed — except for three days, because of a strike. On the third day, the men called the manager before them. He asked them why they were striking, and t hey said,‘ We are cold and hungry.’
He replied, ‘Those are not my problems; they belong to your Soviet.’
‘Yes,’ they said, ‘but you get fuel and material and supplies for your factory. Why can you not get food and fuel for us?’
He replied, ‘All right; but if I take it into my hands, there is to be no divided responsibility. Your committee must not meddle.’
And so they went back to work. The manager bought food and supplies for them in quantities, and supplied them at cost.
This factory takes contracts or orders from the Government, and produces on a cost-plus-ten-per-cent basis; but out of the ten per cent the director and his chief assistants must live, so they just about break even. They have had to struggle against the most painful difficulties. Ever since I have known the factory, they have had to struggle with the fuel-shortage. First the Government tried to supply them with wood for fuel, power, and heating, but failed entirely. The Government then gave the manager a locomotive and railway cars, and allowed him to bring his own wood. He would send his men to the country, prepare and load the wood, and bring it in by train to his factory.
All over Russia the fuel-oil, coke, coal, and gas-burning furnaces, as well as locomotives, have been converted into wood-burning. This has made a great upheaval, and in the conversion has been very expensive. In the International Harvester plant there was not room for the larger wood-burning furnaces, and the change would have completely upset the old arrangement and factory-production system. Therefore, they insisted on coal and coke. Rikoff, head of the Supreme Council of National Economy, said, ‘ We are unable to get coal and coke for you, but you think you can get it. We will give you trains and help, and you can try for yourself.’ So, in the spring of 1920, the managers made up a train, carrying ‘mine-props’ south to the Donn Coal Basin in the Ukraine, with Red Soldier guards and workmen. The train returned a few weeks later with fuel enough to keep the furnaces running a few weeks longer.
II
One day I suggested to Lenin that better transport meant better food and raw material; more food and material meant better workmen; better workmen meant better production; better production meant better locomotives; and better locomotives meant better transport; and so, without better transport, there could be no hope of industrial betterment. Also that better transport required better locomotives, and better locomotives again depended on locomotive-repair, so that the fundamental and first step in betterment should be locomotive-repair. This, then, like electrification later, became a slogan of the administration. An order was issued that locomotives requiring repair should be taken into all factories; and that for every locomotive repaired, the crew of workmen should receive a bonus in Soviet cash, and be permitted to take the locomotive for a trip into the country to bring food for themselves.
As a result, we had the strange spectacle of locomotive-repairing shoved into all kinds of plants, where previously there had been no spur-tracks, no pits, and no appropriate equipment, or skilled workmen; and at the same time all the locomotive-building and repair plants of Russia were standing practically idle. The order was that locomotive-repairing should be taken only where it did not interfere with regular production. As there was no regular production worth mentioning, this was not a serious consideration; but if there had been, it would have been destroyed by the upheaval. In spite of the bonus and the trip to the country, the locomotives got only ‘a lick and a promise,’with the further advantage to the workers that they were soon back again for a further bonus and another trip to the country.
The proposal to bring locomotive-repair into the International Harvester plant caused the manager and his superintendent three weeks of the hardest kind of lighting; for it would have destroyed the little nucleus they have preserved. They finally won. The manager used to say that the man won who, could talk the longest, the fastest, and the loudest. He used to remark laughingly that, if his company ever returned, they would fire him saying, ‘We want work. You can do nothing but talk.’ The production of the factory is painfully low. Fine, large, expensive automatic machines, developed in the United States, were standing idle for want of competent workmen. They had tried to operate them with rough workmen, only to find that the machines were being destroyed. Russian workmen cannot read drawings; therefore, models have to be made for the worker.
The manager used to come to me with his troubles. One question that worried him a lot. was, ‘Does my company wish me to keep control of this factory? Does it not, rather, want to abandon it?’ Before the Revolution it cost 25 per cent more to make farmmachinery in Russia than to make it in America and deliver it in Russia; and this difference was made up by a bonus from the Tsar’s Government . Now that the better workmen were gone, the moral foundation destroyed, and no prospect of a government bonus after Bolshevism, he was greatly in doubt whether his company in America did not desire to abandon the factory. When the British subjects were sent home, that took the superintendent and several of the office and executive staff, still further crippling the manager, who stuck to his post.
His workmen used to complain that they had to work for the money they drew in wages, while in neighboring plants the men drew wages and attended to personal and private affairs. The workmen and foremen were constantly asking him for permits to leave. At first he granted their requests (it must be remembered that one cannot quit his job — one can scarcely breathe in Russia without an official permit); but then he saw that they were not. bettering themselves, so he decided to grant no more discharges. In one city office, the manager told me, he had twenty clerks and helpers, but the work they did was less than would have been done by two clerks in the old days. But he could not complain, for they would answer that they were cold and hungry. If he urged them, or threatened discharge, they would reply, ‘Good, give me my discharge; I shall be glad to be free to go to the country.’
I speak at length of this International Harvester factory, for there conditions have been such that, if anywhere in Russia, successful production was possible. It only proves that, under Bolshevism, factory production and success are unthinkable and impossible.
Another factory that deserves attention is the Russian-American Instrument Company. This is looked upon as one of the most successful factories in Russia, and is pointed to with pride by the Bolos as an example of what they can do in factory management. The driving force behind this factory is a group of mechanics who some years ago emigrated to America. There they learned American methods, and organized a coöperative factory for tool-making. When the Revolution came, these men returned to Russia, from patriotic motives. Duringthewar they were making $50, $60, and even $75 per week in America. Many of them had American wives. They returned to Russia in 1918. Finally, after many delays, they found a spinning-mill in Moscow, which was idle. They took the spinning machinery out of this new concrete building and installed their American tool-making machinery. This was in the fall of 1919. They have been two years getting this little factory running. But their difficulties have been very great. Little matters of shafting, hangers, pulleys, belts, nails, screws, and the like, require lots of time and long delays. They are making taps, dies, reamers, drills, for other metal-working factories.
Their difficulties are the old story of shortage of material, food, fuel, transport, and so forth. The raw stock is from the old pre-Revolutionary days, and picked up from all over Russia. The quality is bad. They tried to increase their working force by taking some of the new Russian emigrants from America; but this proved a failure, so they have trained women and unskilled workers to operate machines which they themselves prepare. In July of 1921 they had a working force of about 350 persons. They received a pound and one half of bread daily, which was more than the hands in other factories got. At noon they got a little soup, served at, the factory. Once a month, they got some veget ables and meat for home use. The 60 tool-makers made the highest; wages, but none of them could live on the wages and food they received from the Government. Every week they were selling in the market clothing brought with them from America, safety-razors, and personal things, for bare necessities in the way of tood. i he shoes and clothing they were selling they would need badly in the coming winter; but they said that they dared not think of the winter or of the future. They could consider only their present hunger.
In July they demanded better food and clothing and living conditions, of the government. One of them confided to me that they knew t hat the Government could not meet their demands, for it had nothing to give. In case of failure, they said, they would quit this factory and start, a coöperative of their own. Before leaving Moscow, they had received a refusal from the Government, and had started their own cooperative. They were the life of this factory and their withdrawal meant, its certain destruction. They had brought a certain skill from America and had enthusiasm. Because they had been somewhat successful in America, the Bolos were anxious that they set an example of American manufacturing methods for the rest of Russia. Therefore, they were given more freedom, and because of that freedom their very small success was possible.
III
During my two years in Russia, it has been my impression that most of the reporters visiting that country have been men without knowledge of Russian life, and without experience in industrial and economic affairs. They have come to Russia under severe restrictions. They are assigned a Bolo interpreter, who lets them see and hear just what passes the Bolo censorship. They are given a fine house to live in, good food, an automobile to ride in, and they are piloted as often as possible to the theatre, the ballet, and the concerts (which in Russia are the best in the world), and shown the Bolo showplaces. The brevity of their stay in Russia and their ignorance of the language cut them off from an understanding of the real conditions.
I recall one striking example of this, He was a reporter on a well-known American daily. He had been in Moscow, I remember, about three months. His Bolo interpreter had never allowed him to get into a factory, or to see anything of the real deprivations of the average man or of the destruction of the economic foundation.
At the time he came to ’interview’ me, he expected to leave Moscow in two or three days. On going to Russia he was quite strongly pro-Bolshevist. On the day previous to his call on me he had interviewed Rikoff, head of the Supreme Council of National Economy (controlling and operating all means of production and ways of communication). Rikoff’s story, as related by him, was substantially as follows. The condition of industrial Russia was all that could be desired. The coal-mines in the south were running about 75 per cent capacity, and were rapidly approaching full pre-Revolutionary standards. Locomotive-building had been standardized, — a big locomotive and a little one, with standardized parts, — and American mass-production methods had been introduced, running at 80 per cent of normal capacity. Similar ridiculous figures were given for the shipping, the mines, the general factories, the transport, the telephones and telegraph, and general business. And all this he had cabled the previous day to his paper in America.
I asked him if he believed all this Bolo propaganda, and he was quite shocked and insulted, and said, ‘Of course, you can’t doubt figures coming from such a source.’
I replied, ‘Is it possible you have been here four months, and know so little of the Bolsheviki?’ I told him I did very seriously doubt the accuracy of his interview with Rikoff; and that, if he would pay the droshky-hire, I would give my time to show him some actual conditions in the wonderfully efficient industries.
To this he agreed, and the next day we set out exploring. I selected the big Gouzshon factory, which had been, previous to the Revolution, one of the finest and most important of Russia. Formerly they employed about 6000 men, and made basic raw products for other industries — such as structural iron and steel, wire-rope, steel-plate, and tin-plate. I took my reporter friend to one of the former chief officers of the plant and asked him to show us around.
The greater part of the factory was entirely closed down, the roofs leaking, the equipment damaged and rusty.
As we walked through the idle buildings, I asked the officer (for the benefit of the reporter) what was the greatest need of his factory; and he promptly replied, ‘A proprietor.’ The sheet iron that they make, when it is squared up, leaves a lot of bulky waste strips of iron. This they put in a ‘baling press,’ to compress it into compact cubes for return to the melting cupola. The uneducated, inexperienced workman who ran this press is now general manager of the entire factory; that is, he is chairman of the workmen’s Soviet.
This was a magnificent pre-Re volution factory, and a necessity to Russian industrial life; but now it is dead. The official figures of the factory show less than two per cent of the normal capacity. The old managers have no control. Discipline is destroyed. The technical manager cannot hire or discharge. The workmen have a room set aside for their meetings, and many times a week, when someone suggests something, they all drop their work and assemble to discuss the matter. It is not hard to understand the result when one realizes that the incentive to work is gone.
I gave my journalistic acquaintance a list of the other principle factories of the Moscow district, and he stayed over another month, dodged his Bolo interpreter, and got his first look at real Bolo Russia uncensored. As a result, he had become, when he did leave, one of the strongest anti-Bolo writers.
One day I visited the fine new locomotive-building factory at Moorem, a night’s ride east from Moscow. I had two special cars of guides and experts, most of whom, I found later, volunteered their services because it was a chance to get into t he country to buy food. We arrived at Moorem Saturday morning, and at once secured droshkies and proceeded to the Saturday market, where the forenoon was spent in making purchases — potatoes, butter, flour, bread, meat, and vegetables. The wagons were secured and the party started back to our cars; but the Department of Food inspectors were at the station where our cars stood, and they did n’t dare to break the rules so openly. Therefore, the switchmen were bribed, and our cars were taken to the roundhouse under some pretext. There the wagons came, and the supply of provisions was loaded on and the cars taken back to the railway station. There the inspectors were suspicious, and wanted their tip: so they threatened to invade our cars. This required more bribing.
By this time it was late afternoon, and we took a hurried walk through the locomotive works. Sunday morning, shopping was resumed, and in the afternoon the party went to the old company dining-room — a fine brick building which the Bolos had turned into a movie-theatre. Much time was spent in discussing plans for its enlargement and improvement as a place of amusement. Later, we looked at the houses formerly belonging to the factory. A landscape gardener was in the party, and there was much talk of beautifying the place and enlarging the housing capacity.
By this time it was night, and we started back to Moscow. On Monday our train was late, arriving at noon. Our cars were stopped far back in the yard, to allow the food to be taken off and smuggled out to wagons, to avoid the law and the food inspectors. This required much more bribing. Here was a group of high government officials spending their official time breaking the law and smuggling in food in violation of the food-rules. I should say that fully 90 per cent of our time was spent on the food-problem, and, say, eight per cent on the impractical ideal socialistic amusement-and-beautifying question, and two per cent on the sober question of actually building locomotives. I went to Russia to see the effect of Bolshevism on industry, and the above is a fair example of the result. It is my desire to make clear the vivid impressions which I received in this respect, and therefore I must point to still other examples.
IV
Near Moscow, at Podolsk, a private company had almost completed a wirecable factory. It was suitable for locomotive-repairing in just one respect — it was big. The Bolos decided to turn it into a locomotive-repair plant. To appreciate this, one must remember that Russia had several locomotive-repair and building plants, standing idle for want of raw material, workmen, fuel, power, food and clothing, transport, and the rest. But it was finer propaganda to be able to say that they were building a new factory according to improved Bolo standards, than to let it become known that they were failing to operate the finely equipped existing factories. The new factory idea diverted attention and made the people think they were doing some real work. At my first visit to the factory, they had had a thousand men working for several months. They had developed highly theoretical plans for scientific management, according to American standards, — only improved, — and production plans galore. A few weeks later they repaired their first locomotive, and, according to the locomotive-repair decree, mentioned above, they took it with a train of cars, and went to the country for food.
How characteristically Russian! Think of it! A locomotive, a train of cars, a thousand men weighing each, say, four poods, going two hundred versts in the country, tying up railway equipment and the whole factory lotthree days, and each man bringing back an official allowance of two poods ot flour. I admit that each man broke the law and brought more than his legal allowance, but it does n’t change my picture very much. And what happened in this case was happening in all plants where locomotive-repair work was being done.
At Podolsk is also the big American Singer factory. It is cold and dead, except that it makes a few small locomotive parts for its neighbor, the locomotive-repair factory above referred to.
In Moscow is another small factory where the conditions for success are very favorable to the Bolos. This is a scythe factory — the simple little farmer’s instrument for cutting his hay and grain by hand. It must be remembered that the Russian farmer not only has not the American mowing machine and reaper, but is extremely short of such simple instruments as scythes and sickles.
This factory has enough fine Swedish steel specially suited to scythe-making to last it for several years. This was bought by the old government, and therefore the Bolos are put to no expense for material. Since there was an unlimited supply of material, the Bolos decided to supply the factory with plenty of fuel and power, it being so necessary to have scythes for the farmer. Without production here, there is danger that in a short time the farmer will lose his crop because he has no means of harvesting it. At the time I visited the factory first, the workmen were getting a ridiculously low salary compared with the cost of living, and only five eighths of a pound of bread daily, with foodcards calling for certain monthly supplies. The workmen could not live, and the manager complained that he must close down if aid did not come. His skilled workers were constantly leaving. Their earnings were increased a little, as in most other factories, by systematic stealing of goods to be sold in the market. Power-hammers were used, but no dies, and great skill was required in drawing out the slender blade. One false blow spoiled the scythe. A long time was required to train new workmen. Because there were many such, the scrap was very large. Here the causes of failure were greatly reduced. It could be ascribed only to lack of incentive, and this in turn was due to the Bolo standards and foundation-plan, as well as to lack of proper food, clothing, and living conditions. But the fact remained that, under conditions most favorable to the Bolos, there was no appreciable success.
Early in 1920, after the coal-fields and the south of Russia had been won back, there was much talk of the wonderful new development that would come now that they again had coal. As I was talking one day with Lenin, he asked me to go down to see the locomotive factory at Harkof. He told me that, since they needed locomotives and now had plenty of fuel, this factory would at once be put in full operation. As I left Lenin’s office, I met on the street a Mr. Shure, formerly a mechanic in the employ of the International Harvester Company, in America, and now head of the ‘ Gomsa ’ or machine-building branch of the Supreme Economic Council. I told him what Lenin had suggested, and he replied: ’Oh, if that plant, runs we must supply fuel from Moscow —and a great, chance it has of getting fuel, has it not?’
His department was responsible for the operation of this locomotive factory, and he and his associates had just made a trip south, to inspect the situation. He told me, what I afterward confirmed, that there was almost no coal in the south. There were the coalmines to be sure, but they were not operating. The alternating periods of war and anarchy had left, them prostrate. They were flooded, the machinery out of order or completely destroyed, and there was no timber for mine-props. Also, there was not enough labor, and practically no skilled coalminers. The coal-mines have never operated, and even to-day there is practically no production. The production comes from the small mines which have not been nationalized.
Much more might be said of the general factories in the Moscow district, and of the railroad shops which I saw personally, but there is nothing of sufficient interest to justify mentioning it here, except that there is no appreciable production, or sign of life or improvement. In fact, there is every indication of continued destruction. Buildings are going to pieces, and machines are suffering for want of repairs. The production is infinitesimal compared with the requirements of great Russia; and the little that they do get is only at the expense of the stock of raw material inherited from the previous government. And what is said of Moscow may be said of the whole of Bolo Russia, except that in no other city are the prospects and possibilities so favorable as in Moscow.
V
From my first, acquaintance with Russia, in 1919, I have said that Germany is the only solution for Russian Bolshevism; that Germany is the only power that can restore order in Russia — that can rebuild Russia. Germany needs Russia, and Russia needs Germany. Germany knows Russia, her people, her character, her weaknesses, her natural wealth. Russia needs and must have the executive ability, the technical skill, and the military discipline of the German. Russia has the population, the farms, the raw material, and the natural wealth, and Germany has the organizing ability and the manufacturing resources.
I see in the world to-day no power that can prevent the union of Germany and Russia. Both will quickly rebuild, and both will regain their power; but the power will be directed by Germany. Germany has had her commerce, her shipping, her colonies cut off from the West, and her salvation is in Russia. This is the inevitable result, and the sooner we in America realize this, the better. If, instead of fighting the inevitable, we face the facts, and join our capital and wealth and knowledge of big business with Germany’s knowledge of Russia, and her favorable location and ability to solve the Russian question, we shall profit.
That all of Russia is in danger of death by starvation, nobody doubts. Those of us who have watched during the past two years the wholesale slaughter and destruction carried on by the Bolsheviki, expected nothing else. I have discussed with hundreds of people the inevitable coming of the day of hunger and nakedness for all Russia. The food-production has been rapidly decreasing, because of the complete killing of initiative in the peasant, and of the large number of peasants in the Red army, and the absence of farm-tools, seed-grain, clothing, horses, harnesses, and stock. There has been no appreciable production in the past four years, and the consumption has been largely at the expense of the pre-Revolutionary supply. The Bolos have stolen from their predecessors locomotives and transport equipment, telegraph and telephones, clothing, automobiles, tools and factory equipment, the houses they live in, and gold and jewelry. And now, as the end is reached, starvation and nakedness are inevitable.