Soviet Government's Move to Attract the Peasant-as a Purchaser: Comrade Rykoff's Story of Russia's Industrial Profits and the Scepticism of a Foreign Traveller.
Moscow, Oct. 28.
A. policy of lowering prices a view to enlarging the po market and consolidating the union between the proletariat and. the community is foreshadowed by Comrade Rykoff in an economic report to the Conference of the-All-Russia Communist Party, in which he lays stress upon the progress of electrification works and states that the coal output in the Don Basin has increased by 17,000,000 tons in two years, The Government counted on an' increase of 18 per céht. in the total coal output this year. He declared that the country's industry Inst year yielded a profit of Rbls. 500,000,000 while Rbls. 1,000,000,000 would be invested during the current yeat industrial development.
'The Workers' Point of View A traveller recently returned from Russia after a stay there of a con-alle number of months, was able, yesterday to gi esting light on conditions as he found them, As he rightly pointed out, the real question is not so much what foreigners, think of conditions in the country, but what the inhabitants think themselves. And it has to be said at the outset that those unable to see any further than the end of next week are perfectly satisfied with things as they are, A workman who can go into theatre and obtain the best possible seat at a very considerable reduction, because he is a worker: and does not earn enough to afford the proper tariff, is not likely to be anything but pleased, especially if it in the Rbls. 5 stalls, for ut not more than a rouble jew kopecks. So also another who wants bread, and is out work, is not likely to be offended by any government which forces the baker to supply the bread below cost, Generally speaking, according to tow they were during the Tsarist regime They are given fairly decent living accommodation, their hours are shorter and more regular, their pay is not at all bad, while so far social amenities are concerned, they are provided with clubs out of which. they get quite degree of enjoyment, even if sometimes they are housed in an old church, or in an. aristocratic club of the olden days.
But there is a fly in the ointment. The worker is not paying for all this, but the Government, and eventually the Government will have to find the money in the pockets of the proletariat which is at prenent having a remarkably good time. Thos in the clubs, the workman who is paying 20 kopecks a month for the privileges he is enjoying, may later on have to pay considerably more in the shape of taxes.
Dzershinsky's Opinion Indeed, even at this moment, business' observers state "that the Communist Government is practical, ly without fands. Dzershinsky, the infamous head of the Cheka, who short while back, bloodthirsty and ruthless as he undoubtedly was, was a man of keen brain. One of the last utterances he made before his death, speaking as the head of the economic bureau, was that the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.