Some idea of the extent to which the principle of compulsory labor was applied to the bourgeoisie, as suggested by Lenin, can be gathered from the numerous references to the subject in the official Bolshevist press, especially in the late summer and early autumn of 1918. The extracts here cited are entirely typical: as early as April 17, 1918, Izvestia published a report by Larine, one of the People’s Commissaries, on the government of Moscow, in which he said: “A redistribution of manual labor must be made by an organized autonomous government composed of workers; compulsory labor for workmen must be prohibited; it would subject the proletariat to the peasants and on the whole could be of no use, seeing the general stoppage of all labor. Compulsion can be used only for those who have no need to work for their living—members of heretofore ruling classes.” Bednota, an official organ of the Communist Party, on September 20, 1918, published an interesting item from the Government of Smolensk, saying: “We shall soon have a very interesting community: we are bringing together all the landed proprietors of the district, are assigning them one property, supplying them with the necessary inventory, and making them work. Come and see this miracle! It is evident that this community is strictly guarded. The affair seems to promise well.”

Here are seven typical news items from four issues of Bednota, the date of the paper being given after each item:

The mobilization of the bourgeoisie.—In the Government of Aaratov the bourgeoisie is mobilized. The women mend the sacks, the men clear the ruins from a big fire. In the Government of Samara the bourgeois from 18 to 50 years of age, not living from the results of their labor, are also called up. (September 19, 1918.)

Viatka, 24th September.—The mobilization of the idlers (bourgeois) has been decided. (September 26, 1918.)

Nevel, 26th September.—The executive committee has decreed the mobilization of the bourgeoisie in town and country. All the bourgeois in fit state to work are obliged to do forced labor without remuneration. (September 27, 1918.)

Kostroma, 26th September.—The mobilized bourgeoisie is working at the paving of the streets. (September 27, 1918.)

The executive committee of the Soviet of the Government of Moscow has decided to introduce in all the districts the use of forced labor for all persons from 18 to 50 years of age, belonging to the non-working class. (September 27, 1918.)

Voronege, 28th September.—The poverty committee has decided to call up all the wealthy class for communal work (ditch-making, draining the marshes, etc.). (September 29, 1918.)

Svotschevka, 28th September.—The concentration of the bourgeoisie is being proceeded with and the transfer of the poor into commodious and healthy dwellings. The bourgeois is cleaning the streets. (September 29, 1918.)

From other Bolshevist journals a mass of similar information might be cited. Thus Goloss Krestianstva, October 1, 1918, said: “Mobilization of the parasites.—Odoeff, 28th September.—The Soviet of the district has mobilized the bourgeoisie, the priests, and other parasites for public works: repairing the pavements, cleaning the pools, and so on.” On October 6, 1918, Pravda reported: “Chembar.—The bourgeoisie put to compulsory work is repairing the pavements and the roads.” On October 11th the same paper reported Zinoviev as saying, in a speech: “If you come to Petrograd you will see scores of bourgeoisie laying the pavement in the courtyard of the Smolny.... I wish you could see how well they unload coal on the Neva and clean the barracks.” Izvestia, October 19, 1918, published this: “Orel.—To-day the Orel bourgeoisie commenced compulsory work to which it was made liable. Parties of the bourgeoisie, thus made to work, are cleaning the streets and squares from rubbish and dirt.” The Krasnaya Gazeta, October 16, 1918, said, “Large forces of mobilized bourgeoisie have been sent to the front to do trench work.” Finally, the last-named journal on November 6, 1918, said: “The District Extraordinary Commission (Saransk) has organized a camp of concentration for the local bourgeoisie and kulaki.68 The duties of the confined shall consist in keeping clean the town of Saransk. The existence of the camp will be maintained at the expense of the same bourgeoisie.”

That a great and far-reaching social revolution should deny to the class overthrown the right to live in idleness is neither surprising nor wrong. A Socialist revolution could not do other than insist that no person able to work be entitled to eat without rendering some useful service to society. No Socialist will criticize the Bolsheviki for requiring work from the bourgeoisie. What is open to criticism and condemnation is the fact that compulsory labor for the bourgeoisie was not a measure of socialization, but of stupid vengeance. The bourgeois members of society were not placed upon an equality with other citizens and told that they must share the common lot and give service for bread. Instead of that, they were made a class apart and set to the performance of tasks selected only to degrade and humiliate them. In almost every reference to the subject appearing in the official Bolshevist press we observe that the bourgeoisie—the class comprising the organizers of industry and business and almost all the technical experts in the country—was set to menial tasks which the most illiterate and ignorant peasants could better do. Just as high military officers were set to digging trenches and cleaning latrines, so the civilian bourgeoisie were set to cleaning streets, removing night soil, and draining ditches, and not even given a chance to render the vastly greater services they were capable of, in many instances; services, moreover, of which the country was in dire need. A notable example of this stupidity was when the advocates of Saratov asked the local Soviet authorities to permit them to open up an idle soap-factory to make soap, of which there was a great scarcity. The reply given was that “the bourgeoisie could not be suffered to be in competition with the working-class.” Not only was this a brutal policy, in view of the fact that the greater part of the bourgeoisie had been loyal to the March Revolution; it was as stupid and short-sighted as it was brutal, for it did not, and could not, secure the maximum services of which these elements were capable. It is quite clear that, instead of being dominated by the generous idealism of Socialism, they were mastered by hatred and a passion for revenge.

Of course the policy pursued toward the bourgeoisie paved the way, as Lenin intended it to do, for the introduction of the principle of compulsory labor in general. By pandering to the lowest instincts and motives of the unenlightened masses, causing them to rejoice at the enslavement of the formerly rich and powerful, as well as those only moderately well-to-do, Lenin and his satellites knew well that they were surely undermining the moral force of those who rejoiced, so that later they would be incapable of strong resistance against the application of the same tyranny to themselves. The publication of the Code of Labor Laws, in 1919, was the next step. This code contains 193 regulations with numerous explanatory notes, with all of which the ordinary workman, who is a conscript in the fullest sense of the word, is presumed to be familiar. Only a few of its outstanding features can be noted here. The principle of compulsion and the extent of its application are stated in the first article of the Code:

Article I
On Compulsory Labor

1. All citizens of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, with the exceptions stated in Section 2 and 3, shall be subject to compulsory labor.

2. The following persons shall be exempt from compulsory labor:

(a) Persons under 16 years of age;

(b) All persons over 50 years;

(c) Persons who have become incapacitated by injury or illness.

3. Temporarily exempt from compulsory labor are:

(a) Persons who are temporarily incapacitated owing to illness or injury, for a period necessary for their recovery.

(b) Women, for a period of 8 weeks before and 8 weeks after confinement.

4. All students shall be subject to compulsory labor at the schools.

5. The fact of permanent or temporary disability shall be certified after a medical examination by the Bureau of Medical Survey in the city, district or province, by accident insurance office or agencies representing the former, according to the place of residence of the person whose disability is to be certified.

Note I. The rules on the method of examination of disabled workmen are appended hereto.

Note II. Persons who are subject to compulsory labor and are not engaged in useful public work may be summoned by the local Soviets for the execution of public work, on conditions determined by the Department of Labor in agreement with the local Soviets of trades-unions.

6. Labor may be performed in the form of:

(a) Organized co-operation;

(b) Individual personal service;

(c) Individual special jobs.

7. Labor conditions in government (Soviet) establishments shall be regulated by tariff rules approved by the Central Soviet authorities through the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

8. Labor conditions in all establishments (Soviet, nationalized, public, and private) shall be regulated by tariff rules drafted by the trades-unions, in agreement with the directors or owners of establishments and enterprises, and approved by the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

Note. In cases where it is impossible to arrive at an understanding with the directors or owners of establishments or enterprises, the tariff rules shall be drawn up by the trades-unions and submitted for approval to the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

9. Labor in the form of individual personal service or in the form of individual special jobs shall be regulated by tariff rules drafted by the respective trades-unions and approved by the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

It will be observed that this subjection to labor conscription applies to “all citizens” except for certain exempted classes. Women, therefore, are equally liable with men, except for a stated period before and after childbirth. It will also be observed that apparently a great deal of control is exercised by the trades-unions. We must bear in mind, however, at every point, that the trades-unions in Soviet Russia are not free and autonomous organs of the working-class. A free trades-union—that is, a trades-union wholly autonomous and independent of government control, does not exist in Russia. The actual status of Russian trades-unions is set forth in the resolution adopted at the ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, in March, 1920, which provides, that “All decisions of the All-Russian Central Soviet of Trades-Unions concerning the conditions and organization of labor are obligatory for all trades-unions and the members of the Communist Party who are employed in them, and can be canceled only by the Central Committee of the Party.” The hierarchy of the Communist Party is supreme, the trades-unions, the co-operatives, and the Soviet Government itself being subordinate to it.

Article II deals with the manner in which the compulsion to labor is to be enforced. Paragraph 16 of this article provides that “the assignment of wage-earners to work shall be carried out through the Departments of Labor Distribution.” Paragraph 24 reads as follows: “An unemployed person has no right to refuse an offer of work at his vocation, provided the working conditions conform with the standards fixed by the respective tariff regulations, or in the absence of the same by the trades-unions.” Paragraphs 27 to 30, inclusive, show the extraordinary power of the Departments of Labor Distribution over the workers:

27. Whenever workers are required for work outside of their district, a roll-call of the unemployed registered in the Department of Labor Distribution shall take place, to ascertain who are willing to go; if a sufficient number of such should not be found, the Department of Labor Distribution shall assign the lacking number from among the unemployed in the order of their registration, provided that those who have dependents must not be given preference before single persons.

28. If in the Departments of Labor Distribution, within the limits of the district, there be no workmen meeting the requirements, the District Exchange Bureau has the right, upon agreement with the respective trades-union, to send unemployed of another class approaching as nearly as possible the trade required.

29. An unemployed person who is offered work outside his vocation shall be obliged to accept it, on the understanding, if he so wishes, that this be only temporary, until he receives work at his vocation.

30. A wage-earner who is working outside his specialty, and who has stated his wish that this be only temporary, shall retain his place on the register on the Department of Labor Distribution until he gets work at his vocation.

It is quite clear from the foregoing that the Department of Labor Distribution can arbitrarily compel a worker to leave a job satisfying to him or her and to accept another job and remain at it until given permission to leave. The worker may be compelled by this power to leave a desirable job and take up a different line of work, or even to move to some other locality. It is hardly possible to imagine a device more effective in liquidating personal grudges or effecting political pressure. One has only to face the facts of life squarely in order to recognize the potentiality for evil embodied in this system. What is there to prevent the Soviet official removing the “agitator,” the political opponent, for “the good of the party”? What man wants his sister or daughter to be subject to the menace of such power in the hands of unscrupulous officials? There is not the slightest evidence in the record of Bolshevism so far as it has been tried in Russia to warrant the assumption that only saints will ever hold office in the Departments of Labor Distribution.

Article V governs the withdrawal of wage-earners from jobs which do not satisfy them. Paragraph 51 of this article clearly provides that a worker can only be permitted to resign if his reasons are approved by what is described as the “respective organ of workmen’s self-government.” Paragraph 52 provides that if the resignation is not approved by this authority “the wage-earner must remain at work, but may appeal from the decision of the committee to the respective professional unions.” Provision is made for fixing the remuneration of labor by governmental authority. Article VI, Paragraph 55, provides that “the remuneration of wage-earners for work in enterprises, establishments, and institutions employing paid labor ... shall be fixed by tariffs worked out for each kind of labor.” Paragraph 57 provides that “in working out the tariff rates and determining the standard remuneration rates, all the wage-earners of a trade shall be divided into groups and categories and a definite standard of remuneration shall be fixed for each of them.” Paragraph 58 provides that “the standard of remuneration fixed by the tariff rates must be at least sufficient to cover the minimum living expenses as determined by the People’s Commissariat of Labor for each district of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic.” Paragraph 60 provides that “the remuneration of each wage-earner shall be determined by his classification in a definite group and category.” Paragraph 61, with an additional note, explains the method of thus classifying wage-earners. “Valuation commissions” are established by the “professional organizations” and their procedure is absolutely determined by the local Soviet official called the Commissariat of Labor. If a worker receives more than the standard remuneration fixed, “irrespective of the pretext and form under which it might be offered and whether it be paid in only one or in several places of employment”—Paragraph 65—the excess amount so received may be deducted from his next wages, according to Paragraph 68.

The amount of work to be performed each day is arbitrarily assigned. Thus, Article VIII, Paragraph 114, provides that “every wage-earner must during a normal working-day and under normal working conditions perform the standard amount of work fixed for the category and group in which he is enrolled.” According to Paragraph 118 of the same article, “a wage-earner systematically producing less than the fixed standard may be transferred by decision of the proper valuation commission to other work in the same group and category, or to a lower group or category, with a corresponding reduction of wages.” If it is judged that his failure to maintain the normal output is due to lack of good faith and to negligence, he may be discharged without notice.

An appendix to Section 80 provides that every wage-earner must carry a labor booklet. The following description of this booklet shows how thoroughly registered and controlled labor is in Sovdepia:

1. Every citizen of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, upon assignment to a definite group and category (Section 62 of the present Code), shall receive, free of charge, a labor booklet.

Note. The form of the labor booklets shall be worked out by the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

2. Each wage-earner, on entering the employment of an enterprise, establishment, or institution employing paid labor, shall present his labor booklet to the management thereof, and on entering the employment of a private individual—to the latter.

Note. A copy of the labor booklet shall be kept by the management of the enterprise, establishment, institution, or private individual by whom the wage-earner is employed.

3. All work performed by a wage-earner during the normal working-day as well as piece-work or overtime work, and all payments received by him as a wage-earner (remuneration in money or in kind, subsidies from the unemployment and hospital funds), must be entered in his labor booklet.

Note. In the labor booklet must also be entered the leaves of absence and sick-leave of the wage-earner, as well as the fines imposed on him during and on account of his work.

4. Each entry in the labor booklet must be dated and signed by the person making the entry, and also by the wage-earner (if the latter is literate), who thereby certifies the correctness of the entry.

5. The labor booklet shall contain:

(a) The name, surname, and date of birth of the wage-earner;

(b) The name and address of the trades-union of which the wage-earner is a member;

(c) The group and category to which the wage-earner has been assigned by the valuation commission.

6. Upon the discharge of a wage-earner, his labor booklet shall under no circumstances be withheld from him. Whenever an old booklet is replaced by a new one, the former shall be left in possession of the wage-earner.

7. In case a wage-earner loses his labor booklet, he shall be provided with a new one into which shall be copied all the entries of the lost booklet; in such a case a fee determined by the rules of internal management may be charged to the wage-earner for the new booklet.

8. A wage-earner must present his labor booklet upon the request:

(a) Of the managers of the enterprise, establishment, or institution where he is employed;

(b) Of the Department of Labor Distribution;

(c) Of the trades union;

(d) Of the officials of workmen’s control and of labor protection;

(e) Of the insurance offices or institutions acting as such.

A wireless message from Moscow, dated February 11, 1920, referring to the actual introduction of these labor booklets, says:

The decree on the establishment of work-books is in course of realization at Moscow and Petrograd. The book has 32 pages in it, containing, besides particulars as to the holder’s civil status, information on the following points:

Persons dependent on the holder, degree of capacity for work, place where employed, pay allowanced or pension, food-cards received, and so forth. One of these books should be handed over to all citizens not less than 16 years old. It constitutes the proof that the holder is doing his share of productive work. The introduction of the work-book will make it possible for us to ascertain whether the law as to work is being observed by citizens. This being the object, it will only be handed to workmen and employees in accordance with the lists of the business concerns in which they are working, to artisans who can produce a regular certificate of their registration as being sick or a certificate from the branches of the Public Welfare Administration, and to women who are engaged in keeping house, and who produce a certificate by the House Committee. When the distribution has been completed, all sick persons, not possessed of work-books, will be sent to their work by the branch of the Labor Distribution Administration.

We have summarized, in the exact language of the official English translation published by the Soviet Government Bureau in this country, the characteristic and noteworthy features of this remarkable scheme. Surely this is the ultimate madness of bureaucratism, the most complete subjection of the individual citizen to an all-powerful state since the days of Lycurgus. At the time of Edward III, by the Statute of Laborers of 1349, not only was labor enforced on the lower classes, but men were not free to work where they liked, nor were their employers permitted to pay them more than certain fixed rates of wages. In short, the laborer was a serf; and that is the condition to which this Bolshevist scheme would reduce all the people of Russia except the privileged bureaucracy. It is a rigid and ruthless rule that is here set up, making no allowance for individual likes or dislikes, leaving no opportunity for honest personal initiative. The only variations and modifications possible are those resulting from favoritism, political influence, and circumvention of the laws by corruption of official and other illicit methods.

We must bear in mind that what we are considering is not a body of facts relating to practical work under pressure of circumstance, but a carefully formulated plan giving concrete form to certain aims and intentions. It is not a record of which the Bolsheviki can say, “This we were compelled to do,” but a prospectus of what they propose to do. As such the Bolsheviki have caused the wide-spread distribution of this remarkable Code of Labor Laws in this country and in England, believing, apparently, that the workers of the two countries must be attracted by this Communist Utopia. They have relied upon the potency of slogans and principles long held in honor by the militant and progressive portion of the working-class in every modern nation, such as the right to work and the right to assured living income and leisure, to win approval and support. But they have linked these things which enlightened workers believe in to a system of despotism abhorrent to them. After two full years of terrible experience the Bolsheviki propose, in the name of Socialism and freedom, a tyranny which goes far beyond anything which any modern nation has known.

It was obvious from the time when this scheme was first promulgated that it could only be established by strong military measures. No one who knew anything of Russia could believe that the great mass of the peasantry would willingly acquiesce in a scheme of government so much worse than the old serfdom. Nor was it possible to believe that the organized and enlightened workers of the cities would, as a whole, willingly and freely place themselves in such bondage. It was not at all surprising, therefore, to learn that it had been decided to take advantage of the military situation, and the existence of a vast organization of armed forces, to introduce compulsory labor as part of the military system. On December 11, 1919, The Red Baltic Fleet, a Bolshevist paper published for the sailors of the Baltic fleet, printed an abstract of Trotsky’s report to the Seventh Congress of Soviets, from which the following significant paragraphs are quoted:

If one speaks of the conclusion of peace within the next months, such a peace cannot be called a permanent peace. So long as class states remain, as powerful centers of Imperialism in the Far East and in America, it is not impossible that the peace which we shall perhaps conclude in the near future will again be for us only a long and prolonged respite. So long as this possibility is not excluded, it is possible that it will be a matter not of disarming, but of altering the form of the armed forces of the state.

We must get the workmen back to the factories, and the peasants to the villages, re-establish industries and develop agriculture. Therefore, the troops must be brought nearer to the workers, and the regiments to the factories, villages, and cantons. We must pass to the introduction of the militia system of armed forces.

There is a scarcely veiled threat to the rest of the world in Trotsky’s intimation that the peace they hope to conclude will perhaps be only a prolonged respite. As an isolated utterance, it might perhaps be disregarded, but it must be considered in the light of, and in connection with, a number of other utterances upon the same subject. In the instructions from the People’s Commissar for Labor to the propagandists sent to create sympathy and support for the Labor Army scheme among the soldiers we find this striking passage: “The country must continue to remain armed for many years to come. Until Socialist revolution triumphs throughout the world we must continue to be armed and prepared for eventualities.” A Bolshevist message, dated Moscow, March 11, 1920, explains that: “The utilization of whole Labor Armies, retaining the army system of organization, may only be justified from the point of view of keeping the army intact for military purposes. As soon as the necessity for this ceases to exist the need to retain large staffs and administrations will also cease to exist.” There is not the slightest doubt that the Bolsheviki contemplate the maintenance of a great army to be used as a labor force until the time arrives when it shall seem desirable to hurl it against the nations of central and western Europe in the interests of “world revolution.”

On January 15, 1920, Lenin and Brichkina, president and secretary, respectively, of the Council of Defense, signed and issued the first decree for the formation of a Labor Army. The text of the decree follows:

Decree of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Council of Defense on the First Revolutionary Labor Army

1. The Third Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army is to be utilized for labor purposes. This army is to be considered as a complete organization; its apparatus is neither to be disorganized nor split up, and it is to be known under the name of the First Revolutionary Labor Army.

2. The utilization of the Third Red Army for labor purposes is a temporary measure. The period is to be determined by a special regulation of the Council of Defense in accordance with the military situation as well as with the character of the work which the army will be able to carry out, and will especially depend on the practical productivity of the labor army.

3. The following are the principal tasks to which the forces and means of the third army are to be applied:

First:

(a) The preparation of food and forage in accordance with the regulation of the People’s Commissariat for Food, and the concentration of these in certain depots:

(b) The preparation of wood and its delivery to factories and railway stations;

(c) The organization for this purpose of land transport as well as water transport;

(d) The mobilization of necessary labor power for work on a national scale;

(e) Constructive work within the above limits as well as on a wider scale, for the purpose of introducing, gradually, further works.

Second:

(f) For repair of agricultural implements;

(g) Agricultural work, etc.

4. The first duty of the Labor Army is to secure provisions, not below the Red Army ration, for the local workers in those regions where the army is stationed; this is to be brought about by means of the army organs of supply in all those cases where the President of the Food Commissariat of the Labor Army Council (No. 7) will find that no other means of securing the necessary provisions for the above-mentioned workers are to be had.

5. The utilization of the labor of the third army in a certain locality must take place in the locality in which the principal part of the army is stationed; this is to be determined exactly by the leading organs of the army (No. 6) with a subsequent confirmation by the Council of Defense.

6. The Revolutionary Council of the Labor Army is the organ in charge of work appointed, with the provision that the locality where the services of the Labor Army are to be applied is to be the same locality where the services of the Revolutionary Council of the Labor Army enjoys economic authority.

7. The Revolutionary Council of the Labor Army is to be composed of members of the Revolutionary War Council and of authorized representatives of the People’s Commissariat for Food, the Supreme Council for Public Economy, the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture, the People’s Commissariat for Communication, and the People’s Commissariat for Labor.

An especially authorized Council of Defense which is to enjoy the rights of presidency of the Council of the Labor Army is to be put at the head of the above Council.

8. All the questions concerning internal military organizations and defined by regulations of internal military service and other military regulations are to be finally settled upon by the Revolutionary War Council which introduces in the internal life of the army all the necessary changes arising in consequence of the demands of the economic application of the army.

9. In every sphere of work (food, fuel, railway, etc.) the final decision in the matter of organizing this work is to be left with the representative of the corresponding sphere of the Labor Army Council.

10. In the event of radical disagreement the case is to be transferred to the Council of Defense.

11. All the local institutions, Councils of Public Economy, Food Committees, land departments, etc., are to carry out the special orders and instructions of the Labor Army Council through the latter’s corresponding members either in its entirety or in that sphere of the work which is demanded by the application of the mass labor power.

12. All local institutions (councils of public economy, food committees, etc.) are to remain in their particular localities and carry out, through their ordinary apparatus, the work which falls to their share in the execution of the economic plans of the Labor Army Council; local institutions can be changed, either in structure or in their functions, on no other condition except with the consent of the corresponding departmental representatives who are members of the Labor Army Council, or, in the case of radical changes, with the consent of the corresponding central department.

13. In the case of work for which individual parts of the army can be utilized in a casual manner, as well as in the case of those parts of the army which are stationed outside the chief army, or which can be transferred beyond the limits of this locality, the Army Council must in each instance enter into an agreement with the permanent local institutions carrying out the corresponding work, and as far as that is practical and meets with no obstacles, the separate military detachments are to be transferred to their temporary economic disposal.

14. Skilled workers, in so far as they are not indispensable for the support of the life of the army itself, must be transferred by the army to the local factories and to the economic institutions generally under direction of the corresponding representatives of the Labor Army Council.

Note: Skilled labor can be sent to factories under no other condition except with the consent of those economic organs to which the factory in question is subject. Members of trades-unions are liable to be withdrawn from local enterprises for the economic needs in connection with the problems of the army only with the consent of the local organs.

15. The Labor Army Council must, through its corresponding members, take all the necessary measures toward inducing the local institutions of a given department to control, in the localities, the army detachments and their institutions in the carrying out of the latter’s share of work without infringing upon the respective by-laws, regulations, and instructions of the Soviet Republic.

Note: It is particularly necessary to take care that the general state rate of pay is to be observed in the remuneration of peasants for the delivery of food, for the preparation of wood or other fuel.

16. The Central Statistical Department in agreement with the Supreme Council for Public Economy and the War Department is instructed to draw up an estimate defining the forms and period of registration.

17. The present regulation comes into force with the moment of its publication by telegraph.

President of the Council of Defense, V. Ulianov (Lenin). S. Brichkina, Secretary. Moscow, January 15, 1920.

On January 18, 1920, the Krasnaya Gazeta published the following order by Trotsky to the First Labor Army:

Order to the First Revolutionary Labor Army

1. The First Army has finished its war task, but the enemy is not completely dispersed. The rapacious imperialists are still menacing Siberia in the extreme Orient. To the East the armies paid by the Entente are still menacing Soviet Russia. The bands of the White Guards are still at Archangel. The Caucasus is not yet liberated. For this reason the First Russian Army has not as yet been diverted, but retains its internal unity and its warlike ardor, in order that it may be ready in case the Socialist Fatherland should once more call it to new tasks.

2. The First Russian Army, which is, however, desirous of doing its duty, does not wish to lose any time. During the coming weeks and months of respite it will have to apply its strength and all its means to ameliorate the agricultural situation in this country.

3. The Revolutionary War Council of the First Army will come to an agreement with the Labor Council. The representatives of the agricultural institutions of the Red Republic of the Soviets will work side by side with the members of the Revolutionary Council.

4. Food-supplies are indispensable to the famished workmen of the commercial centers. The First Labor Army should make it its essential task to gather systematically in the region occupied by it such food-supplies as are there, as well as also to make an exact listing of what has been obtained, to rapidly and energetically forward them to the various factories and railway stations, and load them upon the freight-cars.

5. Wood is needed by commerce. It is the important task of the Revolutionary Labor Army to cut and saw the wood, and to transport it to the factories and to the railway stations.

6. Spring is coming; this is the season of agricultural work. As the productive force of our factories has lessened, the number of new farm implements which can be delivered has become insufficient. The peasants have, however, a tolerably large number of old implements which are in need of repair. The Revolutionary Labor Army will employ its workshops as well as its workmen in order to repair such tools and machinery as are needed. When the season arrives for work in the fields, the Red cavalry and infantry will prove that they know how to plow the earth.

7. All members of the army should enter into fraternal relations with the professional societies69 of the local Soviets, remembering that such organizations are those of the laboring people. All work should be done after having come to an understanding with them.

8. Indefatigable energy should be shown during the work, as much as if it were a combat or a fight.

9. The necessary efforts, as well as the results to be obtained, should be carefully calculated. Every pound of Soviet bread, and every log of national wood should be tabulated. Everything should contribute to the foundation of the Socialist activities.

10. The Commandants and Commissars should be responsible for the work of their men while work is going on, as much as if it were a combat. Discipline should not be relaxed. The Communist Societies should during the work be models of perseverance and patience.

11. The Revolutionary Tribunals should punish the lazy and parasites and the thieves of national property.

12. Conscientious soldiers, workmen, and revolutionary peasants should be in the first rank. Their bravery and devotion should serve as an example to others and inspire them to act similarly.

13. The front should be contracted as much as possible. Those who are useless should be sent to the first ranks of the workers.

14. Start and finish your work, if the locality permits it, to the sound of revolutionary hymns and songs. Your task is not the work of a laborer, but a great service rendered the Socialist Fatherland.

15. Soldiers of the Third Army, called the First Revolutionary Army of Labor. Let your example prove a great one. All Russia will rise to your call. The Radio has already spread throughout the universe all that the Third Army intends in being transposed into the First Army of Labor. Soldier Workmen! Do not lower the red standard!

The President of the War Council of the
Revolutionary Republic, [Signed] Trotsky.

There is not the slightest doubt where Lenin and Trotsky found the model for the foregoing orders and the inspiration of the entire scheme. Almost exactly a century earlier, that is to say in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Count Arakcheev, a favorite of Alexander I, introduced into Russia the militarization of agricultural labor. Peasant conscripts were sent to the “military settlements,” formed into battalions under command of army officers, marched in proper military formation to their tasks, which they performed to martial music. The arable lands were divided among the owner-settlers according to the size of their families. Tasks were arbitrarily set for the workers by the officers; resignation or withdrawal was, of course, impossible; desertion was punished with great severity. Elaborate provisions were made by this monarchist autocrat for the housing of the conscript-settlers, for medical supervision, and for the education of the children. Everything seems to have been provided for the conscripts in these settlements except freedom.

Travelers gave most glowing accounts of Arakcheev’s Utopia, just as later travelers did of the Russia of Nicholas II, and as the Ransomes, Goodes, Lansburys, and other travelers of to-day are giving of Bolshevist Russia. But the people themselves were discontented and unhappy, a fact evidenced by the many serious uprisings. Robbed of freedom, all initiative taken from them, so that they became abject and cowed and almost devoid of will power, like dumb beasts yet under the influence of desperate and daring leaders, they rose in revolt again and again with brutal fury. Arakcheev’s Utopia was not intended to be oppressive or unjust, we may well believe. There are evidences that it was conceived in a noble and even generous spirit. It inevitably became cruel and oppressive, however, as every such scheme that attempts to disregard the variations in human beings, and to compel them to conform to a single pattern or plan, must do. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Petrograd Trotsky protested that only the “petty bourgeois intellectuals” could liken his system of militarized labor to Arakcheev’s, but the facts speak for themselves. And in all Russia’s tragic history there are no blacker pages than those which record her great experiments with militarized labor.

Addressing the joint meeting of the third Russian Congress of Soviets of National Economy, the Moscow Soviet of Deputies and the Administrative Boards of the Trades-Unions, on January 25, 1920, Trotsky made a report which required more than two hours for its delivery. Defining labor conscription, he said:

We shall succeed if qualified and trained workers take part in productive labor. They must all be registered and provided with work registration books. Trades-unions must register qualified workmen in the villages. Only in those localities where trades-union methods are inadequate other methods must be introduced, in particular that of compulsion, because labor conscription gives the state the right to tell the qualified workman who is employed on some unimportant work in his villages, “You are obliged to leave your present employment and go to Sormova or Kolomna, because there your work is required.”

Labor conscription means that qualified workmen who leave the army must take their work registration books and proceed to places where they are required, where their presence is necessary to the economic system of the country. Labor conscription gives the Labor State the right to order a workman to leave the village industry in which he is engaged and to work in state enterprises which require his services. We must feed these workmen and guarantee them the minimum food ration. A short time ago we were confronted by the problem of defending the frontiers of the Soviet Republic, now our aim is to collect, load, and transport a sufficient quantity of bread, meat, fats, and fish to feed the working-class. We are not only confronted by the question of the industrial proletariat, but also by the question of utilizing unskilled labor.

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There is still one way to the reorganization of national economy—the way of uniting the army and labor and changing the military detachments of the army into labor detachments of a labor army. Many in the army have already accomplished their military task, but they cannot be demobilized as yet. Now that they have been released from their military duties, they must fight against economic ruin and against hunger; they must work to obtain fuel, peat, and inflammable slate; they must take part in building, in clearing the lines of snow, in repairing roads, building sheds, grinding flour, and so on. We have already got several of these armies. These armies have already been allotted their tasks. One must obtain foodstuffs for the workmen of the district in which it was formerly stationed, and there also it will cut down wood, cart it to the railways, and repair engines. Another will help in the laying down of railway lines for the transport of crude oil. A third will be used for repairing agricultural implements and machines, and in the spring for taking part in working the land. At the present time among the working masses there must be the greatest exactitude and conscientiousness, together with responsibility to the end; there must be utter strictness and severity, both in small matters and in great. If the most advanced workmen in the country will devote all their thoughts, all their will, and all their revolutionary duty to the cause of regulating economic affairs, then I have no doubt that we shall lead Russia on a new free road, to the confounding of our enemies and the joy of our friends.

Going into further details concerning the scheme, Trotsky said, according to Izvestia, January 29, 1920:

Wherein lies the meaning of this transformation? We possess armies which have accomplished their military tasks. Can we demobilize them? In no case whatever. If we have learned anything in the civil war it is certainly circumspection. While keeping the army under arms, we may use it for economic purposes, with the possibility of sending it to the front in case of need.

Such is the present condition of the Third Soviet Army at Ekaterinburg, some units of which are quartered in the direction of Omsk. It numbers no less than 150,000 men, of whom 7,000 are Communists and 9,000 are sympathizers. Such an army is class-conscious to a high degree. No wonder it has offered itself for employment for labor purposes. The labor army must perform definite and simple tasks requiring the application of mass force, such as lumbering operations, peat-cutting, collecting grain, etc. Trades-unions, political and Soviet organizations must, of course, establish the closest contact with the Labor Army. An experienced and competent workman is appointed as chief of staff of this army, and a former chief of staff, an officer of the general staff, is his assistant. The Operative Department is renamed the Labor-Operative Department, and controls requisitions and the execution of the labor-operative orders and the labor bulletins.

A great number of labor artels, with a well-ordered telegraph and telephone system, is thus at our disposal. They receive orders and report on their execution the same day. This is but the beginning of our work. There will be many drawbacks at first, much will have to be altered, but the basis itself cannot be unsound, as it is the same on which our entire Soviet structure is founded.

In this case we possess several thousand Ural workmen, who are placed at the head of the army, and a mass of men under the guidance of these advanced workmen. What is it? It is but a reflection on a small scale of Soviet Russia, founded upon millions upon millions of peasants, and the guiding apparatus is formed of more conscious peasants and an overwhelming majority of industrial workers. This first experiment is being made by the other armies likewise. It is intended to utilize the Seventh Army, quartered at the Esthonian frontier, for peat-cutting and slate-quarrying. If these labor armies are capable of extracting raw materials, of giving new life to our transport, of providing corn, fuel, etc., to our main economic centers, then our economic organism will revive.

This experiment is of the most vital moral and material importance. We cannot mobilize the peasants by means of trades-unions, and the trades-unions themselves do not possess any means of laying hold of millions of peasants. They can best be mobilized on a military footing. Their labor formations will have to be organized on a military model—labor platoons, labor companies, labor battalions, disciplined as required, for we shall have to deal with masses which have not passed through trades-union trading. This is a matter of the near future. We shall be compelled to create military organizations such as exist already in the form of our armies. It is therefore urgent to utilize them by adapting them to economic requirements. That is exactly what we are doing now.

At the ninth Congress of the Communist Party in March, according to Izvestia of March 21, 1920, Trotsky made another report on the militarization of labor, in which he said:

At the present time the militarization of labor is all the more needed in that we have now come to the mobilization of peasants as the means of solving the problems requiring mass action. We are mobilizing the peasants and forming them into labor detachments which very closely resemble military detachments. Some of our comrades say, however, that even though in the case of the working power of mobilized peasantry it is necessary to apply militarization, a military apparatus need not be created when the question involves skilled labor and industry because there we have professional unions performing the function of organizing labor. This opinion, however, is erroneous.

At present it is true that professional unions distribute labor power at the demand of social-economic organizations, but what means and methods do they possess for insuring that the workman who is sent to a given factory actually reports at that factory for work?

We have in the most important branches of our industry more than a million workmen on the lists, but not more than eight hundred thousand of them are actually working, and where are the remainder? They have gone to the villages, or to other divisions of industry, or into speculation. Among soldiers this is called desertion, and in one form or another the measures used to compel soldiers to do their duty should be applied in the field of labor.

Under a unified system of economy the masses of workmen should be moved about, ordered and sent from place to place in exactly the same manner as soldiers. This is the foundation of the militarization of labor, and without this we are unable to speak seriously of any organization of industry on a new basis in the conditions of starvation and disorganization existing to-day....

In the period of transition in the organization of labor, compulsion plays a very important part. The statement that free labor—namely, freely employed labor—produces more than labor under compulsion is correct only when applied to feudalistic and bourgeois orders of society.

It is, of course, too soon to attempt anything in the nature of a final judgment upon this new form of industrial serfdom. In his report to the ninth Congress of the Communist Party, already quoted, Trotsky declared that the belief that free labor is more productive than forced labor is “correct only when applied to feudalistic and bourgeois orders of society.” The implication is that it will be otherwise in the Communistic society of the future, but of that Trotsky can have no knowledge. His declaration springs from faith, not from knowledge. All that he or anybody else can know is that the whole history of mankind hitherto shows that free men work better than men who are not free. Arakcheev’s militarized peasants were less productive than other peasants not subject to military rule. So far as the present writer’s information goes, no modern army when engaged in productive work has equaled civilian labor in similar lines, judged on a per-capita basis. Slaves, convicts, and conscripts have everywhere been notoriously poor producers.

Will it be better if the conscription is done by the Bolsheviki, and if the workers sing revolutionary songs, instead of the hymns to the Czar sung by Arakcheev’s conscript settlers, or the religious melodies sung by the negro slaves in our Southern States? Those whose only guide to the future is the history of the past will doubt it; those who, like Trotsky, see in the past no lesson for the future confidently believe that it will. The thoughtful and candid mind wonders whether the following paragraph, published by the Krasnaya Gazeta in March, may not be regarded as a foreshadowing of Bolshevist disillusionment:

The attempts of the Soviet power to utilize the Labor Army for cleansing Petrograd from mud, excretions, and rubbish have not met with success. In addition to the usual Labor Army rations, the men were given an increased allowance of bread, tobacco, etc. Nevertheless, it was found impossible to get not only any intensive work, but even, generally speaking, any real work at all out of the Labor Army men. Recourse, therefore, had to be had to the usual means—the men had to be paid a premium of 1,000 rubles for every tramway-truck of rubbish unloaded. Moreover, the tramway brigade had to be paid 300 rubles for every third trip.

In hundreds of statements by responsible Bolshevist officials and journals the wonderful morale of the Petrograd workers has been extolled and held up to the rest of Russia for emulation. If these things are possible in “Red Peter” at the beginning, what may we not expect elsewhere—and later? The Novaya Russkaya Zhizn, published at Helsingfors, is an anti-Bolshevist paper. The following quotation from its issue of March 6, 1920, is of interest and value only in so far as it directs attention to a Bolshevist official report:

In the Soviet press we find a brilliant illustration (in figures) of the latest “new” tactics proclaimed by the Communists of the Third International on the subject of soldiers “stacking their rifles and taking to axes, saws, and spades.”

“The 56th Division of the Petrograd Labor Army, during the fortnight from 1st to 14th February, loaded 60 cars with wood-fuel, transported 225 sagenes,70 stacked 43 cubic sagenes, and sawed up 39 cubic sagenes.” Besides this, the division dug out “several locomotives” from under the snow.