rom abroad, but the organizing and technical brains in industry were
mainly foreign. When the Entente became hostile to Russia, the
foreigners in Russian industry either left the country or assisted
counter-revolution. Even those who were in fact loyal naturally became
suspect, and could not well be employed in responsible posts, any more
than Germans could in England during the war. The native Russians who
had technical or business skill were little better; they almost all
practised sabotage in the first period of the Bolshevik regime. One
hears amusing stories of common sailors frantically struggling with
complicated accounts, because no competent accountant would work for
the Bolsheviks.

But those days passed. When the Government was seen to be stable, a
great many of those who had formerly sabotaged it became willing to
accept posts under it, and are now in fact so employed, often at quite
exceptional salaries. Their importance is thoroughly realized. One
resolution at the above-mentioned Congress says (I quote verbally the
unedited document which was given to us in Moscow):

Being of opinion that without a scientific organization of
industry, even the widest application of compulsory labour
service, as the great labour heroism of the working class,
will not only fail to secure the establishment of a powerful
socialist production, but will also fail to assist the country
to free itself from the clutches of poverty--the Congress
considers it imperative to register all able specialists of
the various departments of public economy and widely to
utilize them for the purpose of industrial organization.

The Congress considers the elucidation for the wide masses of
the workers of the tremendous character of the economic
problems of the country to be one of the chief problems of
industrial and general political agitation and propaganda; and
of equal importance to this, technical education, and
administrative and scientific technical experience. The
Congress makes it obligatory on all the members of the party
mercilessly to fight that particular obnoxious form, the
ignorant conceit which deems the working class capable of
solving all problems without the assistance _in the most
responsible cases_ of specialists of the bourgeois school, the
management. Demagogic elements who speculate on this kind of
prejudice in the more backward se