Many industrial experts of the old regime are again
managing their plants and sabotage by such managers has ceased.
Loafing by the workmen during work hours has been overcome. (Appendix,
p. 57.)
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
The destructive phase of the revolution is over and all the energy of
the Government is turned to constructive work. The terror has ceased.
All power of judgment has been taken away from the extraordinary
commission for suppression of the counter-revolution, which now merely
accuses suspected counter-revolutionaries, who are tried by the
regular, established, legal tribunals. Executions are extremely rare.
Good order has been established. The streets are safe. Shooting has
ceased. There are few robberies. Prostitution has disappeared from
sight. Family life has been unchanged by the revolution, the canard in
regard to "nationalization of women" notwithstanding. (Appendix, p.
58.)
The theaters, opera, and ballet are performing as in peace. Thousands
of new schools have been opened in all parts of Russia and the Soviet
Government seems to have done more for the education of the Russian
people in a year and a half than czardom did in 50 years. (Appendix,
p. 59.)
POLITICAL SITUATION
The Soviet form of government is firmly established. Perhaps the most
striking fact in Russia today is the general support which is given
the government by the people in spite of their starvation. Indeed, the
people lay the blame for their distress wholly on the blockade and on
the governments which maintain it. The Soviet form of government seems
to have become to the Russian people the symbol of their revolution.
Unquestionably it is a form of government which lends itself to gross
abuse and tyranny but it meets the demand of the moment in Russia and
it has acquired so great a hold on the imagination of the common
people that the women are ready to starve and the young men to die for
it.
The position of the communist party (formerly Bolsheviki) is also very
strong. Blockade and intervention have caused the chief opposition
parties, the right social revolutionaries and the menshiviki, to give
temporary support to the communists. These opposition parties have
both made formal statements against the blockade, intervention, and
the support of antisoviet governments by the allied and associated
governments. Their leaders, Volsky and Martov, are most vigorous in
their demands for the immediate raising of the blockade
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