CORRESPONDENCE
A LETTER FROM MOSCOW
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—The eighth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution— curiously enough still called here the October revolution, although now celebrated on November 7th, according to the reformed calendar—marks the end of a period in the history of new Russia. The era of revolution is past, and the era of reconstruction has already begun. I say " already," because as far back as last July, when it became clear that the harvest would not fall far short of the pre-War average, a wave of optimism swept over the Soviet capital. Official sentiment has been translated into action, in the shape of a more liberal policy on the part of the ruling Communist Party.
For instance, two months ago the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a decision that henceforth " special- ists," that is, engineers, technicians, accountants, and office staffs generally, employed by State commercial or industrial organizations, should be regarded as "workers " no less than manual labourers, and should enjoy most of the privileges given to the latter with regard to rent, taxation, &e. A few days later it was announced that the bathers set up against the children of non-" workers " in the State universities and higher technical schools would be withdrawn, and that several thousand students expelled last year on the ground of " non- proletarian origin " would be readmitted.
The behaviour of the Moscow crowd during the revolution anniversary holidays was a mirror that reflected the new state of things. Gaiety, good humour, naive pride, and entire absence of disorder are not what the outer world would expect from this Russian Demos which " rose a demon and slaked the light in blood," but that was what one could not fail to remark in the dense masses that walked the streets from early twilight until midnight, admiring the illuminations, bright red stars, golden sheaves of corn, and violent revolu- tionary mottoes flashing in and out like advertisements at Piccadilly Circus. " How pretty!" cried the children, as " Down with Imperialism!" " Workers' hand at bourgeois throat," " Death to colonial oppressors," and such like ve- hemences flashed red (for blood) and green (for hope) before their eyes. " How pretty !" their parents echoed mildly, and then took up the " International," played by a band, with the
same hearty enthusiasm as the crowd at the Wembley tattoo singing" God save the King." The Moscow crowd really wanted to amuse itself, wanted merriment and dancing, not blood or revolution.
Not only is there a good harvest—whereof Catherine the Great, who knew her Russia, once said, " One good crop atones for ten years' follies "—but people here are now beginning to 'have money in their pockets. In 1922 the total gold value of money in circulation was about six 'billion pounds, and rapidly depreciating paper at that, while to-day it is a hundred and twenty million pounds, whose value has not varied six- pence from the gold standard for the past twelve months. There is over fourteen million pounds' worth of silver alone. Indeed you see more silver in circulation here than in any of the Continental war countries. Prices, except for food, arc two or three times higher than in London, but in Moscow especially all the people seem to have money to spend. Wages in the capital are within ten or fifteen per cent. of what they were before the War, in addition to which workers and em- ployees in State enterprises or Government offices pay ex- tremely low rents and taxes, and get groceries, clothing, household utensils, &c., at little above cost price through their co-operative stores. It may fairly be stated that eighty per cent. of the population of Moscow are at least as well off as before the War.
One had startling, and to the authorities rather unpleasant,
proof of this a fortnight ago when vodka was restored to its pre-War strength of forty degrees. All sale of alcohol had been prohibited for three days while the year's military class was being mustered. With its thirst sharp-edged by this " drought the public threw itself upon the new strong spirit. For a week there was a perfect orgy of drunkenness, with deaths from alcoholic excess running into the nineties. The Fire Depart- inent was exhausted in suppressing accidental outbreaks, the police stations and first aid centres were crowded to their utmost limit. Then the fever passed, as abruptly as it had arisen, and the absence of disorder and drunkenness was quite noticeable during the November anniversary holidays. But it is significant that the sale of vodka is now being quietly restricted.
Nor is it only in the cities that money seems to be plentiful, a circumstance which has seriously compromised official plans with regard to the purchase of grain from the peasants for export. Instead, as was expected, of grain prices falling rapidly after the good harvest, they actually rose during September and went on rising through October. True the crop was not quite so large as anticipated, owing to bad weather in August and September--say sixty-seven million tons of all grains instead of seventy millions—but the surplus over the needs of the country—say fifty million tons altogether —was sufficiently great for a fall in prices to appear inevitable. What actually happened was that a large section of the peasants could afford to hoard their grain instead of selling it—many, indeed, bought further stocks on the open market, thus augmenting prices—in the hope that prices would rise yet higher next spring, as they did in the spring of the present year after the poor harvest of 1924. Doubtless, when spring comes, they will be disappointed, and there will be a sharp fall in prices, but in the meantime it has been necessary to postpone the State export of grain for several months.
Another reason increased the reluctance of the peasants to sell their grain at present, namely, the shortage in rural areas of manufactured goods, the " goods famine " as it is called here. If the State grain purchasing agencies were taken by surprise, it may equally be said that the State goods selling agencies were unprepared and ill-organized. For a time it seemed as if the only supply of goods to the grain-producing regions was in the hands of private traders, who had laid their plans more carefully and reaped golden profits. A curious State -of affairs followed. The goods famine spread to the Cities. Goloshes, boots and stockings, and the cheaper tex- tiles vanished from the Government stores and were only to be found in the hands of private traders in the markets at prices ranging from seventy to two hundred per cent. higher. In alarm the authorities appointed a powerful Commission " to deal with speculation " (which entails anything from confiscation of goods to exile to Siberia), but it has been expressly stipulated that by speculation is meant the " cornering " of goods of general consumption for unjustified gain, and that private traders doing business at a fair rate of profit are not to be regarded as " speculators." But the number of genuine " speculators " is very great.
During the last two or three years a horde of Tuft-menschen has descended upon Moscow from the towns and villages of the " pale," and no graeculus esuriens was ever readier than they to risk a distant exile if only they may snatch a profit. Their game has been greatly facilitated by the unavoidably low standard of morality among employees of State business and industrial enterprises. Whilst graft and embezzlement in Government offices proper have been almost wiped out, and crime in general has decreased in Moscow six per cent. in the last year, misappropriation of funds in State business and commercial enterprises has increased not less than twelve hundred per cent. This figure was given a few days ago by the presiding judge of Moscow province. True, the word misappropriation is here stretched to include what America calls "graft."
The rulers of Russia realize that the chief cause of present difficulties is their own lack of foresight and organization. Accordingly they have just decided a big administrative reform. Henceforth, instead of trying to pass all the foreign trade of Russia through the " bottle-neck " oft he Foreign Trade Monopoly Commissariat (which attempted to handle all the buying and selling abroad for the whole country), special organizations will be appointed to buy and sell abroad through their own experts. The Socialistic principle of foreign trade monoply will be maintained (with a somewhat diminished " tempo ") in the form of control by the Foreign Trade Mono- poly Commissariat, which will issue the permits for foreign sale and purchase, but the business will be done not by bureaucrats but by competent agents. Furthermore, to ensure a co- operation hitherto wanting between the Foreign and Internal Trade Commissariats, both will be united into one Trade Com- missariat, under the direction of Tsurupa, formerly Lenin's chief lieutenant in the Council of Commissars, with Krassin, hitherto Commissar of Foreign Trade, and Scheinmann, Commissar of Internal Trade, as his assistants. This reform is considered here to be the most important administrative measure since Lenin introduced the " New Economic Policy " in 1921. Through it the Communists hope to enable the Socialistic State enterprises to satisfy the demands of the avowedly non-Socialistic peasant masses. If they can do so in time, Russia will remain a land of State Capitalism, which may ultimately evolve into genuine Communism (for, of course, to-day there is no "Communism," in the strict sense of the word, in Russia, and the " Communist " party is only a label of the governing class). If they fail Russia will become a land of petty-bourgeois capitalism, only different in degree from the third French Republic of the eighteen nineties.—I am, Sir, &c., Youn MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT.
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