Siberia To-Day

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

Here was another corner of that joker! When Russian Bolshevists were afraid they would get caught breaking things, the German prisoners helped the game along by doing a little sly smashing on their own account!

Because I had the room of a former American consul, the Russian owner of a gold mine near Chita called upon me, thinking I was the present American consul. He said he wanted advice as to where he might, some time in the future, buy mining-machinery.

The Bolshevists had wrecked his entire plant. Their leaders had told the peasants that the mines of Siberia belong to all, and that in time a Bolshevist government would work the mines, and divide the gold among the people. In that way no one would become richer than someone else.

“The German prisoners,” he said, “now tell my workmen that if I have machinery I will need only a few men, and so hundreds of workmen will be thrown out of jobs. Of course, if I could put machinery in I would employ ten times as many men as I do now. I can’t make my mine pay without machinery, and for the present I am employing only common labor to clean things up so as to be ready for better times. If we Russian mine owners can’t make our mines pay, we’ll have to sell out. During the revolution, German capitalists have bought up a lot of companies in European Russia at bankrupt prices.

“But assuming that Germany takes the mines, how can the Germans hope to operate them if the workmen refuse to allow machinery to be used in them?”

“You do not know our moujiks,” he replied. “They will not believe what I tell them for their own good. But they will believe the lies of an outsider—any childish story told to swindle them. By the time Germany is ready to sell us machinery, maybe the moujiks will be told not to smash it—if the machinery is German.”

And picture the amount of mining-machinery that Siberia will be able to use! For two thousand versts to the north of Chita there are gold fields. The fields which have been developed make scarcely a dot on the map. No. One Russian mine-worker will not become richer than another when that vast country is worked. If Germany’s plans do not miscarry, those who will profit first will be the German machinery manufacturers.

It was brought to my attention in a certain part of Siberia that wool, cow hair and camel hair, valued at nine million rubles, purchased just before the revolution by a Boston company through its Moscow agency, was to be seized. Who was going to seize it is not a matter for me to discuss here, but I can say there was good evidence that it would have gone in the direction of Germany.

The warehouses containing this material were in three cities, and somehow escaped being burned. Whenever Bolshevist bands broke loose to loot and burn, the word must have been passed from some mysterious fountain-head to spare the warehouses containing that wool and hair—for, mind, those warehouses were in three different cities, far apart. This would indicate that, after all, there is a system to Bolshevism. The system appears to be, “Smash machinery and manufactured goods but spare raw material.” As the wool and hair was owned by an American company, an inference might be drawn that the protection was due to its being American property. If so, why—when there was a rumor that American troops might soon be in the vicinity of the warehouses—was it to be seized and moved toward Germany?

Siberian Bolshevists with whom I talked told me of the great yearning for education among the masses, and how the Bolshevists would provide plenty of schools. I examined the condition of several schools where the Bolshevists had been in control for a time. Every possible book had been destroyed—geographies, grammars, spelling-books. It was a case of spurlos versenkt. Pens, paper, pencils, maps, erasers, rulers, ink and all other school accessories went the way of the books—to the bon-fires in the streets. A yearning to learn? Certainly. One might describe it as a burning desire. And will it not be fine for Leipsic to print Russia’s new school books, with some German propaganda thrown in free? Also, lieber Gott, vot a market for pencils and other little things! (Note for Leipsic: Printers in Japan are already printing Russian books!)