"Barbarous Soviet Russia"

by Isaac McBride

A—OUR METAL INDUSTRY

The two years that have passed since the November Revolution have been marked by civil war, which still continues. Russia’s isolation from the outside world, the loss and, later on, the recapture of entire provinces of decisive importance to her industries, the feverish, and therefore unsystematic, transfer of the industries to a peace basis, and then, during the last year the reorganization of the industries, the unusual conditions of transportation, the fuel and the food questions, and as a result of these, the question of labor power growing more acute—this is the sad picture of conditions under which the Russian proletariat has organized and maintained the nation’s economic life.

And though these familiar conditions of actual life have affected all branches of industry, the greatest sufferer in this respect has been the metal industry, which forms the basis for our defence and the foundation for all our industrial life.

We might add here that the metal industry, and in particular the metal working industry as its most complicated and many-sided phase, both in assortment of products and in the nature of production, was by no means strong in Russia even under the rule of the bourgeoisie. As compared with the more developed capitalist countries, the metal industry in Russia has been at a disadvantage because of the very geographical situation of its centers, remote from the sources of raw material and fuel, artificially built up and having suffered all the consequences of an unsound foundation. As a result of these conditions, there is lack of specialization and poor development of large scale production which means a lack of the necessary prerequisites for successful production.

These are the external conditions under which the administration of our metal industry has been compelled to work.

The first and most fundamental problem has been that of systematic monopolization of industry. Only under this form of industrial organization—if freed from all the negative features of the capitalist trust,—is operation possible, even on a reduced scale, so that later on we might lay the solid foundations for new constructive work in the organization of the nation’s economic life of Socialist principles. The process of monopolization may be considered as complete by this time. Large associations have been formed, such as the trust of united government machine shops “Gomza,” amalgamating the largest mills producing the means of transportation and machine construction, and the large metallurgical mills, the trust of state copper working factories, the trust of government automobile works, the trust of government aviation work, the trust of government wire nail, bolt and nut factories, the trust of the Maltzoff Metallurgical mills, the association of the Kaluga metallurgical mills (cast iron, utensils, and hardware), the trust of the Podolsk mechanical and machine construction shops the Petrograd mills for heavy production, the Petrograd mills for medium machine construction, and the Petrograd mills for heavy output (production on large scale) are united under individual district administration boards.

Not all the enterprises consolidated within the associations have become closely bound up among themselves during this transitional period. In a matter of such gigantic proportions mistakes have been, of course, inevitable and they will have to be rectified. However, the results of the experience of the last two years are sufficient ground for the claim that the working class has solved the problem of consolidating industry.

The central administration of the Gomza mills thus characterizes the significance of this consolidation: "The consolidation of the mills working on transportation equipment, working with the metallurgical group makes it possible to utilize most efficiently all the resources available, such as fuel, raw material, technical forces, and the experience of the various mills with a view to obtaining the best possible results under the existing conditions. The amalgamation of the mills has already, during the past year, made it possible to distribute among them in the most rational manner, that inconsiderable quantity of metal products and mineral fuel, all products included, which the groups had in its possession. This enabled the mills to adapt themselves to the usage of local fuel. The concentration, even though only partial, of some of the branches of the metallurgical industry, also of the blacksmithing and iron foundry branches, was made possible entirely by the amalgamation. The specialization of the mills, according to the types of steam engines, Diesel or other machines, has been decided along general lines, by the Metal Department of the Supreme Council of National Economy, and the question is being worked out in closest cooperation with the Technical Department of the “Gomza.” The amalgamation of the mills will make it possible to carry out gradually this specialization and utilize its results.

The central administration of the united mills states, in a report of its activities, that owing to the consolidation of the mills, the problems of supplying them with raw material, fuel and labor power, were solved in a fairly satisfactory way, thus placing production on a more or less constant basis. The mills entering this combination, if left to their own resources, would have been doomed to a complete shutdown.

The trust of the airplane building works has so completely amalgamated all the mills, which entered the combination that it now would be at a loss to determine in advance which of the mills would perform any given part of its program of production; to such an extent are these mills bound up together through constant interchange of fuel, raw material, supplies and even labor power.