The Volga and Don canal will connect the Black and Caspian Seas and the Volga river with the Baltic Sea. Canal Dredges are needed to build these.
RAW MATERIALS
There are at present in warehouses in Russia 200,000 tons of flax, the present market price of which, in London, is over $1,000 per ton. There are also 100,000 tons of hemp. There is gold, timber, and ninety percent of the world’s supply of platinum.
Many factories will be erected, great rolling mills, steel mills, etc. There is no doubt but that Russia will eventually be able to produce everything it needs. The country is thoroughly stocked with all kinds of mineral products and it is merely a matter of time before it will be entirely independent. It struck me that in the meantime the American business men are missing a wonderful opportunity in these ready markets for their machinery and equipment. Russia will be, in the course of a very few years, a very strong competitor, whereas now it offers a vast market.
CHAPTER XI
PROPAGANDA
On my way into Red Russia the train on which I was travelling passed, between Rejistza and Novo-Sokoliev, a train of ten or twelve cars, the sides of which were covered with huge, multi-colored placards. It was the “Lenin Train” used for carrying propaganda literature all over the republic. When I saw it, it was on a tour of the country behind the Western Front.
The train was decorated with great paintings in bright colors and with revolutionary inscriptions. In one of the cars was a moving picture apparatus and screen; another was fitted up as a book shop; and a third as a telegraph station which posted the latest news bulletins at every station, and circulated news from the front and from the rest of the world. The train carried representatives from government departments and a staff of speakers and lecturers.
It had been in constant service for about two months, during which time it travelled through the districts of Pskov, Vitebsk, Lettonia, White Russia, Lithuania, and Kharkov, covering some 3,590 versts. In all the stations and towns through which it passed, leaflets, pamphlets and books were distributed. Meetings were arranged and lectures given, and the Commissary representatives visited the Soviet institutions offering suggestions and aid. Workers and peasants assembled about the train and listened to speeches made from the roofs of cars and gathered bundles of literature to be distributed in the villages and workshops. They told of their difficulties to the speakers and asked them for their advice.
In America I had always heard so much about the illiteracy of the Russian peasants that I wondered what use quantities of reading matter would be to them. I discovered that illiteracy was not nearly so general as popularly supposed, and was decreasing rapidly under the government’s energetic educational program. In every community there is at least one who can read and write. Russians live in villages everywhere; even on the plains or steppes such a thing as an isolated farmhouse or workman’s cottage is rare. The farmer may, and often does, have to go some distance to work his land, but his home is always among other homes. When literatures arrives those who can, read aloud. The others gather around the reader to listen. Long discussions, so dearly loved by the Russians, follow.