The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, and accepted as correct by the Ministry of Supplies of the Provisional Government.
Cost of Other Necessities—(Rubles and Kopeks)
| August 1914 | August 1917 | % Increase | ||
| Calico | (Arshin) | .11 | 1.40 | 1173 |
| Cotton cloth | (Arshin) | .15 | 2. | 1233 |
| Dress Goods | (Arshin) | 2. | 40. | 1900 |
| Castor Cloth | (Arshin) | 6. | 80. | 1233 |
| Men’s Shoes | (Pair) | 12. | 144. | 1097 |
| Sole Leather | 20. | 400. | 1900 | |
| Rubbers | (Pair) | 2.50 | 15. | 500 |
| Men’s Clothing | (Suit) | 40. | 400.–455. | 900–1109 |
| Tea | (Fund) | 4.50 | 18. | 300 |
| Matches | (Carton) | .10 | .50 | 400 |
| Soap | (Pood) | 4.50 | 40. | 780 |
| Gasoline | (Vedro) | 1.70 | 11. | 547 |
| Candles | (Pood) | 8.50 | 100. | 1076 |
| Caramel | (Fund) | .30 | 4.50 | 1400 |
| Fire Wood | (Load) | 10. | 120. | 1100 |
| Charcoal | .80 | 13. | 1525 | |
| Sundry Metal Ware | 1. | 20. | 1900 |
On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about 1,109 per cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries. The difference, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and merchants.
In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily wage of a skilled industrial worker—for example, a steel-worker in the Putilov Factory—was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits were enormous…. I was told by one of the owners of the Thornton Woollen Mills, an English concern on the outskirts of Petrograd, that while wages had increased about 300 per cent in his factory, his profits had gone up 900 per cent.
3.
THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS
The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional Government of July to realise their programme in coalition with the bourgeois Ministers, is an illuminating example of class struggle in politics. Says Lenin, in explanation of this phenomenon:
“The capitalists, … seeing that the position of the Government was untenable, resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades practised by the capitalists in order to befog, divide, and finally overpower the working-class. This method is the so-called ‘Coalition Ministry,’ composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist camp.
“In those countries where political freedom and democracy have existed side by side with the revolutionary movement of the workers—for example in England and France—the capitalists make use of this subterfuge, and very successfully too. The ‘Socialist’ leaders, upon entering the Ministries, invariably prove mere figure-heads, puppets, simply a shield for the capitalists, a tool with which to defraud the workers. The ‘democratic’ and ‘republican’ capitalists in Russia set in motion this very same scheme. The Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki fell victim to it, and on June 1st a ‘Coalition’ Ministry, with the participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov, Zarudny and Nikitin became an accomplished fact….”—Problems of the Revolution.
4.
SEPTEMBER MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW