I watched and they did. Man after man and woman after woman stopped all work and began to put on their shoes. Many millworkers work barefooted. They gathered in little knots at a window and looked out, talking aimlessly. They strolled about the rooms. Some just stopped work and went out. At half past four in the rooms through which I walked, not half the machines were running.
“Is it really like this in all the mills and factories of Russia?” I asked, “or is this mill an exception to the rule? Is it worse than the average?”
“It is no worse than most,” was the reply. “It is better than some. Industrial Russia has completely broken down in some places. It is rapidly breaking down everywhere.”
What I saw afterwards absolutely confirmed this statement. The industrial world is as much in the hands of the Bolsheviki or extremists as are the councils of workmen’s and soldiers’ delegates. While the provisional government of the early weeks of the revolution discussed ways and means whereby the workers in mills and factories might gradually acquire an interest in their industries and a voice in the councils of the managers, the workers settled the whole thing by turning the employers out and taking over the industries themselves. They have voted themselves enormous salaries, short hours and little work. But they have done little or nothing to insure the permanence of the salaries. Soon there will be, instead of an eight hour day, no working day at all. All the shops and factories will close.
In Moscow is the largest and finest department store in Russia. It is an English concern, Muir & Merrilies, managed and largely owned by Mr. William L. Cazalet. I know him well, and his testimony, when I saw him in August, bore out this statement. The committee in Muir & Merrilies voted that they found it inconvenient to have clerks and other employés go home for lunch at different hours. They therefore ordered the store closed every day from 12 to 2 o’clock. The store was accordingly closed.
“I don’t mind,” said Mr. Cazalet cheerfully. “My stocks are running low, the transportation system is on the verge of collapse, and I can’t get any more goods. As each line of goods is exhausted I shall close the department. When the time comes I shall close the store and go home to England for a vacation.”
He will go, as Daniel Cheshire went, others will follow, and the workers will own their tools. They won’t own anything else.