Here are some of the functions of these Soviets. They must:
1. Manage the private enterprises confiscated by the State and given over to the workmen, such as, for instance, a number of factories in the Ural mining district.
2. Determine the amount of fuel, raw materials, machinery, means of transportation, labor, &c., needed by the given industrial section, and the amount available in it.
3. Provide for the economic needs of the section.
4. Distribute the orders for goods among the individual enterprises and work out the basis for the distribution of labor, raw material, machinery, &c.
5. Regulate transportation in the section.
6. See to it that all the productive forces should be fully utilized both in industry and agriculture.
7. Improve the sanitary conditions of labor.
LAND COMMITTEES
The activity of the Soviets of National Economy is restricted to the field of industry. Their counterpart in agriculture are the so-called land committees.
The decree relating to agrarian socialization, voted by the Bolsheviki at 2 A. M., Nov. 8, 1917, recommends the use of a certain nakaz, (mandate,) based on 242 resolutions passed by village communities, as a guide in putting the land reform into practice. Article 8 of this nakaz, which is a paraphrase of the agrarian program of the Social Revolutionists, reads thus: "All the land, upon confiscation, forms a national agrarian fund. The distribution of the land among the toilers is taken care of by local and central self-governing bodies. * * * The land is periodically redistributed, with the growth of population and the rise of the productivity of agricultural labor."
For the purpose of putting this program into operation and regulating the economic life of the village generally there have been instituted land committees, (decree of Nov. 16,) one for each volost, (rural district including several villages.) They are to be elected by the population of the district and exist as separate institutions, or function as an organ of the volost zemstvo, wherever this is found. The duties of a land committee are many and complex. It takes inventory of all the land in the district and allots to each village its share of plow land, meadows, and pastures, seeing to it that the land should be equitably distributed among the individual toilers and correctly tilled. It grants lease of lands and waters, not subject to distribution, receives the rent and turns it over to the national fund. It regulates the supply and demand of agricultural labor, takes charge of the forests, fixes prices of timber, receives and fills orders for fuel from the State, and takes the necessary measures to preserve the large, scientifically conducted agricultural establishments.
The delegates of a number of volost land committees, together with representatives of the local zemstvo and the Soviet of Workmen's and Soldier's Delegates, form a county committee. The latter, in its turn, sends a delegate to the Provincial Land Committee. The Main Land Committee, which heads the whole system, is an independent institution on a par with the central State organizations. It is a large group of people, consisting of the Commissariat of Agriculture, together with representatives from the following bodies: The Commissariats of Finance, Justice, and Internal Affairs, the provincial Land Committees, the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants' Deputies, the All-Russian Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, and the political parties.
NO MORE LANDLORDS
The Bolsheviki have been careful to extend the abolition of private land ownership to city real estate. By a special decree they abrogated the property rights in city land and in those of the city buildings whose value, together with that of the ground they occupy, exceeds a certain minimum, fixed in each municipality by the local authorities, or which are regularly let for rent, although their value does not exceed the minimum. The land and the buildings are declared public property. The dispossessed owners retain the right to use the apartment they occupy in their former property, provided the apartment is worth no more than 800 rubles of rent per annum. In case the value of the apartment exceeds this maximum the former owner pays the difference to the local Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates. All the rent which formerly went to the landlord is now paid to that institution or to the Municipal Council. Not more than one-third of the sum thus collected is to be used to meet the various needs of the community; 10 per cent. of it goes to the national housing fund; the rest forms the local housing fund for erecting new buildings, laying out streets, and making other improvements.