Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/284

230 by the workers themselves, the output of that department was increased. Altogether, the 1,800 men on the new payroll were now turning out 12 cars a day—an efficiency increase of more than 100 per cent per man.

One day I was standing with Sukhanov on the hills overlooking the shops. He was listening to the clank of cranes, and the stamp of trip-hammers ringing up from the valley.

"That seems to be sweet music to your ears," I said.

"Yes," he replied, "the old Revolutionists used to make a noise with bombs. This is the noise of the new Revolutionists, hammering out the new social order."

The strongest ally of the Soviet was the Union of Miners. It organized the unemployed into little Soviets of 50 and 100, equipped them, and sent them out to the mines along the great Amur. These enterprises were highly successful. Each man was panning out from 50 to 100 rubles of gold a day. The question of pay arose. One of the miners unearthed the slogan: "To every man the full product of his labors." It at once achieved tremendous popularity with the miners, who declared their loyalty to this basic Socialist principle. Nothing, they said, could induce them to depart from it.

The Soviet held a different view. There was a deadlock. Instead of using the historic method of