Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/101

 During our visit to Moscow the greater part of our time was spent in visits to local co-operative associations, their federation, their wholesale department, magnificently installed in new buildings, their Co-operative Bank, and finally, their Co-operative Congress, which is soon to sit in a vast palace in the centre of the city.

We received a most reassuring impression. In the city there was a strike. The dvorniks (hotel doorkeepers) were marching through the city in procession. In the hotels all work was suspended, even in the kitchens; travellers had to make their beds themselves, and had to be satisfied with sandwiches at five roubles a dish (fr. 12.50); while the strike of public services was announced for the next day. Fortunately that did not take place.

In the co-operative hives, on the contrary, all the bees were busy working. They ceased work for a moment to welcome with brotherly cordiality their co-operative comrades from distant Belgium. It was with indescribable emotion that we saw on the walls photographs of the "Vooruit"