Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/376

316 As for the other necessities, the price of these increased tremendously. 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 19H August 1917 % Increase Calico (Arshin) .11 1.40 1173 Cotton cloth " .15 2. * 1288 Dress Goods " '2. 40. 1900 Castor Cloth " 6. 80. 1288 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. 800 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) .80 4.50 1400 Fire Wood (Load) 10. 120. 1100 Charcoal .80 18. 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 differ- ence, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and merdiants.

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 enor- mous. ... 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, ms profits had gone up 900 per cetU.

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 shidd 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 Tchemov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov, Zarudny and Nikitin became an accomplished fact . . ."—Problems of the Revolution,