Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/47

 Rh to help private industries than to remedy defects of transports. Thus, factories and workshops all over the country were obliged to shut down not only from lack of fuel, raw material, and means of transport, but also owing to the gradual wearing out and breakdown of machinery and the inability to execute repairs. The factories, like the railways, were being worn out before the eyes of the people, and nothing could stop the terrible process. Any accidental damage to machinery could only be repaired after much delay, and then only very badly. Thus as the war went on accidents and dislocations took place more frequently and were more serious when they occurred.

The disintegration of the Russian industries and railways, once started, could never be arrested. The ruthless exploitation of industry by the State and the manufacturers, to which reference was made above, added a special impetus of its own to this process of disintegration. But this factor only developed at a later stage, during the so-called mobilisation of industry.