Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/55



N the previous chapters I tried to show that the economic exhaustion of Russia and the ruin of Russian industry were long processes, and inevitable results of the war and of the isolation of Russia. The process began immediately after the war broke out. Its effects went on increasing steadily as the war continued, and were bound to grow more destructive the longer the war dragged on. This inevitable process of exhaustion was yet augmented by the maladministration of the unintelligent and corrupt Tsarist Government, and by the rapacious exploitation of industry on the part of the manufacturers.

With the Revolution a new factor came into play: the class war and the heavy demands of the workers. For a correct understanding of the Russian situation as a whole and of Russia's economics in particular, it is most necessary to gain a true idea of this class factor, and of its exact share in bringing about the destruction of Russia's economic strength. The army of publicists and correspondents who raised such an outcry against the workers after the Revolution, sat silent during all those terrible years when Russia was wearing herself out and the manufacturers were ruthlessly exploiting the industries for their own ends. Thus they produced the impression in Western Europe that the disintegration of Russia began with the Revolution. This was a very clever trick, to the double advantage of the journalists themselves and of the capitalist elements in all countries. The correspondents were silent at a time when it was their civic duty to speak and call attention to the dangerous situation through which Russia was passing. Now they began to speak, and contrived at