Page:Raymond Augustine McGowan - Bolshevism in Russia and America (1920).pdf/17

 Rh owners. Since then the State has made great efforts to encourage deposits in its own banks, allowing 3 per cent interest on savings.

The result in the banking field has been to divide it between the State and the voluntary coöperatives. This in itself is a compromise on Socialism, while the other compromise, 3 per cent. interest on savings, is even more fundamental.

Between the downfall of the Tsar and the Soviet Revolution, nearly eight months intervened. During that period, the city workmen were taking over, one by one, the industries in which they worked, and were trying to manage them through local work councils, very often without the help of technical experts. The Bolsheviki at their accession to power, encouraged this anarchy for a time, but when their power was considered not too insecure, they changed the system, and the local works council began to give way before centralized State direction of nationalized industries.

A Supreme Board of National Economy was established to direct the larger movements of production, distribution, and finance. Under the Supreme Board were established organizations charged with the direction of particular industries. These are called Centros and there are about sixty of them. Almost all large and medium-sized industries have been nationalized and have been taken over by the Central Government from the former owners without compensation and are being directed by the Central Government. The Centros, which direct industry, have become, even in a short time, very bureaucratic, employing a great many clerks possessed of much power.