Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/155

 Rh this, but to study practical things, and to verify them, we are unable to do.

What is most amusing is that Lenin himself soon gave an illustration of the truth of his accusations. The all-important problem for the Soviets is to get the persecuted workers to work. The supposed means of accomplishing this at present are so-called disciplinary courts. Yet Lenin and other Bolshevist chiefs had apparently forgotten the very existence of these courts or of the decree promulgating them. In Pravda (January 13, 1921) in an account of the All-Russian Conference of Professional Unions he is quoted as follows:

As this decree had been on the statute books over a year no wonder Lenin had forgotten its existence in view of the numbers of the decrees issued since that time.

In this matter of paper decrees as in the matter of the issuance of paper money and of Bolshevist propaganda generally there is one hope. The paper supply is very short. The type is being rapidly used up. The production of type-making factories is one-twentieth that of peace times. Then the number of workmen in the printing industry, doubtless for reasons we have already pointed out, has been reduced to one-half.

We cannot better sum up the total failure of the