Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/156

 130 economic and industrial policy of the Soviets than in the words of Maxim Gorky in the Moscow Pravda:

Again if we wish a detailed picture of the working out of the system we cannot do better than to quote from another article of Gorky's in the same journal. The description of this master writer and Bolshevist is so able and conclusive that we quote it at some length:

In another place a car is being loaded. On one axle are piled heavy barrels of cement, cases of lead, pieces of machinery, &c. On the other, rocking chairs, household goods, a perambulator—things that are quite light. The overloaded axle will of course become heated and the car will not reach its destination. I have been a porter myself. I know that had I tried to load a wagon in that way my boss would have boxed my ears and told me to go to the devil. And I should have deserved it, for I should have been injuring the rolling stock.

In another place a mechanical saw is being used to cut rafters and planks from a house which has been torn down. The wood is full of nails and the saw groans painfully. It is quickly spoiled and its teeth broken, yet it is common knowledge that we have no saws and that the price is so high that for one saw we have to give many bushels of wheat, and wheat itself is scarce.

Houses are being destroyed in a most revolting fashion. The windows are all broken, though we have no glass,