Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/148

 unless he changes with them. I have frequently observed in Russia the same person applauding the exactly opposite sentiments, a characteristic by no means confined to Russian men and women!

Seldom does the All-Russian Soviet meet, and then only to do formal business, such as recording the decrees issued by the People's Commissars or to ratify the decisions of the Communist party. The People's Commissars, of whom there are seventeen, have the power to issue decrees without consulting the Soviets at all. More than that, each Commissar can issue decrees relative to the work of his own department; or two Commissars can do this in their joint names on a matter jointly affecting their two departments. These decrees have all the force of law, and must be obeyed under heavy penalties.

To the slaves of theory, the abstractionists and dogmatists, the decrees which consent to the modifications in committee management of industry must be considered wholly bad. But when I record the fact that the power of workmen to interfere through those committees in highly important productive and reconstructive work, either through delays, or ignorance, or in the name of a democratic principle run to seed, has given place all over Russia to control by experts, and management on lines of personal