Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/151

 of exchange which will remove the necessity of money altogether.

Russia has complete conscription of labour. All men and women of from eighteen years to fifty are obliged to work. The forms of Labour organisation are being militarised. A worker must go where he is sent and do what he is told under very heavy penalties. Late-coming and dilatory behaviour are punished heavily. Nobody is allowed to be idle, except, of course, the very old and the infirm.

This cannot be wholly condemned in Russia's present terrible condition. Those who would wish to stand idle in such circumstances ought to be constrained by hunger if public opinion is not sufficient, and if the discipline is at times over-severe, the breakdown of Russia's economic life is a very substantial excuse, if not a complete justification.

Those soldiers of the Red Army drafted into the Labour Army and the many civilian corps added to their numbers are doing good work in reconstruction in the mines, on the railways, at the oilfields and in the workshops. They are a mobile force, and are drafted in tens of thousands from one place to another as the need requires.

I was told that every effort was made not to disturb industries that are running satisfactorily by taking their workpeople for the Labour Army.