Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/143



In company with a small party of garment workers from various countries, I visited three of Moscow's largest clothing shops. We were shown about by a couple of Russian union officials and Brother Resnikoff of Local No. 2, Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' International Union of America.

The first place we went through was primitive in the extreme. In former times it had been a prison work-shop devoted to tent making. Now, as a free shop, it was being used to manufacture all sorts of military clothing. It was quite a large establishment, employing some 900 workers. Four-fifths of these were women. The plant was made up of several one- and two-story buildings, scattered about in a way that would make Taylor, the efficiency expert, turn over in his grave.

Practically all of the sewing machines were of Singer make, many of them being out of commission for want of small but indispensable parts. Such parts the metal industry, in its present broken-down state, is unable to furnish. A crying need of the shop was for buttonhole machines. There were two or three of them, but they were quite evidently incapable of meeting the situation. Consequently large numbers of women sat about sewing buttonholes by hand. I was informed that they average about 30 a day for each worker, whereas one operator on a machine could easily do 1500, or fifty times as much. From this it may be imagined what a welcome a few additional buttonhole machines would get in that shop—for in Russia, of course, the benefits of all labor-saving devices accrue directly to the workers. Another serious need was for cutting machines. We saw the cutters laboriously hacking away with carving knives, doing 134 layers of cloth at one time and stopping every few minutes to sharpen their sadly worn knives. Not only is such work extremely hard and slow, but it is also very inaccurate,