Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/92

 masses to the meaning of the new voluntary labor discipline; they fought the food shortage by rationing systems and all sorts of drives for industrial efficiency.

But with the counter-revolutionary forces raging on many fronts about the best they could do was to partially check the degeneration of industry. Little attention could be given the problem. The supreme energies of the people were devoted to beating back the invaders. The slogan was, "Everything for the Red Army." But now the war is over, and for the first time the revolutionists are really able to take the industrial situation seriously in hand. They are attacking it with the same feverish energy that they did the earlier military problems. The rehabilitation of industry has now become the first order of business for Russia's best brains and idealism.

The first fruits of this concentrated attention upon the industrial problem is what is called the new economic program, the anouncement of which recently caused world-wide comment. This program consists of several measures, the most important of which are: (1), intensified efforts to break the blockade by setting up trade relations with capitalist nations; (2), granting of concessions in Russia to foreign capital; (3), lifting of the strict Government industrial monopoly and the establishment of free trade; (4), abolition of the grain levy and adoption of the grain tax.

These policies were heralded all over the world by counter-revolutionaries as marking the definite end of Communism in Russia and the rebirth of capitalism there. The defenders of private property in social necessities were everywhere highly elated and the radical friends of Soviet Russia correspondingly depressed; because, lacking exact information as to what these policies actually involve and judging them from their face value, the latter were inclined to fear that there might be good grounds for the capitalistic rejoicing. In this chapter I shall try to point out what the new measures are intended to accomplish and whether or not they are liable to bring about a recurrence of capitalism in Russia.

In the preceding chapter we have seen that Russia is suffering from a sort of economic vicious circle, the low production of manufactured articles preventing a sufficient production of foodstuffs, and vice versa. The