This, the fifth chapter of Alfons Goldschmidt’s Soviet travel diary, sees the economist visit model Moscow factories, experience a mysterious explosion, and explain the role of the Communist Party in governance.

‘Moscow in 1920. Chapter V’ by Dr. Alfons Goldschmidt from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 3 No. 18. October 30, 1920.

A Visit to a Factory

It is impossible to get a general view of Russian economy. At least not ‘today, for at present it has no limits. It is a gigantic field with thousands of variations in the character of the work, in the presuppositions of the raw materials, in the possibilities of transportation, climate, and individual psychology.

A capitalistic economy, an incipient Socialist economy, is not capable of being viewed as a whole anyway. No person in Germany knows German economy. If any man claims he knows German economy, he is presumptuous, impudent, a bluffer, or a jackass. It is impossible to have a complete view of the economy of a single great city. Not even in the statistical departments, although the economic statisticians imagine that they have sounded the last depths of that economy. They suffer, most of them, from pathological systematitis. They do not know life.

Individual fields can be controlled. One who has feeling for such things, who can make combinations, who can make figures live, who is able to understand facts, beholds the tendency, the direction, in which an economy is developing. He recognizes it, but, so to say, from samples. Only a true Socialist economy will be a complete understandable economy, an economy capable of control. But Soviet Russia has not readied that point yet. The work of registration has progressed, has progressed considerably, but has by no means reached its culmination. We know how many factories are lying idle, we know the percentage of recession in production, the number of working and non-working laborers, and the like. But this does not mean having a full view of the economic life.

Visits to factories, inspection journeys, are therefore at most revealers of tendencies. But at the present stage of Russian economy they cannot be taken as obligatory indications even in this direction. They are, so to say, results taken on faith, results due to confidence, which for the tester may, to be sure, have the value of certainty.

Outside the city, on the ring that runs around Moscow, at the end of Karl Marx Street, there is a little factory, the so-called Russian-American factory, run and organized by Russian workers who have become skilled at their tasks in America, it is a factory with 120 laborers. A factory producing machine-tools, with good machines, with good management, and with good workers. I saw instruments of precision, splendid millimeter work, carefully fitted and caliphered pieces of steel that were neatly kept; splendid drills and the like. The furnishing of this factory had not yet been completed, but what was ready of it clearly showed the quality nature of this little establishment. For me it was a fine example of crossed breeds: an example of the training of Russian workers in a foreign technology. This is a very important problem for Russian industry, as well as for Russian agriculture.

I am received by a very pleasant, very energetic worker. There is a recess in the work of the factory, a recess for lunch, about half-past twelve. The workingmen and workingwomen eat together. There is a fish soup, kasha, bread and tea. The food was sufficient and palatable, also quite clean. I was served a portion. I tasted it, although I had no appetite, and found everything clean and well-prepared. The head of the inspection was entirely satisfied with the wages and the food. There were high bonuses in this factory, for work of fine quality was being turned out. I was told of monthly salaries going as high as 15,000 rubles, in addition to good food furnished free, and working clothes and additional foodstuffs at low prices. This pay is by no means high, if we consider the present low purchasing power of money. Most of the workers at Moscow do not attain this pay, certainly not the ordinary clerks, but we cannot speak of a real famine. That would be exaggeration. Germany has had worse war-times; at least in its large cities.

I saw workers here in their normal working clothes. Wide brown suits with somewhat baggy trousers, but of durable material. These are in the nature of overalls, protective clothing. In the future they are to be distributed generally.

They resemble the French miners’ costumes and are comfortable, enabling the worker to move inside of them. I remained in the factory about an hour.

Next day I visited the Prokhorov Factory near Moscow, accompanied by one of the managers of the Textile Combine. This is one of the biggest textile factories of Russia. The factory was quiet, for no fuel was available. The workers were repairing and taking care of the technical apparatus. We passed through a control at the entrance to the factory. A member of the factory committee, accompanied by specialists, led us.

Everything was in the best of order. Machines were ready to run, the looms and spindles were neat, spick and span, ready for work. Everything had been carefully laid out, in long rows, the whole length of the hall. The oil was flowing, and was renewed daily. The driving machinery had been cleaned, the lamps illuminating it had been carefully set. Protective devices were in perfect order.

Spinning works, weaving machinery, bleaching establishments, power house, switchboard, everything in order. The guides were proud of the condition of the factory and might well be. Only fuel was needed, and the gigantic apparatus could function perfectly the next day. The feeding wires were in place, the courts were being swept, everything was bright and clean. Fuel was ardently longed for.

We were shown the stocks of cloth. Immense heaps of bales in halls and factory spaces. All precisely registered. The manager of the combine made a test of the registration. The test turned out all right. Nothing had been prepared for us, our visit was not announced until shortly before our automobile set out, there was therefore no deception, we were dealing with facts. I saw good simple cotton cloth in immense quantities. (In the Zundel Factory near Moscow conditions are similar.) I saw colored and printed cloths, handsome patterns; they were the well-known Moscow cloths which had made their appearance in Germany already before the war. The Moscow textile industry is an absolutely modern industry in its fixtures. It has the best machines and the best methods. Then we visited the dining-room and the kitchen, an immense room. Dinner is taken in shifts. The kitchen was scoured, the kettles polished. New kettles are soon to be furnished. In the dining-room there are Soviet inscriptions and announcements of performances; it is evidently a sort of meeting-room.

The Prokhorov Factory is a veritable miniature city, one of the great Russian factories which are cities in themselves. In other words, the workers live in the factory. The owner formerly lived on the factory grounds, in a villa which is now a proletarian children’s home. The workers’ dwellings are barracks and are called barracks to this day. On the average there are six persons to a room. The workers might live more comfortably; they might have larger dwellings in the city, but they prefer to live on the factory grounds for the sake of convenience at their work. This is only the transition period. But this transition is already significant, for cleanliness has entered the factories. The floors of the rooms are polished clean, the bedding was not objectionable. The clothing of the men and women was clean. The health pedagogues have done good work here; the health pedagogues in the factory committees will tolerate no dirt. The ovens and great samovars are outside on the landings of the barracks. The working-women are baking and preparing water for tea. Women and men were well nourished. I saw none that were emaciated.

School children (school and playground are on the factory grounds) are sent to the country during the summer to recuperate. The villa of the former landowner is now a home for children and infants, a home with many beds, with happy sisters, with playthings, with playrooms, with visiting children, with everything that a little fellow might desire.

I do not know how many factories in Russia have a model establishment of this kind. The Prokhorov Factory is a model factory in every respect. It is unfortunate that the railroads are overburdened with mobilization demands and are inefficient aside from that. Not a moment should such a factory be allowed to stand idle. Not a moment ought it to stand idle, for the workers of the factory want work, are calling for work, and are hoping every day for work.

After our tour of inspection we were invited to the meeting-room of the factory committee. We were entertained. I must say a few words about this entertainment.

Two heart-affecting episodes, two illuminating episodes I experienced at Moscow. Two truly heart-rending events, events that throw light on much. The conversation with Krzyizanowsky, the electricity director of Russia, the friend of Lenin, and that session with the factory committee of the Prokhorov Factory. The consultation with Krzyizanowsky showed me the economic sense of the Revolution; the session with the factory committee showed me its psychological sense. It was the first time that I had been served a meal in one of the producing centers of the proletariat out of its own resources, out of its own hospitality. There was a completely new world for me in the session room of the factory committee of the Prokhorov Factory. One member of the once very wealthy Prokhorov family of textile princes, had adapted himself to the situation. But he was no longer a private host. The host was the worker and he was host with them. The factory belongs to them. It belongs to them not in the sense of private property, it belongs to them in the sense of Socialism. It was an entirely new hospitality! it was a revolutionary hospitality; it was the hospitality of the new time. We were given fish, tea, small preserved fruits, bread, sugar; and these things were given to us with the authority of the proletariat, by the self-determination of the workers. This I admit was a new world for me.

Modesty, dignified matter-of-factness, was our host. Over the machines in the factory, and in the rooms of the barracks, ikons are hanging, but the workers are no longer humble, no longer downcast.

The whole factory committee, with its chairman, was assembled. Accounts were heard of the armed defence of the factory against counter-revolutionists, and readiness was evident to defend the factory again, with arms, if the counter-revolutionists should again attack. The working force of this factory has actually conquered the factory, the authority over the factory.

There were questions and answers. We asked about the tasks of the factory committee, about the process of nationalization of the factories, about the influence of the unions on the administration of the factories, about the influence of the Communist fraction in the factory. The answers were clear, very definite, and swiftly formulated. I had absolutely the impression that I was in the presence of workers who were capable of leadership, workers empowered to control. I do not know in how many factories of Russia the workers are capable of such leadership, but those of the Prokhorov Factory near Moscow certainly are. The workers and we together were happy in the green-covered factory; they were happy with us in the entertainment room. They were modest, self-conscious, delighted with their work, and ready for self-defence. I believe that if anyone should attempt to conquer Soviet Russia by military force he would have to capture one factory after the other, after having first annihilated the Red front, and I believe that would be impossible. Lloyd George is quite right: Soviet Russia cannot be conquered by military force.

I heard of deficiencies in the Russian labor system; in fact I saw such deficiencies and shall speak of them later. But the working force of the Prokhorov Factory gave me high hopes for the working future of Russia, hopes in their educational possibilities, hopes in their qualifications. As yet Russia is by no means lost.

Next day we were again guests of the Prokhorov Factory. We were present at a session of the Communist fraction of the factory.

It was a small meeting, a Communist family meeting, as it were. We were made welcome, hopes in us were expressed, we were spoken of as lagging behind, a resolution was passed, and we were again entertained. It was again a friendly entertainment with their own materials.

The Communist fractions, which are often small fractions, control the factories, not by means of terror, but by the cleanness of their aims, by the consciousness of their work, the straightness of their program. They are not fractions who rule by force, they are disciplined fractions, model fractions, that is, fractions of model workers, of Communist Saturday workers. They hold the sceptre in their hands because they are themselves examples. Of course there are weak sisters, but this domination by example, this domination in the consciousness of their work, through the firmness of their program, is a fact. They are phagocytic fractions. They must absorb the vicious juices, corrode and destroy them. The Russian Revolution was a revolution of phagocytes. In my book, The Economic Organization of Soviet Russia I shall emphasize and prove this point. [*The German title is “Die Wirtschaftsorganisation Sowjetrusslands”; we have not yet received a copy.]

They spoke, and we spoke. There were speeches and promises, assurances of solidarity from both sides, greetings, affectionate incidents, applauding shouts. Then the official portion of the meeting was over and we were about to go. We wished to go unostentatiously, that is, not through the center of the room, as we did not wish to disturb what was to follow. But we were amiably constrained to pass down the center.

As we thus moved out, the men and women, as we passed them, clapped for us. They clapped loudly and warmly, until we no longer could be seen from the hall.

The black-bearded, neat-limbed chairman of the meeting, with his linguistic talents and his good-natured manner of bossing the meeting, accompanied us to our car, as did also the chairman of the factory. There was waving of hands and off we went. I shall never forget this visit to the Prokhorov Factory. It threw light on the Revolution, more than any theory could. For the first time I understood what I had never before understood—since I had only dimly felt it. I understood what I had once set down in a little periodical, Kommunismus, the psychology of the revolution, and also the limitations of Marxism, its finished sections, and that which lies beyond it. By which I do not mean the outliving of Marxism, but the psychology of purposeful Marxism, of the Marxism of the goal, of good old Leninism. This is a new task, a great task, perhaps the greatest task of the coming centuries.

The Explosion

I was coming home from an economic study with that fine fellow Stunkel (organizer of metal workers), accompanied by the excellent Landa. We crossed the bridge over the Moskva, and the Kremlin, city of cupolas, was aglow; the church of Saint Basil was dying down in many colors.

We were passing over the Red Square. Swift clouds shot up into the heavens; there were sudden reports from afar. A window went to pieces in the building of the Commissariat of Labor. Pieces of glass fell upon the head of a passerby, who coughed and made off. The place immediately emptied. Its exits filled with scurrying people; the Iberian Madonna was deserted; only the candles were still burning before her.

New clouds darted by, unorganized clouds. There was no interval of order in the cannon shots, no measured tempo. There would be a sharp bang, a sulphurous report, then a low rumble, and then a whole family of concussions at once.

People were scurrying across the Theater Place.

Plateglass was crashing everywhere. A great pressure of air was exerted against the Kremlin Wall, expanded, quickly filled the great place before the Kremlin city, exerted its force into Myasnitzkaya Street, smashed into windows, and scared off the people. The city was quaking and trembling, ground heaving, panes splintering.

What was the matter? There had been a reassuring notice in the newspapers. We had read that in the next few days woods were to be cleared in the vicinity of Moscow, for agronomical purposes, with the use of explosives. That would not have been serious.

We complained among ourselves: Russian lack of organization as always! Perhaps immense quantities of explosives have been set off instead of the smaller amounts needed, and now the explosion is progressing irresistibly. So we thought.

A sulphurous detonation. One explosion after Che other, explosions like thunderbolts, explosions like a resounding blow, explosions with air pressure. The panes of our villa bend before the impact and the guests hold the weight of their bodies against the panes. The lilac-bushes in the park around the villa were swept by the moving air. Children crept into corners and listened timidly. This continued until late at night. What had happened?

Next morning I was told by the manager of the textile combine, to whom I have referred before, that a munitions depot near Moscow had blown up. It was a depot of old material, but yet a store of munitions. It was a terrible nuisance. No one knew whether the conflagration had been spontaneous or the result of counter-revolutionary attempt. Nothing had happened in Moscow aside from the smashing of the windows.

But, he said, breathing proudly, by eleven o’clock at night the whole Communist Party of Moscow had been mobilized, although it was a day of rest. Orders by telephone were very rapidly forwarded, and everybody, men and women with guns, with determination to resist, with determination to clean up what was wrong, had made ready to work.

The explosion had therefore caused a sort of general test of vigilance. The manoeuver thus forced upon the populace had been successful, the party in Moscow appeared to be prepared even on days of rest.

Until then I had not known this state of readiness of the party; I had known nothing of this soldier-like discipline, of this constant readiness to answer the alarm, even in times of quiet. Not a readiness for trouble, with guns cocked, but a readiness with consciousness of purpose, with willingness for sacrifices in any moment of danger. Very few had been lacking.

Toward morning the series of noises had stopped, the smashing panes, the oppressed hearts were calm. Even on the western front I have rarely heard such a cannonade.

But they are ready at Moscow, ready to answer the alarm. They are ready to sacrifice themselves, to submit to discipline, to jump in and help when danger arises; when swift disordered clouds, discordant clouds, shoot up into the air.

The Party

The Communist Party of Russia (Bolsheviki) is a small party in number. It has not much more than 600,000 members, and the total population of the country is at least 150,000,000.

There are places, for instance, in the north of Russia, pretty big places, that have but few Communists. And yet the Communist Party rules Russia. It does not, to be sure, dominate all the souls of Russia, but the administrative apparatus, the army, is now in the hands of the Bolsheviki. At present the number is even less than 600,000, lor many of the party Communists, perhaps the greater portion of them, are at the front. Moscow, for example, is managed by a few Communists. Never before has a Government ruled with the use of such slight human resources.

There must be reasons for this, serious reasons, reasons of weight. A people of 150,000,000 souls will not without serious reasons tolerate for years the domination of such a minority. A people has always the power to eliminate a minority rule if it has the will for such elimination.

The will for such elimination is lacking in Russia, and why? Because nobody knows what could be put in place of the Bolsheviki, who should assume power, and how the power could be exercised in any different manner.

Many people in Moscow spoke of Denikin with enthusiasm. But if you asked them what improvement Denikin could bring, they were silent. They do not know, and they cannot know, for no party, no wielders of power, could bring about anything essentially different or essentially superior to what the Bolsheviki have brought.

I nosed about for the cause, or the causes. For this is a problem of tremendous importance for the whole world. And I questioned, with as little prejudice as possible, in fact with no prejudice. I arrived at the following conclusion:

The assumption of power by the Bolsheviki was nothing else than the affirmation and the further organization of an existing condition. It was nothing more than the extension of an already present organization into a conquest of the immense difficulties of the nation with the aid of the proletariat. Everything else was merely of concomitant nature, was merely incidental, was capable of approval or disapproval, but not of essential importance. In my book The Economic Organization of Soviet Russia, I shall make an attempt to explain, to assign causes for this fact. I clearly understood the character of this revolution, which has truly been an ineluctable revolution. To be sure, its inevitableness was constantly guided by energetic men with an eye to the present opportunity.

Such was the cause of the seizure of power and already the first cause of the consolidation of power. Later, the power was solidified by means of tactics, by means of a program very firm in principle, but very adaptable in situations, concerning which much nonsense is at present again being uttered. It was a program of Communist Realpolitik of Communist diplomacy.

The dictatorship of the proletariat, proclaimed by the Communist Party in Russia, is a real dictatorship of the proletariat, for the overwhelming majority of the Russian proletariat, of the industrial proletariat, and of the small peasantry need the Bolshevik form of administration. Even that great part of the proletariat which does not have membership in the Communist party. On the other hand, it is a dictatorship of the Communist Party of Russia which is simply attempting to evaluate the necessities of evolution, to exploit and organize these necessities. This is in a nutshell all that need be said of the cause of Bolshevik domination.

Russia may not be Communistic in the majority, but it is a Sovietist majority. That is the secret. There is no longer any other system. At least not at this moment, and for many years to come. The system is subject to deviations, to departures for real political reasons—much nonsense is spoken on this point—but the system itself is today ineradicable. Even a Czar could not wipe it out. It would have to be a Soviet Czar, and therefore not a Czar at all. This fact simply must be accepted. Such is the state of affairs, and not otherwise; it is impossible to escape this situation, and Europe and America will only harm themselves if they think they can overcome it.

Perhaps it is possible to push the Communist Party of Russia out of power and to do one or two things in a manner different from its manner. But it is not possible to force back evolution. Evolution has now advanced so far that it is now no longer possible to go back. The only alternative is to make a chaos of the country.

The Communist Party of Russia takes part in all activities, programizes everything, sets up principles for everything, adorns itself perhaps with subsidiary principles and attempts to act accordingly. Like a Jesuit organization, it will not depart from the main principles, but is very elastic in subsidiaries. It is rigid and adaptable; it breeds statesmen, and, without departing from its principles, is ready for all sorts of concessions.

It controls the filling of positions, the political and economic administration. It controls the army with a few people; an army can only be controlled by a few, if these few recognize the needs of the army as the needs of the country. And it is a matter of indifference, at least for the moment, whether soldiers’ councils of former competence, or political commissars, are the acting officials.

The Communist Party of Russia attempts to regulate national relations, jurisprudence, popular education, religious conditions, the entire economic life and the social policies of Soviet Russia. For this purpose the party needs a real discipline. It must be an advance guard, a troop of pioneers, a troop that fight to the end against all resistance that may be still present (and we shall have more to say on these topics in this book).

For that reason the party has very stringent requirements. It will not admit everybody into its front lines. It selects, tests, decides on admission only after cautions examination. For the party might be much larger if it so desired. Many want to enter but are not admitted. For some wish to enter not for the responsibility of the position, but for the position itself.

For membership in the party ultimately means assumption of important positions. It also involves a certain protection. But the party cannot make use of any people in important posts, who do not belong to it with their hearts, and with a complete spirit of sacrifice. Those whom the party accepts, it accepts gladly and protects with all its power.

Of course there probably are, even in the Communist Party of Russia, those whose hearts do not belong to the party, men and women who are eager for positions or who are flatterers or abject yielder*. No party is safe against such elements, not even the Communist Party of Russia. At Moscow I heard many complaints that such pathological substances had crept into the party.

The Communist Party of Russia, in the war period, and particularly in the Kerensky period, was the only party that was prepared, even in defence of the Revolution of November, 1917, to assume power in a manner that would not hurl the country into an even greater catastrophe than it was then passing through. Even non-Communists told me that at Moscow.

Such, I judge from my Moscow experiences, is the mission and the essence of the Bolshevik authority.

Soviet Russia began in the summer of 1919, published by the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia and replaced The Weekly Bulletin of the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia. In lieu of an Embassy the Russian Soviet Government Bureau was the official voice of the Soviets in the US. Soviet Russia was published as the official organ of the RSGB until February 1922 when Soviet Russia became to the official organ of The Friends of Soviet Russia, becoming Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1923. There is no better US-published source for information on the Soviet state at this time, and includes official statements, articles by prominent Bolsheviks, data on the Soviet economy, weekly reports on the wars for survival the Soviets were engaged in, as well as efforts to in the US to lift the blockade and begin trade with the emerging Soviet Union.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/srp/v3n18-oct-30-1920-soviet-russia.pdf