trowel of the builders, and so on-but in the Communist

Congresses in the Kremlin and throughout the country.
And, in the problem with which in this book we are mainly
concerned, neither the regular business of the Unions nor
their internal squabbles affects the cardinal fact that in
the present crisis the Trades Unions are chiefly important as
part of that organization of human will with which the
Communists are attempting to arrest the steady progress of
Russia's economic ruin. Putting it brutally, so as to offend
Trades Unionists and Communists alike, they are an
important part of the Communist system of internal propaganda,
and their whole organization acts as a gigantic
megaphone through which the Communist Party makes
known its fears, its hopes and its decisions to the great
masses of the industrial workers.









THE PROPAGANDA TRAINS



When I crossed the Russian front in October, 1919, the first