So much for the organization, with its Communist Party, its
system of meetings and counter-meetings, its adapted Trades

Unions, its infinitely various propaganda, which is doing its
best to make headway against ruin. I want now to describe
however briefly, the methods it has adopted in tackling the
worst of all Russia's problems-the non-productivity and
absolute shortage of labor.


I find a sort of analogy between these methods and those
which we used in England in tackling the similar cumulative
problem of finding men for war. Just as we did not proceed
at once to conscription, but began by a great propaganda of
voluntary effort, so the Communists, faced with a need at
least equally vital, did not turn at once to industrial
conscription. It was understood from the beginning that the
Communists themselves were to set an example of
hard work, and I dare say a considerable proportion of them
did so. Every factory had its little Communist Committee,
which was supposed to leaven the factory with enthusiasm,
just as similar groups of Communists drafted into the armies
in moments of extreme danger did, on more than one
occasion, as the non-Communist Commander-in-Chief
admits, turn a rout into a stand and snatch victory from what
looked perilously like defeat. But this was not enough,
arrears of work accumulated, enthusiasm waned,