The decision was put into effect on May 10th, when the first
Communist "Saturdaying" in Russia took place on the
Moscow-Kazan railway. The Commissar of the railway,
Communist clerks from the offices, and every one else who
wished to help, marched to work, 182 in all, and put in
1,012 hours of manual labor, in which they finished
the repairs of four locomotives and sixteen wagons and
loaded and unloaded 9,300 poods of engine and wagon parts
and material. It was found that the productivity of labor in
loading and unloading shown on this occasion was about
270 per cent. of the normal, and a similar superiority of
effort was shown in the other kinds of work. This example
was immediately copied on other railways. The Alexandrovsk
railway had its first "Saturdaying" on May 17th. Ninety-eight
persons worked for five hours, and here also did two or
three times as much is the usual amount of work done in the
same number of working hours under ordinary circumstances.
One of the workmen, in giving an account of the
performance, wrote: "The Comrades explain this by
saying that in ordinary times the work was dull and
they were sick of it, whereas this occasion they were
working willingly and with excitement. But now it will be
shameful in ordinary hours to do less than in the Communist
'Saturdaying.' " The hope implied in this last sentence has
not been realized.


In Pravda of June 7th there is an article describing one of