more pay than Lenin or Sukhanov?" This was unanswerable.
Soviet Organizes
Industry.
As soon as the workmen found the factories in their hands there came a change in their morale. Under Kerensky the tendency was to elect lenient foremen. Under their own government, the Soviet, they elected foremen who put discipline into the shop and raised production. The first time I met Krasnoschekov, the head of the Far East Soviet, he was pessimistic.
"For every word I say to the bourgeoisie against their sabotage," he said, "I say ten to the working-men against their slackness. But I believe a change is coming."
When I saw him the end of June, 191 8, he was in happy mood. The change had come. Six factories, he said, were producing more than ever before.
In the so-called "American Works," the wheels, frames and brakes of cars, shipped from the United States, were assembled, and the cars sent out over the Trans-Siberian Railway. These shops had been hotbeds of trouble, one disturbance following on the heels of another. The 6,000 workmen on the payroll had been turning out but 18 cars a day. The Soviet Committee closed the plant and reorganized the shops, reducing the force to 1,800 men. In the underframe section, instead of 1,400 there were now 350;, but by means of short-cuts intro-
