Russia & The Struggle for Peace/Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
THE EXHAUSTION OF RUSSIA
MUCH has been written since the Revolution about the economic exhaustion of Russia. But, from all that one reads or hears in this country, it is obvious that the character and extent of this exhaustion is realised very imperfectly. It is generally supposed that Russia's sufferings were analogous to the strain which can be observed in all the countries at war, though Russia may have been hit a little more severely. But the real destruction of Russia's industry and economic system is ascribed to the rise of the class war, or to the excessive demands of the workers which developed after the Revolution and made the strain intolerable.
This assumption is wrong. The fact is that Russia's industry was well-nigh destroyed before the Revolution; and the character and causes of her economic exhaustion during the war had very little in common with the economic sufferings of other belligerent countries. The other belligerent countries have suffered only from a gradual diminution of their resources in raw materials and foodstuffs, while the technical basis of their economic organisation remains unshaken. Nay more, one of the most striking phenomena of the war is seen in the enormous increase in the productivity of the countries at war. For example, the growth of machinery and plant in this country during the past three years has been absolutely unequalled. Never before was such a rapid increase recorded. In Russia, although as a matter of fact the productivity did greatly increase in the early years of the war, there was no corresponding increase of machinery and plant. Hence the increase in productivity could not but have the effect of wearing out her industries and leading towards a breakdown. Even in Germany, which suffered under the blockade and was injured by the war more than any other country, the economic life of the country was not undermined as it was in Russia. Germany's economic organism was only crippled; it was not destroyed. It remains intact in spite of all the blows which Germany has received during- the war. Only her functions have been temporarily arrested and slowed down. This is evident, if only from the fear of future German competition which is so widespread in this country. In the same way, the other belligerent countries have suffered—to a less extent than Germany—through a temporary dislocation of their normal functions, through a tightening of economic strain and the need for rigid abstinence or economy in certain raw materials, foodstuffs, and other commodities. But as a well-organised machine the collective economy in these countries works, if anything, more smoothly than before the war. It is better co-ordinated.
The economic sufferings of Russia are of a totally different character. Russia's exhaustion is organic. The ruin of Russian industry was a long process, and an inevitable result of the war and of the economic isolation of Russia in the war. It began immediately war broke out, and was more or less complete before the Revolution—i.e., before the class war and the demands of the workers could become an essential factor in hastening the final breakdown. The Revolution was the result of the economic exhaustion of Russia; not by any means its cause.
Besides the factor of economic isolation, three other factors effected the economic destruction of Russia. They were: (1) The enemy invasion and occupation of the best organised industrial districts of Russia; (2) the factor of depreciation or attrition—the wearing out of material in railways, factories, and workshops owing to the speeding-up and strain of war; and (3) the unsound and wasteful exploitation of raw materials, machinery, and labour by the State and the manufacturers during the so-called mobilisation of industry for war purposes.
The first factor—the enemy invasion and devastation of the chief industrial districts—made Russia's plight not unlike that of France. But whereas the misfortunes of France were largely relieved by the Allies and America, Russia, cut off as she was from the whole world, was unable to replace her industries which were destroyed in those campaigns. At a very early stage in the war a heavy blow was inflicted on the national economy of Russia by the devastation of Poland and its severance from the Empire. There is no doubt that Poland was one of the most important industrial districts of Russia, being rich in raw materials and, which is especially important, in coal. The "Dombrova" coal region in Poland was certainly less rich in coal than the Donetz Basin, but its nearness to the Riga and Petrograd industrial areas greatly increased its economic importance. Again, the Riga district, famous for its machine and iron industry, was evacuated in 1915 during the first German attempt to force the Gulf of Riga. Officially it was called evacuation. But, in fact, it was merely a panic-stricken and unsystematic process of destruction, in which some of the largest and best equipped factories in the country, such as the "Vulcan" and "Russo-Baltic" works, were cruelly and senselessly demolished. It certainly must not be imagined that the devastation by war of Russia's industry was anything similar to that which took place in Belgium and Northern France. It was not a case of factories and buildings being levelled to the ground as on the Somme; but the economic effect of the campaigns in Poland and Western Russia was none the less disastrous. Three times the country was crossed and re-crossed by the contending armies, and by the end of that time the industrial areas in question were virtually non-existent so far as the national economy of Russia was concerned.
But the actual devastation of Russia's industries through the enemy invasion of Western Russia was not even the main factor in bringing about the economic exhaustion of the country. The two other factors mentioned above were even more disastrous. Most important was the second factor: the factor of gradual attrition and wear and tear. Attrition as an economic term is well known, but the world never had such a striking example of it as in the effect of two years of war on Russia's economic life. The isolation of Russia, which practically prevented worn-out machinery from being replaced; the enormously increased demands of the war on factories and railways; and the early breakdown of repair shops—all these contributed to increase depreciation to an almost destructive magnitude.
The railways and means of transport suffered most. The engines, the rolling-stock, and the very rails were being worn out literally before the eyes of the people. There were no rails in stock wherewith to replace those which were worn out; there were not sufficient springs, axles or wheels with which to repair the rolling-stock. And the rate of depreciation on the railways grew yet greater, thanks to the overloading and to the feverish and unskilled handling of the traffic under the strain of war. The locomotives were continually being sent to the shops for repair in ever-increasing numbers; while the rate at which they could be repaired continually diminished. In many cases repairs could not be carried out for lack of some small essential parts like pressure gauges, which, before the war, had mostly been imported from abroad. The yards of the railway works and of the famous Briansky, Kolomensky, and other locomotive factories were packed with hundreds and thousands of broken-down engines, some of which could not be repaired at all, and the rest only very badly and after considerable delays. At a later stage not only the lack of complicated patent parts, but of simple things like springs or even screws or rivets prevented the proper and speedy execution of repairs. Even horseshoes and nails had to be imported from Sweden at that time; and I myself have met an enterprising man in Petrograd who made quite a fortune by importing horseshoes and nails from Sweden as personal luggage. Incidentally it may be mentioned that at the end of 1916 horseshoes became so scarce as to be only available for army horses; and the horses in the towns, despite the cobble stones and uneven roads, had to go without.
The smaller the number of serviceable locomotives and trucks, the greater the pressure on those which were left, and the greater the rate at which they fell into disrepair. It is impossible to give exact figures, but it is safe to say that just before the Revolution only a fraction of the original rolling-stock, including locomotives, was fit for use. It is worth noting that the breakdown of the railways on such an unprecedented scale, though characteristic of Russia's economic position and of the defects of the Tsarist administration, is, after all, not peculiar to Russia. A dislocation of the railways can be observed in all the belligerent countries. In France, for example, the shortage of railway materials would be felt most acutely were it not for the extensive supplies of rolling-stock, etc., from England.
This process of depreciation, the gradual wearing out of railway materials and the inability to replace worn-out parts, was thus the main cause of the breakdown of Russia's transport system. But the process was hastened by great losses of material due to the incompetence and mismanagement of the military authorities. Sometimes, for want of sidings, a great congestion on the railways leading to the front had to be relieved by the wholesale destruction of hundreds of waggons. And thousands more were dismantled and turned into winter quarters for the troops. Add to that, an enormous number of trucks and locomotives were abandoned to the enemy in the great retreat of 1915.
The process of attrition which was so marked on the railways took place in all the other industries, with this difference, that the Government made even less attempt to help private industries than to remedy defects of transports. Thus, factories and workshops all over the country were obliged to shut down not only from lack of fuel, raw material, and means of transport, but also owing to the gradual wearing out and breakdown of machinery and the inability to execute repairs. The factories, like the railways, were being worn out before the eyes of the people, and nothing could stop the terrible process. Any accidental damage to machinery could only be repaired after much delay, and then only very badly. Thus as the war went on accidents and dislocations took place more frequently and were more serious when they occurred.
The disintegration of the Russian industries and railways, once started, could never be arrested. The ruthless exploitation of industry by the State and the manufacturers, to which reference was made above, added a special impetus of its own to this process of disintegration. But this factor only developed at a later stage, during the so-called mobilisation of industry.