The Russian Revolution/Chapter 24
XXIII.
GARMENT-MAKING INDUSTRIES.
In company with a small party of garment workers from various countries, I visited three of Moscow's largest clothing shops. We were shown about by a couple of Russian union officials and Brother Resnikoff of Local No. 2, Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' International Union of America.
The first place we went through was primitive in the extreme. In former times it had been a prison work-shop devoted to tent making. Now, as a free shop, it was being used to manufacture all sorts of military clothing. It was quite a large establishment, employing some 900 workers. Four-fifths of these were women. The plant was made up of several one- and two-story buildings, scattered about in a way that would make Taylor, the efficiency expert, turn over in his grave.
Practically all of the sewing machines were of Singer make, many of them being out of commission for want of small but indispensable parts. Such parts the metal industry, in its present broken-down state, is unable to furnish. A crying need of the shop was for buttonhole machines. There were two or three of them, but they were quite evidently incapable of meeting the situation. Consequently large numbers of women sat about sewing buttonholes by hand. I was informed that they average about 30 a day for each worker, whereas one operator on a machine could easily do 1500, or fifty times as much. From this it may be imagined what a welcome a few additional buttonhole machines would get in that shop—for in Russia, of course, the benefits of all labor-saving devices accrue directly to the workers. Another serious need was for cutting machines. We saw the cutters laboriously hacking away with carving knives, doing 134 layers of cloth at one time and stopping every few minutes to sharpen their sadly worn knives. Not only is such work extremely hard and slow, but it is also very inaccurate, because of the goods slipping and stretching around under the primitive cutting instruments.
After finishing with the quaint old prison factory, our party went to another shop, also formerly occupied by prisoners. This was in the famous Buteerka prison, not far from the center of Moscow. The shop was situated in a great modern structure, one wing of which was still being used as a jail. Military garments for the Red Army were being made and the place seemed fairly well equipped for the work. About 1000 workers, nearly all of them women, were employed. The whole building was a mass of bolts and bars and the workers had sawed away many of them in order to permit freer operations. Where armed guards had once walked in great cages that separated them from the workers, bevies of laughing girls were now to be found busy at work making clothes for the working-class soldiers at the front. One of the foremen in the shop had been a prisoner there in the days of the Czar because of his revolutionary activities. He smiled broadly as he told of the change that had come about in his position in the shop. As for us, these two old prison workshops, now turned into free shops, seemed very expressive of the new liberative influences that the revolution has brought to Russia.
Nearly all the Buteerka shop workers live together in a splendid big apartment house close by. Formerly it was occupied by social parasites of various sorts, but they have long since been driven away. The place was now run upon a communal basis. Its affairs were managed by a committee elected by the tenants. No rent was charged the workers. Across the street was a "creche" where the women workers left their babies to be taken care of during the day. A little further along the street there was a kindergarten for the larger children. In the same neighborhood were the workers' meeting halls, their club rooms, commissaries, etc. This grouping of the workers and their activities close about the shops in which they work is very characteristic of modern Russian life. It greatly facilitates the development of the budding communistic institutions.
The last place we visited was a general clothing shop making men's, women's and children's garments for civilians. It occupied five floors of a big, up-to-date factory building and employed some 700 workers. The place was managed by Brother Bogaratchoff, formerly a member of the Baltimore Basters' Local, Amalgamated Clothing Workers. In the face of great difficulties he is developing it into a model shop which shall serve as the basic type for the reorganization of the whole Russian clothing industry. As assistants he had a number of garment workers who had formerly been in the United States and were acquainted with efficiency methods. These "Americans" (in Russia every worker who has been in America is called an American) showered us with greetings and inquiries about friends left behind.
So far as the inadequate and primitive equipment of the shop permitted, the shop was being reorganized according to American methods. We were told that at first the workers objected to the specializing of their work, but when they came to see what a great benefit it would be in getting out the production which Russia so badly needs, they accepted it. The whole place was agog with activity, the workers performing their tasks with vigor. Compared with American standards, the shop was working at about 70 per cent efficiency, wit a constantly increasing output. We were amazed at the quantity and quality of goods being produced. The manager deplored the lack of modern machinery and also of the small parts that are required to keep in operation such equipment as they have. An especially urgent need, so he said, was for pressing machines, all that heavy work being done by hand. There was also a shortage of skilled labor. We promised to do what we could to get the powerful needle trades unions of the United States to send some of the machinery and other stuff so badly needed by the beleaguered Russian garment workers.
As in all other Russian industries, the trade union plays a very important role in the garment shops we visited. All the workers, from the managers down, belong to the same union. The managers are nominated by the National Union of Clothing Workers and then appointed by the Supreme Economic Council. The union works out the hours, wages and working conditions in the shops. These are then approved by the Department of Labor. The union also establishes the amount of work to be turned out by the individual workers. General supervision over the shops (in addition to that of the regular managers and foremen) is exercised by a committee of two workers, one elected by the shop employees and the other selected by the Department of Workers' and Peasants' Control, which is part of the national Government. This local control committee keeps constant track of the plant’s operation and has access at all times to the books, the various departments, etc.
The clothing workers' union also functions extensively through shop committees. These bodies, elected from the rank and file of the workers and usually consisting of five or seven members, have regularly fitted-out offices in the shops. They look after the social and political education of the workers, and see to it that all the union and Governmental regulations are strictly enforced. The shop committees also often trade off with the workers in other industries that portion of their wages which they receive in kind (in addition to their rations of clothes, food, etc.) after they have met the Government's demand on their shop. Thus in one of the plants the shop committee had several boxes of shoes, etc., which it had received from workers elsewhere and which it was distributing to the workers in its own factory. The same committee had recently sent one of its members to a grain growing section to negotiate with the peasants there about exchanging food-stuffs for clothes. Under the new free trade regulations in Russia it is intended to organize all such exchanging into the hands of the co-operative societies.
The clothing workers we met with were quite evidently suffering because of the food shortage. But they were animated with the same spirit of determination and stoical courage that one finds everywhere among the Russian working-class. They know they have a long, hard road to travel; yet they are confident of arriving at the goal—economic freedom. They are game and will fight the thing through to victory, regardless of the sacrifices required.