The People’s Commissary of Labour, A. Schmidt, says in one of his 
last articles*) that the average wages in the State industry during the 
fourth quarter of the year 1926/1927 (July-September 1927) formed already 
110 9p of the pre-war real wages. The exactitude of this figure was justly 
doubted, in particular by the communistic opposition. The computation 
of the real wages was based on the Soviet co-operative (regulated) prices. 
But as goods in the Soviet co-operatives are often missing, the workman 
is impelled to get them from private merchants at higher prices. 
According to Schmidt, the average wages of Soviet workmen amounted 
in March 1927 to the sum of 66 roubles 20 cop. (in the terms of the 
present-day Chervonetz-roubles). Considering the low purchasing power of 
the Chervonetz-rouble, the above sum will hardly exceed £3. or £3.10 
a month. 
Thus, if we are to believe data furnished by Soviet statistics — which 
as we shall note further, often require essential corrections — 10 years 
aad to pass before the Bolshevics succeeded in attaining that wage level of 
‘he Russian workmen at which it stood during the period of the “most violent 
sxploitation” (from the Bolshevics point of view) of workmen by the 
private capitalistic industry. 
It is necessary to bear in mind that although, according to their 
statistics, the Bolshevics had reached on the average after a period of ro years 
‘eign, the “capitalistic” level of the workmens’ wages — this average often 
Tuctuates. First of all, the communistic opposition says in its “counter- 
thesis” to the 5 years plan of development of national economy that “wages 
and material condition of the workmen in Moscow and Leningrad are con- 
siderably higher than the average level is”**). Evidently, the industrial 
proletariat in these towns, from political considerations, enjoys a pri- 
7iledged position. And at the same time, wages of some categories 
of workmen, as for instance those employed in the metallurgic industry 
in South Russia, have not yet attained the pre-war level. 
Secondly, it would be a mistake to think that the Soviet rulers are 
striving, at any cost, towards the levelling of wages in separate categories 
»f workmen and employees. An attempt of setting an equal level for the 
remuneration of every category of labour beginning with the manager of 
the factory and ending with an unskilled workman, actually took 
place in the first years of communism. But when it became evident that 
this attempt to realize the idea of equality with regard to the remuneration 
of labour was one of the main causes of the catastrophic fall in productivity 
*) A. Schmidt. The policy of the party in the labour question. Pravda, Nr. 271; 
November 26th, 1927. 
#\ See Pravda No. 263 of November 17th, 1927. (Discussion leaf Nr. 5.) 
2. 
a