This speech of Rykow’s, in connection with other declarations of the 
Bolshevic leaders, shows clearly that the introduction of the 7-hours work- 
ing day, which was meant to produce in Europe the effect of a complete 
victory of the working class in Russia, is in reality a forced measure of 
‘short-time’ labour, practiced also in capitalistic enterprises in order to 
mploy all their workmen during a crisis. In this case it is also a secret 
way of providing for the unemploved, whose number is growing with 
alarming rapidity. 
However, a short experience lasting about 2 months had sufficiently 
oroved that these expectations of the Bolshevic government were not 
~ealized either. 
On January 16th, 1928, transition to the 7-hours working day took 
place in 22 of the best equipped textile factories of the Moscow district. 
[t was announced further that, immediately after this first experiment, the 
7-hours working day would be introduced in a number of other enterprises. 
But the result of this experiment was that already on the 4th day of this 
iransition to the 7-hours working day, the People’s Commissary of Labour 
declared in an interview, published in the “Troud” (of January 21st) that. 
‘In the current year we have to content ourselves with the experiment in 
these few enterprises’. It proved that “the preparatory work was far 
from thorough’ and that “numerous obstacles are already experienced 
with regard to an adequate supply of skilled workmen’’. The thing is that 
although the number of unemployed amounts in the towns of the 
Soviet Russia to 2.000.000 people, the unemployed are in most cases 
unskilled workmen, pauperized peasants rejected by the village. Whereas, a 
sreat lack of skilled workers, is felt the professional training of the young 
being, as the Bolshevics themselves admit, very unsatisfactory. 
Thus, the result of the first experiment is that the realization of the 
7-hours working day, the introduction of which was so solemnly announced 
by the October manifesto, is to be put off for at least a year. 
Housing Conditions. 
We have already mentioned briefly above, when speaking of the 
workmen’s expenses for the lodging rent, that this rent being so low there 
could be no question of restoring houses, as it did not even suffice for 
szurrent repairs which the nationalised houses needed badly; the consequent 
result was that these houses were gradually falling to pieces. This led to 
a diminution, from year to year of the housing area calculated per workman 
as well as per every inhabitant in Soviet Russia. It must be noted that 
the Bolshevics themselves admit that this diminution threatens to continue 
in the years to follow. 
9