In cases when the workmen's interests collided with those of the State 
mdustry, the trade Unions, although not siding openly with the latter, 
opposed passively the workmen in their claims. 
Nomadic Movements of Soviet Workers. 
Thus, Russian Communism neither in its preliminary hard and conse- 
juent variation nor in the later relaxed state after the introduction of the 
NEP was able to give the Russian workmen the promised welfare. As 
regards the material situation, conditions of labour and the rights he 
:njoyes, the Russian workman has to look with envy on his European and 
\merican colleague, who is “suppressed” and “exploited” by rapacious 
capitalism. 
That the Russian workmen are not satisfied with the conditions of 
labour prevailing in the factories and works is proved by one phenomenon 
which is assuming greater dimensions from year to year. It would be 
natural to think that with the abolishment of the “capitalistic exploitation” 
relations of the Soviet workman to the undertaking in which he is working 
sught to have become more stable than they were before in Russia and are 
at present in the capitalistic “bourgeois” countries. In reality we see the 
reverse: — the workmen’s personnel changes in separate undertakings with 
1 rapidity of which no other industry in any other country has an idea. 
The present-day workmen literally runs from one factory to another in 
rain hope of finding better conditions of labour and chiefly — more 
rolerable housing conditions. The following informations from different 
districts of Russia show how great this calamity has become, turning the 
Russian workmen into a kind of industrial nomad. In some factories in the 
Donetz Basin (South of Russia) the personnel of workmen was renewed 
three times in the course of one year (Econom. Jisn, August 26, 1927). 
[n some metallurgic works the personnel changed three times within 
5 months (Commercial and Industrial Gazette, August 27, 1927). 
But it is not only in some regions that this phenomenon took place, 
1s data applying to the whole of the Soviet Russia show. In the course of 
the last 6 years, the “heavy” industry was able to absorb 1.300.000 new 
workmen (compared with the epoch of the complete paralysis of the in- 
dustry). It should, however, be noted that during this period 12.000.000 
workmen have been engaged and 10.700.000 were discharged. The total 
number of workmen employed in the industry being about 2 millions, — 
avery workmen had changed the place of his work on an average 6 times 
during this period. 
The Soviet press gives a definite answer with regard to the cause of 
this chronical movement of the working masses: workmen seek better 
conditions of labour and do not find them. 
Ni 
Bl