“Low wages and bad housing conditions are the causes compelling the 
workmen to leave the enterprise.” (“Troud”, January 15, 1928) “Chief 
causes of the voluntary leave are: dissatisfaction with wages, conditions 
of labour and the housing crisis” (“Troud”, 1gth January 1928). 
Thus, we have in these figures a peculiar “plebescite” of the politi- 
cally voiceless and rightless working masses, millions of whom express in 
this only possible way their dissatisfaction with conditions of labour 
srevailing in the communistic paradise of the U.S. S.R. 
As end result, when studying the present-day situation of the workers 
‘lass in Russia one must bear in mind the following two important circum- 
stances: — 
First of all, even if one is to admit that wages of the Soviet workman 
aad attained, after 10 years of communistic domination and owing to the 
Bolshevics partial repudiation of the communism, its former “capitalistic” 
level — still, in view of the general impoverishment and decline of the 
cultural level, the workman is not able to get that, what he got for the 
same money before (if not in regard to price, in any case-in regard quality) 
or what a workman can get in other countries. It goes without saying that 
the workman cannot enjoy in Soviet Russia any of those rights which are 
accessible to him not as to a workman but as to a citizen in any other 
cultured country, such as well-organised schools, parks, well-lit streets, 
bath-houses etc. In Soviet Russia all this in damaged, mutilated, soiled; the 
workman has nothing besides that little that he is able to buy for his 
scanty money. 
Secondly, the situation which the Soviet Government was able to secure 
for the workmen after 10 years of revolution, is still a privileged one 
compared with those of other classes of the Russian people. This level 
was attained only at the cost of a dreadful economic exploitation 
of the class which forms the majority of the Russian people — the 
Russian peasantry. The peasantry pays a heavy tribute in order to enable the 
Government to provide for the workmen on these modest lines on which 
the workmen are provided for at present. But in this exploitation of the 
peasantry In favour of the urban industrial proletariat, the Communistic 
Government, as many had anticipated, went too far. The consequence 
was — the great economical difficulties which the Soviet Government 
began to experience towards the end of 1927 and the beginning of 1928. 
These difficulties will unavoidatly evoke the question, whether the 
Government will be able to retain, in providing for the Russian workmen. 
that minimum which was attained with such great effort and strain towards 
the end of the 1oth year of the communistic dictatorship.