Soviet Dumping
power of the Soviet. Soviet Russia is to all intents
 and purposes a Slave State, but it would
perhaps be more explicit to define it as a gigantic
internment camp in which approximately 150
million human beings are confined, over whom
the Government exercises despotic control and
who are rigidly secluded from the rest of the
world. The position of these 150 millions is quite
different from that of the inhabitants of any
other civilised state, as Free Labour does not
exist. Every Soviet citizen may now, in virtue
of recent legislation, be correctly described as an
industrial conscript, unless conscripted for military
 service.
The whole of the nation has in effect been militarised
 and the Government treats the workers
as soldiers, dispatching them to whatever place
their labour may be required, quite irrespective
of their circumstances, their wishes, or their convenience,
 and either paying them a minimum
wage, or nothing at all. To these must be added
a mass of convict labour. Unemployment is now
an offence and anything in the nature of a dole
has been abolished. (Decree of October gth,
1930.
938) Soviet Government, therefore, enjoys the
advantage of an unlimited labour supply combined
 with immunity from strikes and an almost
negligible cost of production, since the workers,
if paid at all, receive almost worthless paper
money, while factories, mines, forests, lands,
have all been acquired by robbery. If, in addition
 to these advantages, the Soviet Government
 employs skilled foreign experts, Russian
production, both agricultural and industrial,
may well attain a development with which no