OUR INDUSTRIAL JUNGLE 
be gained. At the very least they must have 
thought that men would have enough to eat, and 
that wages would not fall below the old level of 
subsistence. 
The tragic record of their miscalculations is 
written large in the pages of Russian history 
during the last seven lean years. 
Not many of the conditions under which people 
live and work can be treated statistically, and still 
fewer can be reduced to diagrammatic form. The 
question of wages, however, is readily adaptable 
to this method of demonstration, provided that 
sufficient data are available. The table which 
accompanies this chapter is based on a table pub- 
lished by the Council of Labour and Defence 
(Vol. 111, Industry. Moscow, 1923), and reprinted 
by the International Labour Office on page 169 of 
Industrial Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1923 (Geneva, 
1924). The facts, therefore, are drawn from offi- 
cial Soviet sources and may safely be taken to 
represent the case in the most favourable light. 
It will be seen that the war had little influence on 
the rise and fall of industrial wages in Russia. 
During the years 1914-1916 real wages remained 
as the equivalent of about ten shillings a week, a 
sum which was paid in cash and which approxi- 
mated to the average rate in pre-war days. The 
first Revolution (March, 1917), being a political 
rather than an economic upheaval, brought about 
no changes worth mentioning in the industrial 
workers’ earnings, and it was not until after the 
second Revolution (November, 1917), when Lenin’s 
66