GOOD REVOLUTION.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 662, 16 January 1933, Page 7

GOOD REVOLUTION.

New Distribution Scheme in Russia. CONTROL BY FACTORIES. MOSCOW, December 6. Stalin, the Soviet Dictator, and Molotov, the Premier, to-day decree a revolution in food distribution. The special "Reserved Co-operatives,” supplying 262 big factories belonging to '‘Group A" (key industries), are closed down and their capital and stock handed over to the manager of each factory. Henceforth he is responsible for, and has full power over, rationing the workers he employs and their families. . . Smaller factories belonging to the privileged Group A retain their own “ Reserved Co-operatives ” for the moment, but full power over them is given to the factory management. Measures are to be devised within the next three months ” for feeding the rest of the population, the decree laconically adds. No Food for Loafers. Workers who are dismissed for loafing, irregular attendance or leaving their jobs without the management s permission, lose their ration cards permanently and their dependents lose theirs, too. The decree makes the issue of new cards to them illegal and if—as so many workers have done lately—they attempt to make a living by market trade, a second decree promulgated on Saturday gives them five years as the minimum sentence, with confiscation or part confiscation of chattels—theirs and their dependents . Managers get quasi-dictatorial powers over the workers' stomachs—the right to increase or diminish not only the wage but the food rations the worker is allowed to purchase with his wage according to his output. Staffs of timekeepers, checkers, etc., must be enlarged and stiffened ’ to report to the special manager of supply on the workers' behaviour. Amazing though it may seem from a Western standpoint, some such disciplinary measure is badly needed to make people work in the present tight food situation. Moreover, the transfer of the food supply from the bureaucratic Co-operatives to the relatively capable and masterful Bolshevik factory managers will certainly improve the feeding of the privileged key Industries and key workers.