all, and put in
1,012 hours of manual labor, in which they finished the repairs of four
locomotives and sixteen wagons and loaded and unloaded 9,300 poods of
engine and wagon parts and material. It was found that the productivity
of labor in loading and unloading shown on this occasion was about 270
per cent. of the normal, and a similar superiority of effort was shown
in the other kinds of work. This example was immediately copied on other
railways. The Alexandrovsk railway had its first "Saturdaying" on May
17th. Ninety-eight persons worked for five hours, and here also did
two or three times as much is the usual amount of work done in the
same number of working hours under ordinary circumstances. One of the
workmen, in giving an account of the performance, wrote: "The Comrades
explain this by saying that in ordinary times the work was dull and they
were sick of it, whereas this occasion they were working willingly and
with excitement. But now it will be shameful in ordinary hours to do
less than in the Communist 'Saturdaying.'" The hope implied in this last
sentence has not been realized.

In Pravda of June 7th there is an article describing one of these early
"Saturdayings," which gives a clear picture of the infectious character
of the proceedings, telling how people who came out of curiosity to
look on found themselves joining in the work, and how a soldier with an
accordion after staring for a long time open-mouthed at these
lunatics working on a Saturday afternoon put up a tune for them on his
instrument, and, delighted by their delight, played on while the workers
all sang together.

The idea of the "Saturdayings" spread quickly from railways to
factories, and by the middle of the summer reports of similar efforts
were coming from all over Russia. Then Lenin became interested, seeing
in these "Saturdayings" not only a special effort in the face of common
danger, but an actual beginning of Communism and a sign that Socialism
could bring about a greater productivity of labor than could be obtained
under Capitalism. He wrote: "This is a work of great difficulty and
requiring much time, but it has begun, and that is the main thing. If
in hungry Moscow in the summer of 1919 hungry workmen who have lived
through the difficult four years of the Imperialistic war, and then the
year and a half of the still more difficult civil war, have been able to
begin this great work, what will not be its further development wh