d a great part of the year as a period of mere
waiting for and resting from the extraordinary effort of a few weeks.
[*]

* Given any particular motive, any particular enthusiasm, or
visible, desirable object, even the hungry Russian workmen
of to-day are capable of sudden and temporary increase of
output. The "Saturdayings" (see p. 119) provide endless
illustrations of this. They had something in the character
of a picnic, they were novel, they were out of the routine,
and the productivity of labor during a "Saturdaying" was
invariably higher than on a weekday. For example, there is
a shortage of paper for cigarettes. People roll cigarettes
in old newspapers. It occurred to the Central Committee of
the Papermakers' Union to organize a "Sundaying" with the
object of sending cigarette paper to the soldiers in the Red
Army. Six factories took part. Here is a table showing the
output of these factories during the "Sundaying" and the
average weekday output. The figures are in poods.

Made on Average week
Factory the Sunday Day Output

Krasnogorodskaya.........615...............450
Griaznovskaya.............65................45
Medianskaya..............105................90
Dobruzhskaya.............186...............250
Belgiiskaya..............127................85
Ropshinskaya..............85................55]

But this uneven working temperament was characteristic of the Russian
before the war as well as now. It has been said that the revolution
removed the stimulus to labor, and left the Russian laziness to have its
way. In the first period of the revolution that may have been true.
It is becoming day by day less true. The fundamental reasons of low
productivity will not be found in any sudden or unusual efflorescence
of idleness, but in economic conditions which cannot but reduce the
productivity of idle and industrious alike. Insufficient feeding is
one such reason. The proportion of working time consumed in foraging
is another. But the whole of my first chapter may be taken as a compact
mass of reasons why the Russians at the present time should not work
with anything like a normal productivity. It is said that bad workmen
complain of their tools, but even good ones become disheartened if
compelled to work with makeshifts, mended tools, on a