The following table was compiled by the Municipal Duma of Moscow, where food was cheaper and more plentiful than in Petrograd: _Cost of Food—(Rubles and Kopeks)_ _August_ 1914 _August_ 1917 _% Increase_ Black bread _(Fund)_ .02 1/2 .12 330 White bread _(Fund)_ .05 .20 300 Beef _(Fund)_ .22 1.10 400 Veal _(Fund)_ .26 2.15 727 Pork _(Fund)_ .23 2. 770 Herring _(Fund)_ .06 .52 767 Cheese _(Fund)_ .40 3.50 754 Butter _(Fund)_ .48 3.20 557 Eggs (Doz.) .30 1.60 443 Milk _(Krushka)_ .07 .40 471 On an average, food increased in price 556 per cent, or 51 per cent more than wages. As for the other necessities, the price of these increased tremendously. The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, and accepted as correct by the Ministry of Supplies of the Provisional Government. _Cost of Other Necessities_—(_Rubles and Kopeks_) _August_ 1914 _August_ 1917 % _Increase_ Calico _(Arshin)_ .11 1.40 1173 Cotton cloth _(Arshin)_ .15 2. 1233 Dress Goods _(Arshin)_ 2. 40. 1900 Castor Cloth _(Arshin)_ 6. 80. 1233 Men’s Shoes (Pair) 12. 144. 1097 Sole Leather 20. 400. 1900 Rubbers (Pair) 2.50 15. 500 Men’s Clothing (Suit) 40. 400.–455. 900–1109 Tea _(Fund)_ 4.50 18. 300 Matches (Carton) .10 .50 400 Soap _(Pood)_ 4.50 40. 780 Gasoline _(Vedro)_ 1.70 11. 547 Candles _(Pood)_ 8.50 100. 1076 Caramel _(Fund)_ .30 4.50 1400 Fire Wood (Load) 10. 120. 1100 Charcoal .80 13. 1525 Sundry Metal Ware 1. 20. 1900 On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about 1,109 per cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries. The difference, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and merchants. In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily wage of a skilled industrial worker—for example, a steel-worker in the Putilov Factory—was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits were enormous…. I was told by one of the owners of the Thornton Woollen Mills, an English concern on the outskirts of Petrograd, that while wages had increased about 300 per cent in his factory, his profits had gone up _900 per cent._ 3. THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional Government of July to realise their programme in coalition with the bourgeois Ministers, is an illuminating example of class struggle in politics. Says Lenin, in explanation of this phenomenon: