I cannot too strongly insist upon the altogether unanimous idealism of those early days. There was not an ugly streak in that beautiful dawn where now the skies are glowering and red and frightful. I say that output was speeded up. I, as chairman of the first Soviet,[27] assure you that we received fifty-seven papers from workmen containing proposals for increasing the efficiency of the factory; and that spirit lasted three months, figures of output went well up and old closed-down factories were reopened. _New Russia was bursting with energy--the sluice-gates of our character were unlocked._ [27] That is, “first Soviet” at the Lisvinsk factory, about seventy miles from Perm. There must have been a great deal of that exalted feeling among the intelligent working-men of Russia in those stirring times. No one who has known anything of the spiritual passion, of sacrificial quality, which has characterized the Russian revolutionary movement can doubt this. Of course, Jandarmov is referring to the early months before Bolshevism began to spread in that district. Then there was a change. It was the old, old story of rapidly declining production: But after the first few months the workers as a whole began to fall under the spell of catchwords and stock phrases. Agitation began among the lower workers. Bolshevism started in the ranks of unskilled labor. They clamored for the reduction of hours and down went the output. The defenders of the idea of the shortest possible working-day were the same men who afterward turned out very fiends of Bolshevism and every disorder. I watched the growing of their madness and the development of their claims, each more impossible than the last. In the Kiselovski mines the output of 2,000,000 poods monthly dropped to 300,000, and the foundries of Upper Serginski produced 1,200 poods of iron instead of 2,000. Why such a fall? The engineers wondered how workers could reduce output to such an extent if they tried, but one soon ceased to wonder at the disasters that followed in quick succession. There was anarchy in the factories and a premium on idleness became the order of the day. It was a positive danger to work more than the laziest unskilled laborer, because this was the type of man who always seemed to get to the top of the Soviet. “Traitor to the interests of Labor” you were called if you exceeded the time limit, which soon became two hours a day.[28] [28] These extracts are from a personal report by Jandarmov, sent to the present writer.