The visitors found that religious institutions had " complete freedom
" to exercise their beliefs, but Trotsky wrote that the mere absence of religious . instruction by the State was not enough—there must be a " positive inculcation of atheism." According to the visitors the economic restoration is very rapid, but the International Labour Review, the organ of the Labour Department of the League of Nations, stated last month that real wages are only about 65 per cent. of what they were before the War, • and that the physical condition of the workers is so-low that it is doubtful whether they can further increase their output. This contradiction, though it is a glaring one, applies, we ought to add, only to the factories, for the preliminary Labour Report does not mention agriculture, in which three-quarters of the Russian population arc engaged. The Com- missioners say that housing conditions are fast improving, but the International Labour Review two months ago wrote of them as " deplorable " and declared that 7,000 . railway carriages and trucks were out of use for railway purposes as railway employees were living in them. • The commissioners -mention the " generous subsidies " _ given by the.State to education, but two months ago the - Soviet Commissar-for Education stated that the number .. of elementary schools had been reduced and that village • schoolmasters were receiving a salary of about 11 a month.
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