that were much more satisfactory. Thus, according to the most recent data, in that same First Labor Army, four and a half working days are now devoted to one sazhen of wood, which is not so far from the present standard. What is most comforting, however, is the fact that the productivity of labor systematically increases, in the measure of the improvement of its conditions.
While as to what can be achieved in this respect, we have a brief but very rich experience in the Moscow Engineer Regiment. The Chief Board of Military Engineers, which controlled this experiment, began with fixing the standard of production as three working days for a cubic sazhen of wood. This standard soon proved to be surpassed. In January there were spent on a cubic sazhen of wood two and one-third working days; in February, 2.1; in March, 1.5; which represents an exclusively high level of productivity. This result was achieved by moral influence, by the exact registration of the individual work of each man, by the awakening of labor pride, by the distribution of bonuses to the workers who produced more than the average result – or, to speak in the language of the trade unions, by a sliding scale adaptable to all individual changes in the productivity of labor. This experiment, carried out almost under laboratory conditions, clearly indicates the path along which we have to go in future.