If we were to give the experts the same pay that is received by a common labourer, it would not matter to them whether they were common labourers, engineers, or messenger boys. We should be stupid were we to attempt the enforcement of good work from such persons, who are accustomed to a different kind of life. It is better to give them more money if thereby we can secure better results. In this matter the proletariat must follow the example set by any intelligent employer. It must pay more in order to get better work from persons whose services happen to be indispensable at this juncture.
Manifestly, nevertheless, it remains our fundamental policy to work for a system of equal pay for all. The Soviet Power has already done a great deal in this direction. At one time the pay of the higher employees (managers, head bookkeepers, important engineers and organisers, scientific advisory experts, etc.), with the addition of various special fees, was many dozen times more than the pay of the ordinary labourer. Now the former are paid on the average only four times as much as the latter. Notwithstanding what was said above, we have already advanced a considerable distance towards the equalisation of rates of pay.
An equalisation is likewise being effected as regards the different grades of workers. According to the data furnished by Comrade Schmidt, in the year 1914 a daily wage of 50 kopecks was being paid to 4.48 per cent. of the workers, and in the same year there were a few workers (0.04 per cent.) who were earning more than 10 roubles a day. Thus the latter were in receipt of more than 20 times as much as the former. No doubt the lucky ones who earned such high wages in 1914 were very few in number; but there were some. In the year 1916, the percentage of male workers whose daily earnings were only 50 kopecks was ½ per cent., whilst the percentage of those who earned more than 10 roubles was 1.15 per cent.