the Grand Hotel of Siberia, a loathsome place
where I once stayed. Here in the old days pro-
vincial merchants put up, who did not mind high
prices and a superfluity of bugs. It has now been
turned into a hive of office work, and is the head-
quarters of the Supreme Council of Public Econ-
omy, which, controlling production and distribu-
tion alike, is the centre of the constructive work
going on throughout the country.

This Council, the theorists tell me, is intended
to become the central organization of the state.
The Soviets will naturally become less and less
important as instruments of political transition
as that transition is completed and the struggle
against reaction within and without comes to an
end. Then the chief business of the state will
no longer be to protect itself against enemies but
to develop its economic life, to increase its produc-
tivity and to improve the material conditions of
the workers of whom it is composed. All these
tasks are those of the Supreme Council of Public
Economy, and as the bitterness of the struggle
dies away this body, which came into being almost
unnoticed in the din of battle, will become more

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