are the chief materials of exchange between the
towns and the villages, on its success depends the
success of everything else. The textile industry
is, in any case, the most important of all Russian
industries. Before the war it employed 500,000
workmen, and Nogin said that in spite of the dis-
organization of the war and of the revolution
400,000 are employed to-day. This may be so
in the sense that 400,000 are receiving pay, but
lack of fuel or of raw material must have brought
many factories to a standstill.

All the big factories have been nationalized.
Formerly, although in any one town there might
be factories carrying out all the different processes,
these factories belonged to different owners. A
single firm or bank might control factories scat-
tered over Russia and, so that the whole process
should be in its hands, the raw material travelled
from factory to factory through the country, in-
stead of merely moving about a single town.
Thus a roll of material might have gone through
one process at Jaroslav, another at Moscow, and
a third at Tula, and finally come back to Jaroslav

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