The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 28, 1925, Page 9

Letters From Soviet Russia The Village of Chasovnia, Okhtomsk Volost, Moscow Uyezd, Moscow Gubernia. EAR Comrades: Our Soviet village has in many ways outstripped the former backward and czarist village. WANT to tell you about our life and want to tell you about our life and doings. First of all let me tell you that our village is now under the ad- ministration of the village Soviet, which is elected by the peasants them- selves. It has happened that “kulaks,” well-to-do peasants, traders, etc., managed to get into the Soviet. But last autumn we decided to elect to the Soviet only podr peasants, in order that it should work for our interests. last Soviet was weak, and we have made up our minds that those who have four cows and three horses must not be admitted to the Soviet. One of these people wanted very much to get in. He was very persuasive and almost succeeded in befooling the peasants. But thanks to the Young Communist League, which exposed his machinations, he was not admitted to power, The Soviet was elected. It is a good business-like and diligent So- viet. It is only a fortnight since the election, and already the village Soviet is showing what it can do. It proposes to introduce electricity into the vil- lage. Boer “Ukhtomtok” (Ukhtom Cur- rent) company has been formed in the volost, and the members of our village Soviet have got into touch with this company. They found out what is required and set to work. They collected money among the peas- ants and have already begun to erect the necessary posts. Towards the spring we hepe to have in our village “Tiyiteh’s little lamp”—electricity. kulaks and traders were cheat- ing the villagers right and left and made their lives a misery. At last the peasants could not stand it any longer. They called a meeting and discussed ways and means for getting rid of these kulak elements. Finally they made the following decision: “We must establish a co-operative,” we must organize our own shareholders’ co-operative. No seoner said than done. They began to organize. It was difficult at first, there were very few members, but the state of affairs soon improved. The peasants began to pay more attention to their child, and they also managed to obtain credits from M. S. P. O. (Moscow Soviet of Consumers’ Societies) and from the Moscow and District Credit Union. Et es business was extended, and now this co-operative has a clear profit of 7,000 rubles, and has opened two branches in the villages of Gaka- revo and Jhilino, as well as a bakery here in Chasovia, As the profits are considerable, the society has been able to establish a mutual aid fund. Poor peasants receive loans for cattle, implements, etc. In addition to the mutual aid fund, the society assigns money for cultural-educational work. On the initiative of the society, the village reading room has been organ- ized and is the cultural center of the village. The village reading room is an ordinary peasant hut, fairly spacious and decorated with posters and por- traits of our leaders. It has a little library of agricultural political works, as well as newspapers and periodicals. village reading room boasts al- so of an information bureau, where peasants can get satisfactory ’ answers to all questions of interest to them. There are two study circles: an agricultural and political circle. Short- ly a “bezbozhnik” (freethinker) circle will be formed. The village reading room publishes its own wall newspa- per, which reflects the life of the vil- lage. This newspaper exercises con- siderable influence over the peasants, especially the younger. peasants. who are eager to Cotitribute to it. PECIAL work among women is also carried on. A sewing and general needle work school has been opened for them, While the girls and women sew, knit or embroider, some- one talks to them on political subjects or reads the newspapers. The work of the village reading room is in charge of the Young Communist League, which is assisted by the schoolmaster and the agronomist. 'S is how we live and how most of the villages of the Soviet Union are living . ...Won’t you tell us about your own life? J. HETLING, Village Correspondent. (Correspondent of the newspaper “Moscow Village” and of the peri- odical “Town and Village”.) gpcncesinainidiiiiabeiipisabatals Yalta, Dec. 28, 1924. EAR COMRADES: Recently a closer connection has been estab- lished between Russian and foreign comrades. I would like to tell you how we lived before and how we are living and struggling in our Soviet country. - On the other hand, we would like to get better acquainted with you and to know all your joys and troubles, for altho far away you are our brothers whom we remembered thru all our struggles. te be united one must know each other, one could not do better than correspond with one another. Our desire to do so is very great, and .[ am sure that you will agree. Not only the workers of big factories whe are the most class conscious people among us, but even the peasantry and the rank and file workers of the So- viet Union are anxious to keep in touch with the workers of western countries and to share their thots, hopes and experiences. OMRADES, if you consult the map you will find among the vast ter- titories of our republics right in the south in the middle of the Black Sez a little peninsula called the Crimean Soviet Republic. In its most south- ern part there is our famous port— Sebastopol, and not far from it the terrible famine of 1921, which affect- ed not only the Volga but also the Crimea, the heal workers did their utmost to repair the havoc wrought by the whites. They repaired the electrical power Station, the drains and the buildings and increased the number of sana- toria. The health resort is now in full swing. ‘ENS of thousands of sick working men and women from the bench find rest and health here during the season. Here you will find miners from the Donetz basin, Moscow tex- tile workers and metal workers from the Urals. Over 2,000 persons have gone thru one department alone of the health resort during the spring and summer season. And we have {hundreds of beds of the Central In- surance -Administration, as well as trade union and factory sanatoria, ete. This is how we have converted the former czarist and bourgeois Crimea into a proletarian health resort. Our industry here amounts to repairing shops to mend the health of the workers of the Union of Soviet Social- ist Republics. And from here they go to take part with renewed strength in the building of the edi- fice for the creation of which every one of us is working—the edifice of a World Workers’ Commune. HE workers who belong to the “Third International Club” are principally workers employed in the Sanatoria and vineyards, and alse members of the Medical and Sanitary Workers’ Union and of the Land and Forest Workers’ Union, Comrades, we would like to correspond with you regularly. We will ask you to tell ug how you live and work, and we for our part will endeavor to tell you about what can be of interest to you concerning our life and work. We will tell you how we learn to live and construct our life according to health recort Yalta famed for its|new methods, getting rid of all the beauty. Our club is in one of the streets of Yalta, which you would probably not be able to discover with the help the of a magnfying glass. The Crimea deserves its appella- tion—the pearl of the Union of Soviet Socialst Republics. All the year round it is flooded with bright sun- shine and washed by the green waves of the sea. All the year round it en- chants people with the beauty and magnificence of its mouniains, its pan- orama and its luxuriant vegetation. It is the best place imaginable for rest for recuperating one’s tired or- ganism. UR czars and capitalists knew O that full well. Magnificent pal aces, villas and parks are to be found all along the shores of the Black Sea. They belonged to those who oppressed and sucked the blood of the people from Nicholas the Bloody down to his lackeys, the dukes, earls and capital. ists. : The Crimea had a longer and harder fight than other parts of our country for its liberation. The white bands of Denikin and Wrangel abhorred by Russian and foreign workers alike, made the Crimea a point d’appui in their struggle with Red Moscow, and had in this the support of the British and French fleets. And it was only after the fierce struggle which lasted three years that our Red army defeated these bandits in 1920, drove away Wrangel and handed over the Crimea to the work- ers and peasants of the Soviet Un- ion. 'HE Crimea became at once a pro- letarian health resort where the workers of the Union of Soviet Social- ist Republics can recover their health after the long years of war and fam- ine and devastation: The palaces and villas formerly the pleasure ground of a handful of debauched parasites, Were ‘converted into sanatoria and rest homes for the workers. The Soviet government granted large sums of money and the neces: sary personnel to make these health resorts fit to provide rest and recup- eration for the sick. In spite of the | relics of the old social order, will exhibit your letter to our club and we will send you all answer to these letters. In the dark days of bourgeois repression, let the knowledge that the workers of the Soviet Republics are always with you and that true to the injunc tions of Lenin they are holding high the banner of the first workers’ and peasants’ republics, put courage into your hearts. Awaiting your reply, With fraternal greetings on behalf of 1,000 members of the “Third Inter. national Club.” Luba Gendina, secretary of the management board. CEE (Answer to a letter, a poem—or is It “ ~ Fragrant are the trees, Are Sacco and Vanzetti to Die? WORKERS! ANSWER NO! PROTEST MASS MEETING DUAN A A SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 1925, 2:30 P. M. at EMMET MEMORIAL HALL, BROTHER! | my heart? | do not know.) By JOHN LASSIN. (Translated by Simon Felshin) Brother! The mountains gleam, You came, to call me, and I am going. Brother! Oh, yes: Our hearts are one, Our hearts are one, Our lungs are one, And the blood too is one, The hot, the rebellious—our blood. Brother! You gave me your hand, And I feel the contact: How the veins throb, How soft and smooth it is, And clings te mine. Brother! For the hand is not a single hand, It is the hand of all humanity: A voice that calls, A word that rings, A hand that leads, Tam going. . .I am going . Brother! I have no more. body, I am only a word light as a flame, It soars, soars into the far infinity. Brother! In men’s hearts there soars, In slaves’ hearts there trembles... A blaze setting aflame <.4.:) oo The chilling hearts: - ~ ‘ Brother! My brother in the fight, In pain, In rebellion, In struggle, You stretched out your hand to me. Brother! We stride forward on stony paths, At the head of daring rebel armies, You, I, we: the slaves. . , Into infinity We slaves march, We conquer in the fight, In fever; out of black slavery ° Into the land of eternal light. MSHI: Ogden and Taylor Aves., South SPEAKERS: JACK W. JOHNSTONE, Secretary Trade Union Educa- tional League, RALPH CHAPLIN, and an Italian speaker Auspices, Workers (Communist) Party, Local Chicago. ADMISSION FREE! ADMISSION FREE!