The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 7, 1925, Page 10

Ohne, THE RACIAL QUESTION IN SOVIET RUSSIA HERE was no country in the world more harrassed with racial prob- lems than Russia before the revolu- tion. In the Crimea, it was Tartar against Turk; in the Caucusus, Georg: ian against Armenian; in the Ukraine Gentile against Jew, and in Asiatic Russia, Moslem against Christian. It might be said that the Jew was of these races may enjoy group au- tonomy as a solution of the national and racial problems and the means: by which every trace of racial friction is obliterated, HE native race of Turkestan is the Uzbek people, but since October Turkestan has been converted into what is known as Uzbekstan, An Uz- bek race which, before the revolution was subject to the most repressive the Negro of Russia, insofar as the : ‘ f Jewish question exhibited in its gen- | policy on the part of the cerry finds eral outlines many features common |itself today a quite free and independ to the Negro” problem of America. |&2t and a politically important people. Under the czarist regimé, the Jew| The Kirghizes people, a nomadic was not permitted to live in the larger |Tac@ of the Russian steppes, hove for and ‘more important ‘cities of Russia|themselves a Kirghizes republic. The and in only a few places was he per | Turkomans, of middle Asia, have their mitted to carry on ‘agricultural pur-|"ePublic. The Armenians, who have suits.’ A fundamental measure ‘of the | Suffered much, both under the sultan ezarist policy toward: the Jewish rac: {Of Turkey and the czar of Russia in Russia’ was that of segregation, have their own republic. It is the and thus the Jew was confined to what|8@me with the Tartars, the Georg: was called the Pale Settlement, a strip | 1428, ete. of territory on “the Austrian ‘border. 'HESE many republics do not HE Jew was subjectéd to periodic stand alone as small political en- wholesale lynchings, termed in/|tities, isolated from the larger and Russian “pogroms.” No Russian of|more developed Russian life, but to- reputed respectability would patron-|gether they constitute the Russian ize a cafe that served Jews. The Jew|Federation of Socialist Seviet Repub was in every sense of the term a par-|licS, or the Russian Union of Socialist iah in Russian society. In Asiatic | Republics. Russia, particularly in Turkestan, the{ When one analyzes the racial prob- native people were not given equal ac-|lem that once existed in Russia, it ir commodations on tramways, in thea-| surprising to note the strong similar- ters, in restaurants, etc, nor wer jity that obtained between them anc ‘adequaté’ sehool facilities afforded\the Negro problem of America. It is ‘them,..No Moslem native was permit- |striking to note in these former Rus- ted to live in what was known as|sian problems the same measure o the European section of the cities in |Tepression, the same tricks of decep Turkestan. Of the many racial groups |tion, the same attitudes, etc, that within the old Russian empire, each |Ccharacterize race relationships in Am. and every one had its social problems. |erica. In the very inkerent nature o' Racial maladjustment was an out-|the Soviet system, race friction today standing fact in the social life of old ji1 Russia is unthinkable. Russia, PRIME motive of my trip to Rus- UT folowing the proletarian revo- sia was to ascertain to what ex- lution, the Bolsheviki approached |tent the Soviet system of government these racial problems with a direct-|was able to effect a solution of thc ness and a scientific understanding |many vexatious racial problems of old such as characterizes the statesman: |czarist Russia, My eight months’ ship of no other country in the world. |stay in Russia, attended with travel Wherever the Jew, prior to the revo-|and study, has rendered me thoroly lution, was strictly segregated and os-|convinced that the solution of the Ne } tracized-fronrthé fall life of the na-/gro problem in America-~is.. possible i tion, today-he has. become a complete integer of national life. He lives wherever he chooses, and the ques- tion of the Jew no longer constitutes & subject of political discussion. In respect to the races of the Caucau- sus, of Crimea, and of Eastern Russia, which constituted colonials within the old Russian empire, the recent terri- torial realignment made by the Soviet government has meant thé creation of a number of republics in which each only after the revolutionizing of the American social order. Race prejudic« is not an inherent thing in the mental make-up of the individual, but springs from the capitalist order of society The individual, the child, it smay be noted in the most remote section of ithe Southern states, does not affec‘ racial arrogance until it has been brot in touch with public institutions—the school, the church,.the press, etc. The | form of society dependent upon racial disharmony within a given capitalist state, upon religious antagonisms, etc Only seven years after the proletarian revolution, the extent to which all vestiges of racial hostility has been eradicated is marvelous, to say the least. T is probable that no colonial people ‘suffer the weight of imperialism to the extent that .the Negro does, whether he be in the new world or in Africa, If we look at the map of Af- rica, we note that there are only two free and independent Negro states— the Republic of Liberia on the West coast and the Abyssinian empire on the Eastern coast. The rest of Africa has been parcelled out among the im- perialist nations. of Europe, and we find Portugal politically responsible for territory in Africa twenty-onc times the size of Portugal itself; Bel- gium with territory almost forty times its size; and Britain and France rul- ing far more black than white men, all in alle This is an unnatural situa- tion and certainly cannot continue. ND why do wé find these European powers maintaining a political hold on the African continent? It is for no other purpose than to maintain markets for their surplus products and even to have a ready source of raw material for their home industries. And the system inherently brings the dispossession of the native from his land, forced labor, military conscrip- tion, a policy of extending only a mini. mum of education, and in every respect the institution of a policy on the part of the imperialist nations that shall function in ever keeping the native African dependent, backward and in every way a Pillar of the im- Pperialist structure. The black man cannot rise unde: the weight of capitalism. 'HE extent of the power of any giv- en imperialist state over the darker races may be a fine measure- ment of the extent to which racial problems obtain within that particular state, for.in the very nature of imper- ialism .the working class of the dom- inant race assumes an. attitude of ar- rogance and racial superiority towards the colonial peoples in that state. One who has just returned from Russia experiences an astonishment in reading the many false accounts in our great metropolitan papers of the conditions in--Soviet Russia, and cer- tainly of the Communists. It is to be expected that the capitalist class of By LOVETT FORT-WHITEMAN, the first government of workers and peasafits, for they know that Russia, left alone, becomes a source of the deepest inspiration to the workers of all lands. Too, they know that the workers of Russia are interested and are willing to give their active support to the workers of all other countries in their effort to establish ‘a free so- ciety—a society free of oppression of the working class, a society free of all racial friction and in which the masses should have the opportunity of imbibing and benefiting by all that our twentieth century has brot us in the way of culture, HE American Negro has never been contented under his social conditions; he has begun many move- ments with the definite aim of his so- clal uplift. The outstanding social abuses always uppermost in-the mind »»: of the Negro masses are those. of « lynching, Jim’ Crow-ism, ° residentia} segregation, political disfranchisement | in the South industrial discrimination, etc.. His reformist organizations are - directed. primarily ‘towards the remov-.; But» < we find that’those who direct the: fate: ives. so: involved. * jal-of these:secialydinequalities. « of the race are thems: in the interests of the-ruling class of this country that they, out of self-in- terest, are always compelled to limit their actions. Race riots, lynchings, ricial hostility in general between the black and white worker are condis tions conducive to the maintenance of the system. “The Negro petty-bourgeois _ leader, the Negro intellectual, have betrayed the interests of the working class of the race time and time again. And if the Negro is developing at this time &@ real revolutionary group, it is be- cause more and more of the members of the race are coming to see that freedom and the solution of the Ne- gro problem can only come thru a mass movement on the part of the Negro working class; HE Négro proletariat holds the Communist society of the future alone will save the race, and it will be in the new society only that the inherent and native power of the race will be enabled to blogm forth in full fruition, and the Negro to give his true and real worth to human prog- ress. The Workers Party is the Com- munist Party of America, and it is the logical party to which the Negro race should ally itself, for it alone is the all countries must ever keep up a cam- only party which can propagate the very nature of capitalism makes thisipaign of lies against Soviet Russia, idea “of equality for all peoples, Iniquity of the Russian Intervention ieee” “HE securing by. American financi- ers of a concession, from the Rus- sian. government for the operation of the manganese deposits in Georgia for a term of twenty years, throws an illuminating side .light. on the Rus- sian intervention. If the interven- tion had been successful, the afore- said financiers would in all probability have secured permanent control of ‘the deposits. for. nothing, instead of their costing the tidy sum of $100,000,- 000. Can Messrs. Hughes. and Hoover still hold the opinion that “Russia has nothing to trade”? NE can put two and two together, and reach a conclusion that will require positive evidence to dislodge. That conclusion is, that the Russian'| intervention was a plot by interna- tional financiers, who dominated their respective governments at the time, to secure and divide up the resources of Russia thru the activities of the allied governments acting as their agents. E plot failed, partly on account of thé disaffection of the Ameri- can troops in the Murmask region and in Hastern Siberia, partly on account of. the mutiny of the sailors in the French Black Sea fleet, and partly on account of the refusal of the British transport workers to load munitions . A. WARREN is an American civil engineer who graduated from Lehigh University ia 1879. for the last four years, the most part of! this time having been spent with the Kuzbas Colony at Kemerovo, Siberia, where he is in charge of the topographical survey. His home is. Beattle, Wash, He has been in Russia pation; but the principal cause of its failure was the heroic efforts of the Russian Red Army which beat back the invaders on all fronts. This Red Army, by the way, was composed mainly of young Russian peasants who had not been on the Austrian and German fronts and this was their first experience in war. EST they forget, it is well to re- mind the financiers of these little occurrences which show that they cannot always depend on the common people to help carry out their pur- poses even when their governments act as their agents. The British oil companies without a shadow of right had taken possession of the Baku oil fields, and held pos- session until the Red Army was al- most within striking distance, when the workers rebelled, and, the British were forced to retire. The oil ex- tracted during the British occupation is one small item to be considered in the final settlement if it is ever made. Ruseia very properly refuses and supplies for the armies of. occu-to consider a settlement in which the ‘4 4 items on one side of the ledger only are to be taken into account. T is said here in Russia that Kol- chak’s army was accompanied by American engineers or army officers whose task was to investigate the natural resources adjacent to the Si- berian railways, If the armies of Kolchak, Deniken, Wrangle, and the Murmansk army had met in Moscow or somewhere in central Russia, the international fi- nanciers could have set up a puppet government, and proceeded to divide the resources of Russia among them- selves. They would then have had the same stranglehold on the Russian people that the Dawes plan has prob-|. ably given them on the neo of Ger- many, USSIA had been a loyal ally dur- ing the war and had been dis- abled, and the morality of the attack made on her by her allies in her crippled condition, was that of a pack of wolves devouring one of their num- ber that has-been wounded. If this is not the correct explana- ‘tion. of the Russian intervention, let some member of: the Lloyd George government or of the Wilson cabinet ome forward with, the true oxplazia* tion and clear pele senile BOOKS FOR THINKERS ‘SCIENCE; LITERATURE ECONOMICS, HISTORY, 4 Any Book in Print at Once. Jimmie Ae ns Book Shop 127 versity Place NE Ww: YORK CITY A Workers Party Book Shop: _ Second-Hand Books Used Communist, Labor and Eco- nomic books, pamphlets, magazines and maps in all languages, bought, sold and exchanged at cut prices, “Daily” Book Exchange 805 James St., Pittsburgh, Pa, "PITTSBURGH, PA. T6 those who work ‘hard for their pmoney, | will save 50 per cent on all “their dental work, DR. RASNICK DENTIST 645 Smithfield Street, key of salvation of the race. The zis sdarig ee