The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 17, 1926, Page 12

Volkhovstro A Letter from EARL BROWDER. Dear Comrade: LEX HOWAT and I have just ** come back from a trip to Lenin- grad and Volkhovstroy. Today I will write only about the latter, for two reasons; first, you know very little about Volkhovstroy, and second, it is perhaps the most important thing in Russia today and the most interest- ing. It is the embodiment of the vis- ion of Lenin in steel, concrete, giant machinery, harnessed to a great river, building socialism in Russia. It is the first Russian “Muscle Shoals,” speak- ing in a technical sense, being the first great modern hydro-electrigq plant; politically and economically it differs on every important point from Muscle Shoals, in that in it, super- power from its beginnings in Russia is socialized and harnessed to the task of raising the standards of life of the masses to the complete exclus- ion of profits. Bogdanov, president of the building workers’ union, had arranged the trip for us. The building workers were in convention in Leningrad when we arrived there, and invited us to visit their gathering; after giving us a breat reception, and sending a mes- sage to the American building work- ers and the whole working class that the. Russian building workers stand ready to help us in any way in their power—after that, they asked us to visit Volkhovstroy to see for our- selves what the working class can do when it takes power, and in par- ticular what the buikding workers have just completed for the Soviet Union. So we took the train on the evening of June 18, accompanied by our friend, Egan Stolar, who has been our guide, translator, and confidential adviser, and by one of the builders’ delegates returning from the conven- tion, and arrived at a village on the banks of the river Volkhov, opposite Volkhovstroy, about midnight. At this time of year, there seems to be no night in the vicinity of Lenin- grad, at,Jeast it was light enuf to read a book without artificial light during all the 96 hours we were there. So we had our first glimpse of the great power plant in the dusk of midnight, from the opposite side of the river. The accompanying photograph gives some idea of our first view, altho we had the advantage of the effect of the soft light, the glimmer of the bril- liant electric lights on the water, the roar of the waters plunging over the dam in our ears, and with us a repre- sentative of the 13,000 building work- ers who had erected this beautiful edi- fice and harnessed the mighty river. It was an impressive introduction. We went to bed to dream about it. EXT morning, Saturday, a Russian engineer came to meet us and show us thru the plant. I am not enough of an engineer to give you a technical description of it, nor enough of a poet to tell you how proud the workers here are of their creation; and if I try to describe our emotions as we inspected “our first super- power plant” I might get sentimental. So I'll let the photographs tell you a bit, list a few bare facts about the rest, and make you promise that when you come to Russia you'll visit Volk- Part of Machine Room. hovstroy and keep this vision in your mind while looking over the rest of this vast land of the Workers’ Re public. It will give you a little glimpse into the future of the new society which is being built here on the ruins of capitalism. When in complete operation the plant will have a normal production of 80,000 horse-power, generated by eight giant turbines of 10,000 hp. each. There are two small auxiliary turbines of 1,200 h.p. each. The dam which gathers up the waters which drive these engines is 290 feet long and 30 feet high. The building which houses the machinery and prepares the current for its journey to Lenin- grad, is 300 feet long, 80 feet high, 120 feet wide; and its foundation, and that of the dam, sink 80 feet into the earth. The turbines and a large part of the machinery are of Swedish make. But already, Soviet Russia is begin- ning to produce some of its own large machinery, and four of the eight big generators, each as big as a house, were produced in the Putiloy works in Leningrad. It will be some time, however, before Russian factories can produce these things as cheaply as they can be purchased abroad. Volkhovstroy is the first unit of Lenin‘s electrification plan for Rus- sia. Construction was begun in 1922, but for two years the work lagged on account of financial difficulties. In 1924, full speed was finally attained, and 13,000 workers were engaged in 1924 and 1925, during the short build- ing seasons. It is now practically complete, and about 1,000 workers are finishing up. The large machinery is installed, and the rest will all be in during this summer. By November ist, the station is expected to begin operation, HE total cost of the plant, when it begins operations, will be about 107,000,000 roubles. From that time on, with a force of about 200 men, it will produce electrical current equiva- lent to 80,000 h.p., 24 hours a day and every day in the year, Volkhovstroy Dam, 30 ft, high, 290 ft. long. ' Adjotning the plant and, together with it, encircled by a stockade, is a small city built to accommodate the workers who built it. Threefourths of the miners of America would envy these workers their housing accom- ations. Solid, warm, commodious, with plenty of windows, they bear witness to the fact that this plant like the rest of the country belongs to the workers and serves their immediate as well as their future needs. In the center of the city, is the largest build- ing, the Workers Club. Across the street is the cooperative store, busy as a bee-hive, stocked with a plente- ous supply of all sorts of articles of daily need, and clean as a pin. Next to it is a free market for private trad- ers, competing to their heart’s con- tent with one another and with the co-operatives, but not so busy. Every- where women and children, and work- ers off duty, most of them, healthy, neatly dressed, and on their faces that contentment of absorbing activity. Upon entering the Workers Club we found the auditorium packed with workers and their families come to greet the visiting Americans. The gathering had been arranged that morning by the Cultural Committee of the Building Workers’ Union. As we were conducted to the stage a brass band (composed entirely of workers from the job as we later found) play- ed the Internationale—a thing which y---Lenin’s Dream Realised they did again and again thruout the meeting, every time they got a chance, They told us they were glad and proud to have American workers visit them, and inspect their work of building so0- cialism; they hoped that we would soon begin the same work in America, where it would be so much easier when once the workers took power; and again we were told what we hear everywhere in Russia: “We Russian workers are never too busy to meet and talk with workers of other coun- tries; we follow your struggles with the same keen interest that we take in our own work; we ask only that you continue the task of mobilizing and organizing the power of the work- ing class for struggle against your bourgeoisie, and keep your movement clear of opportunist deviations; and we pledge to you that if, in your struggle against your capitalism, we can do anything to assist you, you have only to call upon us?” S we left the hall in the center of a large number of workers, the crowd parted and we realized that we were being snapped by the movie cameras, while all the little boys in sight crowded up to us to get in the picture. In Russia, you see, it is vis- iting workers who are objects of pub- lic interest, and not parasites like the Prince of Wales and his kind who crowd the news-reels in America, If I should attempt to tell you all the items of interest of this day, it would make a book, not a letter. There were the Red Army barracks and club rooms, where we ate of sol- diers’ fare (and right good it was!); the library, where we were interested to find Lenin’s complete works, with Marx’s “Capital,” nestling beside “The Jungle,” “King Coal,” “100%,” and a dozen other of Upton Sinclair's novels—in Russian—among 7,000 vol- umes of politics, “science, and light literature; the play grounds and ath- letic fields, etc. The Young Commu- nists, the Pioneers, the Red Aid or- ganization, the various departments of the trade unions, organizing every phase of the workers’ Hves—each would require a chapter. So we'll stop this letter now, hoping that slight glimpse has been given to you of the intimate meaning of the slogan now dominant in Soviet Russia—“We are building Socialism—Now.” Moscow, June 22, 1926. THE TINY A Weekly WORKER. Edited by Rose Horowitz of Rochester Vol, 1. Saturday, July 17, 1926 No. 8 Rose Horowitz of Rochester Is Editor Little Rose Horo- witz, a member of the Pioneer group NEW SPECIAL PP dag jade —_— ea aroun: the world. in 28 days. Our Russian comrades helped them make this of Rochester sent us this nice little tran, By, eanias poem that makes aun aero- her editor of this -y issue. The Young MSAK Pioneers are doin fine on the TIN WORKER. They are always ready! ROSE'S POEM You search for gold but find dirt; You work your life Into a grave, “Stick to the job! Be alert!” For, their money you will save, Johnny Red was that same day, Good, wasn’t it?) I yelled Here's another someone sent in: Life’sa funny thing But old Baker Joe Gets paid so little Yet he makes lots of dough. cream cones, plane!” “maybe not like “Oh, pop, I just flew in the air!” “Dick Brown of the teamsters’ union gave me a note to the men on the Picket line and I rode like anything! A cop stopped me and said he would break my neck if I came again.” “Well, did you?” his father asked. “Sure I did. I flew right past him He yelled ‘Stop!’ and ‘razberries!’ laughed and bought me two big ice- Ghee, pop, that bicycle you bought Is fast—just like an aero- His father smiled. almost, That's a Red Special,” Johnny Red sald: ‘It sure ial’ The street car YY TF have oepatend "S union, Ataboy! President Coo- lidge is fishing on his vacation. He won't catch as many poor fish as he caught In the last election, —_, WHATSA MATTER? telling his father. Last week we asked all the little Johnny and Rosle Reds to get a quar. ter from their folks to send for a bun- the TINY WORK: « ie . "Well, ho said, | ER to give to oth. an aeroplane butjer children, and the rest of the pa- per to their par. ents, Well, what about it. and the men a