The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 31, 1926, Page 10

What Has Become of the By RICHARD LEWINSOHN (Morus) Most of the Russian bourgeoisie made their way abroad, bearing with them all their portable property of this kind, as soon as they realized that the Bolshevik regimé was likely to last. As usually happens in such cases, the first to leave were the best off. The longer the once well-to-do waited in the hope of bet- ter times, the harder was it to get away from Russia, and to gain an entry into-a foreign land. The harder, above all, wae it to get away with whatever articles of value were still left! The route was uncertain. In the days of the persecution of the Huguenots, the Protestant States had an official welcome for refugee co- religionists. No such welcoming hand was held out by any “bourgeois state” to members of the ruined capitalist classes of Russia. Nevertheless, legally or illegally they made their way by hundreds of thousands into Cen- tral and Western Europe. Those among the emigres who had saved most out of the wreck, tried to get to France (always, to the Russians, the Land of Heart’s Desire), or else to England. Earlier financial relationships had made of Paris a second home for wealthy Russians. But a considerable proportion of the sometime great industrials and banking magnates set- tled in London. As regards numbers, Germany and especially Berlin wete chiefly favored in the exodus, above all during the early days. The settlers in Germany, however, belonged mainly to the middle bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. The refugees belonging to the upper bourgeoisie went farther west. Russian High Finance in Paris. EYOND question, the wealthiest and at the same time the most animated settlement of Russian emigres has been formed in Paris. Here the mighty men of Russian high finance of.the days before the Bolshevik revolution have foregathered. Speaking generally, these financial tritons have been more successful than the smaller fry in preserving their pos- sessions. The primary reason for this is that, thanks to the close relationships that existed between Russian large-scale capital on the one hand and the Franco-Belgian large-scale capi- tal on the other, the more influential Russian financiers have always had a good many of their eggs in foreign baskets. The stocks of THE ruling class has many weapons which they effectively use to keep the various ele- ments in the working class constantly leaping at one another’s throats. One of the most common methods used to drive this “wedge” between racial groups, is in the practice of segregation of Negroes in the United States. Before plunging into the heart of the sub- ject, we pause to call attention to the fact that frequently, in the role each individual plays in any system, these individuals as such, are wholly unconscious of the significance of the part they are playing. For this reason, the rather hazy conception of just “what” and “why” about segregation is still prevalent among both whites and the blacks, and the solution of the problem (with apologies to those who dislike hearing it called a “prob- lem”) is unknown to the greatest majority of them.» We have neither time nor space to enumer- ate some of the stupid, unscientific, ridiculous “solutions” upon which both black and white protagonists of racial equality capitalize in te ‘he-is chairman. foreign banks and insurance companies have been favorite investments. The emigres who had lined their nests in this fashion were not merely saved from ruin; they were supplied with a platform for renewed financial actiyities in the land of their adoption... - ; The result has been that some of the mem- bers of the Russian colony in Paris are already playing prominent parts in the banking world of that city: Kamenka, formerly chairman .of the Azoff Bank and perhaps the wealthiest Russian financier under the old regime, it quite a figure today in the Parisian money market. Vladimir Kokovtsoff, at one time Russian premier, has transformed the Paris branch of the Petersburg International Trading Bank in- to a fairly strong indepedent bank, of which He is also chairman of the International Creditors* Protective Association, to which the creditors of Russia in the Allied countries belong. Kokovtsoff’s chief competi- tor in Paris is Leonid Fedeorovich Davidoff, who used to be president of the chamber of credit and is now chairman of the Russian Bank of Paris. This Petersburg bank for for- eign trade was, in the days before the war, the first Russian bank to gain a firm footing in London as well as in Paris. The former Russ- ian government relied upon the services of this bank when Russia was cutting loose from the Berlin banking house of Mendelssohn, and was beginning to transfer the. Russian loan market to Western Europe and especially to France. Kokovstoff and Davidoff are antag- onists in politics as well as in finance. Kokovt- soff and his bank are the fulcrum of the czarist reaction in Paris whereas Davidoff’s Russian Bank tends rather to be the rallying center for the bourgeois-democratic emigres. HE industrials did not fare so well as the financiers, for the factories were in Russia and could not be removed. Still, a fairly large proportion of the Russian industrial magnates of the old days have managed to transfer some of their wealth to foreign parts. Denisoff and Putiloff, who used to be the most commanding jfigures in the world of Russian heavy indus- try, are probably millionaires even today, for they had large ‘holdings in foreign enterprises. They. both live in Paris. Other magnates of Russian heavy industry, men whose interests . SEGREGATED! their supposed-to-be drive against the horrify- ing conditions which exist as a result of racial differences. Neither are we going to embrace the race problem in its entirety, for although segregation is one of the most violent and damnable of all expressions of race hatred, it is only one of the many. To the point, in this article, we describe a few of the experiences suffered by the Negroes humiliated by racial segregation. “Jim-Crowism” on public carriers is preva- lent in many of the southern states of the || United States, and is provided for by very rigid {jlaws which impose a fine upon individuals of either race who cross the line drawn between them. The “Jim-Crow” cars are usualy filthy, poorly constructed cars in ‘which the men and women use the same toilet. None of the con- veniences of the railroad are enjoyed by them although there is no difference in the cost of passage charged. In answer to the question “why do they ride, then?” —they can either ride in the “Jim-Crow” cars or—walk. Also under the authority of the legal stat- utes beneath the Mason and Dixon line, is the separation in public restaurants, stores, etc.; in fact, the Negroes are not even permit- ted to enter many such places of business. When they make purchases in the stores, they are subjected to insults. An illustration has been passed from lip to lip in the form of.a joke: A Négro went into a tobacco store to purchase a package of Prince Albert tobacco. The salesman said, “Hey, ‘nigger,’ don’t ask for ‘Prince Albert’—you must say Mister ‘Prince Albert’—Prince Albert was a white man.” . In the legalized separate schools the Negroes receive an inferior type of “Jim-Crow” educa- tion in schools poorly equipped by appropria- tions much smaller, in direct proportion than thé appropriations for the schools of the whites. In addition to this they—the Negro Former Rulers of Rnssia? unabrid¢ were centered in Petersburg or the Dond/z basin, are now scattered over the world. The Russian members of the Nobel family, before the revolution the most noted oil kings in Russia, have managed to retain ‘a good deal of their wealth. Besides, the owner-in-chief of the Russian Nobel Works was of Swedish na- tionality, and had extensive possessions outside Russia. Quite a number of Armenians had large interests in petroleum. Most of these live in Paris. They have sustained heavy loss- es, but some of them (those who were mem- bers of international trusts, or in some other way had extensive foreign connections) are till well-to-do. Before the war, a vigorous process of con- centration had occurred in the Russian fat TRANSLA’ jeois scientis erlin a ren tion of Prope id tr PRESIDENT OF THE SOVIET UNION, KALINI children—have much shorter school terms in order that they may be exploited in the cotton fields as long as the season permits. The ab- ject poverty of the Negroes under’the wage- slave system of the south, makes it impossible for them to improve this condition. The disfranchisement of the southern Ne- groes by the enactment of a net-work of clever laws and the practice of “terrorizing” methods is the most outrageous piece of political op- pression imaginable. In this the “citizenship” of the Negro is nothing more than a lot of bunkum. WE pass on from the south—saying nothing of the many other methods of humiliation that occur in the every day walks of life, on | the public thoroughfares in the homes—and as we confine this to “‘segregation’”’ we do not de- scribe the mob law, outrage of black woman- hood, discrimination in trade unions, courts of justice (16 minute trials), ete. * We come to the north where the spouters of republican politics have control of the law and order. We come to the north where “civil rights bills” pronounce “illegal” open segrega- tion and what do we find? Simply that the laws, in the majority of cases are not worth the paper upon which they are inscribed. In many parts of the north the schools are sep- arated, the theaters discriminate, and the prac- tice of residential segregation is at its height. Both the segregation in the schools and ‘in residential districts are abbetted by petty-bour- geois Negroes in the persons of teachers and real estate grafters who profit from the segre- gation of their own people. And residential segregetion automatically effects segregated schools. oys ta 4 In the city of Chicago, a typical “northern” city, the open segregation .is more or less crushed but a more subtle and equally effective method is practiced and residential segregation is very prevalent. ta Illustrations by —