The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 21, 1927, Page 3

THE DAIL WORKER, NEW YORK. FRIDAY OCTOBER 21, 1927 SO nt of the re- port of the first American Trade Union Delega- The following is the first ins tion to Soviet Russia, in the words of the delega- tion. The report will be published in The DAILY WORKER in successive issues until completed. HE American Trade Union Delegation to the Soviet Union was organized as a re- sult of the visit to America of A. A. Purcell, then president of the British Trade Union Congress and of the International Federation of Trade Unions, as fraternal delegate to the American Federation of Labor convention in the fall of 1925. Mr. Purcell visited twelve cities urging that American labor send a dele- gation to learn at first hand labor and econ- omic conditions in Europe. Under the chair- manship of President L. E. Sheppard of the Order of Railway Conductors (who was un- able at the last moment to go with us), the delegation as an unofficial group of trade unionists invited fourteen expert advisors in economics, sociology and education to join in the research. Several members of the re- search staff left the United States in June, others the first of July, and the delegation itself July 27th, returning September 26th’ after spending a month in Russia. The delegation planned to observe labor conditions in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany ‘and Poland, with a detailed investigation of economic and social develop- ments in Soviet Russia. Dictator Mussolini and Fascist Italy refused to permit the dele- gation to Conduct research in Ttaly, but in all these other countries of Europé we received a fraternal welcome by the national labor movements, the International Transport Workers Federation and the International Federation of Trade Unions, by lakor party and cooperative leaders, and in several cases by members of the government. We can not adequately express our appreciation to these friends and brothers for their courtesy, their hospitality and their efforts to give us full information about the economic life of their respective lands. We are especially indebted to the Polish Railwaymen’s Union for enter- tainment and transportation across Poland, and to the All Russian Trade Union Council, whose guests we were during our entire stay in Russia. The delegation also owes much to the many workers and liberal friends in the United States whose contributions, supplementing a nucleus from the Purcell fund, made possible its research. These contributions were made wholly by sympathizers in the United States. The further fact that various members of the delegation paid part or all of their own ex- penses helped to make this mission possible on a very modest budget. The delegation gathered much material on labor and industrial conditions in Western Europe, but we do not feel that the time spent in these countries warrants a report on their economic situation. It was impossible not to diseover, however, that wages in several of these countries are exceedingly low. Most of them lost a large part of their economic sur- plus by the world war and lack abundant raw materials for industry. All of them face a serious problem of unemployment. An un- derstanding of the difficult position of labor in the rest of Europe is essential to a fair appraisal of the position and policies of the trade unions in Russia. The delegation realizes that it could not ‘soviet Russ _ Report of the American Trade Union Delegation to USSR learn “all about Russia” in the time at its| disposal. Yet the fact that each economic specialist covered a particular field in which he was well-informed and put his research at our command; that the group divided into five parts, each traveling almost continuously for several weeks, covering thousands of miles—partly through country untouched by railroads; that we went where we wanted to go and saw what we wanted to see; that we visited Moscow, Leningrad, and seven other large cities as well as the great industria! center of the Donetz Basin, the Caucasus, the Upper Volga, the Ural mountains, the Crimea, the Ukraine, including Odessa and -Kherson; that everything was open to us from the books of a factory to the office of the foreign | minister; that we talked with workers, with leaders of both factions within the Commun ist Party, with former White officers and} Mensheviks bitterly hostile to the govern- ment; that we had interpreters of our own and selected additional a lead us to believe that we achieved a more! reliable survey than any one could secure in- dividually. We must record the fact that the Russians made no apparent effort to hide the bad, al- though they displayed pardonable pride in showing us the best. Indeed, almost invaria- bly, the officials who most impressed us with | their ability and sincerity were anxious to hear our criticism of the weak points in the Soviet regime. There was no objection to our talking to any one, either through inter- preters or in languages we understood. There seemed to be real readiness to help us get the facts. The request was repeatedly made by workers and officials that on our return home we simply “tell the truth about Russia.” This duty we shall strive to discharge con- scientiously. . A line running roughly through.Berlin and Vienna divides Eastern Europe from Western. It marks off two civilizations. One is indus- trial, tidy, clean, composed. The other is agricultural, untidy, alternating a lavish splendor with down-at-the-heel drabness. In the latter area fall the Baltic and Balkan states, Turkey, Poland and Russia. To one who knows only western civilization, the east is strange, uncouth, frequently unpleasant. It is a long, long way from Main Street. It is therefore difficult to judge modern Russia honestly. Prejudices will be colored stance carefully— |} ia Afte JAMES MAURER. Chairman of American Trade Union Delega- tion to the Soviet Union and president of Penn- sylvania State Federation of Labor. y, few vivid window displays, no-smartly tailored people, cheap hats and cheap cloth- jing, not a soda fountain in the town, nor a decent cigar...men in blouses bare-legged peasant women in shawls, ragged urchins | with ineredibly dirty faces, soldier “boys in |rusty khaki singing magnificently as they raarch, regal palaces slightly mildewed at the |corners, an opera house across a flowered |Square, immense, spotless and shining, a dis- figured beggar mumbling for bread, brown naked men swimming. in the river or leisurely |sunning themselves on the banks, noble park |ways and uncut grass, great busses crowding lancient droshkys, and over it all a faint yet | remorseless odor not as vivid as that of Con- | stantinople or Cairo, but alien and unpleasant to Western nostrils. Granting that it is the East, Russia as we |found it—over many thousand miles of ter- ritory—-was emphatically not a doomed or | disordered country. The people were on the #|the nation, or nations, that try to conque age Three ‘Ten case the railroad trains were strictly on time. A! Streets were lighted at night, the telephone #! service in Moscow was excellent, theatres and opera were well attended—often crowded. ; Moving picture hous were frequent and !busy, crews were rowing on the river, aerials ‘were stretched from many housetops, bands were playing in the parks, women shrieked as they coasted down the shoot-the-chutes in Leningrad’s White City, museums and pic- iture galleries were everywhere open and ex- | tonsively patronized, and everybody smoked cigarettes—in incredible quantities. Above all, the country seemed alive; a little habby amid its splendid relics, but vital, ar re ‘ plined and strong. No one of us left Rus without the phrase escaping us: “Heaven h people.” Mingled with the strength was a vague atmosphere of fear which made us sense that for this discipline a price had had to be paid. But no one of us during our entire stay saw H| any act of violence, any breach of the peace, jany |any cruel or unusual behavior. Russian chauf \feurs when showing Americans that they also can twirl a wheel, do their utmost to run over their comrades and brothers, but, to our in- {finite astonishment, they never quite suc- ceeded! ‘ * «© In brief, Russia, today, is carrying on the business of living in a reasonably normal and orderly manner. It is as far from a hell of! degeneracy and wretchedness as it is from aj Utopia. Few Westerners would passionately desire to live there, but who of us is planning to move to Constantinople or to Reval. ECONOMIC PROGRESS. The standard of living in Russia is far be- low the American average. It is not, how- ever, below the Russian pre-war average. Late in the year 1926 total industrial pro- duction reached the level of 19138. At the} present time the output per capita of pepu-| lation is slightly ahead of the 1913 standard | for all industry combined, measured both in| physical volume ana in pre-war rubles. This is a very creditable showing. Follow- ing the disorganization of the war—which | still handicaps production @@ the rest of Eu-} rope—Russia, from 1917 % 1921, plunged! into the abyss of revolution, civil war, foreign invasion on a dozen fronts, and to cap it all a) sting, and in some indefinable way, disci-! sy Years The present volume of while surpassing the 1913 ot of a different cl machinery, more $ and luxuries than the cver, the quality of these is, generally speaking, while markedly better th: year since the revolution, i low the 1913 level. ial goods, money, is ises more > comforts * total. More- The present output is primarily addressed to building of new industrial p includ- ing transportation facilities, ne housing for the workers, food products and plain necessi ties for the workers and pease the urban workers a ter off than in 1913; the pe so well off, in respect dustrial goods whieh t , receiv industrial plant in the form of new lays is growing at an About the beginning of 1 put into industry began to s. As a re- idoubtedly bet- are not quite unprecedented rate. the new capital od the annual rate of depreciation, and to show a net in» crease in the value of the nation’s fixed assets. Meanwhile the amount of n capital and its division between the various industries is decided by what is probably the most in-= teresting technical body now functioning in the world, the Gosplan (Government Planning Commission). The guiding principle of this board of industrial strategy is to build up those industries—such as coal, iron, water- power, machine making—upon which the oth- er industries depend, financing this develop- ment, so far as may be, from the surplus earn- ing of the more profitable industr such as oil, textiles, rubber. In this way a balanced national economy can be achieved, overexten- sion in certain lines prevented, the business cycle eliminated, with an enormous sav ing of economic waste and loss. Only time can meas- ure the final success of the Gosplan in this stupendous undertaking, but its tangible ef- fect on industry already is far-reaching, and as far as we could learn, effective. According to the very latest estimates (pub- lished September 10, 1927) total production for the current fiscal year, ending October 1, 1927, will exceed that of the previous year by about 15 per cent. On the Gosplan basis sub- stantially the same increase is planned for the coming fiscal year. On the whole then, the economic structure by —, considerations which have nothing |, hole adequately if not fashionably dressed. to do with the revolution; which are implicit | ‘phere was plenty to eat, and from the stand- in the East, whatever the form of govern-| point of sheer biological well-being, the urban ment. It is well nigh impossible to discount | population seemed far better off than that of those prejudices, unless one knows the East,/1ondon or of Paris. It is a hardy, healthy or has lived in Russia under the czar, and can| race, There was plenty of evidence of pover- thus soberly judge what is with what was, or devastating crop failure and famine. In 1921|is functioning as well as one might dare to production had collapsed to a tenth of the pre-|€Xpect, considering the utter chaos from which war output. Factories, public utilities, rail-|it started. Poverty is far from eliminated, way lines, harbors had been gutted and de-| Unemployment is a very serious problem, new stroyed. The whole mechanism of trading, | capital, credit, housing, an adequate supply exchange, and credit had been wiped out,|of needed imports, power development—are partly by the application of certain unwork- |all pressing and urgent challenges to the pres- able theories, partly by the relentless course|ent economic administration. But at least a ‘ : Diss ty, and in Moscow terrible overcrowding, but compare what is with a like civilization next on the whole little to compare with the blighted slum districts of many Western cities. Everywhere we went we saw evidence of building activity, repairs and renovations |to many old houses, new apartments, new |cottages, sometimes a new industrial town. Gayety was at a discount, except in certain areas in the south; but then have the Rus- ians ever been gay in the sense that the arisians are? Certainly there were no signs of any collective sullenness, bitterness, or resentment. The city streets were full of people. The reajority of stores were open with goods on their shelves and plenty of business. Street jcars were running regularly; in nearly every door—say Poland. Most of us did not have this advantage. Two days in Poland were not enough to change the outlook of a lifetime. We came suddenly into a strange land. In France, Germany, Belgium and Holland we recognized a certain basic kinship, but Russia was a dif- ferent world; its people lived differently from our people; its ways were not our ways. Measured by the standards of such a city as Philadelphia, Moscow, with an equal popu- lation, is at once more gorgeous and more ramshackle. Noble spires and peeling stucco, cobblestone streets, swarms of booths and peddlers, motors one to the block instead of of material events. * * * | In this dark hour Lenin declared the New| Economic Policy (NEP), which modified the more visionary theories and set up a qualified form of socialism which had some chance of functioning. From that zero point economic | recovery has been phenomenal. Tadustrial production has increased by leaps and bounds, | with agricultural production following helad | From a state of utter disorganization and! ruin, the economic structure has come back/| to normal in six years. This is an achieve-| ment for which history records few parallels. | For the West it would be a seven days’ won- | der; for the East it is a miracle. normal level has been reached and each year shows a gain. At the present tempo, failing foreign wars and “Acts of God,” the Gosplan five-year pro- gram calls for a 78 per cent increase in indus- trial production and a 30 per cent increase in agriculture by 1931. That there is a more than fighting chance to realize such increases is eyidenced by the close correlation of the actual figures to the plans, as achieved in the first year of its operation. If they are realized, a delegation visiting - Russia five years hence may perhaps forget the East, and begin to apply some American standards in its judgment of Russian eco- (To be continued tomorrow) NATION-WIDE STRIKES SWEEP OVER GERMANY; GENERAL STRIKE LIKELY ver 70,000 Miners Rebel Against Starvation’ Wages; 60,000 Textile Workers Out | By LELAND OLDS. \ . (Federated Press) The? threatened revolt of German Famed workers against the low conflicts may any in Europe eral strike, standatd of living forced on them by the victor’s peace terms comes at a time when the strategic situation is more favorable to labor than at any time in recent years, Reports that 70,000 miners: are on. strike, that 60,000 textile workers are locked out and that these skirmishes A glance at tl being paid in ‘9 to 10 hours. 6% per cent i may prove forerunners of a~generaltraise their daily wage to about $1.60 strike come simultaneously -with| seems modest Low Wage Level. dicate that there is plenty of fuel to feed the flame once it has started. | The miners in the brown coal pits re- | ceive only about $1.50 for a day of | Killed Petlura be more severe than | since the British gen- | | ‘he level of wages now German industry in-! Their demand for a increase, which would enough Guard bandit, Samuel Schwartzbard, Jewish watch- | maker, who was decorated for, bravery during the World War and who con- fessed killing General Petlura, who murdered thou ‘WHITE GUARDIST ~ MURDERS BARED AT PARIS TRIAL | China | tions court to “prevent race riots,” White | Guard witnesses were called today in| RU the trial of Samuel Schwa rtzbard, | ne | Jewish watchmaker, to “testify” that | AT | Gen. Simon Petlura, Ukrainian reac- | | WASHINGTON, | Oct. 20.—That | jham of Conneticut. | | Such a move has long been con-| mgre than 4 million tons of oil. The ‘Tory Scheme to Split/Baku Production and ‘ChinaUrged byBingham | | BAKU, Oct. 7. (By opening economic year be split into five or six sec- | and be dealt with separately | | The oil refineries dist reached some | ported mainly to the U: (80 per cent), Italy (25 France (14 per cent). Y THE PAILY WORKER THE NEWSSTANDS Export of Oil Gains of oil in the oil-fields of the “Azneft” was the suggestion made to Secretary | has been put at 7,680,000 tons, against | lof State Kellogg by Senator Bing- | 6,750,000 tons in the elapsed year. 1,500,000 ne Conk, Mine Leader, ‘evel Gan Attend Warsaw: Meeting After All illed last year! hee |templated by imperialist Britain | production of gas last year exceeded | ‘ P PARIS, Oct. 20.—While a heavy| which has cast hungry eyes at the | 180,000 tons in terms of ofl. | LONDON, Oct. 20.—After having} force of gendarmes surrounded the | Yangstse valley. ‘ | The export of oil products last year | been ref for his passport the Polish Con= ate here, A. Ly Secretary of Miners’ Fed: tons, ex- nited Kingdom per cent) and : | |tionary who murdered thousands of workers and peasants, opposed pog-| ¥ roms, Schwartzbard had admitted assassi- | jnating Petlura, declaring that he did | |it out of revenge for the pogroms in Uk in which thousands of Jews White The Ruthenberg Daily Worker Sustaining Fund eration of Great Britain, will be permitted to ate tend the miners? rnational eX@~ meeting afe ve statements that the number of un-| Skilled Workers Get $11.72. aus of workers and peasants in the, pera ed during Refer contro! of ; employed has fallen to 472,000 com- ae vork. | Ukraine. jthe Ukraine government. _ should be a part of every meeting of your Workers him. ieee pared” with 1,965,000. in February] ,,.he average wage for skilled work- White Guard officials’ in the Pet- rasan . eter cannes : seacaut lak when the 1927. General trade is booming,| jin6 4 MaseMiinigs fo Mia: federal |s.414; a lura regime “testified” that Petlura arty unit an AGL 7 uilders’ Club meet- sh Consulate prices are ning and production is at] ctatistical office, was (49.15 -mavks cau taba a sn one ork Le issued public man seat oe fae ing. Every real left wing working class organization, ssage a a be high level. Ps ; # Ue lemning” pogroms and warning the | . eagle A granting Cook a visa, f The first outbreak in what may be-! Wiecuee Peo nt nee Paper making 8.38 Tbe people against them. The contention | labor union, fraternal RCIty; etc., should place this mat- ill proceed by airplane direct” come a general conflict between la-| tho average was 36.65 marks or Ante ose ee vey has been raised by the defense that | ter on its order of business. Sustaining Fund stamp to Warsaw. ¢ bor and capital occurred in the brown $8.75. Weekly wages of German Beawing : ~ 18.26 40.84 ee manifestos ete anninpece sub- books, membership cards and full information may be | ; ia cto : ‘ coal or lignite mine area of central workers in the separate industries 10:3 terfuges issued to cover the whole- . | Await Cook's Arrival. ye Germany. But reports indicate that | wore: Sugar, Confections ' cis 8.81) sole murder of Ukrainian Jews. obtained through | WARSAW, Oct. 20.—The miners® ~ coaldiggers in the great Ruhr dis- Bane 1 pate an ae The counsel for the defense has a) | international executive meeting has” trict are demanding wage increases | German industry Ganicack, Be ‘i 588 53 ‘list of thousands of victims of the THE DAILY WORKER | been postponed pending the arrival of with the threat that unless these are| Weekly wages Skilled Unskilled iat eran coo ena 10.68 nee White Guard pogroms. In one case ma aa Secretary Cook of the Miners’ Federa- granted they will join the strike, The | Mining - $12.76 Bote ers, TAU MAUS: ‘ 8.55 the names and the addresses of 850 33 FIRST STREET NEW YORK, N. Y. |tion of Great Britain, The meeting _ Federated Press Eurogean corre- | Metal 11.65 8.07 ——| victims, half of whom were women will open Friday when Cook is ex- Chemical 8.90 Average 11.72 $8.75 |and children, are listed, | svondent suggests that the coming {pected to arrive. ,