Present Day Russia

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PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

PRESENT-DAY
RUSSIA

BY
IVY LEE

NEW YORK

THE MAGMILLAN COMPANY
1928

All tights

INTKODUCTION

VJTTHEN I visited Mr. Rykov, Prime Minister of
* * Russia, in the Kremlin at Moscow and told him
that my stay there was for ten days only, he smiled
and said:

"So you are assuming to get an idea of Russia
in ten days! I, as head of the Russian Govern-
ment, have spent all my life here. I am in daily
contact with the men who are supposed to know
all about Russia, Yet, only last week we had
reported to us for the first time the existence of a
new tribe of Russian people of whom none of us
had ever before heard."

Of course, it was too much to expect in a ten-day
visit to gain any serious comprehension of the vast
number of facts and the complicated problems of that
great country, with its 13,000,000 square miles of terri-
tory 100 times the size of Great Britain with its
146,000,000 people, speaking 100 different languages
and representing innumerable customs, points of view,
religious beliefs and historical and racial backgrounds.

Yet there is, for the moment at least, a virtual dic-
tatorship of Russia, and this dictatorship is in the
hands of relatively few men. Before the world, the
views, personalities and attitudes of this small group

vi INTRODUCTION

of men represent Russia. Even in a short space of
time, therefore, one could meet with these men, talk
with them and get an impression at least of their state
of mind toward their own situation and toward the
rest of the world.

It was to get this kind of impression that I went to
Moscow. This book is an attempt to record that
impression and nothing more.

I had opportunity in Moscow to talk to most of the
men who are supposed to be guiding the present des-
tinies of Russia. I had the further privilege of having
rather intimate talks with the ambassadors of the
principal countries which maintain diplomatic rela-
tions in Moscow, and in addition was able to gain from
the very intelligent newspaper correspondents repre-
senting publications of other countries discussions
much more frank and unrestricted than these corre-
spondents are able to put in their communications to
the press. Furthermore, a stay of even ten days in a
place so concentrated as Moscow, with the strain and
stress of the forces at work in Russia, with the con-
tacts with shopkeepers, hotel keepers and managers,
guides, servants, as well as a general observation
of the great moving human spectacle with which
one here comes into contact, gives one a "feel" of
the situation which it is impossible to get in any
other way.

I had another reason for wanting to go to Russia.
We hear a great deal in the United States about "Bol-
shevik Propaganda" and the Russiaa menace* I
wanted to find out just how that propaganda Is carried
on, what the nature of it is, what the story is that is

INTRODUCTION vii

being told through such propaganda, and just how it
is being told. I had heard that the Russian Govern-
ment, the Communist Party and the Communist
International are all combined in a conspiracy against
mankind, particularly capitalist mankind. I was
anxious to find out, by first-hand examination, just
what is the nature of that conspiracy and how it is
functioning. Indeed, as a man distinctly interested
in the maintenance of capitalism, and a believer in the
fact that upon fundamental regard for the rights of
private property alone can the future prosperity and
happiness of mankind be based, I wanted to go directly
into what the whole Western world regards as the
enemy's camp and, if possible, find out what he was
up to!

Certain it is that if we accept the phrases and stated
practices of the Bolshevik regime as literally embody-
ing the permanent policies of the Russian Government
and the Russian people, Western civilization must
make definite plans to defeat those purposes. The
fundamental question is how to defeat them. Can
they be defeated by the isolation and encirclement of
Russia, and an attempt to starve the Russian people?
Can they be defeated by merely keeping out of our
own borders Bolshevik literature and Bolshevik
agents? Can they be defeated by trading with Russia
or by refraining from trading with her?

What were what are the essential facts and the
factors with which the world must deal in this amaz-
ing situation? It was in an effort to find some of th^m
at first hand, and to form some impressions as to what
ought to be done $bout it ? th^t lecj me to spend the

viii INTRODUCTION

first two weeks of May, 1927, in making a quick trip
to Russia.

New York City
July 1, 1927

The foregoing was the preface to the first edition of
this book published privately. The book had been
based upon such a hurried trip, and had been written
in such a hurry, that I hardly dared offer it to the pub-
lic. Since its private distribution some of the condi-
tions related in the first edition have changed and a
number of inaccuracies have been brought to my
attention. Without changing the substance of the
book, the facts have now been brought up to date, and
in this edition I have included two new chapters,
which were not part of the private edition; namely,
those entitled: "Marriage, Women and Children," and
"Trade Relations?"

January 10, 1928

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA .

II. Moscow

III. CREATING THE SOCIALIST ATMOSPHERE

IV. SOME SOVIET PROPAGANDA

V. MA&RIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN .

VI. SOME COMMON SENSE

VII. PRESERVING RUSSIAN ART . .

VIII. ESPIONAGE AND THE OGPU

IX. How RUSSIA LEARNS OF THE WORLD .

X. How THE WORLD LEARNS OF RUSSIA

XI. PUBLIC AND SOCIAL ECONOMY

XII . LENIN AND LENINISM

XIII. RYKOV AND THE GOVERNMENT .

XIV. STALIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY

XV. BOUKHARIN -AND THE INTERNATIONAL

XVI. TROTSKY AND "THE OPPOSITION" .

XVII. RADEK AND BOLSHEVIK PROPAGANDA

XVIII. TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS

XIX. CONCESSIONS

XX. FOREIGN RELATIONS .....

XXI. RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES -

XXII. TRADE RELATIONS

XXIII. A WORLD DILEMMA

APPENDIX

PAGE

v
1

12

22

27

33*

44

49

57

63

72

79,

85

93

99

108

113

122

127

141

157

167

181

196

205

PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA

GETTING into Russia is, for an American citizen,
a formidable operation; getting out is a formid-
able operation for anybody!

It cost twelve dollars to get my passport visaed for
entrance. The visa specified the name of the frontier
station at which I was to enter, and stated the pro-
posed date of entry. Immediately upon arrival at
Moscow, my passport was delivered to the police, to
obtain a "permit de sejour," which cost eight dollars.
This permit came back to me a few days later as an
impressive looking document. It was good for thirty
days* I had to give forty-eight hours' notice of my
intention to leave, when the passport, with an addi-
tional photograph, was again delivered to the police,
and another visa fee of twelve dollars paid. This
departure visa again specified the frontier station of
contemplated departure, and I then had seven days
in which to leave the country. -Anyone who might
aspire to arrive in Moscow in the morning and leave
that same afternoon would be disillusioned!

But that is the smallest part of the story. The real

l

2 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

problem was to get my passport visaed at all for admis-
sion to Russia. No Russian diplomatic officer in a
foreign country has authority to visa an American
passport without specific approval from Moscow. The
American must make application by letter to the Pass-
port Bureau of the Russian Commissariat of Foreign
Affairs, and, after that deliberation which is char-
acteristic of practically all Russian Government
decisions, it is acted on, and the applicant notified as
to whether in London, Paris, Berlin or elsewhere he
may obtain his visa. In Berlin, I was informed that
foreigners frequently remained there for weeks, await-
ing their visa.

Once the decision is made the applicant must then
personally appear at the designated consular office
and fill out, in triplicate, a long questionnaire, giving
numerous facts as to his life, business affiliations and
other data concerning his relationships, purposes,
etc.; he must deliver three photographs, one to be
attached to each of the three copies of the question-
naire.

One of the interesting problems in this question-
naire, which would constitute a serious obstacle to
most travelers, is to give the name of at least one
responsible Russian citizen which usually means a
Communist with whom one is personally acquainted
in Russia.

Such is the ordinary routine* It should be said,
however, that in special instances this red tape can be
cut very promptly. It should be mentioned that in my
own case the Russian Government gave immediate
instructions that the passport of myself and those of

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA 3

the members of my party be visaed without delay.
Some weeks before sailing for Europe I wrote a letter
to each minister of the Russian Government, as well as
officers of the Communist Party with no one of whom
I was personally acquainted setting forth that all of
my business affiliations in America were "capitalist"
and that I had no sympathy with Communism or what
I understood to be the policies and practices of the
Russian Government. Nevertheless, I was anxious to
see for myself something of what was going on there,
and to form my own impressions of what it all meant.

I did not state I carefully avoided saying 'that I
was prepared to go to Russia with "an open mind/' I
had heard that the two types of people on which the
Russians were very much "fed up" were, first of all,
those who desired to go there with an open mind, and,
secondly, avowed friends of the Russian regime who
wanted to go there to observe the "Utopia," which the
Russians themselves know does not exist,

I furthermore made it clear in advance that I had
no authority to go to Russia as representing anyone
above all, anyone connected with the American Gov-
ernment that I desired no concession, had no advice
to give, and would not deliver any messages.

My sole purpose, I stated, wa& to regard the situ-
ation "objectively" (which is a word the Russians
love), and that I wanted primarily to see people rather
than things and above all I wanted to see responsible
representatives of the Government or the Communist
Party, who would be in a position to give me candidly
their own personal interpretation of the philosophy
underlying their regime, and their point of view as to

4 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

their own situation and its relationship with the rest of
the world.

AIRPLANE SERVICE

It takes a letter five or six days to reach Moscow
from Paris; telegrams require five or six hours. The
best train service is from Berlin, from which a through
sleeper leaves each evening for the Russian frontier via
Warsaw. The whole trip takes 44 hours. One can buy
a ticket and reserve sleeper space as far as the Polish
frontier. After that, one must buy a new ticket and
take one's chances on getting into the Russian sleeping
car. There has recently been established one through
train service from Paris to Moscow. Up to a few days
before I reached Berlin the quickest way to get to
Moscow by rail had been to leave Berlin in the eve-
ning, arrive in Warsaw the following morning, spend
the day there, and then take two nights and a day more
to reach Moscow. In view of that situation, I
arranged to go by airplane from Koenigsberg to
Moscow. ^

There is from May 1 to November 1 a through air-
plane service from Berlin to Moscow, leaving Berlin
at three in the morning, arriving at Moscow at five
o'clock the same afternoon. The plane makes a stop at
Dantzig, and reaches Koenigsberg at 7:30 A.M. One
can go overnight by rail from Berlin to Koenigsberg,
arriving at Koenigsberg at 5:00 o'clock in the morning,
getting a night's sleep on the clean, comfortable Ger-
man sleeping car, and take the plane4o Moscow, which
leaves Koenigsberg at 8:00 o'clock in the morning.
This was the route which we took. There is a daily

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA 5

service, and its record of performance is remarkably
good.

Immediately upon stepping from the train at
Koenigsberg, we were approached by a snappy-looking
youth in uniform, who represented the airplane com-
pany. He took charge of our luggage, and guided us
to an automobile standing just outside the station. It
was a very cold morning, but we found a warm waiting
room at the airdrome five kilometres distant from the
railroad station.

The Berlin plane, flying low, arrived at 7:30. Mails
were transferred, engines were warmed up, and we
were in the air at 8:05. The planes in this service are
of the latest pattern; the one in which I rode carries
six passengers. It was a German-made monoplane,
with a 360 HP. Rolls-Royce engine, and driven by a
Russian pilot. The one-way fare from Koenigsberg
to Moscow is $50. The planes are remarkably clean
and comfortable. They have reclining chairs, and are
well heated. The vibration is comparatively slight,
and it is easier to read while in one of these planes
than it is to do so in the average European railroad
train.

The distance from Koenigsberg to Moscow is 800
miles. The flying time is about eight hours. Usually,
two stops are made, one at Kovno, the capital of
Lithuania, and one at Smolensk, an important provin-
cial town nearer Moscow. On the day we were to
make the trip, however, the airdromes at Kovno and
Smolensk were soggy, and it was decided to cover the
distance in one hop. We ran into very heavy head
winds, and could not make the usual schedule,

6 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

although that same day the plane from Moscow to
Koenigsberg covered the distance In five and one-half
hours.

We dropped mail over Kovno about eleven o'clock,
and at 2:30 I saw we were about to land. I supposed
the pilot had changed his mind and that this was
Smolensk. But it was, in fact, Vitebsk, 450 miles from
Koenigsberg, and about 100 miles north of Smolensk.
Immediately we had landed, soldiers rushed up and
ordered that the blinds in the cockpit of our plane
should be pulled down. We were held in the plane
for two hours, being guarded at all times by sentinels
on each side of us; then we were told to get out.
What had happened was that our petrol had given out
and the pilot had decided to descend. So much time
would be required to get more petrol that we would
not be able to reach Moscow that night, but would
leave at four o'clock the next morning.

SURROUNDED BY THE "REI>' ? ARMY
Fifteen or twenty soldiers had, surrounded us* We
were in a military enclosure. Civilian visitors were
not welcome. I offered each officer and soldier Ameri-
can cigarettes, which they took and seemed to enjoy.
Instead of a surly, disagreeable attitude, I found them
most genial and regarding the whole episode as more
or less of a joke. They did not examine my passport,
but provided us with a fine military car in which two
officers accompanied us to the town, several miles
away. It is a rather dilapidated town, and the hotel
was distinctly frayed at the edges. The man in charge

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA 7

of the hotel led us to a so-called restaurant, where we
obtained a little dinner. Fortunately, the sheets on
the beds were clean, and we were able to get some
sleep.

We were aroused at 2:30 in the morning, and the
military car returned for us at three. It was quite
cold, and when we arrived at the gate of the airdrome
about 3:15 we had an illustration of the primitive
way in which things are done in Russia. The sentry
was evidently instructed to allow no one to enter
unless an officer should personally arrive and tell him
to do so. The sentry's duty, therefore, was to arouse
the officer. He began to whistle with two fingers in
his mouth, and our chauffeur told us this was the
"Russian telephone/' After struggling for half an
hour, while we shivered in the cold night air, the
sentry finally aroused the officer, who came galloping
up on horseback. We got away at 4:15 A.M., and
passed over Smolensk at 5:30. We arrived at the
"Trotsky Airdrome" just outside of Moscow at eight
o'clock, having flown usually about 3,000 feet high,
but having gone up about a mile before beginning the
descent. The examination of customs and passports
was laborious but perfunctory. It seemed to me that
the customs officers could not read very well, and they
certainly had great difficulty in deciphering our pass-
ports.

The "Trotsky Airdrome," named for Trotsky when
he was the head of the army, seems to be quite up to
date. Many planes were about. Indeed, one is con-
scious throughout one's stay in Moscow of the very

8 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

great interest of the Government in the development
of aviation. It would appear that Russia is seeking
to bridge over a previous backwardness in the develop-
ment of railroads with an unusually energetic effort
to develop flying. It may thus be that many com-
munities in Russia, from which there is no freight,
will be dependent indefinitely upon communication
by airplane rather than by rail.

On the Sunday I was in Moscow I saw a very large
crowd of what seemed to be workingmcn collected in
front of the Labor Temple. On inquiring the meaning
of this crowd, I was told a drawing was about to take
place in a big lottery conducted by the Society for
the Promotion of Aviation. There were some money
prizes, but among the most eagerly sought prizes were
those awarded the winner of a free trip by airplane
throughout Europe.

The British break in diplomatic relations stimulated
Russian interest in aviation. Newspapers established
what they called "Answer-to-Chamberlain Funds** for
public subscriptions to build up the air fleet.

The Pravda of May 28th reported that at Nijni
Novgorod the workmen of several factories had
assigned one per cent of their wages toward the
expense of increasing the Russian Air Force, and that
at Simferopol the railwaymen had opened a subscrip-
tion toward the creation of a special air squadron,
which is to be known as the "Squadron of May 24,
1927" (the date the breach with Russia was announced
in the House of Commons).

The sale of wooden matches is a government monop-
oly in Russia, and all the little pasteboard match boxes

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA 9

now carry pictures of airplanes. Russia is making
many efforts to have her people "air wise."

When one enters Russia, luggage consisting of ordi-
nary personal effects is passed very quickly, but letters,
documents or books are immediately extracted by the
customs officer and handed over to another officer,
evidently a sort of special censor, who examines all
printed material carefully. If this officer is not satis-
fied, he is at liberty to withhold papers and send them
to the Foreign Office for further examination.

The foreigner is allowed to take very little out of
the country. When he enters Russia he is given a list
of the articles which he may take out. If he takes
anything else he must obtain an export license. In
order to obtain that license he must make a detailed
statement specifying the goods he desires to export,
pay any export duty which may be assessed against
such goods, then pay a fee of $7.50 for the document
upon which his export privilege is set down.

On the whole, however, the legal restriction on
foreigners taking goods out of Russia was intended
principally to prevent the export of objects of art,
which the Russians might want for their museums.

SCRUTINY OF DOCUMENTS

The examination of one's papers as one enters
Russia is as nothing compared with the scrutiny when
one leaves the country. I left Russia by train, and
at the frontier station noted the meticulous care with
which every document was examined. As I had a
large numbers of papers, I had, before leaving Moscow,
taken them to the Foreign Office where the censor

10 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

placed the seals of the Foreign Office upon them. These
seals constituted the open sesame to my exit from
Russia; but for these seals, Heaven knows what the
customs official would have done with the large num-
ber of documents I carried with me nearly all written
in English. From what I saw at the frontier of the
experience of other passengers with small numbers of
papers, it was not difficult to imagine there would
have been trouble.

I came out of Russia by train via Warsa%v. The
examination of papers was duplicated at the Polish
frontier station immediately I got across the Rus-
sian border. The Poles are particularly watchful of
Bolshevik literature, and as I had gathered quite a
collection of propaganda posters and other material
in Russia I am quite sure that had the Poles exam-
ined my papers as they did those of the other travelers
on the train I would have been distinctly suspect.
Anticipating this, however, I had obtained from the
Polish minister in Moscow a "laissez passer* 1 which
saved me much trouble, both in going into and coming
out of Poland.

Poland's guard against Russian literature is not for
fear that the Poles would pay any attention to it but.
because there are 500,000 White Russians in Poland
and the Polish Government is always under a certain
apprehension as to what these White Russians may do.
The frontier line between Poland and Russia is
marked by what looks like an ordinary American bar-
ber pole alongside the railroad track. The train stops
at exactly the frontier line, and all Kussiaa soldiers and
customs officers alight, to be immediately replaced by

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF RUSSIA 11

soldiers and customs officials of Poland. A few yards
further, after entering Poland, one notices stretching
as far as the eye can see, two long lines of zigzag barbed
wire arranged just as it was in France during the
Great War. I was told this was a relic of the German
stand against Russia!

II

MOSCOW

ALL the hotels in Moscow which are available to,
travelers are conducted by the Government/
Three of these hotels are designated for the use of
foreigners. These seemed to be clean, but the service
was not comparable with that of the first-class hotels
in other important cities of Europe, notwithstanding
the fact that the price one pays for accommodations
is quite in line with the exactions of the most de luxe,
hotels in other parts of the world. One finds in the
hotels placards requesting the guests not to demean
the employees by offering them tips, but one notes
that the employees themselves are just as eager to get
the tips as elsewhere when one leaves the hotel they
array themselves for review by the departing traveler
quite in accordance with the most orthodox procedure
in capitalist countries.

The food in the restaurants of these three hotels is
good, although extremely expensive. The most expen-
sive things one eats in Russia, relatively, are caviar,
which is extraordinarily good but which costs aa much
as it does in London, and oranges which, in a hotel,
cost 50 cents each. All the wines are Eussian wines;
foreign wines are not available. Of course, vodka is

12

MOSCOW 13

always there. There are no first-class public cafes
or restaurants apart from those in the hotels.

I found that Jazz had invaded the Bolshevik capital,
though in only one place. At the Grand Hotel an
eight-piece orchestra played for dancing every evening.
This was meant to entertain foreigners, but the Rus-
sians were there in considerable numbers, though the
prices were high and the dances are "bourgeois."

In these state-owned hotels one is struck by the fact
that the linen in the dining rooms is of a very fine
quality, and, indeed, into it are woven the crest and
initials of the Emperor Nicholas II. One eats one's
meals in these restaurants upon unusually delicate
porcelain china, frequently hand-painted and bearing
gold-embellished designs around the edges. Such
.china bears the crest and initials of the late emperor.
It is evident that the china, linen and other materials
used in the royal palaces under the old regime are now
being utilized in the public hotels run by the state.

All heat is shut off from buildings in Moscow on
May 1st. The theory is that summer begins that day.
If, as a matter of fact, summer does not begin which
was the case while I was there, for it was very cold
it makes living in Moscow distinctly uncomfortable.

Another interesting detail in hotel comfort or lack
of it is the fact that the hotel elevators do not func-
tion after ten o'clock in the evening, although very
few people in Moscow go to bed before midnight.
For that matter, however, the elevators frequently get
out of order at odd hours of the day.

Among the innumerable contrasts between poverty
on the one hand and luxury on the other, in Moscow,

14 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

are the many Rolls-Royce motor cars one sees hurry-
ing about the streets. These cars are used by the
officials of the Government; most of them were
among the treasures seized by the Government in dis-
placing the old regime. There are a few new ones.

There are not many motor cars of any kind in Mos-
cow; those that are new are mainly of American make.
Taxicabs are very much worn out, and extremely
expensive to use. Most people who attempt to drive
in public conveyances use old-fashioned droshkies,
driven by isvostchiks, undeniable relics of the old
regime, who still demand three times the fare they
expect to receive, and to whom even the English guide-
book, issued by the Soviet Government for the benefit
of foreigners, instructs the traveler never to pay more
than about one-third what is demanded of him. What-
ever may be his political theories, the isvostchik is
still "capitalistic" in his eagerness to obtain money*

Most of the streets in Moscow are paved with cobble-
stones. I saw two or three streets paved with asphalt
for a limited distance. There is a great deal of dirt
and mud, and after even the lightest rain one needs
galoshes immediately, else one's shoes are covered with
mud and grime. The use of galoshes, indeed, is one
of the respects in which Moscow is more American
than the average American city itself. Every office
or public building of any kind in fact, every home
in Russia: has, immediately inside the entrance door,
a place for hanging overcoats, and, right under it,
boxes for the galoshes which belong to the respective
overcoats, In the reception lobbies of the hotels in

MOSCOW 15

Russia one finds that the three most conspicuous arti-
cles of furniture are the boxes to contain the letters
and keys of guests, another series of boxesi labeled
"passports/' and a third series of boxes (seemingly
innumerable) for the reception of galoshes.

Next to galoshes, one notices that practically all the
men in Moscow wear caps, I counted not more than
one half-dozen derby hats there, and not more than
a dozen soft felt hats, and all of these were, appar-
ently, worn by foreigners. Practically all the men,
including the officers of the Government, bankers,
members of business institutions and everyone else,
wear soft collars, generally dark colored. The laun-
dered, stiff white collar is almost non-existent. Few
women wear silk stockings, and it is common to see
women wearing short woolen socks, with bare legs.

One sees no wearing of evening clothes at the hotels
or at the opera or theatres. The only places at which
evening clothes are worn is at the Foreign Embassies,
or on the rare occasions when the Russian For-
eign Office entertains the Diplomatic Corps. I was
informed that until two years ago evening dress was
not worn on such occasions. But now it is different.

STREET SCENES

There are tram lines and buses in Moscow, which
seem to carry a large number of passengers. /Along
the streets there are many peddlers, most or them"
selling cigarettes, oranges and stationery. Blank paper
for writing purposes is somewhat difficult to obtain in
Russia, and I found it virtually impossible to get an

16 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

envelope of the ordinary legal size. Certainly, such
an envelope sent abroad would attract the attention
of the censor.

In the old Russia, a conspicuous feature of the
streets, homes, offices, railroad stations and many other
places were the eikons. Before these everyone crossed
his heart as he passed, either in the streets, on the way
to the train or elsewhere. Isvostchiks always crossed
themselves as they drove through the streets. To-day,
the number of eikons displayed publicly is very small,
and I saw none of the isvostchiks crossing themselves
in the old way.

I was told that the Russian churches were crowded
on Easter. I attended service on Sunday, May 8th,
in one of the larger cathedrals, and /ound it packed
with people. The music was not as good as under the
old regime. The choir, instead of consisting of sur-
pliced boys and men singing under the most careful
training, was obviously untrained, without surplices
of any kind. The churches that seemed to be the
most crowded were those of the old orthodox faith,
whereas the cathedrals and other churches of the "low
church" variety had in them only a handful of people,
and the music was of no consequence. One- hears
much better music in the Russian church in Paris.

UP-TO-DAOT

The most up-to-date thing in Moscow is the tele-
phone! Everybody uses it. The instruments are
either German or Swedish. The Swedish are pre-war
and the German post-war instruments. I was told,
however, that the Russian Government itself is now

MOSCOW 17

beginning to manufacture telephone apparatus in a
factory at Leningrad.

The telephone service is more prompt than in any
of the other large European cities. Telephone opera-
tors, when answering your call, instead of saying
"Number, please/' simply give you the number of the
operator herself. That enables the subscriber to make
complaint if the service is not satisfactory.

One may call up any office of the Government by
telephone; in fact, nearly all appointments for meet-
ings with government officers are made by telephone.
Government officers usually have several telephone
instruments on their desks. The use of writing in
any form is reduced to a minimum.

The more important government offices are located
in the Kremlin, which is a city in itself, surrounded
by high walls. Every entrance is guarded by soldiers.
At any of these gates, however, one may obtain the
use of the gatekeeper's telephone to speak to whom-
ever inside the Kremlin one desires to visit. If the
visit is acceptable, one then turns the telephone
receiver over to the gatekeeper, who obtains his instruc-
tions direct to allow one to enter. One must then
have a written permit, giving numerous facts about
oneself. The guard at the entrance tears off part of
the permit, and when one emerges from the Kremlin
the remaining portion of the ticket must be given up
\to a guard at an inner portal.

The long-distance telephone remains to be devel-
oped. It is impossible to make an international call.
But for political difficulties it would be to-day tech-
nically possible to telephone from Moscow to Berlin.

18 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

The equipment is installed. Relations with Poland,
however, do not make this possible yet, as a matter
of policy, although it is predicted that telephone
service with Berlin will be permitted within a short
time.

RED, THE RULING COLOR

Red, of course, is the predominant color in Moscow,
although I was told that "Red Square" which is to
Moscow what Trafalgar Square is to London was
called "Red Square" long before the revolution, the
same word in Russian signifying both the color and
an idea of importance, e.g., "Red" Letter Day.

All soldiers wear red lapels on their uniforms;
women who are Communist wear red bandannas
around their heads; the 2,000,000 children, called
"Pioneers," constituting the Boy Scout and Girl
Scout movements in Russia, wear little red streamers
around their necks. Books written by Communists
usually have red-colored bindings. I was there just
a few days after the May Day celebrations, and the
streets were still full of streamers and banners of red,
which had been put up to celebrate the chief Russian
holiday.

A large number of the shop windows have red back-
grounds for the display of their goods. Practically all
buildings have red flags waving over them. One sees
hearses pass through the streets now and then. If
the body of the dead is that of a non-Communist, the
hearse is white; if the deceased was a Communist, the
entire hearse is red.
The Government operates five auction shops in Mos~

MOSCOW 19

cow, which sell fixtures, furniture, silver, rugs and
various miscellaneous articles which were seized in the
palaces of the Tsar or the nobility at the time of the
revolution. One of these shops is a large bookstore,
containing an enormous assortment of secondhand
books in every language and on every subject. Several
of them are of considerable value. In these shops one
finds beautiful rugs and the finest Sevres china, which
can be bought almost for a song. The point is, how-
ever, that very few Russians have surplus money with
which to purchase such articles de luxe, and the for-
eigners are not allowed to take such articles out of the
country.

In the ordinary shops in Russia there is very little
the tourist would want to buy. Of souvenirs, there
are practically none. One finds in the government
shops devoted to native handicraft numerous boxes
and cigarette cases made of Siberian birch. If one
looks hard, one may find in a few of the shops Oren-
burg shawls of goat's wool, made by the native women
in the provinces south of the Ural Mountains.

There is a small bazaar in the Grand Hotel in Mos-
cow in which there is an enormous collection of sterling
silver tableware; but who wants it? Indeed, however
attractive these goods may be, the average foreigner
does not care to have them in his home articles which
suggest so much anguish and bloodshed. The average
Russian cannot afford to buy them.

Incident to the fact that busts of Lenin are almost
universally in the show windows of the shops and
restaurants is the story I heard that it was for a time
customary to place busts of many of the party leaders

20 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

and of the members of the Government in one's office
or place of business, as a sign of one's loyalty to the
present regime. It was found, however, that the mem-
bers of the Government and the leadership of the
party changed so frequently that this making and
remaking of busts became expensive. Thus, as a mat-
ter of economy, the practice has now been adopted
of utilizing the bust of Lenin alone as the emblem
of one's loyalty.

One is struck in Moscow with the fact that there
are very few public buildings there such as house the
government offices in most of the great capitals of the
world. Kalinin, the President, and Rykov, the Prime
Minister, have their offices in the Kremlin, but though
the Kremlin is a vast - place, full of buildings and
cathedrals, there is little provision there for offices
or suitable accommodations for the living quarters of
many persons. Many buildings, therefore, in Mos-
cow which before the revolution were used for business
purposes or hotels have now been turned into govern-
ment offices. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is housed
in a very commonplace and rather dilapidated building
on one of the side streets. Curiously enough, the most
commodious and expensive structure in the city is an
old palace which has been turned over to the (All- 5
Russian Central Labor Union as headquarters, pre-
sided over by Mr. Tomsky. The Concessions Com-
mittee, one of the most important of the organs for
promoting the business development of Russia, is
housed in the old palace of the "tea king" of Russia.

Speaking of tea, one is constantly impressed in
Moscow with the dependence of people upon tea as

MOSCOW 21

an article of diet. Most Russians eat only one real
meal a day; they have a very light breakfast, consist-
ing of bread and a little tea, then they usually combine
their luncheon and dinner in one meal, which they eat
between three and six o'clock in the evening. Between
times, however, and right up until they go to bed,
tea is served intermittently. In every shop, every
government office, almost every building one enters
there are tea samovars in conspicuous locations. If
one calls on anyone who desires to show courtesy, tea
is brought in, no matter at what hour of the day,
usually served in glasses and always very hot. And
if one goes out to dinner in Russia, tea is always served
an hour 03: so after the meal is completed, and it is
considered discourteous to leave the party before the
tea appears.

Ill

CREATING THE SOCIALIST ATMOSPHERE

NOTHING is more striking in Moscow than the
manner in which the Soviet Government has
sought to familiarize the people and keep them sur-
rounded at all times with ideas of Socialism, Com-
munism and Revolution. It simply saturates the
people with place names, building names, mottoes
and other indications of the new social conditions
under which they live.

The name of every street or building or institution
which previously had had any name associated with
the Tsarist regime has been changed. The principal
railroad station where one enters Moscow is known as
the Lenin Station. Among the theatres one finds such
names as the Revolution Theatre, the Theatre of the
Moscow Trade Union Council, the First Workers'
Theatre of the Moscow Proletcult. Among the
museums one finds such names as the Museum of the
Red Army and Fleet; the Revolutionary Museum of
the U.S.S.R.; the Museum of the Trade Union Move-
ment; Permanent Exposition of Art of the Trade
Unions, and the Central Museum for Labor Produc-
tion and Social Insurance.

It is interesting to note that isvostchiks usually
prefer the old names. Thus, the Lenin Station is still

22

CREATING THE SOCIALIST ATMOSPHERE 23

best known to them as Alexandrovski Vagsahl, its old
Tsarist designation.

As showing the orientation of the Soviet mind,
among the interesting new names of scientific institu-
tions there are, for instance, the Communist Univer-
sity of the National Minorities of the West, and, again,
the Communist University of the Nations of the East,
named after Stalin and presided over until recently
by Radek. The Communist University, named after
Sverdloff; Workers' Faculty, named after Boukharin:
The Institute of the Red Professors; The Communist
Academy of the V.C.LK. ( All-Russian Central Execu-
tive Committee); The Marx-Engels Institute; and,
above all, The Lenin Institute.

Again, the names of organizations and societies which
have large buildings in Moscow are significant. There
are the Executive Committee of the Third Inter-
national; the Central Committee of the Russian Com-
munist Party; Jewish Socialist Labor Party; Inter-
national of the Red Trade Unions; Central Committee
of the International Red Relief; and so on ad
infinitum.

In the Kremlin at twelve noon and at six o'clock
the bells peal the well-known melody of the workers'
song the "International," and at three and nine
o'clock, the Russian Revolutionary Funeral March.
Immediately after entering the Kremlin, one turns
into "Communist Street/ 7 on both sides of which are
official dwellings which before the revolution were the
residences of Court officials.

At the northern end of the "Red Square/ 7 the
Iberian Gate gives access to it from the "Square of

24 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the Revolution." The gate is named after the Eikon
of the Iberian Holy Virgin. At one side of the gate
is the red brick building known as the "Second House
\of the Moscow Soviet." It bears an inscription which,
it is interesting to note, can easily be translated as:
"Religion is opium for the people/' but the official
English guidebook; issued by the Soviet Government,
seeks to soften the full meaning of this phrase with
the official translation: "Religion is an opiate for the
people."

Just back of Lenin's tomb, in the Red Square, along
the walls of the Kremlin, one sees the long row of
graves of the 500 revolutionists who fell in the days
of the October revolution. Here are also the graves of
Krassin, of Voroffsky, killed at Lausanne, and now
Wojkoff, assassinated at Warsaw.

Opposite the Kremlin walls stretch the "Arcades"
one of the largest department stores in the world,
known as the Gum (abbreviation for State Universal
Store) and run by the Supreme Council of the People's
Economy. Adjacent thereto is the Second House
of the Revolutionary War Council, wherein the Pur
(short for Political Administration of the Red Army)
is housed.

An important institution is the People's Commis-
sariat for Social Relief (known as the Narkomsobes).
The People's Commissariat for Finance is known as
the Narkomfin, and the All-Russian Union of Coopera-
tive Societies is known as the Centrossoyus.

AND SLOGANS
At the corner of one of the important streets is a

CREATING THE SOCIALIST ATMOSPHERE 25

bas-relief representing a revolutionary fighter, with the
inscription: "Let's Break Off with the Old World."
On the walls of the People's Commissariat for Military
Affairs, a building occupied also by the Revolutionary
Military Council and the General Staff of the Red
Army, are the names of the great world champions
of freedom of all times, and above them the inscrip-
tion: "He That Will Not Worfc Neither Shall He
Eat/ 7 One of the important places nTtEe city is a
"Monument to Enfranchised Labor,"

On the fagade of the second house of the Moscow
Soviet there is a relief showing,, the revolution sweep-
ing onward with the saying: C'The Revolution Is a
Storm That Blows Away Anything Which Stands in
Its Way."/' Opposite the Moscow Soviet Building is
a monument to "The October Revolution." Beside
the obelisk is a place for speakers, on which is given
the text of the Constitution of the Soviets, engraved
on a bronze plate. Near by is a terraced garden with
a "Lenin Nook," where in summer Lenin's portrait
as a child is reproduced in grass mosaic.

Leading out of the city is the "Lenin Highroad,"
which passes a big confectionery factory, with the
trade name "Bolshevik." Not far away is the "Trotsky
Airdrome" landing place for passenger airplanes from
Germany. Farther along, on the Lenin Highroad, is
the Park of the Third International (formerly called
after Peter the Great).

THE WORKINGMAN'S "SCIENCE"
On one of the buildings of the Moscow State Uni-
versity is an inscription reading: f"The Task of Science

26 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Is to Serve Mankind," "^Curiously enough, on the
building of the new university, some distance away,
one finds on a corner wing an inscription: "Science
Belongs to the Workers." On the wall of the small
Academy Theatre is a relief of Kropofckin, with a
legend: "The Society in Which Work Is Free Need
Not Be Afraid of Idlers,"

On another government building in the Petrovka,
we read in relief the words: "The Worker Is the Mar-
vel of the World." A little farther along is a plate
with the inscription : '"Art Is a Social Power," and
"Science Serves Mankind Unselfishly."

Among the interesting sights of the city is a "Health
Exposition," where serious attempt is made by posters,
models and legends to educate the people on how to
deal with the diseases to which the Government thinks
they are subject. Among the official subdivisions of
this material are such as the following:

"The Fight with Mgious Prejudices," "The Kght
with Infectious Diseases," "Alcohol as a Social Evil,"
"Tuberculosis a Proletarian Disease."

IV

SOME SOVIET PROPAGANDA

THE Soviet Government has published an excellent
guidebook in English. Aside from the unique
character of the contents, even the advertisements in
the front and back pages of the book have a character
all their own. Among other advertisements is one of
the "Administration of the Donetz Railway Com-
pany," informing the reader that,

"Fast and Mail Trains circulate between Khar-
kov and Rostov, in order to improve communica-
tion between the Crimea and Caucasian Watering
Resorts. ... The cars are divided into two
groups, 'soft' and 'hard' cars. The fast trains are
provided with sleeping places for both groups of
cars, and an additional amount is charged for
speed. Bedding linen is supplied in every car for
a certain charge."

We find here an advertisement of the State Internal
Loans of the U.S.S.R., among the interesting facts
concerning which is the statement that "The bonds of
the First Lottery Loan (100,000,000 gold rubles) are
quoted at the stock sections of the Commodity
Exchanges of the U.S.S.R. at rates corresponding to
their intrinsic value." One is informed that in addi-
tion to paying six per cent per annum there will be

37

28 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

eight lottery drawings on these loans between 1925
and 1930, to the total amount of 6,000,000 rubles.
Then the advertisement says:

"The winnings paid out to bondholders are
exempt from any duty whatsoever and not subject
to income and property tax. All payments under
the loan both interest and capital as well as to
holders resident abroad are effected here in U.S.S.R.
currency or in American dollars at par."

We find here page advertisements of the Lnocentr,
which is the abbreviation for the All-Russian Central ;
Cooperative Association of Flax and Hemp Growers. ( *
Another advertisement is of the "State Rubber Trust" ;
and of the "Naphtha Syndicate," which sells all the
petroleum products in Soviet Russia and abroad; the
"Wine Syndicate" advertises that it "unifies" the
former appanage wine-growing estates of the Crimea,
Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasus.

"The Administration of the State's Playing Card
Monopoly" advertises the manufacture and sale of
playing cards of every description, as well as the export
of playing cards. There is a "Moscow United Poly-
graphic Industry," which deals in office supplies of all
kinds; a "Textile Trust," which advertises that it
utilizes 145,000 spindles, 4,500 weaving looms and 26
printing machines. "The State Moscow Cotton Trust"
advertises proudly that "at the first All-Russian Agri-
cultural and Industrial Show the Trust has been
awarded the diploma of First Degree for the High
Quality of its Production."

The entire radio business of the country has been
combined into the Radio-peredatcha, "The Crimea

SOME SOVIET PROPAGANDA 29

Tobacco Trust" advertises its "sales on favorable
terms/ 3 The Kieff Food Trust advertises the products
of the "Karl Marx State and Confectionery Works"
and the "Lenin State Oil Mill."

We find here the "All-Russian State Trust of the
Cork Insulation Industry." We are also advised that
"The Administration of Motion Picture Business 53 is
combined into the "Proletkino, Limited."

All of the data in this guidebook is written frankly
from the standpoint of the Communist Party and the
Soviet Government. On one of the early pages we
are told that the slogans launched by the Bolsheviks
after the Kerensky revolution urging "All Power to
the Soviets and Peace to the Country," "Land to the
Peasants/' "Workers' Control Over Production"
"won the confidence of the war-weary soldiers, the
starving workers and the land-hungry peasants."

The guidebook describes "the People's Courts,"
which dispose of ninety per cent of all cases tried by
the Courts as "frankly constituted on political prin-
ciples."

The permanent chairman of the People's Courts, we
are told, is elected by the respective Provincial Execu-
tive Committee, while the two assessors of each court,
who are changed each week, are chosen from the list
of the local Soviets that is, from "the local wielders
of political authority." The "importance of the Law
Courts as an instrument in class struggle" is shown
also in the composition of the higher courts. Then
the guidebook adds:

"The undisguised and deliberate use of the State
institutions as an instrument in the class struggle

30 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

is fully in accord with the Marxian doctrine of the
State; namely, that it is a class organization. In
this case, it is the organization of the ruling pro-
letarian class. This conception of the State per-
meates all forms of social and economic life in
the Soviet Union."

The book tells us that the Communist Party during
the period of civil war imposed upon its members a
strict discipline of the military type, restricting the
admission of new members, and through purges
expelled from its ranks all "Careerists." The founda-
tion of the party is the nucleus, in which are united the
Communists of an industry, and, in the country dis-
tricts, those of the village.

These nuclei are united territorially into country
and district organizations, the supreme organ being the
Annual Party Congress, and during the intervals
between Congresses, the Central Committee of the
Russian Communist Party. This system, the guide-
book says, of "organization founded on production,"
"enables the party to launch its watchwords quickly
among the masses and also to respond promptly to the
aspirations of the laboring population."

Every branch of the party has its women's section;
likewise the "Young Communist League," and its chil-
dren's group, "The Pioneers," constitute an extremely
widespread organization.

We are advised that the Trade Unions owing to the
peculiar development of the Russian Labor Movement
were mainly created by the Communist Party in the
year 1905, and after ten years of enforced underground
existence the "Bolsheviks undertook once again to

SOME SOVIET PROPAGANDA 31

reconstruct them in 1917." The work of the Com-
munist Party in the country districts, we are told,
"gives the Communist Party the right to be the only
true political party in the country/' and that it is
interesting millions of peasants in Communism.

In describing the Russian Army, the book states:
"By its very nature the Red Army is an army of the
proletarian class. The military service in the revolu-
tionary army is considered as an honorable privilege
of the toilers; persons not having the right to vote for
the Soviets, that is, non-workers, are not allowed to
serve. This serves as a sufficient precaution against
the possibility of any anti-Soviet agitation within the
army."

The present strength of the Russian standing army
is only about 600,000 men, but the Russians consider
that it is largely supplemented by the millions of
workers who are obtaining military training in terri-
torial civilian organizations.

The Government has also evolved a plan under
which different villages undertake to become patrons
of particular regiments of the army, thus establishing
cordial relations between the army and the public at
large, and avoiding estrangement between the army
and people. The League of Communist Youth devotes
itself to the building up of the RedJQeet. There is
also a widely ramified association, known as "Friends
of the Air Fleet," with over 3,000,000 members, which
aims at developing aviation.

In describing the system of education of the country,
this interesting publication tells us that "the teaching
of the three R's is combined with a course of political

32 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

and cultural education, which embraces the rudiments
of general knowledge as well as of basic knowledge of
the social order under the Soviets."

The abolition of illiteracy, together with all other
educational work among others, is in charge of the
Central Board of Political Education, one of the larg-
est organizations in the Soviet Union. Its task, so the
government book says, is "to combine political propa-
ganda with cultural education."

In another place we are told that the activities of
the Central Board of Social Education which oper-
ates under the Commissar of Education is "dedicated
to the task of raising the young generation in the Com-
munist spirit."

V

MARRIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN

SO violent has been the break which the Soviet Gov-
ernment has made with tradition in its dealings
with the matter of women and marriage that it is no
wonder that even the myth of "nationalized women"
has been accepted in many quarters as an actual fact.
Whatever attempts may be made to establish an
entirely new theory of marriage and divorce, one can
never escape the thought that deep-seated points of
view, religious customs and social habits are often more
persistent and decisive than all the new theories which
may be presented.

The Russians have attempted to take God and
Religion out of marriage and family life just as they
have attempted to take them out of all political rela-
tionships. Whether this break with spirituality and
the attempt to establish a purely materialistic basis of
life is fundamentally contrary to human nature, and
that human nature will in the long run assert itself in
this as it is asserting itself in economic life, history
alone can reveal.

The laws regulating marriage and family relations
have been revised a number of times, but I obtained
in Moscow and had translated a copy of the latest
statement of the new code of laws on this subject.

33

34 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

An attempt will be made to give a synopsis of this
code.

According to the Bolshevik theory, marriage is pri-
marily a contractual relationship between a man and
a woman. Unless children are involved, the State does
not presume to exert any pressure toward maintaining
the continuity of that contractual relationship. It is
not a matter of interest to the community! Religious
sanctions are entirely abandoned, as they are in every
other official relationship in Russian life. Solemniza-
tion of the marriage contract by the church is of no
validity of itself. A marriage is not legal until the
parties register it before the proper civil tribunal.
Such registration, according to the code, is regarded
as- "unquestionable testimony of the existence of the
marriage," and the code specifically states that "tes-
timony as to the conclusions of a matrimonial agree-
ment according to some religious rite has no legal force
whatever." It is provided, however, that marriages
concluded before December 20, 1917, are regarded as
being equal to registered marriages. Persons living
in matrimonial relations, without having been regis-
tered as being married, have the right of legalizing
their relations by registration. This must take place
with the consent of both parties, with an indication of
the period of existence of their relations.

Marriage may take place between persons above
eighteen years of age, although marriage is forbidden
between persons of unsound mind, between those of
close cons^uinU^ or between persons one of whom
is already registered as being married or "is married
de jacto without being legally registered as such."

MARRIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN 35

Common-law marriage can be established by certain
specified evidences, for purposes principally of adjust-
ing property claims. Alimony may be claimed either
by husband or wife if incapacitated or unable to find
work. The Court of Justice fixes the amount, which
is limited to a period of one year at most.

An essential feature of the Russian laws is the
equality of men and women in every particular. As
far as possible the law abandons any recognition of
distinctive status for woman as such except in the
protection it throws around her at the time of the birth
of her child. The Code thus declares:

"Persons registering their marriage may declare
their desire of adopting the surname of either
of the contracting parties, or of keeping their
respective surnames as previous to the marriage.
[Lenin's wife, for instance, was and is known as
Comrade Krupskaya.]

"In registering the marriage of a citizen of Rus-
sia and of the citizen of a foreign country, both
persons retain their original citizenship. Change
of citizenship may be effected by a simplified pro-
cedure established by the Union Law.

"Both parties enjoy complete freedom in the
choice of their occupations or professions. The
common household is established according to the
mutual agreement of the contracting parties. The
fact of one of the parties moving to a different
locality does not imply the obligation for the sec-
ond party to follow.

"Property belonging to persons contracting mar-
riage remains personal property of each of the
parties. Property acquired by the parties since
their marriage is regarded as being their common
property.

36 PBESENT-DAY RUSSIA

"The parties may conclude with each other all
legally recognized agreements relating to property.
Agreements concluded between husband and wife
tending to diminish the rights upon property of
either husband or wife are of no legal force and
are binding neither for third parties nor for the
contracting parties, who are free to deny them at
any moment."

Either husband or wife when incapacitated for work,
says the Code, "has the right to receive necessary
material support from the other party if the Court
recognizes the other party as capable of giving such
support." The exact amount of the support po be
given by one of the married parties to the other may
be fixed by the Court. This right of claiming material
support is extended both parties where living de facto
in matrimonial relations, even ough their marriage

is not registered. t1t f '^ / / ' ,

The marriage ceremony is v&iy simple. The parties
registering their marriage produce documents stating
their identity; a certificate stating the absence of
obstacles; a declaration that they are informed of the
state of each other's health, particularly so with refer-
ence to venereal or mental diseases and tuberculosis;
they must also state the number of registered or unreg-
istered marriages either of the parties has concluded
previously to the present marriage, and the number
of children each of them has.

The functionary in charge of the registration of
marriage must read to the couple contracting marriage
the essential articles of the Code, and "inform them
of their responsibility before the law for the declara-

MARRIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN 37

tion they make and for the information given." After
this, the registered inscription is read, signed and certi-
fied and the parties are "man and wife."

DIVORCE

Quite the most startling break with tradition in
Soviet Law is this very simple paragraph in the mar-
riage code: "During the lifetime of both parties mar-
riage may be canceled either upon mutual consent or
upon a declaration of one of the parties demanding
cancellation."

Where there are no children ; procuring of divorce ;
assuming mutual consent, is simple and immediate.
Where there are children, the mother and father may
agree as to provision for the children; the Court will
sanction their agreement. In case there is no such
agreement the Court will establish the extent of this
obligation of either of the parties to care for the
children.

Where there are no children, and yet one party to
the marriage opposes the application for divorce, the
other party may obtain divorce by establishing before
a suitable tribunal that there are certain valid reasons
for the separation. The list of such reasons which will
be regarded as "valid" is simple and covers all that
the most lenient courts of Nevada or Washington
would sanction and much more. Divorce is easy.

Sufficient experience is not yet available with which
to obtain any satisfactory opinions as to the effect of
the marriage and divorce code upon morality. One
observant Russian made this suggestive comment to
me: "Don't forget that Russia has 146,000,000 people,

38 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

very few of whom can read, that she has published
few books, few newspapers, has few railroads and that
there is but little travel. Whatever may be the mar-
riage code adopted by and in Moscow, the chances are
the great body of the people do not know of its exist-
ence, and that the relationship of marriage, home life,
etc., will probably continue for a long time to be gov-
erned by religious, social, tribal and other native cus-
toms, substantially as they have been in the past.
Laws do not create or in the long run govern the
relations between men and women. Such relations
are fundamental in human nature, and sanctioned by
social custom, and normal human nature in the final
analysis determines the nature of these relations."

One hears, of course, the wildest assertions of a gen-
eral breakdown of social morality in Russia. Public
prostitution has been made a crime, and is, in fact,
severely punished; yet one reads of ^promiscuity on a
large scale among certain classes of people, particularly
among some of the "comsomols" or "young Commu-
nists/' To get at the facts would require time and
facilities for investigation which are certainly not avail-
able to the foreigner.

WOMEN

The outstanding fact about woman in Russia is that
under Soviet Law she enjoys complete equality with
man. Even as long ago as 1919, Lenin said: "Of
those Tsarist laws which placed women in a subject
capacity, not a trace remains."

Women hold high places in public life and in cultural
and economic work. Krupskaya (Mme, Lenin) is

MARRIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN 39

Chairman of the Department of Political Education;
Mine. Trotsky, Chairman of the Committee for the
Preservation of Art Museums; Mme. Kollontai, who
has served as ambassador to Norway and to Mexico;
Mme. Kameneva, Chairman of the Committee on Cul-
tural Relations with Foreign Countries; Mme. Bit-
zenko, Director of the Cooperative Institute; Mme.
Yakovleva, Assistant Commissar for Education of
Soviet Russia proper.

In the All-Russian Soviet Congress of 1927 there
were 193 women, eight per cent of the total member-
ship. In the All-Russian Central Executive Com-
mittee there are 68 women. In the village Soviets,
out of a total of 1,255,000 elected, 141,800 are women.
Women number twenty-five per cent of members of
the trades unions. At the beginning of 1927 there
were in Russia proper 35 women serving as district
judges, 165 serving as justices of the peace, 21 as
assistant judges and 53 as examining magistrates.
^The law provides that women engaged in work must
receive a period of rest before and after the birth of
a child. In that time her regular wage is paid out of
a social insurance fund, to which all State and private
employers are required to contribute. This support is
drawn through the pre-natal and baby clinics, which
gives the Government physicians a chance to watch
over the child. This has reduced the infant mortality
rate a great deal.

While the Russians take particular care of the expec-
tant mother, and surround her with unusual economic
privileges at the time of and immediately following the
birth of her child, Bolshevik theory imposes upon

40 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

women obligations such as are contemplated by no
other country. For instance, the Istvestia, on Octo-
ber 8, 1927, printed this astonishing discussion of the
militarization of women by Budennyi, Commander of
the Soviet Cavalry:

"What can the working and peasant women do
for the strengthening of the defensive power of the
U.S.S.R.? Every laboring woman must learn the
elements of military science by voluntary work in
the circles of the Special Association for Aviation
and Chemistry, in the circles of military science
attached to the factories, as well as in the village
libraries and the Houses of the Peasant in the
country. One must strive toward the strengthen-
ing of the Red Army, the development of the net-
work of voluntary cells of the Osoaviakhim (Spe-
cial Association for Aviation and Chemistry) and
the systematic organization of conferences among
women, dealing with military subjects.

"Many may wonder whether woman is strong
enough for this work. If we look back at the his-
tory of the civil war in Russia, we see that women
went into bayonet attacks hand in hand with
experienced warriors, and that they developed a
spirit of great self-sacrifice and endurance. Can
one then suppose that the work in the cells of the
Special Association for Aviation and Chemistry,
in the circles of military science and other military
associations will be too hard for our workmen and
peasant women?

"Most women, it is true, are still imprisoned by
'Family bonds.' But in spite of all the difficulties,
every woman who realizes that the highly efficient
power of defense of the U.S.S.R, is a condition
for the preservation of peace, must participate in
the militarization of the entire population."

MARRIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN 41

CHILDREN

The Soviet Government Code disposes of the prob-
lem of illegitimate children in this simple language:

"The reciprocal rights of children and parents
are based upon their relation. Children of unmar-
ried parents enjoy the same rights as the children
of legally married persons."

In other words, there is no such thing as an "ille-
gitimate" child. Every child is a fact, its parentage
is a fact, and out of these facts grow the mutual rights
and obligations. The names of all children born must
be registered, together with the name of the father
and the mother. The unmarried mother has the right
to declare either before or after the birth of the child
who the father is. When such declaration is made the
appropriate tribunal advises the person concerned that
he has been named as the father; and the Code then
continues:

"If, at the end of a month's time from the date
of delivery of the advice to the person interested,
no protest has been made by the person in ques-
tion, he is registered as the father of the child.

"The mother has the right of demanding the
establishment of the parentage of the child after
its birth."

When the tribunal has named a man as father of a
child born out of wedlock, upon him is imposed the
obligation to pay the expenses caused by the birth of
the child and to provide for its support as well as that
of the mother during the period of pregnancy and six

42 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

months after the birth of the child. The Code then
continues:

"Should, however, the Court of Justice establish
that the mother of the child was in sexual relations
with other men besides the person indicated in the
declaration at the time of conception, it assumes
the responsibility of designating one of these men
as being the father of the child, and of imposing
upon this person the charges for the support of the
mother and child."

If the same surname is used by both parents, it is
also adopted by the children. If the parents use dif-
ferent surnames, the names of the children are estab-
lished according to the desire of the parents.

The general position of a child in Russia is sub-
stantially the same as in every other civilized com-
munity, as Is set forth in the following paragraph from
the Code:

"The parents are under the obligation of taking
care of their children as long as they are not of
age, of educating them and of preparing them for a
useful social activity. The parents are under the
obligation of supporting their children not yet of
age or incapable of working."

In case of parents not fulfilling their obligations or
duties to the children, or if they misuse their rights
with regard to children through ill treatment or
otherwise the Government has the right to take the
children from the parents and to entrust them to the
guardianship of appropriate institutions, although the
Code provides that: "The loss of rights of the parents

MARRIAGE, WOMEN AND CHILDREN 43

does not free them from the obligations of supporting
their children."

Where parents are called upon to support the chil-
dren not living at home, the father and mother bear
equal responsibility for providing such means of sub-
sistence for the children, unless otherwise decreed by
the Courts.

Adoption of children, according to the Code, is per-
mitted "only in case of minor children and exclu-
sively in their interest." "Children having reached the
age of ten years cannot be adopted except by consent
of the children themselves."

THE WANDEKING CHILDREN

There is in Russia a large group of children, the
number of which is estimated from 100,000 to
200,000, known as "Children of the Revolution."
These children either lost their parents or were sepa-
rated from them as a result of the war, the Revolution
or the various civil conflicts that followed during the
period of militant Communism. The Russian Govern-
ment has been unsuccessful up to now in dealing with
the problem of these children. The Government claims
to have made attempts to segregate them and take
care of thejn, but it is claimed that the children invari-
ably escape. These children subsist mainly as beggars,
pickpockets or thieves ; they are full of disease, infested
with vermin, wandering up and down the country like
migratory birds going South in winter, returning
North in summer. They are dying off rapidly from
disease, but their very existence still presents a real
problem to the Russian Government, and is a source
pf continual social danger,

VI
SOME COMMON SENSE

Russian Government must receive credit for
having done some common-sense things. One of
these has been a revision of the Russian alphabet.
The language, since the Muscovite tongue had been
expressed in written form, had had to struggle with
thirty-six letters, twenty-four of them consisting of
the original letters of the Greek alphabet, imported
into Russia by the priests of the Greek Church who
first developed the written language, and the other
twelve being arbitrary letters devised by the priests
to express sounds not provided for by the simple letters
of the Greek alphabet. These thirty-six letters and
the interminably long words to which they gave rise,
constituted a very definite barrier against emergence
from the extreme illiteracy which afflicted ninety-five
per cent of the population.

The Russian Government has, therefore, arbitrarily
cut off six of the old letters and is seeking to simplify
the language still more. In addition there has devel-
oped a most interesting use of abbreviated forms. The
New Economic Policy, the fundamental factor in all
present Russian economy, is always referred to in the
newspapers as Nep. |The office of the People's Com-
missariat of Foreign Affairs is always referred to as

44

SOME COMMON SENSE 45

the Narkomindel, or even the Nkid, an abbreviation,
built up like the word "Socony," of Narodny Kow-
missariat Inostrannykh Del. The Central Committee
of the Communist International is always referred to
as the Comintern.

Incidentally, the abbreviation of the correct name
for the Russian nation is U.S.S.R., which does not, as
many people suppose, mean "United States of Soviet
Russia/ 7 but means ^Union of Socialist Soviet Repub- ?
lies." I The word Soviet is in no sense a synonym for*
Bolshevism. "Soviet" means "Council" and "The!
Soviet Government" means government by council,
as opposed to government by king, parliament, or
otherwise. It is the word "Socialist" in the title of
the Russian Government that distinguishes it funda-
mentally from other governments, rather than the
word "Soviet."

Travelers in Russia have always noted the great
number and the peculiarity of signs on Russian shops,
which might include a few letters giving the name
of the shopkeeper but consisting mostly of pictures
suggestive of the articles for sale therein. This grew
out of the fact that so many of the people could not
read that it was necessary to picturize or illustrate
the articles sold. This situation has now grown into
an extensive use of posters.

One finds posters everywhere, and dealing with
every conceivable subject. Of course, a large number
of the posters are in behalf of the revolution and
picturize the fundamental phrases with which the
people are constantly fed, but in addition there is a
very sensible and constructive use of posters for help-

46 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

ful purposes. The Government itself publishes numer-
ous posters, in which an effort is made to explain to
the people in the simplest possible pictures and lan-
guage the methods by which the Government func-
tions, and the personalities behind the offices by
which the Government is administered.

A large number of highly expressive posters deal
with great realism on subjects of health. Others illus-
trate improved methods of agriculture and industry.
Still others are intended to develop the patriotic pride
of the people by highly colored graphic presentations
of the social and economic progress of the nation.
Many of the posters tell of groups of activities and
individuals in other nations. There are many posters
expressive of the idea of Fordismus a subject which
is often in the Russian mind as representing the per-
fection of American technique, which the Russians
profoundly respect; and a frequent subject of other
cartoons is Sir Austen Chamberlain, the British For-
eign Secretary, with his monocle at which the Rus-
sians laugh.

Many of these posters are strange, and confront one
at places where they are least expected; for instance,
the first day I was in Moscow, coming out of the State
Bank I noticed at the very doorway of this conserva-
tive and capitalistic institution a huge poster pre-
dominantly red in color drawn with grotesque figures
and entitled; "All Hail the Chinese Revolution!"

The Russian Government has abolished the old-
fashioned system of measurements, rates and measure,
and introduced the metric system throughout the
Union. It h&s also divided tfce country for purposes

SOME COMMON SENSE 47

of time into zones, fifteen meridians each, just as is
done in America.

Another sensible act of the Soviet Government has
been the changing of the Russian calendar to coincide
with the calendar of the rest of the world. Prior to
the revolution, Russia used the old Gregorian calendar,
which was thirteen days behind that of all other coun-
tries, and in writing letters abroad it was always nec-
essary to use two dates one Russian, the other the
world date. That nonsensical condition no longer
exists.

The Government has also cut down the number of
holidays. I visited Russia in 1905, and found constant
difficulty in shopping, obtaining money and doing
business because of the number of holidays commemo-
rating either Imperial birthdays or the name-days of
the saints of the Church. In the old Russian regime
there were some fifty-six holidays. At Easter time
there was a continuous holiday for ten days, during
which time all shops and banks and places of business
were theoretically closed. Even in those days, it was
customary to give the shops and banks an informal
opening late in some of the afternoons, but the observ-
ance of the holidays was very much of an obstruction
to/iational progress.

f To-day, the Russian holidays are January 1, the
New Year; January 22, Memorial Day of the 9th of
January, 1905 (demonstration in front of the Winter
Palace in St. Petersburg), and of the death of Lenin;
March 12 The fall of the autocracy (Revolution of
February, 1917) ; March 18 Day of the Paris Com-
mune; Holy Saturday; Easter Day and Easter Mon-

48 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

day; May 1 Day of the International; The Ascen-
sion; "Whitsunday and "Whitmonday; July 5, Day of
the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.; August 6, the Trans-
figuration; August 15, the Assumption; November 7,
Day of the Proletarian Revolution (October Revolu-
tion, 1917) ; December 25 and 26, Christmas.

On these holidays no one is allowed to work. It
will be observed that many of these are religious holi-
days even if the Moscow Soviet does advertise that
"Religion is an Opiate for the People."

VII
PRESERVING RUSSIAN ART

npHE visitor to Russia to-day is both surprised and
A delighted with the signs of almost complete
absence of vandalism in relation to all matters of art.
Any one who has visited the cathedrals and palaces of
Western Europe has always grieved at the signs of
vandalism which destroyed irreplaceable objects of
beauty; notably when Henry VIII despoiled the
English monasteries, when the Puritans, under Crom-
well, destroyed so much that was beautiful in English
cathedrals, and churches, and when the French revolu-
tionists sacked the Tuileries, set fire to Notre Dame
Cathedral and swept away so much of the best
products of French art.

There are no signs of anything of this kind in Russia.
The great Hermitage Art Gallery, one of the finest
in the world, in the old Winter Palace at Leningrad,
is still intact, and Moscow itself is a perfect mine of
art galleries and museums. When the palaces of the
nobility were seized and the monasteries taken over
by the State, their pictures, eikons and other objects
of art were carefully preserved. One of the interesting
posters of the early revolutionary days in Russia sets
forth in most emphatic terms that |" Any one found
guilty of attempting to rob wine cellars or to destroy
objects of art will be immediately shot!"

49

50 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

The Bolshevik conception of art is distinctive. As
Boukharin expresses it, "Art is a means for the social-
ization of the emotions.'' The Russians consciously
attempt to use art to promote their new theories of
society. But aside from that there is no doubt that
the Government has made every effort to preserve the
art treasures of the past which were scattered
throughout Russia. To arrange them systematically,
a Central Bureau of Museums was created under the
Commissar of Education, whose task it was "to render
all the art relics of the past accessible to the masses
of the people." Instead of thirty museums in pre-
revolutionary Russia there are to-day more than 476
in the U.S.S.R. The official guidebook of the Soviet
Union advises us that the present artistic life like the
general cultural life in the Soviet Union has been
strongly influenced by the belief that art is not
"^an end in itself but is an expression of the life of
Society*"}

Most of the valuable individual pictures and objects
of art have been assembled in the various museums.
In addition, some of the most striking of the palaces
have been preserved intact and opened as museums
of Russian history. Even the old home of the Tsar,
at Tsarskoe Selo near Leningrad, has been carefully
preserved, and the personal furniture, playthings,
clothing and other personal accessories of the Tsars
and their families are maintained for the people to
see.

Among the museums in Moscow one finds several
that are not paralleled anywhere else in the world.

PRESERVING RUSSIAN ART 51

The most striking of these is the so-called Revolution-
ary Museum, in which the story of the revolution
from the very beginning is presented in the form of
photographs, newspapers, documents, posters and
articles of personal use. The exhibits are most care-
fully arranged in historical order, culminating with the
Lenin rooms, in which are collected every possible
memento of Lenin's life and work. These museums
are in charge of a trained group of Communists, who
conduct parties from room to room, instructing them
upon the significance of every item, however insignifi-
cant. The parties, of course, are almost exclusively
Russian, for very few foreigners visit Russia. The
guides are skilled in relating the stories surrounding
these articles and objects so as to arouse the greatest
possible amount of interest, patriotism and revolu-
tionary ardor on the part of the visitors. I was
struck with the large number of groups of children
visiting these museums, and the minute care with
which the significance of all of these things was
explained to them. Clearly, the Russian Government
is making every possible effort to make its children
revere and reverence the word "revolution," ajid the
personalities of Russian history who have been asso-
ciated with that word.

In one respect the Russian Government itself has
been guilty of deliberate vandalism. It has destroyed
or removed from public view practically every vestige
of statuary throughout Russia which perpetuated the
memory of Tsars or members of the Romanoff family.
Only one important exception has been made to this

52 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

complete destruction, and that is the preservation in
one of the great squares of Leningrad of an equestrian
statue of the Emperor Alexander III, and the reason
this statue has been preserved is set forth in the placard
asserting that this is "The Ugliest Thing in Russia."

There are not many new statues in Moscow, but
certainly the most striking one is a fine bronze statue
mounted on a high pedestal just outside the office
building which contains the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, erected to the honor of Voroffsky, the Russian
delegate to the Lausanne Conference, whose murder,
while at the conference, brought about the break
between the Swiss and the Soviet governments which
was not bridged over until just before the recent
Economic Conference at Geneva.

THE CROWN JEWELS

Not the least interesting experience I had in Moscow
was the opportunity to see the crown jewels. These
jewels are kept securely hidden away in the vaults of
one of the buildings of the Ministry of Finance in one
of the back streets in the outskirts of Moscow. The
building itself is guarded by soldiers, and inside the
building are many watchmen. Ordinarily, the jewels
are not shown.

As a special courtesy, however, I was told that on a
certain morning the wooden boxes in which the jewels
are kept would be brought from their vaults and the
contents opened to display. We entered a large room,
where a number of clerks were at work, and on an
improvised group of tables was laid out this amazing
collection of gems. As we looked at all this wealth, I

PRESERVING RUSSIAN ART 53

counted eight men standing about, dressed in overalls
strange contrast to the brilliantly uniformed guards
which formerly watched over these treasures in the
Winter Palace at St. Petersburg.

I was able actually to handle the great crown of the
Tsars, said to be worth fifty millions of dollars, the
royal scepter, containing the large Orloff diamond,
and the Orb of the great Catherine herself. We were
confronted with scepters, diamond tiaras, jeweled
cases, snuffboxes, bracelets, rings and jewels in such
number and of such magnificence as to make one lose
all sense of the fact that jewels are rare. Here was a
miniature train, made of golden cars upon platinum
wheels a miniature replica of the Royal Train and
so made as to fold up and be enclosed in a small golden
egg. Here were the most complicated jeweled musical
toys which had been given the Royal children by Royal
relatives.

I was told that this collection was worth at least
$250,000,000, and that it is for sale!

A few of the crown jewels have undoubtedly been
sold, but certain it is that the most valuable part of
this amazing collection of wealth of a value sufficient
to meet the entire amount of money loaned by the
American Government to Russia for the conduct of the
war still remains intact.

So rarely are these jewels displayed that the fact
that my party was permitted to see them evidently got
spread abroad in the neighborhood of the building
where the jewels are kept, and when we emerged a
little crowd had gathered to see who the people with
such privileged eyes might be.

54 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

THE THEATRE

The best thing in Moscow is the theatre. This is
controlled by the State, under the "Commissar of
Education." I attended at the opera a performance
of "Boris Godunoff" that would have done credit to
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, not alone
in the singing but also in the costuming, lighting and
the mise en scene generally. The opera house in
Moscow has six galleries, and the house is always
crowded. The best seats cost about $3.00 each. The
old Imperial box is now reserved for ministers of the
Government and their wives, and the box is always
filled.

True proletarians members of the Russian trades
union do not pay $3.00 for opera seats, but get their
tickets through labor organizations for the equivalent
of 35 to 50 cents. Last year the labor unions dis-
tributed nearly a million seats to the opera in this
way. The theatres and opera are mostly subsidized
by the Government and do not pay their own way.

The best legitimate plays in Russia are given at the
Moscow Art Theatre, managed by Stanislavsky, the
famous director, who gave up a private business in
Moscow twenty years ago in order to establish a
theatre which would break with the classical style of
acting and establish the new realism, Stanislavsky
himself is one of the most remarkable personalities in
Russia. Such is his vogue and the standing of his
theatre that for months he produced almost nightly a
play called "The Days of the Turbides/' the general

PRESERVING RUSSIAN ART 55

effect of which is counter-revolutionary. The Govern-
ment will not permit this play to be produced any-
where except in Moscow. It is beautifully done, and
portrays the internal struggles of an Ukrainian family
during the period when the White and Red Armies
were alternately sweeping across southern and western
Russia.

Most of the plays and movies now being produced
in Russia depict various phases of the revolutionary
struggle. I was interested, however, to see in these
plays and movies no attacks upon capital or capitalism
as such, but always upon the extravagant profligacy
and brutality of the Tsarist regime.

I heard experts in various parts of Europe say that
the ballet of the old Imperial Opera House in Lenin-
grad is still the best in Europe. Certainly, I saw a
ballet performance at the opera house in Moscow
which was as fine as I had ever seen in any other opera
house. It depicted the story of Victor Hugo's "Notre
Dame de Paris 77 all in the form of music and pan-
tomimic dancing. It is produced under the name
"Esmeralda," heroine of Victor Hugo's famous novel.
To hold an audience enthralled for five hours, with
nothing more than orchestral music and pantomimic
dancing, is in itself an achievement.

I attended a midnight supper at the Moscow Art
Theatre which Stanislavsky gave to Morris Gest. I
sat next to Mme. Chekhov, wife of the famous Russian
dramatist. The evening was full of music and song;
in fact, it was by all odds the most cheerful experience
I had in Moscow; but as I left the room Stanislavsky

56 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

and one of the ladies present accompanied me to the
door, and upon being told that I was going directly
back home, to America, the distinguished lady in a
tone of voice which spoke volumes said: "Oh, happy
man!"

VIII
ESPIONAGI^-AND THE OGPU

"O USSIANS do not think it prudent to be seen too
^ much in the company of foreigners and any
sign of particular intimacy between a national and a
foreigner would subject the national to suspicion. I
was told by one of the ladies of the Diplomatic Corps
that soon after Tier arrival in Russia she obtained the
services of an unusually efficient hairdresser. The lady
was particularly delighted at her discovery, but after
one or two visits the hairdresser notified the lady that
she could not come any more. The intimation was
that if she came frequently she would be expected to
report her observations and any gossip she heard in
the milieu of the diplomatic household. As this par-
ticular hairdresser did not wish to do this, she declined
to make further visits.

3511 of which brings one to the question as to what is
this invisible force which seems to restrict the liberty
and enshroud the minds of the people in Russia./ A
few years ago it was the Tcheka, lineal descendant of
the Secret Police of the Tsarist regime. The reign of
the Tcheka under the direction of the late Djerjinsky
made rivers of blood run in Russia. The Red Army
repelled the White Armies, which, in connection with
foreign troops, sought to destroy the Bolshevik Gov-

57

58 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

ernment, and then the Tcheka was the instrument
used to stamp out every vestige of counter-revolution
in Russia itself.

The work must have been thoroughly done, for
to-day there is an atmosphere of calm and quiet in the
country. To be sure, I heard Kerensky say in New
York, before I went to Russia, that there are some
50,000 or 60,000 political prisoners confined in Russia,
awaiting trial, but as a matter of fact the Tcheka has
now been abolished. What remains of it is carried on
by the Ogpu, or, to give it its official designation, the
"Union State Political Department. 3 * Its functions are
set forth in the very Constitution of the U.S.S.R. in
these words: "In order to unite the efforts of the con-
stituent republics in their struggle against the political
and economic counter-revolutions and against espion-
age and brigandage, there shall be created a joint State
Political Department attached to the Council of
People's Commissars of the Union, the Chairman of
this Department entering the Council of People's Com-
missars of the Union with the right of advisory vote.

"The control of the legality of the acts of the State
political Department of the Union shall be exercised
by the Attorney General of the Union in accordance
with a special decree made by the Central Executive
Committee of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. 77

It is said that the functions of the Ogpu are care-
fully defined and that no innocent person need any
longer have any fear of undue espionage over his affairs
and daily life. But as to this point there is much
difference of opinion. The Ogpu is housed in one of
the most conspicuous office buildings in the business

ESPIONAGE AND THE OGPU 59

section of Moscow, a building as conspicuously and
centrally located as, say, the New York Times Build-
ing on Forty-second Street in New York City. The
blinds were always drawn in the lower floors of this
building, and though otherwise the structure suggested
nothing unusual, the very thought of its meaning and
the traditions surrounding it in Russia gave it a somber
significance to the traveler just as it probably does to
the Russian native himself.

Krylenko, the Chief Procurer of the Soviet Union,
explained to foreign newspaper correspondents that
the Ogpu has no authority of its own to go beyond
the laws or to administer its own justice. He
explained, I was told, that this is the principal dif-
ference between the new Ogpu and its predecessor
the Tcheka. This would seem to mean that the secret
police of Russia is no longer an extra-legal body. I
understand that it must receive the approval of the
Council of People's Commissars, the highest executive
organ in the Government, for each case in which it
wants to impose and execute its own sentence.

But in practice the Ogpu seems to act as an inde-
pendent "watchdog" of the revolution, and even the
most powerful members of the Government appar-
ently accept its suggestions, approve its actions and
even submit themselves to its surveillance, presum-
ably in the belief that it knows the state of the coun-
try better than they. The Director of the Ogpu
Menjlunski is not a member of the Council of Com-
missars, though in power and independence he is
apparently their equal. He and his organization have
no counterpart in any other government,

60 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

The existence of this organization, combined with
the great bureaucracy which the centralized Soviet
economic system has created, have resulted in a gen-
eral evasion of personal responsibility and disappear-
ance of initiative. Under-officials seem reluctant to
let their signatures stand alone on even the simplest
receipts. Contact with them leaves the impression
that they are afraid of their neighbors, afraid of their
jobs and afraid of themselves, though this does not
apply to the higher officials.

When the Ogpu goes into action on a large scale, as
it did after the British break, it seems to delight in
making itself mysterious and terrible. Most of those
arrested after the British rupture are said to have been
taken from their homes after midnight, with loud
rapping on the doors, which terrified the neighbors.
The usual punishment inflicted is what is called
"minus six," which means that the six principal cities
are ruled out as place of residence for those on whom
the punishment falls.

WATCHING FOE ESPIONAGE

I had been told that servants in the hotels were spies
of the secret police, and that during one's absence
they would certainly inspect one's papers. Each
day I was in Moscow I deliberately left numerous
papers in a calculated disarray, observing carefully
their juxtaposition as I left the room, but I invariably
found on my return that the papers were exactly as I
had left them. I ought also to say that I found ser-
vants in the hotel absolutely honest and their whole

ESPIONAGE AND THE OGPU 61

attitude suggested just as much honesty as one would
find in the best hotels in Western Europe.

I was impressed with the fact that in practically all
my talks with Russian officials, one or two silent wit-
nesses were present. Generally, stenographic notes
were taken of the questions asked and answered.
Often, these witnesses would, in the course of the con-
versation, pass a slip of paper to the cabinet minister,
obviously making suggestions as to answers that might
be made to questions. Even in my talk with Mr.
Rykov, the Prime Minister, a man to whom I was not
introduced sat opposite me, silent and immovable
throughout the whole interview, although Mr. Rykov
himself spoke genially, with much humor, and appar-
ently was talking with the utmost freedom.

And though I was not subjected, as far as I can
say definitely, to any espionage, it is quite evident that
all the government officers were aware of what I was
saying or had been saying to others, and what the
others had said to me. The consistency with one
another of their statements and answers to questions
was remarkable. I also noted a very great curiosity
on the part of practically every one to know what I
was doing and with whom I was talking. One man
tried very hard to get me to give him a list of the
questions which I expected to ask one of the ministers
whom I was to visit. The request came almost daily
for a list of these questions, the suggestion being that
this was an indirect request on behalf of the minister
himself. When I finally saw the minister, however,
and told him I regretted I had not had the time to

62 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

prepare the list of questions, he immediately said he
was delighted I had not done so, because that would
have made the conversation too formal. He thought
the interview would be much more productive and
"sincere" if it were informal and extemporaneous.

There is no doubt whatever that the one unpardon-
able crime in Russia is to be even suspected of counter-
revolutionary activity. It is primarily to protect the
revolution that the Ogpu performs. But its methods
are as far removed as the East is from the West in its
attitude toward justice and human rights. Truly the
Ogpu is one of the very dark spots in Russian life. It
hangs like a cloud over the whole Russian sky.

IX
HOW RUSSIA LEARNS OF THE WORLD

T TOOK particular pains while in Russia to ascertain
-*- the methods by which Russia obtains its informa-
tion concerning the rest of the world.

The distribution of news is, like everything else in
Russia, concentrated in one organization under direct
control of the Government. This organization is
known as the ^ Tass. ! No information may be tele-
graphed into Russia for publication in the newspapers
except through the Tass. The Tass then distributes
its foreign news through six subsidiary news agencies,
which operate in the respective six republics of the
Soviet Union. These six agencies gather and distribute
all local news for publication within the boundaries of
the respective republics. Any news to be distributed
from one republic to the other must be passed through
the Tass.

There are 360 newspapers in Russia, with a total
circulation of 8,000,000. I was told that prior to the
revolution the total circulation of newspapers in the
country was only about 3,000,000. The Tass maintains
correspondents in the more important foreign cities. In
addition to the information received directly from its
correspondents, the Tass also controls the powerful
radio broadcasting and receiving station at Moscow.

63

64 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Always on duty at Tass headquarters are operators
"listening in" to the news distributed from stations
all over the world. While in the office of the Tass, I
was permitted to listen in to news being given out
from a station in London. The Tass thus listens in to
what is going on in the rest of the world and tells
Russia what it thinks its people should know.

The Tass office in Moscow is equipped with every
modern appliance for telegraphic duplicating activities.
It sends its news to Leningrad, Kieff, Nijni Novgorod
and Kharkov with individual telegraphic printing
machines such as are used by the Associated Press in
New York to convey its news to the more important
newspapers.

There are many newspaper stands in Moscow at
which the local papers are sold. A number of German
newspapers, particularly the Berliner Tageblatt, are on
sale at some of the newsstands; English and French
labor and radical publications are on sale at a few
places. The only place in Moscow where one can
obtain foreign books is at a bookstore conducted
by the Government Foreign Office itself. The prin-
cipal foreign books for sale were those on technical and
engineering subjects. The only English newspapers I
saw for sale in the Government bookshop were the
Manchester Guardian and the London D&ily^Herald,
organ of English labor.

RADIO

The use of radio broadcasting is a development of
only the past few years in Russia. Here again it would
appear that the backward development of the country

HOW RUSSIA LEARNS OF THE WORLD 65

in literacy and in journalism is in a sense being bridged
over by an extra effort to make use of this new instru-
ment of information, education, entertainment and
propaganda.

The masses of workers are said to manifest great
interest in radio, particularly in the provinces and in
places distant from cultural centers. Radio amateurs
who are trade union members are organized into circles
at workers' clubs. Radio is now extensively used at
such clubs.

On January 1, 1926, workers' clubs had 885 receiving
sets, with 774 loud speakers, which could accommodate
an audience of 1,000,000 people. The number of
receiving sets is much larger now.

Most of the provincial Trades Councils have organ-
ized special bureaus or committees to direct the
radio service and to work for the development of radio
among the organized masses. Such committees or
bureaus have been formed in many provincial trade
union branches.

The Moscow Trades Council has a large receiving
and broadcasting station. This station has special
courses and a laboratory for training trade union
instructors in radio.

The U.S.S.R. C.C.T.U. (Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics Central Council of Trade Unions) takes an
active part in framing legislation governing radio.
Workers' clubs, workers and radio amateurs are
charged reduced license fees. By government decree,
trade union organizations are granted certain privileges
in radio receiving.

The trade unions are doing much to popularize radio

66 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

among the masses of the people. The number of radio
amateurs among the trade union membership is con-
stantly growing. With a view better to cater to the
trade union membership of the whole country, the
Presidium of the U.S.S.R. C.C.T.U. has decided to
erect a large broadcasting station.

In addition, the Tass is the center of a great system
of radio broadcasting. Five times a day the news of
the moment is collected and read over the wireless
telephone at the rate of twenty words per minute to
all newspapers within a radius of 3,500 miles from
Moscow, Thus is covered the area of all European
Russia and of Asiatic Russia as far east as Irkutsk.

The individual newspapers thus receiving their gen-
eral information assemble it along with their local
news, and several times a day broadcast a radio news-
paper reaching the people of their respective territories.
In addition to these general radio newspapers there
are also special radio newspapers broadcasted at
regular intervals for the benefit of special classes or
groups. There is one for the children, one for those
interested in sports, and others for those interested in
other specialties.

At a number of places in Moscow, one may see large
groups gathered together at all hours of the day. An
inquiry will show that this is usually around a street
loud-speaker broadcasting a speech, a newspaper bul-
letin or a wireless musical program broadcasted by
the Government.

In view of the great illiteracy of the people and the
small number of newspapers in existence, this system
of radio newspapers is somewhat comparable to our

HOW RUSSIA LEARNS OF THE WORLD 67

tabloid and motion picture news, and is calculated to
produce extraordinary results.

To be sure, the plan is wholly under the control of
the Government, subjected to the most thoroughgoing
potential censorship. The plan is only two years
old and the idea that the people in the villages,
separated from railroads and good roads and communi-
cation of any kind, should receive any information
from the outside world is something new in their lives.

Human nature can certainly be relied upon as time
goes on to demand more comprehensive and candid
dealing with news and information generally. Indeed,
I was told while in Moscow that some of the Labor
Unions recently passed a resolution condemning much
of the propaganda that is being supplied to them, the
condemnation being based not so much on the general
political favor of the propaganda as upon the fact
that it was stupid and lacking in interest and enter-
tainment.

WALL NEWSPAPERS

An interesting feature of Russian journalism is the
wall newspapers, deriving their names from the usual
custom of posting them on the walls of entrance
lobbies in buildings where employees of banks, fac-
tories, military companies, etc., may see them. These
newspapers often contain illustrations and drawings.
They have grown into thousands, and are of real
influence.

With rare exceptions, they are typewritten, and are
issued in one or several copies. They are the organs of
the workers and employees in a given undertaking or

68 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

establishment. All the matter printed in wall news-
papers, including drawings and cartoons, is contributed
by the workers or employees themselves. Those who
more or less frequently write for the wall newspapers
form a group of "wall-newspaper correspondents/' who
elect the editors from their midst. In large factories
there are many scores of such correspondents. No com-
pensation is paid for contributions to the wall news-
papers and all the work is voluntary.

The wall newspaper is a kind of forum where the
workers critically discuss all the more or less important
matters and events at the plant. Not only are the
trade union organizations at the factory or establish-
ment criticized and satirized, but even the plant
administration is not spared.

The articles in the wall newspapers are said to assist
in the elimination of various defects and in righting the
wrongful acts of managements. In State undertakings
the administration investigates the facts reported in
the wall newspaper and announces through its medium
what measures have been taken to remedy this or that
defect.

Some wall newspapers in large undertakings gradu-
ally become regular newspapers, which are printed in
the usual way, having a circulation of several thousand
copies. Such for instance are Vagranka at the "Sickle
and Hammer" factory in Moscow, and the newspaper
at a large tobacco factory in Rostov-on-Don.

Many contributors to wall newspapers, having
gained experience, later become correspondents for the
local and central trade union journals and general
publications.

HOW RUSSIA LEARNS OF THE WORLD 69

Wall newspapers are published by the factory and
local committees ; which bear all expenses connected
with their publication.

THE PBINTING PRESS

The State Publishing Department of the Govern-
ment is responsible for seventy-five per cent of the
entire output of the Soviet Union, and represents by
far the largest publishing enterprise in the world.
Indeed, one of the startling facts in the Russian regime
is the complete control of the printing press by the
State. The Soviet Government attaches paramount
importance to the printed word. Most of the news-
papers are published either by the Communist Party,
by the Trade Unions or by the Executive Committees
of the Soviets. | The Russian Communist press pub-
lishes scores of letters from workers and peasant cor-
respondents from the factories and from the villages.
A large amount of space in the Soviet newspapers is
given to the revolutionary movement in other lands,
which is registered and observed closely and widely
by the U.S.S.R. press.

The official government newspaper in Moscow is the
Izvestia, or The News. The official newspaper of the
Communist Party, edited by Boukharin himself, is the
Pravda, or The Truth. [There is a popular saying in
Moscow, attributed to Krassin, that ''There is no news
in The Truth, and no truth in The News."

During the last few years the number of trade union
publishing houses and periodical publications has been
constantly increasing. The number of publishing
establishments has been as follows:

70 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

In 1922 78

In 1923 98

In 1924 105

In 1925 over 200

Many of them are large establishments, as, for
instance, the Publication Department of the U.S.S.R.
C.C.T.U., "Gudok" (Publishing House of the Central
Committee of the Railroad Workers), the Publication
Department of the Leningrad Trades Council, f Tmd i
Kniga" /(Moscow Trades Council), "Ukrainski
Rabochi," etc.

The growth of the periodical trade union press may
be seen from the following figures:

In 1924 were published 22 newspapers and 69 magazines
In 1925 were published 23 newspapers and 89 magazines

The circulation of labor magazines in 1925 was
799,350 copies. That of the newspapers was 911,275
copies. The combined figures for 1926 exceed two
million copies. Most of the newspapers and magazines
are issued in Moscow, but there are in the provinces a
number of trade-union publications which have a con-
siderable circulation.

In addition the monthly publications of the two
atheistic societies, the First and Second Society of
the Godless, have gained a circulation of some impor-
tance and influence, especially in the cities.

A special feature of the trade union as well as of
the general Soviet press is the large number of worker
correspondents who are said to contribute regularly to
the newspapers and magazines. The number of
worker correspondents who send contributions to

HOW RUSSIA LEARNS OF THE WORLD 71

"Gudok" (organ of the railroad workers) is 19,000, to
"Batrak" (agricultural workers) 5,000, to "Postroika"
(building workers) 3,600, "Golos Kozhevnika" (leather
workers) over 2,000, "Gornorabochi" (miners) 1,390,
"Metalist" (metal workers) 1,250.

PUBLISHING BOOKS

Every book issued in Russian is printed by the gov-
ernment printing press. In each of the Russian
Republics there is a committee charged with saying
what shall be printed. Not even a transfer slip used
on the tram cars may go through the printing press
without the previous permit stamp of one of these
committees.

Among the most popular of the books the Russians
are reading are those about "Fordism," as they call it.
Samuel Crowther's "Life of Henry Ford" is widely
circulated, though Mr. Crowther states no royalties
are paid to him for utilizing his copyright. Russians
are said to be particularly fond of American humor,
and read extensively the works of Mark Twain and
0. Henry. The late James Oliver Curwood was a best
seller in Russia.

In the publishing system of the Soviet one finds that
there is in effecrta censorship not merely of a political
character but at once upon art and thought and human
expression.! I tried, but in vain, to find out what oppor-
tunity an original thinker would have to get before the
world in Russia a novel, scientific book or treatise
which the proper committee on publication had
decided was not worth printing or might promote
individual or unorthodox thinking!

X
HOW THE WORLD LEARNS OF RUSSIA

H 1

:OW does the world outside of Russia get its infor-
mation concerning what is going on in Russia?
The Foreign Office in Moscow showed me a list of all
foreign newspaper correspondents located in Russia.
Any foreigner going to Russia for the purpose of gath-
ering news must get a permit to perform just this
function. Thus the Government knows exactly who
all the correspondents are, and is able, of course, not
merely to censor their telegraphic information, but, by
following up the newspapers themselves, to see
what material has been sent out by mail.

There are some forty newspaper correspondents in
the whole of Russia representing the foreign press, and
practically all of these live in Moscow. All informa-
tion concerning what occurs within the 13,000,000
square miles of Russia which does not happen to reach
these correspondents at Moscow goes to the outside
world from the official Tass Agency. The Tass supplies
its service to the Associated Press, Reuter, Havas,
Wolff and Rengo. Thus, all Russian news, outside
of that gathered in Moscow, which reaches the world
from Russia itself may be said to be government-made
news.

72

HOW THE WORLD LEARNS OF RUSSIA 73

The Russian Government complains vigorously
against what it claims is the false news which reaches
the world concerning Russia from the capitals of border
states, where the political atmosphere is considered
hostile. It is insisted that in places like Bucharest,
Riga, Warsaw and Constantinople there are veritable
news factories manufacturing or concocting false infor-
mation and forging documents designed to give
the wrong impression to, and place a sinister signifi-
cance upon, what is taking place in Russia. Attention
is also drawn to the fact that in both Berlin and Paris
there are Russian newspapers published by emigres,
who have been driven out of Russia as a result of
the revolution, and that these newspapers are a
source of unlimited misinformation concerning what
is going on.

The Press Bureau attached to the Foreign Office in
Moscow also points out that some 5,000,000 people, a
large number of them members of the nobility and
the intelligentsia of the old Russia, have now settled in
Paris and various other places in Europe. Each of these
persons, it is claimed, has social and intellectual con-
nections of more or less importance, and each of these
emigres has some special grudge and grievance against
the existing regime. These constitute throughout the
world a veritable machine, which spontaneously and
inevitably misinterprets to the world everything that
is happening within Russia, in addition to spreading
unlimited information, often the fruit of imagination
or invention, concerning events which never take place
at all.

The last day I was in Moscow, one of the officials of

74 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the Foreign Office gave me a pamphlet printed in
French containing a long list of documents, many of
them presented in facsimile, which the Russian Gov-
ernment claimed had been manufactured in Paris or
various other parts of the world, and which were stated
to be totally false and unauthorized. When I arrived
in London I found a copy of this same pamphlet, trans-
lated into English. Thus, the Russian Government
has found it necessary to carry on a very definite
propaganda of its own, designed to follow up and chal-
lenge what it considers to be falsehoods.

The Russian Foreign Office maintains a press bureau
under the direction of the very able Mr. Rothstein.
Associated with him is a Mr. Shoubin, who has spent
much time and learned much of his journalism in New
York City. For that matter, it should be said that the
greatest of all Russian journalists, Mr. Boukharin, also
held at one time the editorship of Novy Mir (New
World), a Russian newspaper in New York City. But
then, to name all the members of the present Russian
Government who have either lived or worked in
America would be almost to publish a roster of the
Government itself.

Under the Press Bureau is the censor. The Foreign
Office maintains that the censor is wrongly named;
they say that his real title should be "Official to aid the
foreign correspondents in obtaining correct informa-
tion/' The newspaper correspondents told me that the
censor seldom actually (as was so frequently done dur-
ing the war) cuts out parts of their despatches. When
he finds something in one of their telegrams which he
thinks is wrong, he is apt to call the correspondent on

HOW THE WORLD LEARNS OF RUSSIA 75

the telephone and advise him that he has the situation
inaccurately put down. He then "suggests" to the cor-
respondent what the actual facts are.

I was told that in one case during the last three
years the censor had actually refused to forward a
despatch. The fact is, however, that no press tele-
gram may leave Russia without the censor's stamp
first being placed upon it.

Foreign newspaper writers can use the mails with-
out open censorship, though they reported to me that
their letters are apparently carefully watched. The
Russians denied that there was a secret censorship of
the mail.

Newspaper correspondents state that the difficulty
with this whole system is that it makes every corre-
spondent feel that if he wrote candidly and frankly
concerning all his impressions of events in Russia he
would sooner or later be sure to offend the Government
or some of its officials.

Several years have passed, I was told, since the last
expulsion of a foreign journalist. Apparently the Gov-
ernment decided that the unfavorable reaction to such
a procedure was more harmful than anything a cor-
respondent might write in criticism.

No ENGLISH CORRESPONDENTS
Even before the recent break between Russia and
England there were no direct correspondents of English
newspapers in Russia. Several correspondents of
American and other newspapers supplied some infor-
mation to English newspapers, but there were no cor-
respondents representing exclusively the English press,

76 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Even the Reuter News Agency was not represented in
Russia except through the Tass Agency.

One of the American newspaper correspondents gives
some information to the Manchester Guardian. An
Englishman, who is the chief representative of one of
the most important American newspapers, supplies
some information to the London Daily News, and there
is also an indirect service to the London daily Jewish
paper.

The London Times gets its Russian news chiefly from
Riga, the capital of Latvia, 800 miles from Moscow.
Imagine, for instance, a correspondent getting all of his
news in Jacksonville, Florida, from Washington, D. C.,
and most of it then derived merely from reading Wash-
ington newspapers.

AMEKICAN NEWSPAPEKS REPRESENTED
American newspapers and news associations main-
tain eight correspondents in Moscow. The Associated
Press, United Press, the Universal (Hearst) Service,
each have their independent representatives. The
Associated Press is the one American agency that has
access to the Tass news reports in Russia. Individual
American newspapers represented by their own corre-
spondents in Russia are: New York Times, Chicago
Daily News, Christian Science Monitor (Boston), and
the Jewish Freiheit (New York).

The German press is represented by ten correspond-
ents, the most important of whom is Paul Scheffer, a
journalist of great ability, experience and independence
of thinking and expression, who does not hesitate to
tell the German people and who is permitted by Mos-

HOW THE WORLD LEARNS OF RUSSIA 77

cow great freedom in telling the German public just
what he thinks of what is going on in Russia. The
Wolff Telegraph Agency, which supplies news to many
German newspapers, has its representative in Moscow,
but curiously enough the famous Communist news-
paper of Berlin, the Rote Fahne, has no correspondent
in Moscow.

In spite of the enormous interest to France in what
is going on in Russia, only one French newspaper, the
Petit Parisien, has its own correspondent. It is an
interesting fact, however, that the French Ambassador
in Moscow, Monsieur Herbette, was formerly foreign
editor of the great French newspaper, Le Temps.

Italy has three press correspondents in Russia, one of
them the correspondent of the Stefani News Agency,
the other two correspondents for the Tribuna and the
Matina in Rome. The greatest of all Italian news-
papers, the Corriera Delia Sera, of Milan, has at the
moment no personal representation in Russia. The
man who acted as the Corriera Delia Sera correspond-
ent, like some of the other more important news-
paper correspondents who have been in Moscow, has
gone to China. Indeed very much of the present-day
Russian information is most vitally related to what is
going on in China. It should also be said that men like
Scheffer of the Tageblatt, have been selected particu-
larly with a view to the fact that they previously had
a long experience and residence as correspondents in
China.

Japan maintains two correspondents for individual
newspapers in Moscow, as well as a correspondent of
the Japanese National News Agency. Two Czecho-

78 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

slovakian newspapers have resident correspondents.
Several of the Balkan newspapers have representa-
tives; the Swedish National News Agency is repre-
sented, and there is also a correspondent of the Bom-
bay Chronicle. This paper is apparently alone among
the Indian press in realizing the extent to which the
eyes of Russia are turned upon India.

XI
PUBLIC AND SOCIAL ECONOMY

SO far as one can tell from the ordinary daily affairs
of life, the same factors apparently pertain in the
Union of Socialist Soviet Republics as in capitalist
countries. One must use money with which to pay for
all purchases, and everyone seems just as keen to
obtain that money there as anywhere else.

The ordinary current of life seems to run quite
normally. The streets are filled with people day and
night. There are quantities of shops, just as in other
cities, but over half the shops are run by the Govern-
ment or the cooperative societies, and the rest by pri-
vate individuals. The shop windows are all full of
goods for sale, but the supplies seem to be of rather
old stocks, and to be noticeably free of the recent and
up-to-date articles which one finds in such profuse
numbers in shop windows of cities like Berlin and
Paris.

The State issues Lottery Loans, the main prizes of
which are of substantial value. Everyone is askpd to
subscribe to these loans, and they are issued in very
small units. I asked a prominent Communist official
if the issuance of such loans did not tend to create a
new corps of rentiers, who, themselves, would consti-
tute the beginnings of a new bourgeoisie. The reply

79

80 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

to this question was: "Oh, no; these people do not
-subscribe to these loans with a view to the accumula-
tion of capital; they do it only as a form of insurance
against a rainy day ! "

The Government is encouraging the use of savings
banks, using posters and other forms of advertising to
induce the people to save. I was told that interest
allowed by the savings banks amounts to 2 per cent
per month.

One of the most interesting sources of information
concerning the political economy of Russia is to be
found in the afore-mentioned English guidebook pub-
lished by the Government. The book describes the
eystem of barter developed just after the Bolshevik
revolution. We are told how even the smallest supplies
of goods, including the surplus stocks of grains of the
peasants, were seized by the Government, with the
resu lt says the guidebook that the "peasants felt no
stimulus for the raising of large crops, because they
were not able to sell. Their surplus stocks were taken
away from them by the food levy. In reply, the peas-
ants reduced their tillage to the smallest dimensions."

But in the spring of 1921, Lenin introduced the New
Economic Policy, which was nothing except a return to
capitalistic principles. Thus, the guidebook triumph-
antly tells us that "the introduction of Nep meant a
turning point in the economic development of the
Union. At any rate, since that time, slowly and inter-
mittently at first, but more rapidly and persistently
since 1923, there has been a revival of the economy of
the country. The New Economic Policy restored eco-
nomic relations and the exchange of commodities in

PUBLIC AND SOCIAL ECONOMY 81

the market; it relieved the peasants from the burdens
of the food levy; it extended some latitude to private
initiative; it guaranteed the circulation of private cap-
ital in commerce and industry; it adopted the principle
of profit in the management of State industries and
commerce."

We are told that the fundamental, socialistic prin-
ciple of the economy of the Soviet Union is based upon
"a well thought out plan." /'Competition, the charac-
teristic feature of capitalism, has been almost entirely
banished in Russia. There can be no thought of any
competition among the individual factories and
branches of a State industry."

Incidentally, I was told that the state banking sys-
tem is greatly over-developed and that the directors
find it almost impossible to reduce the number of
banks because the managers and personnel, whom they
want to discharge, fight against losing their jobs. I
was informed that the competition among units of
the various state industries remains very keen, the
managers hoping to establish reputations for them-
selves and trying to build up their organizations, so
that they will not be eliminated.

The Soviet Government has attempted the gigantic
task of "planning" in advance what all industry shall
do. When Mr. Hoover, our Secretary of Commerce, goes
to his office, he has only to consider methods of pro-
moting commerce. The Soviet "Planning Commis-
sion" undertakes actually to direct what shall be pro-
duced and consumed! The Planning Commission is
ordered to be always five years ahead of the growth of
the country. It works to coordinate industrial

82 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

development, highway and railroad bidding and the
various hydro-electric power projects, as well as other
phases of economic life.

The conduct of industry as a whole is concentrated
in a single central body known as the^Supreme Council
of Public Economy. j In the whole Sdviet Union there
are about 166,000 industrial enterprises, of which
147,000 belong to private persons, 4,600 to cooperators,
and 13,697 to the State, The private enterprises are
usually small and produce only about seven per cent
of the total of the industrial output, and employ only
twelve and a half per cent of the employees. The
State, on the other hand, employs upwards of eighty-
one per cent of all employees.

The industries are organized upon commercial prin-
ciples, and detached entirely from the State Budget,
having to obtain their working capital through bank
credits, or, in exceptional cases, by short or long credits
from the State Treasury. The state subsidies are given
only to major industries which are run at the expense
of the State and in which the commercial principle is
not adopted. Our friend, the Communist guidebook,
tells us the "Trustified industries figure in the budget
only by their net profits/' The guidebook also says,
"Thanks to its powerful position in the economy of the
country, the Soviet State exercises a tremendous influ-
ence in fixing of prices; quite frequently this influence
does away entirely with those unaccountable elemental
factors which play an important part in capitalist
society."

We are told that "at the beginning of the Nep period,
in the years 1921-22, the state was too poor to be able

PUBLIC AND SOCIAL ECONOMY 83

to supply the necessary capital for the commercial turn-
over; whatever free funds there were, had to be used
in fighting the famine and in restoring the industries.
For this reason the State was compelled to permit a
large share of the trading operations to fall into the
hands of private enterprise."

Describing foreign trade, the guidebook says:
"Foreign trade in the Soviet Union constitutes a State
monopoly. To allow free foreign trade would have
meant to exclude any possibility of Socialist reconstruc-
tion and to undermine the very existence of the State
industries which were disabled by the great destruction
caused by the war and handicapped by worn-out
machinery, so that they could not compete with the
foreign industries that are able to produce more
cheaply."

"The foreign trade monopoly is carried on by the
People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade and its aux-
iliary organs, the Central State Trading Office and the
Trade Delegations in foreign countries." The Soviet
authorities regard the monopoly of foreign trade as an
indispensable bulwark of their economic system. It is
the Russian substitute for a high protective tariff.

"When the New Economic Policy was introduced,"
so the guidebook states, "with the rise and turnover of
goods, the development of credits and banking and the
calculation of profits on a commercial basis, a stable
currency became absolutely indispensable." The banks
attend to State and private clients alike, but the latter
represent not more than two per cent of the total
funds handled.

My first call in Moscow was on Mr. Korobkoff,

84 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Foreign Director of the State Bank. He called my

attention to the fact that the only difference between

their bank and the New York banks was that in New

/York there were private shareholders, whereas in

(Russia the State was the only share or stock holder.

Since 1922, the Russian Government has issued gov-
ernment loans amounting to nearly 1,000,000,000
rubles. The Russian State Bank advised me that up
to the end of 1926 the yield of bonds used as pledge for
loans rose to thirty-six per cent per annum; from
December, 1926, to April 1, 1927, this yield fell to
twenty-four ' per cent per annum; from April 1 to
May 12 the yield of these bonds fell to fourteen per
cent.

An important by-product of the large number of
government-owned trusts and syndicates is the large
group of Communist managers and directors who are
being forced to think in terms of business rather than
of politics. They are being compelled to test theories
with facts and results. The very existence of a group
with such a training offers hope for the future.

XII

LENIN AND LENINISM

LENIN is the prophet of Bolshevik Russia, the
prophet of a new religion. One cannot gain any
idea of the present spirit of the people if one does not
seek to understand Leninism, and understand it not
merely as a social theory but as a religion.
1 Souvenirs of Lenin are in evidence everywhere.
Life-size busts of him adorn the show windows of
nearly every other shop; every government office, in
fact, almost every office of any kind, contains his pic-
ture. The Lenin Institute a dark, somber-looking
place is an inescapable architectural feature of the
city. His tomb, a small, dark red rectangular structure
of severe architectural design, suggesting Ancient
Egypt, is the principal feature of Red Square, just out-
side the walls of the Kremlin. Formerly a permit was
required to enter the tomb, but now, during certain
hours of the day, anyone may go in and after descend-
ing some fifteen steps enter the mortuary cham-
ber, where Lenin himself lies enclosed in a glass case
for all to see. The glass case is not shaped like a cas-
ket; it is more like the glass exhibition cases in a large
museum; in fact, the glass is so arranged that one at
first is not conscious of its presence. One walks around
a small gallery, and the body lies below. The figure

85

86 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

is covered with one of the red flags of the revolution,
but the face itself looks as if the man had died but
yesterday. I was told that experts who are employed
by the Government to examine the body frequently
have so far discovered no signs whatever of decompo-
sition, and predict that the secret embalming methods
employed will preserve the body in practically its pres-
ent condition for many years to come.

The temperature in the mortuary chamber is kept at
an even state, and all impure air is withdrawn immedi-
ately by a system of suction fans. Two soldiers stand
at attention at the entrance of the building containing
the body, and in the mortuary chamber itself two sen-
tinels of the Red Army stand on guard at all times.
There is a constant procession entering the chamber
and slowly walking around the body. As one emerges
from the building one is besieged by an army of
vendors of every kind of miniature souvenir of the
visit, just as one finds small relics and souvenirs for
sale as one emerges from cathedrals in Western
Europe.

Here indeed are the beginnings of a new and veri-
table religion. As John Maynard Keynes expressed it :
"We hate Communism so much, regarded as a religion,
that we exaggerate its economic inefficiency; and we
are so much impressed with its economic inefficiency
that we underestimate it as a religion.' 7

To be sure, Bolsheviks say: "Religion is an opiate
for the people." Whether the present attitude of the
Russian people toward religion is a reaction against the
kind of religion supplied to them in the days of the
Tsar or whether it represents a distinct and funda-

LENIN AND LENINISM 87

mental materialism of its own is a question I asked of
many. The answers were not encouraging, and I found
many reasons to feel that one of the most serious and
discouraging aspects of the Soviet regime is the prac-
tical abandonment of the church as a source of spirit-
ual power and inspiration. Religious teaching is for-
bidden in the schools or churches of Russia to anyone
under eighteen years of age. The powers that be evi-
dently feel that after that age no further attention to
the subject need be given. (' Theoretically, religion is
free. The Church is separated from the State, and
one may worship as one desires, but one is told that the
only real religion in which the present regime believes
is "Leninism. 37 The keynote of that religion is its
materialism God is banished the Mass Man is
enthroned in his stead. Mechanistic philosophy here
comes into its own.

THE ESSENCE OF LENINISM

Not the least striking interpretation of Leninism
was given to me by a Russian of the "proletariat" class
whose confidence I was fortunate enough to gain in
Moscow. He gave me this exposition of Lenin's point
of view:

"Things are changing in Russia very rapidly. It is
characteristic of the Russian first to do it and then to
look around and reflect upon what he has done and
whether or not he should have done it.

"Lenin was a great dreamer; he dreamed of creating
quite a new world, but when he came into power he
found very soon that some of his ideas were mistaken.
But he was not only a dreamer but a man of practical

88 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

common sense. When he discovered that he had made
a mistake he changed. He adopted the New Economic
Policy which has revolutionized things in Russia. If
he had lived, he would have changed more, and many
things would have been very different in Russia from
what they are to-day. The government officials think
they are disciples of Lenin, but the real spirit of Lenin
was common sense and common sense is getting hold
of the Russian people.

"The people are now more demanding less com-
munistic. Everyone is criticizing and questioning,
these days. Besides, the people are being made to
work. Laboring men and farmers thought at the begin-
ning that they could lie back and loaf and let the other
fellow do it; but they are now finding that they must
work. The Government makes loans to the farmers,
of horses, agricultural implements and other articles,
but checks up to see whether the farmer makes effec-
tive use of these articles. If he doesn't, they are taken
away from him. The peasants are electing fewer Com-
munists to their Soviets and the Communists who are
being elected to all offices are of the better quality.

"The people are thinking even the farmer is
being allowed to think, and to hold meetings. It
doesn't matter what he says at such meetings or what
he thinks at the moment; the fact that he is
allowed to talk and meet is arousing his political con-
science and in the long run he can be relied upon to
think soundly. The farmer doesn't take Communism
seriously as a theory; all he knows is that he has his
land securely in his possession, whereas under the
Tsarist regime he was virtually a serf and his land was

LENIN AND LENINISM 89

owned by the nobility. If the farmer produces, he gets
money for what he sells. The money is his. He is not
apt under the pretext of Socialism or Communism or
anything else to allow anybody to take that money
away from him."

OTHER INTERPRETATIONS OF

Karl Radek, in a book issued while I was in Moscow,
relates this instance: "When Lenin once saw me look-
ing through the only published book of his collected
articles, dating from the year 1903, his face lighted up
with a smile, and with a little sneering laugh he said:
'It is interesting to read what fools we have been
once/ "

Radek further says: "I was often struck with the
common sense of Lenin; in this lies his greatness as a
politician. When Lenin had to decide a question he
did not indulge in abstract historical features, he did
not think of land tax, of absolutism, of liberalism;, he
thought of John and Peter from Tver, of the workman
at the Putilow Works, of the policeman in the street,
and thought how the given measure would act on these
people, as bearers of the revolution/'

On the eve of the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk
peace treaty, Lenin asked Radek: "Have you not seen
that the peasant voted against war?" "When and how
did he vote?" asked Radek. f^Bfe voted with his legs,
by running away from the froixtJJ answered Lenin.

Radek also wrote: "The instrument of history is
the individual who understands what problems are his-
torically to be solved at the given moment, and who
does not struggle for what is desirable but unattain-

90 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

able. The greatness of Lenin lies in the fact that no
formula created yesterday prevented him from seeing
the modifications of reality and that he courageously
threw off any formula established even by himself, if
it interfered in his grasping the actual reality."

STALIN'S IDEAS OF LENIIST

Stalin wrote a bpok last year entitled: 'Theory and
Practice of Leninism." It is a closely written docu-
ment dealing with extraordinary cleverness with the
philosophy and technique of revolution. In the course
'of his book Stalin says: "The front of capital will not
necessarily be pierced where industry is most devel-
oped; it will be broken where the chain of Imperial-
ism is weakest, for the proletarian revolution is the
result of the rupture of the chain of the Imperialist
front at its weakest point.

" Where is the chain going to be broken next? It is
not impossible, for example, that it may be in India.
Why? Because in that country the revolution has for
its enemy a foreign Imperialism, deprived of all moral
authority and hated by the oppressed and exploited
masses of India."

In another part of his book Stalin^ deals at length
with the idea of the "permanent revolution," and he
asks: "Why did Lenin oppose the idea of a perma-
nent revolution?" His answer is: "Because Lenin
wanted to crown the revolution with the coming of the
proletariat to power, while the partisans of the 'per-
manent revolution' wanted to begin by the establish-
ment of the power of the proletariat. Thus Lenin
opposed the idea of a 'permanent revolution'."

LENIN AND LENINISM 91

Stalin says: "Russian revolutionary inspiration and
the practical spirit of the American are joined into a
harmonious union in Leninism. Russian revolution-
ary inspiration is the antidote against routine, con-
servatism, ideological stagnation, slavish submission to
ancestral traditions. It is the vivifying force which
awakens thought, pushes forward, breaks the fetters
of the past and opens out vast perspectives; without
it, progress is impossible; but in practice it degenerates
into empty 'revolutionary' phraseology if it is not
allied with American practicalism."

Stalin quotes Lenin as having said: "The man
who is a member of the Communist Party, who has
not been as yet expelled from it, and who imagines he
can succeed in every task by drawing up Communist
decrees is guilty of Communist vanity."

Stalin adds: "To revolutionary fantasy Lenin
usually opposed ordinary, everyday tasks, thus empha-
sizing that revolutionary fantasy is contradictory to
the letter and spirit of Leninism." Lenin is quoted as
having said: "Fewer pompous phrases and more
everyday work less political clatter and more atten-
tion to the simpler, but more tangible facts of Com-
munist construction. . . ."

Then Stalin concludes: "The American practical
spirit, on the other hand, is the antidote to revolution-
ary fantasy; it is a tenacious force for which there is
no such thing as the impossible, but which patiently
surmounts every obstacle and carries through to the
finish every task, however small, that it has once
begun."

Though Lenin could see clearly the necessity, when

92 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the crisis arose, to adapt his theories to immediate real-
ity and had he lived there is reason to believe that
this capacity to see necessity might have led the Rus-
sian people much more rapidly back toward normality
nevertheless, he apparently lacked a broad insight
into the fundamental realities of human nature. It
was in this lack of understanding of broad world reali-
ties that, as Rene Fiilop-Miller so well says, "We must
seek for a solution of the extraordinary riddle of Bol-
shevism, for an explanation of how an attempt to
reshape the world by purely practical means could
lead to results so utterly fantastic, so opposed to all
common sense, so absurdly abstruse."

Whatever may be one's opinion of Lenin's philos-
ophy, no one can deny that as a man he was one of the
most astonishing personal forces of our times. Really
to understand Bolshevism one must study Lenin and
Leninism, and that study would involve one in a vast
research into Russian character and history as a whole.

XIII

RYKOV AND THE GOVERNMENT

THE actual head of the Soviet Government is
Alexis Ivanovich Rykov, who enjoys the some-
what unique distinction of being one of the few high
officials in Russia whose official name is his real name.
Most of the members of the cabinet have been impris-
oned, have been exiled and have had to resort to every
expedient in the form of false passports, false names
and other devices in their game of hide and seek with
the Tsarist Government. In fact, all of these men bear
upon their faces and in their lack of bodily health
unmistakable evidences of the hardships through which
they have passed. ^The nominal head of the govern-
ment is the peasant Kalinin, President of the Union,
but he is largely a figurehead.

Rykov has always lived and worked under his real
name. He is forty-six years old, and, in appearance,
suggests Mr. Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank
of England. "Mr. Rykov's title is "President of the
Council of People's Commissars." j His office is in the
Kremlin, in the same suite of rooms in which Lenin
used to work. His manner is mild and his general atti-
tude one of geniality and good nature.

Rykov is a real Russian, and there are not many

93

94 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

such in the Soviet Government. He was educated as a
lawyer, but very early manifested revolutionary ten-
dencies, at Saratov, where he lived.

In 1902 Saratov became a sort of "All-Russian"
center of revolutionary activity. Rykov wandered
about the country, engaging in various revolutionary-
activities, from one prison to another. He spent, alto-
gether, five and one-half years in jail; he was deported
three times. Describing his own life, he says:

"In the short intervals of liberty/ villages, towns,
people and events seemed to pass in front of me like
in a cinema, and the whole of the time I was hurrying
somewhere in cabs, on horseback, or by steamers.
There is no house in which I lived more than two
months. At the age of thirty I did not know how to
obtain a passport, and had no idea of what it meant
to have a constant residence/ 3

Early in his career, Rykov established connections
with Lenin, at Geneva, and under Lenin's general direc-
tion engaged in active revolutionary efforts in Russia.
In 1905 he was at the Congress of the Bolshevik Party
in London, and ever since then he has been one of the
real leaders of Communism.

AT THE HELM

After the 1917 revolution in Russia, Rykov became
one of the chief lieutenants of Lenin, and when Lenin
became ill, in 1921, Rykov was designated to replace
him. When Lenin died the Bolsheviks placed Rykov
at the helm of the State.

Rykov received me in his offices in the Kremlin, and
asserted his extreme eagerness to develop an under-

RYKOV AND THE GOVERNMENT 95

standing with the Government of the United States.
Some idea of Rykov's general point of view may be
gathered from the following quotations from his say-
ings:

"Our State is the only one in which the working class
is in power. It is surrounded on all sides by bourgeois
states. We cannot disguise from ourselves the fact
that simultaneous existence of two systems the Soviet
system of our State, our dictatorship of the proletariat,
and the system of capitalism is permanently impos-
sible; one of these systems must squeeze out the other.

"The struggle of these two forces is inevitable, and
sooner or later it must mean that either capitalism will
choke our Republic or the Socialist movement in the
whole world will lead to the victory of the working
class.

"Therefore, a breathing space is absolutely necessary
for us. While between bourgeois states there may be
talk of a long and stable alliance, here we speak only of
an interlude, of the fact that the inevitable struggle of
the two principles the socialistic and the capitalistic
is postponed, but in no wise can we avert the inevi-
tability of a decisive struggle of capitalistic and social-
istic forces.

"THE MOST PEACEFUL STATE ON EARTH"
"Not in vain did Lenin say that the main collision
was still of the future. But at the same time we are
the most peaceful State on the whole earth, the most
peaceful because peace is necessary for us for the devel-
opment of our constructional work. And whatever
may be the armed collisions in the West, certainly our

96 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

country will take all steps in order not to be drawn
into war."

On February 23, 1926, Rykov addressed a proclama-
tion to the Red Army as follows:

"The country is proud of our Red Army, and on its
eighth anniversary I wish it to hold a gun in its hands
as firmly and use it as skilfully as it has done up to this
time. Only on this condition can the toilers of the
Union of Socialist Soviet Republics construct a Social-
ist State, awaiting that moment when the victorious
proletarian revolution in all the world will make unnec-
essary the existence of armies and arms."

In spite of such phrases concerning world revolution
and the Red Army, Rykov is much concerned over
obtaining the necessary capital with which to build up
Russia to-day. In an address before the Communist
Party Congress on October 30, 1926, Rykov said:

"The fate of the October revolution and the practical
realization of Socialism are bound up with the question
of whether we can find the necessary means to rebuild
the whole of our economic structure through the devel-
opment of extensive industries. For this reason the
question of sources of capital is of determining charac-
ter for the whole of our party policy in the immediate
future."

THE GOVERNMENT

In accordance with the Federal Constitution
adopted on July 6, 1923, the Soviet Union is a volun-
tary association of its six constituent sovereign nations,
each Republic reserving for itself the right of free
withdrawal from the Union.

RYKOV AND THE GOVERNMENT 97

The supreme organ of authority is the Ail-Union
Congress of Soviets. This is composed of about 1600
representatives of town and township Soviets, and of
provincial Congresses of Soviets.

The right to vote is very broad. The principal
groups disqualified are those engaged in private busi-
ness or employing others who are known as "profiteers"
or "exploiters of labor." In general, any Russian who
works can vote.

The executive power becomes concentrated through
a series of Soviets or Councils, the lower Soviets elect-
ing delegates from their own number for membership
in the higher ones. This enables the Communists, who
are very greatly outnumbered at the beginning, to
tighten their control, as delegates are more and more
removed from the people.

During the interval between the Ail-Union Con-
gresses of Soviets, the supreme authority devolves upon
the Central Executive Committee, consisting of the
Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities.

The Council of the Union is elected by the Congress
from representatives of the six constituent republics,
in proportion to their population, in all to a total of
450 members.

TheTBuncil of Nationalities is formed of representa-
tives of the constituent and autonomous republics,
five delegates from each, and of representatives of
autonomous areas, one delegate from each, in all 131

The Council of the Union elects the People's Com-
missars of the Union, who constitute the Cabinet, or
Council of People's Commissars, of which Rykov is

98 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

chairman. Each Commissar has a little cabinet of his
own, called the "J^pllegium." If the Collegium agrees
with the Commissar, he may go ahead with his deci-
sions, but a subordinate member of the Collegium may
force review by the Council of Commissars as a whole
of any decision of a Commissar no supported by his
Collegium.

Commissars draw a salary of about $115 per month.
Indeed, that is all any Communist is permitted to
receive as a government salary. There are but few
perquisites, and the laws against graft are extremely
severe, certain offenses being punishable with death. I
did not hear anybody accuse the higher officials of
graft or dishonesty, although there is said to be plenty
of that in the lower levels. The death penalty, I was
told is quite often inflicted for this offense.

XIV
STALIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY

STALIN, "Man of Steel," is the political boss of
Russia. .He is not in the Government, and his
only title i^J'Secretary General of the Communist
Party.J The Government of Russia is in some ways
organized like that of New York City. There is the
nominal government, presided over by the various
heads of departments or "commissars/' and behind it
is the hidden government of the Communist Party,
just as in a sense ther6 is the real government of New
York City in Tammany Hall. Stalin, as the head of
the Communist Party, is the "Charlie Murphy" of
Russia, and he has many characteristics of the late Mr.
Murphy, the chief of them being that he works silently
and away from the public gaze.

He makes practically no speeches; he sees but few
people even among his own party; he gives no news-
paper interviews; none of the foreign newspaper cor-
respondents in Moscow ever visits him; when he goes
to the opera he sits in the back of an obscure box;
when he appears at meetings of the Communist Party
he sits in one of the back rows on the stage or speak-
ers 7 platform. Yet everyone recognizes his power, and
there is general agreement that much of the immedi-
ate destiny of Russia is in his hands.

99

100 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Stalin is a Georgian; he speaks only Russian; none
of the foreign diplomatic ministers accredited to the
Soviet Union meet him; he is said to derive his power
from his excellent ability as a party organizer, from
the fact that all of the leaders of the party trust him,
and from the further fact that his judgment upon
policies is regarded as sound.

Stalin, of course, has been a revolutionist for many
years. In fact since 1900, he had been one of Lenin's
chief lieutenants.

STALIN SUGGESTS SOVIET REPUBLICS
Stalin became an important figure during Lenin ? s
rule in 1921. f It was Stalin who suggested to Lenin
that Soviet Republics be established all over the former
Russian territory, giving different nationalities the
opportunity of ruling their people through the local
Communist Parties. \ He suggested to Lenin that it
would be impossible to rule the whole of Russia
through one Central Communist Government in Mos-
cow. But to secure control over those different Repub-
lics he prepared a scheme by which important leaders
of the Communist Party were sent to the different
Republics as delegates of Moscow and were appointed
as "secretaries 75 to the local Communist Parties. They
are the counterparts of Tammany Hall district leaders.
Through the leaders of the local Communist Parties
they practically control the policy of the Governments
in the different Republics.

Not only were secretaries appointed to the different
Soviet Republics but the party also appointed secre-

STALIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY 101

taries to the different Soviet Embassies and trade dele-
gations abroad. Stalin resigned from Government
office to become Secretary General of the Communist
Party; he has taken control of all local parties and is
personally in contact with all these secretaries. Through
the secretaries he obtains the support of the majority
of Communist leaders by giving them important posts
in the different Russian commercial and industrial
trusts and high positions in the Government.

Stalin, who was a great admirer of Lenin, believes
that the existence of the Soviet Government does not
depend upon the dictatorship of labor but depends on
the support of the peasants, and he therefore is said to
be doing his utmost to depart in many instances from
simple socialistic doctrines, and to encourage capitalis-
tic enterprise when capitalism can provide the peas-
ants with cheap products.

Stalin is the great interpreter of Russian politics.
He is also a singularly clever writer, and has mastered
the philosophy and technique of revolution to a
remarkable degree. His writings display amazing clar-
ity, terseness of expression, and comprehension of
thought in his own particular line.
^ The Communist Party is virtually a unit behind
Stalin. In recent years, an "opposition" developed,
which may be roughly divided into two parts. One
section, led by Zinoviev and Kamenev, insisted on cre-
ating a strong labor movement which would be a "dic-
tatorship of labor" above the capitalist and above the
peasants. They feared the belief that each individual
peasant is a "capitalist" by nature.

102 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

The second section, led by Trotsky, was of opinion
that it is necessary to create a dictatorship of labor
with the same object, but Trotsky did not believe
that a labor movement could be successful without
capital. He strongly believed that the country can be
built up only by foreign capitalists who have experi-
ence and money, and that unless Russia is built up
industrially and commercially the rulers of Russia,
whoever they may be, will have a hard time to rule
Russia.

Both factions, including a number of the most
intelligent and experienced men in Russia, have
now been completely defeated. Stalin is undisputed
master in Russia as a result of this victory over
Trotsky.

The fundamental fact appears to be that the Com-
munist Party is coming to be more and more the Rus-
sian Party. The members of the Party who had lived
most of their lives in Europe are being frozen out.

Stalin himself says of Trotsky and the two points of
view in Russia :

"Lenin and Trotsky present two entirely opposing
theses. Whilst Lenin was of the opinion that the vic-
tory of Socialism is possible in one country, and that
the proletariat can not only maintain the power once
seized, but can go forward and will be able to render
efficient help to the proletariats of the capitalist coun-
tries, Trotsky represents the standpoint that unless a
victorious Russian revolution is followed within a very
short period by victorious revolutions in other coun-
tries, the proletariat here will not even be able to retain
power, since it is hopeless to suppose that a revolution-

STALIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY 103

ary power can be maintained in Russia in face of a
conservative Europe.

BASIS FOR BUILDING SOCIALIST STATE

"Our revolution is a Socialist revolution, a revolution
which is not only a signal, an impetus, and a point of
departure for the world revolution, but at the same
time a basis for the building up of a complete socialist
state of society in our own country.

"We can defeat the capitalists, we can work at our
socialist structure and build it up. But this does not
mean that we are therefore in a position to secure the
protelarian dictatorship against external dangers, from
the dangers of intervention and the possibility of the
restoration of capitalism.

"We are not living on an island, but in the midst of
capitalist countries. The fact that we are working at
constructive Socialism, and are revolutionizing the
workers of the capitalist countries by our example, is
bound to arouse the hate and animosity of the capital-
ist world.

"They accuse us of conducting special propaganda
against Imperialism. The English Conservatives affirm
that Russian Communists seek to destroy the might of
the British Empire. This is all sheer nonsense. We
do not need any kind of special propaganda either in
the West or in the East, since labor delegations them-
selves and natives of colonial countries are coming to
us, acquainting themselves with our order of things,
and are carrying away word of our new order of things
through all the countries of the West. No other prop-
aganda is needed by us. This is the best, the strongest,

104 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

and the most effective propaganda for the Soviet struc-
ture against capitalism.

"We sympathize with the Chinese revolution in its
struggle for the emancipation of the Chinese people
from the yoke of the Imperialists and for the unifica-
tion of China into one state.

"Chang Tso-lin is perishing. But he is perishing
not only from this but also from the fact that he con-
structed his entire policy on the differences between us
and Japan. Every general, every ruler of Manchuria,
who builds his policy on differences between us and
Japan will necessarily perish. Only that one of them
can stand on his feet who builds his policy on the
improvement of our relations with Japan and our
rapprochement with Japan. Out interests lie in the
rapprochement of our country with Japan. "

In recent months, particularly since the break
between Russia and England, Stalin, with many other
Bolshevik leaders, has been obsessed with the idea
that Western nations were plotting an armed attack
upon Russia. In the Izvestia of July 28, 1927, Stalin
was quoted as saying:

"The most acute question of the moment is the
menace of a new Imperialistic war. This is not an
unreal, immaterial menace; it is a very real and actual
threat of a new war in general, and a war against the
U.S.S.R. in particular.

"It should not surprise us that the English bour-
geoisie and their executive staff, the Conservative
Party, have initiated the creation of this front. . . .
Since the great French revolution down to the present
upheaval in China, the English bourgeoisie have

STALIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY 105

invariably stood foremost in the ranks of those who
try to crush the movements of humanity towards lib-
erty. Never shall Soviet people forget the violation,
pillage, and military intrusion from which our country
suffered a few years ago at the hands of English cap-
italists. It is quite in the nature of things that English
capitalism should assume the leadership in the war
against the world center of the proletarian revolution,
the U.S.S.R.

"What is then our next problem? Our problem is to
sound in all countries of Europe the alarm of a new
war menace; to keep the workers and soldiers of cap-
italist countries on constant watch, to form the masses
so that they may meet, in full array of revolutionary
battle, all attempts of bourgeois governments at organ-
izing a new war."

On this very point, a speech of David Lloyd George,
before the League of Nations Union, of England, deliv-
ered October 24, 1927, contained this passage:

"Two-thirds of Europe," he said, "is armed to the
teeth. Over ten millions of men are practically in
arms. They have weapons infinitely more formidable
and destructive than those with which they were
equipped in 1914. That is the state of the Allied
nations.

"There is Russia in the background, sulking and
resentful of her exclusion from the society of nations,
becoming stronger each year, ready for any chance
to hit back, and with those chances bristling every-
where.

"When Russia emerges from her internal entangle-
ments she will be the most redoubtable country on

106 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

earth, and therefore I attach great importance to
bringing Russia back to the fraternity of nations. It
is one of the risks of peace, and I do not minimize it,
but it is not comparable to the risk of leaving her out
in the dark."

Stalin, who represents a moderating or compromis-
ing policy, is entirely in power in Russia as a result of
his victory over Trotsky's oppositional group. This
opposition was based very largely on the thought that
Stalin is abandoning some of the most important
planks in the revolutionary platform. But he is a
politician and is apparently determined to hold on to
power.

It is interesting to note the method of his influence
on the government. He is the chief factor of the^Polit-
buro Which is the highest authority in the Communist
Party, There are several members of the government
also on the Politburo, including Rykov, Vorishiloff, the
Commissar of War, and Rudzutak, the Commissar of
Railways and Transport. Like Stalin, they are
moderates. Tomsky and Boukharin, the more radical
members of the Politburo, are not in the government
proper.

In the course of the running fight between Trotsky
and Stalin, Trotsky produced a letter which Lenin
wrote just before he died, saying:

"Stalin is too rough a defect fully tolerable in our
midst but it becomes intolerable in his post as secre-
tary general. Therefore I propose, comrades, a delib-
erate means of taking Stalin out of his post and replac-
ing him by some one differing from Stalin in the
following respects more patient, more loyal, more

STALIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY 107

courteous, more attentive to his comrades, less
capricious."

Answering Trotsky's charges, Stalin admitted that
Lenin had willed his dismissal from the post of general
secretary of the Communist Party, and declared:

"Yes, I am rough."

He looked Trotsky straight in the eyes. "Yes, I am
rough," he repeated. "Rough regarding those who
roughly and faithlessly try to destroy the Communist
Party."

Stalin added that he knew Lenin wanted him
removed from his post, and he had pleaded with the
Central Communist Committee to fulfill Lenin's wish,
but it was not heeded. Stalin is the man to watch in
Russia.

XV
BOUKHARIN AND THE INTERNATIONAL

THE stormy petrel of Russia is Boukharin, editor
of the Pravda, the organ of the Communist Party,
and President of the Communist International. Bouk-
harin is essentially a journalist, a theorist and a fire-
brand generally. He has never had real responsibility,
and his writings in the Pravda, as well as his reports to
the Communist Party and the Communist Interna-
tional, indicate his dangerous character.

Boukharin was the only man of importance in Russia
with whom the Government refused to arrange an
interview for me. They said that they had no official
relations with Boukharin. It is very evident that the
Foreign Office of the Soviet Government is chary of
displaying any connection whatsoever or any affiliation
with the Communist International.

Boukharin is very frank in his views, and sets them
forth with great vehemence in the Pravda, but the
impression I gathered in Moscow was that Boukharin's
influence was diminishing, even though he is still a
member of the PoUtburp^of the Communist Party.

Boukharin is lT"great protagonist of the Chinese
revolution, and is violently hostile toward England.
Here are some of his utterances:

"The main facts of economic life since the war in

108

BOUKHARIN AND THE INTERNATIONAL 109

respect to countries as economic units, are: the grow-
ing and leading importance of the United States, the
decreasing importance of England, the modification in
the industrial development of France, and the growth
of German capitalism tending to become again the
central economic force of continental Europe. On
these economic facts is based the new grouping of the
powers, this regrouping tending toward the ruin of the
Entente, the dissolution of the League of Nations, the
negation of the Treaty of Versailles.

"The struggle against the advance of capital and
capitalist rationalization is the chief object of the
Communist parties in the capitalist countries. . . .
Communists must lead the workmen.

AGAINST TRUSTIFICATION

"The trustification of production must be strongly
opposed by the workmen as it only increases the forces
of capital. Unity in pursuing these aims must increase
the strength of the working class.

"A general increase of class conflicts may be expected
in the nearest future as a consequence of capitalist
rationalization. The duty of the Communist parties,
therefore, is to mobilize immediately the working
classes, to lead them, in their general struggle, to sup-
port energetically the smallest strike, and to develop
the most active policy in the leadership of the
masses. . . .

"The Communist must devote great attention to the
unemployed, attract these masses of exploited work-
men, must paralyze all attempts of fascism to win the
working classes to its cause. . . In its struggle against

110 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the propaganda of the Social Democrats, their support
of the League of Nations and any kind of other group-
ings such as Pan-European federation and others pre-
paring a new phase of capitalism the Communists
must put forward the program of the proletarian revo-
lution, of the workmen and peasant coalition, of the
dictatorship of the proletariat/'

In reporting to the Communist International at its
session on the 23d of November, 1926, Boukharin
said:

"The Communist parties are the parties of the world
revolution! The Comintern is the world organization
of the proletariat for the preparation of the world
revolution!

"It is often said that we have been deceived, and
that our hopes have been buried because the interna-
tional revolution has not come, and that we ought to
resign ourselves to hard necessity and cease to be that
which we have been up to now. To that we reply
that the international revolution will not only come
but that it is already a fact. It is absurd to believe
that there exists a certain predestined and mysterious
hour when His Majesty, the proletariat, will succeed
to power.

"The international revolution is a gigantic growth
which is carried on for tens of years. The process
commenced during the Imperialistic war; it will roll on
in a great number of countries; it has led our country
to solid dictatorship; it has thrown overboard some
crowns in central Europe; it has stopped in certain
directions but it is already resumed in other parts of
the world. If we penetrate the meaning of the great

BOUKHARIN AND THE INTERNATIONAL 111

events in China, we cannot but see that the Chinese
revolution is an integral part of the world revolution
that exists already which will not come but which is
already here.

"The world revolution will be at the end of its
course when it has triumphed in all countries. The
cycle will then have run its course, but one could not
say that the revolution does not exist now. But we
ought to pray to the Communist Good God and the
Communist Holy Virgin that the world revolution
may descend finally on our sinful earth."

THE IISTCENDIAEY MIND

These quotations have been given to show the char-
acter of Boukharin's mind. It is incendiary from
every point of view, materialistic, destructive. And
the Communist International is the supreme danger
which menaces modern civilization. So-called "Bol-
shevik propaganda" gets all its drive from the Inter-
national.

Among the resolutions adopted by the enlarged exec-
utives of the Communist International last December
was this statement:

"The Social Democratic theory that the workers
of one country should not interfere with the work-
ers of another country runs counter to the very
ideas of international and class solidarity. Hence
the revolutionary workers have interfered, do inter-
fere and will interfere in the future in the affairs
of the workers of any country in order to render
them aid."

The kind of aid the Communist International is able

112 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

to render is in providing leaders skilled and trained in
the technique of revolution. Wherever there is trouble,
there is place for the delegate of the Comintern to
organize it and give it direction. And such delegates
are taught that any means to secure the end is justified.
While the International is led by Russians, its mem-
bership is spread throughout the world. It is harbored
by the Soviet Government, and its offices are an impor-
tant feature of Moscow. But in fact it is an organiza-
tion without a country, a world outlaw an organiza-
tion to which modern civilization can give no quarter.

XVI

TROTSKY AND "THE OPPOSITION"

npROTSKY has been ejected from the Communist
* Party the next most final thing to death for a
Russian politician. His opposition to the party major-
ity was based on many disagreements of policy, but the
"sin" for which he was expelled was in continuing his
opposition after a party majority had voted him down.
Yet he remains a popular hero of the revolution.

The extreme care with which the government pre-
pared before taking from Trotsky any of the public
offices which he once had, seems to reveal doubt and
fear regarding his political strength. The whole process
of reducing him from high position, which culminated
in his expulsion from the Communist Party, required
several years of persistent newspaper and magazine
hostility. Even the radio and the moving pictures
were used to belittle him.

Karl Radek, who was ejected from the Communist
Party in company with Trotsky and for much the
same reason, in speaking of Trotsky, said :

"The history of the proletarian revolution has shown
that pens can be melted into swords. Trotsky is one
of the best writers on universal Socialism, but his
literary capabilities have not prevented him from being
the first leader, the first organizer of the first prole-

113

114 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

tarian army. The pen of its best public writer was
changed by the revolution into a sword."

Trotsky is another Bolshevik leader who is ill. At
the moment he is not only ill physically, but entirely
suppressed politically. In Moscow he is not allowed
to see foreigners except by permission of Stalin.
He remains amazingly popular with the people in
spite of his attitude toward the Government, and any
announcement that Trotsky is to speak always draws
a great crowd.

Trotsky is the leader of the "Opposition." His chief
allies in that leadership are Zinoviev, Kamenev,
Radek, and Rakovsky all members of the inner group
which, with Lenin, seized power in October, 1917, and
all now expelled even from the party itself.

The very fact that an opposition could arise and
continue for several years seemed to show the first
feeble beginnings of government by open discussion,
but Stalin and the party majority at last won such a
complete victory that the privilege of expressing one's
views, if they are different from those of the majority,
is apparently still a dream of the future.

If there are fundamental principles really at stake
between the Government and the Opposition, perhaps
they can be thus classified:

Stalin believes that the party policy must be based
primarily upon regard for the welfare of the peasant, or
farmers; the Opposition maintained that the Dictator-
ship of the Proletariat can rest only upon primary re-
gard for the interests of the proletariat, or the individ-
ual workers.
These fundamental principles are of course enmeshed

TROTSKY AND "THE OPPOSITION" 115

in a network of personal feuds, bickerings, accusa-
tions, and intrigues which make any clear-cut issue
indistinguishable. Trotsky himself has often changed
his views. He is said to have been a Menshevik at
heart fcven at the time of the revolution of October,
1917. His brilliance, rather than his trustworthiness,
has been his chief asset.

Aside from the politics of the situation, Trotsky has
thought through the real problems which face the
socialistic government more thoroughly and frankly
than any other Bolshevik leader. He thus sums up this
situation :

"The superiority of capitalist technical science and
economics is still enormous; the ascent before us is
steep; the problems and difficulties are truly vast. To
find a way and to mark it out is only possible with the
measuring instruments of world economics in our
hands.

"Henceforth, we must know definitely at any given
moment to what extent our production in quality and
price is behind the European or the world market.
These new gauges, these new coefficients, not on a
national but on a world scale, will be the only ones
competent to register the different stages of the process
described by Lenin in his formula, 'Which is going to
score?'

"In world economics and world politics all depends
on the rate of our development; that is to say, the rate
of the quantitative and qualitative growth of our out-
put. To-day, our backwardness and poverty are
undoubted facts, which we do not deny but emphasize
in every way. Is there not a danger in the near future

116 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

that when we shall have barely risen firmly to our
feet the world market will crush us by the immense
superiority of its wealth?

"To that question, there can be no definite, incon-
testable answer. Similarly it would be impossible to
give a categorical answer to the question as to whether
capitalism will succeed should its temporary and very
relative tenacity continue to mobilize against us seri-
ous armed forces and by means of a new war check our
economic progress. Here the problem is one of strug-
gle, where creativeness, maneuvering, energy and such-
like factors play an enormous and sometimes decisive
part."

Rykov, in his report to the All-Union Congress of
Soviets in 1927 the nearest parallel to the United
States Presidential messages echoed this thought of
Trotsky's when he said: "We are still far behind the
capitalist states in the organization of work and even
in the organization of production. In many depart-
ments our country is technically backward as com-
pared with bourgeois countries."

And then Rykov added this illuminating confession:
"We have taken up constructive Socialism on a gigan-
tic scale and we are expending enormous amounts,
but we have not learned how to build cheaply, eco-
nomically and rapidly."

In this connection, Trotsky's statement may be
recalled, that Soviet Russia must produce more
cheaply or go down.

It is worth noting that Rykov, in his former state-
ment, said that the Bolsheviks have taken up "con-
structive Socialism," and he did not call it communism.

TROTSKY AND "THE OPPOSITION" 117

Trotsky sets forth the manner in which the mind of
the Russian peasant probably works when he says:

"The peasant used to be familiar with the Austrian
scythe, and always compared it with our own. He
knew the American McCormick, the Canadian Harris,
the Austrian Heid, and others. Now that agriculture
is developing and there is a new demand for agricul-
tural machinery and implements, these comparisons
are reviving with the addition of the fresh comparison
of the American Ford with our own make. When a
peasant buys a horse threshing machine and the
inferior iron gear wears away in a few hours before
his eye, he registers the fact in his mind with a very
high coefficient of profanity indeed.

"Driving in a cart, we measure the miles by the eye
or by hearsay; a motor car has a speedometer. In the
future our industries must advance with an interna-
tional speedometer, the register of which shall be our
guide, not only in the important economic measures
we introduce, but also in many of our political deci-
sions. If it is true that the success of a regime depends
on increased production and for us Marxists this is
an axiom then an exact quantitative and qualitative
measurement of the production of Soviet economics is
needed, not only for present market purposes but also
in order to estimate the successive stages of the historic
road we are following."

Trotsky declares that up to now Russia has been
working on existing basic capital. "In the future/' he
says, "we shall have to create new basic capital. This
constitutes the fundamental difference between the
coming economic period and that which is now passing.

118 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

"The struggle for our Socialist 'place in the sun'
must inevitably become a struggle for the highest pos-
sible coefficient of productive growth. The basis, and
at the same time, the 'limit' of this growth is, after
all, the volume of material values.

"Historic development has resulted in capitalism
becoming for a time the creditor of Socialism. Well,
was not capitalism nourished at the breasts of feudal-
ism? History has honored the debt. Concessions
come into the same category. A concession combines
the transfer to our country of foreign plant, foreign
productive formulae, and the financing of our economy
by the resources of world capitalist savings.

"The present achievements of foreign laboratories,
the vastness of foreign power stations, and the success
of American factories in specialization are immeasur-
ably greater than our present achievements. We are
becoming a part, a highly individual but nevertheless
component part, of the world market.

"Our previous independence of the fluctuations of
the world market is going. All the fundamental pro-
cesses of our economy not only come into close relation
with the corresponding processes of the world market,
but are being subjected to the laws governing capitalist
development, including changing conditions. We thus
arrive at a position where, as a business State, it is to
our interest to some extent at least to have improved
conditions in capitalist countries, for, if conditions in
those countries were to grow worse, it would to some
extent be to our disadvantage.

"Our present order is based not only on the struggle
between Socialism and Capitalism, but to a certain

TROTSKY AND "THE OPPOSITION" 119

extent on the collaboration between them. For the
sake of the development of our productive forces, we
not only tolerate private capitalist enterprise, but
again to a certain extent we foster and even 'implant'
it by the granting of concessions, and the leasing of
works and factories. We are extremely concerned with
the development of peasant agriculture, notwithstand-
ing the fact that at the moment it is almost entirely
individualistic in character, and that its growth feeds
both socialistic and capitalistic tendencies of develop-
ment. The danger of the coexistence and collaboration
of the two economic systems the capitalist and the
Socialist (the latter adopting the methods of the first)
lies in the fact that the capitalist forces may get the
best of us.

"While tolerating the existence of capitalistic ten-
dencies, the workers' State is to some extent able to
hold them in check by fostering and encouraging
Socialist tendencies in every possible way. The means
of doing this are: a sound fiscal system and measures
of general administration; a system of home and for-
eign trade; State aid to cooperation; a concessionary
policy in strict conformance to national economic
needs in a word, an all-round system of Socialist
protection.

"Of course, loans, concessions, and the growing
dependence on exports and imports have their dangers.
In no one of these directions can we let go the reins.
But there is an opposite danger equally great; this
consists in a slower rate of progress than would be pos-
sible by an active utilization of all world possibilities.
And we are not free to choose the rate of our develop-

120 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

ment, as we live and grow under the pressure of the
world market.

"If capitalist production were in the next few
decades to commence another period of mighty growth,
this would mean that we, a Socialist State, though
preparing to change and already changing from a
freight train to a faster passenger, would still have to
catch up with the express. To put it more simply, it
would mean that we had made a mistake in the funda-
mental estimation of history. It would mean that
capitalism had not yet exhausted its 'mission' in his-
tory and that the present imperialist phase was not
one of the decline of capitalism, its last convulsions,
but the dawn of a new prosperity for it.

"It is quite clear that under conditions of a new and
protracted period of revival of capitalism, both in
Europe and the rest of the world, Socialism in a back-
ward country would be confronted with great dangers.
Of what kind? A new war, which again would not be
prevented by a 'tricked' European proletariat a war
in which the enemy would oppose us with a superiority
of technical resources? Or would it be by an influx of
capitalist goods, incomparably better and cheaper than
ours, goods which would break our foreign trade
monopoly and afterward the other foundations of our
Socialist economy?"

Who could thus prophesy better than Trotsky him-
self what to him was only the possible fate but which
we consider to be the certain disaster of the whole
Bolshevik experiment?

It must not be forgotten, in judging all that Trotsky
says, that while he is a realist in facing the economic

TROTSKY AND "THE OPPOSITION" 121

problems of Socialism, he is no less confident of the
successful ability of a Soviet State to meet these prob-
lems unless, as he says frankly, the Bolsheviks have
"anticipated history."

Yet Trotsky believes in plunging along vigorously
with active efforts for present and "permanent" world
revolution, just the same! Trotsky for the moment,
however, has been exiled to remote Siberia along with
many other "oppositionists." It is a significant fact
that the most radical and uncompromising group of
Lenin's original confreres in the "October" Revolution
has now been completely disgraced by the powers that
be in the Soviet Government.

XVII
RADEK AND BOLSHEVIK PROPAGANDA

HOUGH he is entirely out of power, Karl Radek
was, with the possible exception of Stanislavsky,
of the Moscow Art Theatre, the most interesting man I
met in Russia. Before I went there I was told he was
the greatest journalist in Europe, and certainly I found
in him a man of extraordinary breadth of information,
and with a philosophical attitude toward life. He is
the Russian counterpart of J. L. Garvin, editor of the
London Observer. It is almost impossible to realize
that men can be revolutionists and yet be so calm and
friendly and genial about it as Radek. He concedes
that he is one of the reddest of the Reds, but his atti-
tude toward revolution is entirely objective. Whereas
I had expected on coming to see him to hear a tirade
against capital and Western (modern) life, I found
him most cordial and genial. He is amazingly well
posted concerning American affairs. On his table
were copies of the New York Times, the New York
Journal of Commerce, and other American papers. His
rooms are a mass of papers, documents and books.

Radek was also President of the Chinese University
in Moscow, at which some 600 Chinamen are in resi-
dence. I asked him how many of them are Commu-

122

RADEK AND BOLSHEVIK PROPAGANDA 123

nists. His reply was: "About 200 are confessed Com-
munists, but that doesn't make any difference; the
chances are that the 400 who call themselves capitalists
may be Communists when they get out, and the 200
who think they are Communists now may turn out to
be capitalists in sentiment. What makes a man either a
capitalist or a Communist is not what he is taught in
school but his experience with life/'

I asked Radek about Bolshevik propaganda in the
United States, and he said: "How can you expect us
to make successful propaganda against 23,000,000
motor cars? We know your workingmen are well
employed and at high wages; if there were oppression
and trouble in America, perhaps our propaganda could
make some headway, but at the present time anyone
who thinks we expect anything of the United States
is to be laughed at.

"The whole basis of Bolshevik propaganda was
stated by a great Chinese philosopher, Mencius, thou-
sands of years ago, when he asked the question: 'How
can you expect a man with no work and no food to
have a quiet brain?' "

NATURE or BOLSHEVIK PROPAGANDA
An official statement regarding Bolshevik propa-
ganda was given by Rykov, as follows: "We have
repeatedly declared that we guarantee the complete
non-interference of the Government of the Soviet
Union, its representatives and the collaborators in its
undertakings, in the internal affairs of other states.
But no means can be invented for securing any
bourgeois state against the idealogical influence of

124 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the proletarian struggle and of the building up of
Socialism in the first state of the proletarian dicta-
torship."

Erom Radek and other sources I gathered a great
deal of information concerning the real nature of
Bolshevik propaganda. Though Radek is not respon-
sible for this conclusion, my impression was that the
so-called Bolshevik propaganda is, in itself, perfectly
futile. I could see nothing in Russia that could be told
about which would attract the rest of the world, nor
was I able to detect, in the examples of Bolshevik
propaganda which I had translated for me, any clever-
ness of technique.

What the Russians are doing is not so much writing
and printing literature to be distributed throughout
the world, as training a very large number of people
in the philosophy and technique of revolution. The
men at present in power directed their revolution pri-
marily against the Tsar; in their plans they naturally
became philosophical and thought of a world planned
according to the world they would like to see estab-
lished in Russia, instead of the Tsarist regime.

No doubt in the time of our own revolution there
were those who would have liked to see republicanism
established throughout the world, but as a matter of
fact the chief objective of the revolution was to get
rid of English rule in America. The revolution, there-
fore, for which the present Russian regime fought was
primarily anti-Tsarist. The revolutionists had been
saturated with the writings of Karl Marx, and conse-
quently they sought to put into operation the theories
of Marx. But their real objective was to get rid of the

RADEK AND BOLSHEVIK PROPAGANDA 125

whole Tsarist regime, and the so-called world revolu-
tion was more or less philosophical and theoretical.

But at the present time the story is different. A
group of 2,000,000 young Communists are being
trained, and 2,000,000 more "Pioneers." Those stu-
dents are being taught the philosophy and technique
of world revolution. These youngsters have not known
the oppression of the Tsarist regime; they are thinking
in terms of world "capitalism."

THE YOUNG COMMUNIST

Their mission in life is going to depend upon their
experience with world capitalism, and what they really
find in it. If they find that world capitalism in their
judgment is in a conspiracy to starve them and destroy
them, it is quite possible these young people will
become flaming hosts throughout Asia, and thus
become a menace to the whole Western world in the
course of a few decades.

I asked Karl Radek what he thought the attitude of
the United States should be toward Russia. His reply
was frank and characteristic: "From my standpoint, I
don't want Russia to seek any rapprochement with
the United States and do not want Western capital in
this country; our pace will be slower but we will arrive
at a better goal. But looking at it philosophically and
imagining the capitalist's standpoint, I may say: f lf
you don't want to drive Russia toward Asia, you will
be well advised to attract it toward the West/ "

A very large number of Bolsheviks envisage in Asia
a consolidated China, out of which the foreigners have
been driven, with all of the influence that such a situa-

126 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

tion may have upon India. And was it not Stalin who
said that one of the fundamental points of the Rus-
sian foreign policy must be to bring about a rapproche-
ment with Japan?

May it not be possible, therefore, that the greatest
menace which faces mankind to-day is the possibility
of a Bolshevist Russia, with a new generation of poorly
fed men and women, holding grievances against West-
ern society, and aligned with all the distressed hordes
of Asia?

XVIII
TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS

THE trade union movement in Russia is under the
control of Tomsky. I called on Tomsky one morn-
ing, by appointment made by the Commissar of For-
eign Affairs. His office in the Trade Union Council
Building was bare but commodious. Tomsky was
assisted in our talk by Melnitchansky and YarotzkL
Melnitchansky is a Russian, was at one time an
organizer in the American Federation of Labor, and is
now "Chief of the Organizational Department of the
U.S.S.R. C.C.T.U." He has been three times exiled
to Siberia. Yarotzki was at one time Associated Press
correspondent in Moscow.

At the beginning of the interview I asked Mr.
Tomsky the difference between the labor movement in
America and that in Russia. He replied: "American
labor cooperates with capital; ours does not." "Yes/'
I said, "but I have just come from your Concessions
Committee, where they tell me they are anxious to
obtain American capital in Russia; if American cap-
ital is wanted here to develop your resources it is neces-
sary to employ labor; if labor is bent upon destroying
capital, how can you expect to have capital come
here?" Tomsky's reply was: "That's a different mat-

127

128 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

ter; we are quite prepared to negotiate with anyone
who wants to do business in Russia."

Tomsky suggests in appearance a cross between J. H.
Thomas, head of the English Railway Unions, and
William Green ; President of the American Federation
of Labor.

Like most of the world-famous revolutionists in Rus-
sia, he has very bad teeth, testimony to lack of tooth-
brushes in prison. When I called on him he wore a
colored shirt, devoid of collar. He is a little hard of
hearing, but his face is full of fire, and on the slightest
provocation he launches forth into a veritable oration.
I asked him: "Do you believe in violent or revolution-
ary methods to accomplish reform?" And he replied:
Revolution is but a quick way of securing evolution."

I asked Tomsky why it was that the Soviet Govern-
ment was so much opposed to the American Federation
of Labor and why the American Federation of Labor
was so bitter toward the Soviet Government, which
was an enthronement of the workman himself. Tomsky
replied that he was quite aware of the attitude of the
American Federation of Labor, but no Russian was
opposed to the American labor men. "No representa-
tive American labor man comes here to discuss the
situation with us. Why doesn't Green come here and
see for himself? We would give him all the hearing he
wants. Then let me come to America to see for myself.
We have nothing here to hide, and I should like to see
what you have to show in America. The fact is we
have too much on our minds with our own troubles
here to think of fighting labor elsewhere."

Tomsky is very proud of the fact that the labor
union movement in Russia is really part of the Gov-

TOMSKY AND THE, TRADE UNIONS 129

ernment. I asked him if he thought the laboring man
in Russia was as well off as the laboring man in Amer-
ica. His reply was that although the American labor-
ing man is paid higher wages the Russian working man
takes so much satisfaction from the fact that he enjoys
political power and many other privileges, social and
otherwise, in connection with his work, that as a mat-
ter of fact he enjoys his job more than the American
or English working man!

I could not imagine any American working man
seeing or hearing of working conditions there being
willing to trade places with what he would find in
Soviet Russia. But it is very easy to see how the influ-
ence of the Soviet trade unions, with their insistence
upon the class struggle, makes trouble for the Social
Democratic labor movement the world over.

Industrial workers took over control of factories and
other organizations early in the revolution, and formed
"shop committees." Even the managers were directly
under the orders and supervision of the organization of
their workmen. But one of Trotsky's complaints
against the present tendency was summed up in this
way:

"The power of management is steadily growing.
It has already exclusive right of dismissal for default
or misdemeanors and no appeal is possible. Men are
also engaged by the management and the function of
the factory Soviets is limited to mere registration.
The workmen no longer share in the control and man-
agement of their factories. Their opinion and criticism
are disregarded more and more."

Tomsky claims a total number of trade union mem-
bers in Russia of 9,500,000, of which about 1,000,000

130 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

are railway employees and about 1,000,000 are state,
public and commercial employees. The next largest
category is metal workers, of whom there are 825,000,
textile workers, 90,000, and educational workers,
716,000.

The following figures summarize the statement of
the labor union movement in Russia at the end of
1926, as given to me by Tomsky himself:

Number of organized workers:

In October, 1922 4,600,000

In October, 1923 5,600,000

In October, 1924 6,400,000

In October, 1925 7,500,000

In July, 1926 9,278,000

Number of employed covered by collective agreements:

At the beginning of 1925 4,822,000

At the beginning of 1926 6,221,000

In the industrial unions, at the beginning of 1926, col-
lective agreements embraced 96.4 per cent of all
employed.

The average monthly wage of workers (as stated by
the C.C.T.U.) in large industries was: (the data below
cover 1,351,000 workers in 1924-25 and 1,745,000 work-
ers in 1925-26) :

In October-December, 1924 40 rubles

In July-September, 1926 58 rubles

I was told that many factories, perhaps even most
factories, are now operated on the piece work system
in spite of the Marxian denunciation of piece work as
a basis for wages. The alternative which Marx had
recommended was tried in Russia and failed.

TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS 131

COST or LIVING

The cost of living is very high in all of Russia, and
one wonders how people make both ends meet. The
maximum salary of any Communist for any public
position is 225 rubles ($115.00) per month.

The maximum salary of any of the officers of the
State industrial or business activities is seldom more
than 500 rubles per month.

I was told that 83 per cent of the Managing Direc-
tors of business enterprises in Russia receive less than
400 rubles per month, and I was given, by the C.C.T.U.,
the following table, showing the present average sal-
aries of the managers of the larger enterprises, con-
taining a ratio, which the labor unions consider sig-
nificant, between the manager's salary and the workers'
wage:

Manager's salary in March, 1926:

Average

monthly Ratio between the

salary manager's salary

Industry in rubles and workers' wage

Metallurgy 332.2 5.1

Mining 327.2 6.4

Textile 288.1 6.6

Chemical 331.4 5.7

Food 274.4 6.5

Leather 286.9 3.7

Paper 374.1 6.7

Printing 231.5 3.2

Average for all industries . . 309.9 5.7

The trade union people told me that minors
employed in industry in Russia (from 14 to 18 years
of age those below 14 are not allowed to work) num-
ber only 131,300, or 5.5 per cent of the total employed.
The work day of miners is limited by law and

132 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

fixed at from 4 to 6 hours. The working hours of
adults are claimed never to exceed 8 hours, and to
represent an average of about 7% hours, and it is also
said that there is very little overtime.

It is stated that there are 648,600 women in employ-
ment, or 27.2 per cent of the total number of employed
workers.

LABOK POLICY TOWAED CONCESSIONS

Tomsky gave me this statement of the policy of
trade unions toward private enterprise:

"The relations with private enterprise are deter-
mined by the class struggle and the conflict of class
interests. Therefore, the trade unions resort to the
strike as a normal method of economic struggle, take
no part, direct or indirect, in the organization of pro-
duction, and in their economic demands pursue the
interests of the workers exclusively, leaving to the
employer all the cares incident to the operation of the
undertaking.

"In private concession and 'mixed' enterprises it is
not allowed to organize production conferences or set
up commissions, nor is it allowed to create funds
(which are deducted from the profits) for the improve-
ment of the living conditions of the workers, because
even indirect sharing of the profits would conflict with
the principles of the class struggle. \

"There is also a different policy with regard to admis-
sion to trade union membership. While in Soviet
enterprises members of the administration belong to a
trade union, in private, concession and even 'mixed'
enterprises only certain classes of employees are admit-

TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS 133

ted to trade union membership. Persons occupying
certain administrative positions cannot belong to a
trade union.

"The conditions of work in private, concession and
'mixed 7 enterprises are regulated by collective agree-
ments.

"Factory committees are formed everywhere. In
undertakings employing a small number of workers,
there is a special trade union representative instead of
a factory committee.

"The wage level in private undertakings is never
lower, and in many cases is higher, than in State under-
takings, because the trade unions do not want capital
to accumulate in private hands and are endeavoring
to reduce the accumulations of private owners to a
minimum.

"All collective agreements in private industry are
made by the Central Committees of the trade unions."

In a formal circular published January 31, 1927, to
all trade unions in Russia, this language was used:

In concession undertakings the policy of the
trade unions should be somewhat different. Al-
though the concessionaire is the enemy of the
working class, and although the working class
should do nothing to improve the output of the
undertaking, it is important that the trade unions
should not forget that the working class and the
Soviet State are interested in attracting foreign
capital (up to a point, and under State 'Control)
toward those branches of the national economy
which, for the time being, cannot be developed or
exploited with the resources of the State alone. It
is also essential that in concession undertakings
the best methods of work should be employed.

134 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

In these circumstances, the trade unions should
not confront the concessionaire with claims which
might lead to the closing down of the enterprise,
and should in no case oppose the introduction of
improved technical methods, even if such improved
methods involve the dismissal of a certain number
of workers.

Finally, the trade unions should conduct an
energetic campaign against all attempts by man-
agements, in priyate or concession undertakings,
to diminish the authority of the trade unions, par-
ticularly by appealing directly to the higher trade
union organizations over the heads of the work
councils or the trade union delegates.

According to Tomsky, about 284,000 trade union
members are employed in private and concession enter-
prises, comprising 2.9 per cent of the total trade union
membership,

STRIKES

Strikes are called by Soviet trade unions mainly in
private and concession enterprises. Against State
undertakings strikes occur very seldom, although they
are not forbidden and are allowed in principle in really
"necessary" cases. Tie stated reasons are quite simple:

"A Soviet undertaking by its very social nature pre-
cludes the class struggle, the conflict of class interests,
and, consequently, the acute forms of the struggle,
such as strikes; besides, there is no practical necessity
for strikes in. State undertakings. Any dispute which
arises between a trade union and some economic body
can be settled by peaceful means-(-the Conciliation
Chamber or a Court of Arbitration. ) And in those
cases where the economic body concerned does not

TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS 135

wish to accept arbitration, compulsory arbitration
may be imposed at the request of the trade union.
However, in certain cases strikes do occur in State
undertakings chiefly as a protest against incorrect
actions on the part of the administration. Such strikes
often affect not the whole undertaking, but only indi-
vidual sections."

The following table indicates the strike movement
in the U.S.S.R. during the last few years:

Number of strikes Number of strikers

in enterprises' in enterprises

Total State Private Total State Private

1924 267 151 116 49,600 42,800 6,800

1925 196 99 97 37,600 34,000 3,600

1926 (Jan.-

June) 92 58 34 14,300 11,400 2,900

The number of strikes and strikers is stated to be
decreasing every year. Compared with the total num-
ber of workers (in industry, agriculture and in trans-
portation) it constitutes an insignificant percentage.
For instance, the number of employed trade union
members on October 1, 1925 (with the exception of
the following unions: state, public, and commercial
workers, art workers, educational workers, public
health workers and postal-telegraph workers) was
5,031,500. The number of strikers in 1925 thus con-
stitutes a little more than 0.5 per cent of the employed
trade union members, and even less than that of the
total number employed. In private undertakings the
percentage is higher about 6 per cent of the number
of workers employed. The number of strikes in State
industries is relatively insignificant if one remembers

136 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

that there are thousands of undertakings. It is small
also in private industry.

The decline of the strike movement is explained
mainly by "the growing influence of the trade unions,
the development of the national economy, and the
better regulation of the conditions of work."

The decrease in the number of strikes in private
undertakings is explained by the fact that "all the
strikes usually end in victory for the workers, and the
employers are less inclined to let any dispute develop
into a strike."

RELIEF TO FOREIGN UNIONS

The Russians are very frank in all their statements
of policy, and Tomsky gave me much information
which was extremely significant. For instance, I was
advised that as recently as April 18, 1927, a delegation
of Norwegian trade union men had come to Moscow
to report an extensive lock-out called in Norway by
factory owners, when tens of thousands of workers
were thrown out of employment and a reduction in
wages of from 10 per cent to 25 per cent was ordered.
As a result the Presidium of the Central Council of
the Trade Unions of the U.S.S.R. voted 1,000,000 Nor-
wegian kronen (about $250,000) in aid of the locked-
out Norwegian workers, 200,000 kronen were given as
a gift, and 800,000 kronen as a "long-term loan with-
out interest, dates of payment to be determined by the
Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions."

Tomsky gave me this explanation of the significance
of assistance by Soviet trade unions to foreign work-
ers: It is the policy to assist trade unions in all parts

TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS 137

of the world "in the effort to promote class solidarity"
whenever working men are "struggling against cap-
ital." The trade unions explain that it was only after
the stabilization of money in Russia (the first step
toward capitalism) that they were able to send much
money abroad, but I was given a list of the contribu-
tions to foreign workers from January 1, 1924, to
October 1, 1926, as follows:

Rubles
Number Country Amount

1 China 175,949

2 Germany 68,288

3 France 31,470

4 Norway 27,435

5 Japan 21,489

6 Sweden 13,500

7 Poland 12,495

8 India 10,000

9 Italy 9,962

10 Belgium 7,925

11 Jugoslavia 6,670

12 Syria 5,950

13 Canada 5,842

14 Bulgaria 5,450

15 Greece 5,000

16 Austria 4,100

17 Holland 3,840

18 Switzerland 3,000

19 Finland 2,305

20 '. . Esthonia 1,600

21 Lithuania 200

22 Rumania 156

422,626
Through R.I.L.U 11,891

Grand total of contributions 434,517

138 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

I was given a detailed list of the contributions to
the British Miners' Relief Fund, covering all pay-
ments May, 1926, to March 1, 1927, showing the
sources of all the money, geographically as well as
from newspapers, organizations, etc. This statement
showed that contributions from regional trade union
organizations amounted to 12,000,000 rubles; from
the Central Committee's National Organization,
3,000,000; from newspapers, individuals and institu-
tions, 1,000,000 rubles a total of 16,000,000 rubles, or
about $8,000,000.

LABOE UNIONS AND POLITICS
The relationship of labor to politics in Russia is set
forth in the following official statement:

"The Soviets are the organs of State through which
the working class exercises its dictatorship. At the
same time the Soviets are mass organizations which
serve as a means of drawing the broad masses of work-
ers into the Government of the country. The trade
unions in the U.S.S.R. therefore devote a great deal
of attention to Soviet elections, take an active part in
the election campaign and endeavor to draw into the
elections as large a number of workers and employees
as possible. For this purpose the trade unions carry
on considerable agitation, take part in the work of
election committees in the organization of elections
in undertakings and institutions, and in the selection of
candidates.

"Attaching great importance to the maintenance of
proletarian influence upon the peasantry, the trade
unions take an active part in Soviet elections, not only

TOMSKY AND THE TRADE UNIONS 139

in the city but also in the village, working through the
trade union members who are in the village, particu-
larly the agricultural workers."

INCIDENTAL UNION ACTIVITIES
Among the interesting developments of the labor
unions in Russia is that of the so-called c

A Red Corner is a small room in an inHusfaria
lishment (usually in every large department) or at the
workers' communal dwellings, which serves for cul-
tural-educational work, in addition to that carried on
in the workers' clubs. "The object of the Red Corner
is to bring the cultural work nearer to the laboring

masses."

In the Red Corner there are newspapers, magazines
and books. Talks are delivered on political and trade
union questions, readings are arranged for those work-
ers who are not sufficiently literate. In Red Corners
which are located in factories the work is carried on
mainly during lunch time, and in those which are out-
side, during non-working hours. Many Red Corners
have political and trade union subdivisions.

Red Corners came into existence several years ago:
at the end of 1924 there were 8,000 "corners"; in Jan-
uary, 1926, they numbered 21,700. To give me an
idea of the extent of their work, these figures for
December, 1925, were supplied: During that month
the Red Corners reported 36,600 readings, 42,600
talks, lectures, reports, etc., 1,800 performances total-
ing 81,000.

The trade unions make it their special business to

140 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

stimulate interest in the theatre and the movies on
the part of their members. The trade unions organ-
ize dramatic performances, concerts, etc., at trade
union clubs, and they supply theatre tickets and cin-
ema tickets at reduced rates.

During 1925, the Leningrad trade unions distrib-
uted among their members 2,434,362 reduced-rate
tickets (50 per cent reduction), of which 815,374 were
to theatres and 1,618,988 to cinemas, which represents
40 per cent of the seating capacity of all the amuse-
ment places of the city.

During the month of December, 1924, in the 3,417
trade union clubs throughout the U.S.S.R., there were
14,350 dramatic performances, 5,615 concerts and eve-
ning parties, 6,709 motion pictures and 1,709 "live
newspapers" (news items acted) ; altogether 28,383
performances, attended by 7,508,000 people.

As a communique of the Central Council of the
trade unions announced:

"Thanks to such trade union activities, workers and
employees are enabled to satisfy their cultural needs;
in particular., to go to the theatre, which the workers
could not do before the revolution, owing to high prices
of theatre tickets."

XIX

CONCESSIONS

\ LL business in Russia which is not done either
** directly or indirectly by the Government is done
through "concessionaiEps." And it is primarily to
attract foreigrTcajpIfal into Russia that "concessions"
are granted. The granting of concessions is in the
hands of a Chief Concessions Committee, headed
nominally until recently by Trotsky. The actual head
was Joffe, but he committed suicide, and now the
Chairman is Ksandroff, upon whom the burden of the
work had largely fallen for some time. I had a long
talk with Ksandroff, and found him with a clear com-
prehension of his difficulties, at least, so far as dealing
with foreign capital is concerned.

I made earnest effort not only in Russia to find out
the concessions policy of the Soviet Government, but
also before going to Russia, in England, in France,
and in Germany, to find out the general experience of
investors in placing capital in Russia.

The experience of the Soviet Government in encour-
aging the investment of foreign capital in Russia has
not been a success, and members of the Concessions
Committee in Moscow were quite frank in saying that
during the past six months the number of applications
for concessions has diminished decidedly. Soon after

141

142 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the Bolshevik revolution, a number of highly specu-
lative concessions were granted. Some of these have
turned out well; most of them have been failures. The
Russians maintain that in the case of those concessions
which have resulted in failure, the collapse has been
due primarily to two causes: first, insufficient capital;
second, lack of expert knowledge on the part of the
concessionaires of the task they had undertaken.

I had an illuminating conversation with a member
of the Concessions Committee and asked him two lead-
ing questions. I requested that his answers to these
two questions be written out and given to me in Eng-
lish. Herewith are the questions and the answers
exactly as given to me by the Bolshevik Government:

"Question : Many important American business men
would like to make investments in Russia if they felt
that, when invested, their capital would be safe from
prohibitive taxation, confiscation, and unexpected
demands on the part of the Government and labor
unions. There is a saying in America: 'A burnt child
dreads the fire/ Once people having had their prop-
erty seized they need good reasons to convince them-
selves that this won't occur again.

"What guaranties can you give that the Soviet
Government won't again confiscate all private prop-
erty as it did just after the revolution? What is there
to prevent the Soviet Government from turning round
and acting again in the same way?

"Answer: The fundamental question which you
have just put to me we have heard hundreds of times.
We understand why this question is addressed specially
to the TJ.S.S.R. It is because the first act of the Soviet

CONCESSIONS 143

Government when it assumed power was the confisca-
tion of private property, in order to safeguard the
revolution from attacks from within.

CONCESSION A SPECIAL PRIVILEGE
"In business practice a contract between two busi-
ness firms is guaranteed usually by a bank or a third
party. But when a contract is concluded between a
Government and a private concern no guaranties are
required from the contracting Government. The safest
guaranty in our case is the concession agreement itself
which, from the legal standpoint and in actuality, is
an act of legislation on the part of our Government
and not a simple legal instrument. A concession
granted to a foreign concern is a special privilege, an
exception from our established law. It is a specially
enacted law and is therefore a part of our legal system.
In all concession agreements there is provision for a
special court of arbitration which is to pass on all ques-
tions at issue between the Soviet Government and the
concessionaire. Thus the interpretation of the law is
not made by our own legal institutions, but by a third
and neutral body. Our undertaking of these obliga-
tions is our best guaranty.

"The fact that at the foundation of our national
economy lies the principle of denial of private property
in no way signifies that we cannot, on certain condi-
tions, invite foreign capital to work alongside of our
socialized industry. We have restored our economic
life and at present it is fairly prosperous, but we want
to accelerate its pace and increase its weight in world
markets. We are willing to offer advantageous fields

144 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

of activity to foreign capital because it will work to
our mutual benefit.

"Do you consider that we are so stupid as to cut
away the branch on which we are sitting? We, more
than anybody else, know that such an act will injure
us more than by not allowing foreign capital to work
with us at all.

"We have given proof time and again that we mean
to keep our agreements, engagements and undertak-
ings. No obligation undertaken by the Soviet Govern-
ment has ever been renounced or not been carried out
in full. Foreign capital working with Government
institutions or business organizations has never refused
to meet its obligations. In concession agreements, the
Soviet Government guarantees that no property of the
concessionaire can be confiscated or requisitioned;
compulsory recovery of debts is also precluded, except
by court decision in case of prosecution by a third
party. All questions at issue are submitted to a court
of arbitration. The fact that so far not a single con-
cessionaire has ever taken recourse to arbitration
courts shows how attentively the Soviet Government
takes consideration of the interests of the concession-
aire.

"Psychologically^ I understand your anxiety and
your question. Foreigners ask themselves: How can
the Bolsheviks, being enemies of private property in
general, invite foreign capital to work in Russia? But
the fact is that private property may sooner be con-
fiscated or nationalized in a country where the prole-
tarian revolution has not occurred, than in U.S.S.R.
where the revolution is already consummated.

CONCESSIONS 145

"We admit foreign capital because we are now strong
enough and can regulate its role in our Socialist econ-
omy. We can not and do not surrender to it any of
the commanding heights in industry, but allot to it a
place in our industry where it will be useful and advan-
tageous both to us and to the concessionaire, without
endangering the Socialist principles of our economic
system.

"In certain branches of industry, according to the
plan, we admit foreign capital to the extent of 10 per
cent, 20 per cent and even 40 per cent and in excep-
tional cases more. For instance, let us say we have a
branch of industry with 100 million rubles already
invested, and in order to enlarge it we need an addi-
tional investment of 100 million rubles. We would be
willing to admit 50 per cent of this new capital to be
invested by foreigners.

"Question: When a concession is granted to any
one involving exploitation of property one must
employ workers, pay wages. Does the Government
control the demands of the workers or must the con-
cessionaire take his chances in negotiating with the
labor unions direct?

LABOR PROBLEM OF CONCESSIONAIRE
"Answer: We do not as a Government undertake
any obligation, on that matter. The concessionaire
must take it upon himself in concluding agreements
with the unions. The labor unions are not departments
of the State, they are altogether autonomous and inde-
pendent and it is self-evident that the Government
and its organs in the U.S.S.R. can control the labor

146 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

unions as little as any other State. The interrelation
of workers and concessionaire is regulated amicably
and voluntarily by signed 'collective agreements/
which in most cases are mentioned in concessional
contracts.

"The labor organizations, particularly their leaders,
are in general not only informed of the concessional
policy of the Soviet Government but fully support it.
It is therefore impossible to think that the leaders of
the labor movement in the U.S.S.R. would consciously
seek with their policy to upset or harm the concessional
policy of the Soviet Government. Locally there may
occur difficulties between the concessionaire and work-
ers, but the central labor organizations always seek as
far as possible to conciliate these difficulties, and in
practice such misunderstandings are always settled."

CONCESSIONS COME HARD AND SLOWLY
The concessions policy of the Soviet Government
has developed very slowly. Until quite recently there
was little information available concerning the actual
operation and success of the few concessions that have
been granted, after careful consideration, by the Soviet
Government during the past five years. The latest list
published shows 1,509 applications received from 1922
to 1925 inclusive, of which most were from Germany,
with England, the United States, and Italy following.
Of these only 226 had been granted and were operat-
ing on January 1, 1926; "regular" concessions, those
occupied in developing Russian resources, numbered
86; mixed companies, with part of the stock h&ld by
the Soviet Government or one of its organizations, and

CONCESSIONS 147

at least part of them engaged in trading only, 31;
while the balance consisted of foreign firms, registered
in Soviet Russia and doing business there, and of mixed
companies authorized but not yet functioning. Of
this meager total German capital was invested in 29,
English in 21, American in 13, with other nations rep-
resented in only 3 to 5 each. Of all concessions actu-
ally granted, over half were finally rejected or with-
drawn.

RED TAPE TO BE CUT

There seems to be general agreement that the first
difficulty to be overcome in securing a Soviet conces-
sion is that of time. I was told that the Krupp
agricultural concession which was originally to grow
wheat, later found that the ground was salty and
wheat could not be grown there, and toiled six
months to get the concession changed so as to per-
mit raising sheep instead of growing wheat. The eager
seeker for a concession must wait months and fill out
endless questionnaires before his application reaches
the final authorities. There is only one way to avoid
this labyrinth of offices, whose signature or approval
is necessary, and that is through "acquaintance": if
one knows the right man, months can be saved. Yet
even with all intermediate steps taken and function-
aries satisfied, there is always the chance that the
Government heads may refuse an application; as
witness the case of Leslie Urquhart, who, after
months of work, obtained a signed and sealed con-
cession contract, only to have it torn up by Lenin
himself.

148 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

The Russians maintain that they have many favor-
able exhibits to present to prospective concessionaires.
For instance, Mr. Joffe said:

"We maintain that on the whole the work of conces-
sional enterprises in the Soviet Union has been until
now exceedingly profitable. Let us quote a few exam-
ples:

'The concessional enterprise 'S. K F. ? (ball-bear-
ing), with an investment of only 765,800 rubles, accord-
ing to statement of the concessionaire himself, has
after paying all taxes, royalties, assessments for social
needs, etc., received in three years a net profit of
1,074,000 rubles.

"The concessional enterprise 'Raabe' with an invest-
ment of 329,000 rubles received for 1925 a net profit of
137,000 rubles.

"The firm 'Berger und Wirt ? with an invested capital
of 585,800 rubles received in 1925 a net profit of
162,000 rubles, and for the three years, regardless of a
fire which had taken place in this factory, it received
238,500 rubles of net profits."

Three outstanding concessions have been granted by
the Soviet Government since the revolution. These
may be said to typify the experience in one form or
other of practically all of the concessions which have
been granted. One of these is the Mologoles conces-
sion, granted to a German syndicate of which Dr.
Wirth, formerly German Chancellor, was the head; the
Harriman concession, granted to W. A. Harriman and
his associates, for the exploitation of manganese mines
in the Caucasus; third, the Lena Goldfields conces-
sion, granted to a British company for the develop-

CONCESSIONS 149

ment of a gold mining area along the Lena River in
Siberia.

THE MOLOGOLES CONCESSION

The Mologoles concession has been a complete fail-
ure and is now to be liquidated, the property taken
over by the Russian Government and a payment made
to the German shareholders for the property which
has been taken over. The Russian explanation of the
Mologoles failure as supplied to me by the Russian
Government was as follows:

"The greater part of the Mologoles difficulties was
due to lack of capital. The Mologoles concession was
the first large German concession in the territory of
the U.S.S.R. The basic capital invested during the
first period consisted of only 300,000 marks, for an
enterprise embracing 1,000 square miles of lumber ter-
ritory and including a railway project of 200 kilometres.
Later they invested something like 3,000,000 marks.
All this time they were working on borrowed foreign
capital for which, according to the concessionaire him-
self, he was paying 17 per cent annual interest. Even
with this, however, he could not collect the necessary
funds to carry on his work. As a result, the Soviet
Government granted the concessionaire something like
8,000,000 rubles on short term credit to be repaid in
dates fixed by himself at 8 per cent per annum. This
grant was made in the hope that he would be able to
raise the necessary means abroad.

"The clear profits of his enterprise working within
the U.S.S.R. according to his own official accounts, was
800,000 rubles for 1926. All this profit was swallowed

150 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

up by the expenditures of the board of directors in
Berlin and in meeting their obligations to creditors
abroad.

"The whole sum invested by Mologoles in the
U.S.S.R. is 5,200,000 rubles. A profit of 800,000 rubles
on such a sum we consider quite sufficient. Unfortu-
nately, the hopes of the concessionaire to raise the nec-
essary capital and meet his obligations have not mate-
rialized.

"In accordance with the agreement, if the concession
was liquidated, the concessionaire was entitled to
receive a sum of 500,000 to 600,000 rubles from us.
Notwithstanding this, the Soviet Government pro-
posed to take over all his property at the average mar-
ket prices on fixed conditions, guaranteeing a much
larger sum of money. That our offer was acceptable
to the concessionaire was proved by the fact that at
the meeting of the creditors and shareholders the con-
ditions of liquidation proposed by us were adopted.

"We are so convinced of the business and moral
propriety of our dealings in this matter that at the
very outset we proposed to submit the question to any
court of arbitration if the concessionaire was not satis-
fied with our offers,"

THE HAKRIMAN CONCESSION
The Russians consider that the best illustration of
their real concessions policy is to be found in the Har-
riman case. Mr. W. A. Harriman made a contract
with the Russian Government involving the develop-
ment of manganese ore properties in the Caucasus.

CONCESSIONS 151

Under his contract he was to pay to the Government a
certain royalty on each ton exported, he was to build
a railroad, and of course he had to employ labor to
work on his properties. The concession has been found
unworkable, however, for the following reasons:

First, it is understood that Mr. Harriman contem-
plated that he would have a monopoly of Russian
manganese export ; whereas, as a matter of fact, there
was a group of State mines in the Nikopol region in
Russia which also exported manganese, and after the
Harriman concession was granted the development of
the Nikopol region was increased.

Second, through the development of manganese
properties in other parts of the world, the price of
manganese declined seriously, and it was an economic
impossibility to pay the royalty to the Russian Gov-
ernment contemplated in the Harriman contract.

Third, the cost of building the contemplated rail-
road was far in excess of the amount estimated at the
beginning.

Fourth, the labor unions are said to have made exac-
tions upon Mr. Harriman which were quite beyond the
capacity of the concession to stand. In a Moscow
newspaper, printed certainly with the consent if not
the approval of the Government, a despatch from
Tiflis stated that the collective agreement under which
the Harriman concession had been operating had
expired and that a new one was under negotiation. The
labor unions demanded an increase of a minimum of
14% P er cent i 11 wages; new houses for 1,000 work-
men, in addition to those which the concessionaire

152 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

had already agreed to erect; free outer clothing and
boots to underground workers; the hiring of clerks only
through the unions, etc.

The Harriman concession has now been renewed
upon terms far more favorable to Mr. Harriman and
far more reasonable from the Government's standpoint.
The Russian Government officials instance the Harri-
man case as an example of their reasonableness and dis-
position to meet the concessionaire halfway in taking
care of unexpected conditions. Just how much of the
attitude of the Government is due to its quite frank
recognition of the fact that upon the success of the
Harriman concession will depend any possibility what-
ever of enlisting the interest of American capital in
Russia, cannot be estimated.

One of the members of the Concessions Committee
outlined the attitude of the Committee toward the
Harriman concession in the following language:

"We are interested more in the organization of
enterprises conducted by the newest and best methods
and having the most modern and up-to-date machin-
ery, in order to serve as an example to our own enter-
prises. The Harriman negotiations will prove to you
that we cannot be suspected of seeking large and imme-
diate profits.

"When we signed the original agreement with Har-
riman, its conditions must have been acceptable both
for him and for us, otherwise we should not have signed
it. Neither he nor we could have foreseen the future
trend of the manganese world market. You are
familiar with the changes that have taken place in
manganese production, opening up of new fields in

CONCESSIONS 153

South America and West Africa, changes in the metal-
lurgical processes, etc.

"We knew that his export difficulties made it hard
for him to invest fresh capital, in which we were inter-
ested far more than in getting larger royalties. We
realized that this fresh capital would have put the min-
ing process on a higher technical basis and, in addi-
tion, would have improved the loading facilities at
Poti.

"However, we did not hold to the letter of the agree-
ment. We decided to meet him halfway and help him
organize a model enterprise. We are ready to alter
some of the provisions of the contract. In so far as it
depends on us to do it, we are willing to help him solve
his troubles.

"Of course we are naturally interested in finding a
place in the sun for our own manganese which is pro-
duced at the Nikopol mines. We want to find a niche
for it in the world market, but we are willing to curtail
our export in order to make it possible for Mr. Harri-
man to fight his competitors. In regard to royalties,
we have also decided to adopt a more flexible formula.

"We have no hidden purpose in our dealings with
concessionaires and foreign capital. We know that if
one big concession becomes a failure it will mean a
serious blow to our concessions policy. That is why
we are interested, no less than the concessionaires
themselves, in making concessions successful."

THE LENA GOLDFIELDS

The Lena Goldfields concession was described by
officers of the Lena Goldfields, Ltd., as entirely satis-

154 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

factory from their standpoint. As the managing direc-
tor of the company described his policy to me, it was
as follows:

"We first of all took particular pains to see to it that
we knew what we were talking about; we signed noth-
ing that we did not know all about. We have been
absolutely on the level in dealing with the Russian
Government, and we have gone upon the assumption
that they would be on the level in dealing with us.
Up to now we have had no reason to regret that
assumption/ 7

The Concessions Committee makes certain other
points concerning the policy of the Soviet Govern-
ment. One of their points, to paraphrase their own
language, is the following:

"We know that foreign capital does not enter the
U.S.S.R. just to please the Soviet Government. We
know that the contract must be profitable in the long
run. But we also know that few business enterprises
yield profits from the day they begin operations, and
that those who expect to realize profits immediately
are sure to be disappointed. Organization difficulties
during the first periods must be foreseen. For this
very reason the Soviet Government leases its conces-
sions for long terms. Thus 'Mologoles' is leased for
25 years; 'Lena Goldfields' for 30 years; Harriman for
20 years; Krupp Agricultural concession for 36 years;
S.K.F. ball-bearing for 40 years; Sakhalin Japanese
Coal and Oil concession for 35 years.

"Second, all our concessions contemplate that by
the expiration of the term of the concession all the
capital invested therein will have been fully repaid to

CONCESSIONS 155

the concessionaire. Also that during the term of the
concession itself it should prove to be profitable.

"Third, nobody forces a concessionaire to sign a con-
tract. The applicants should know better than the
Soviet Government itself the business side of the mat-
ter, for the concession proposals are usually suggested
by them.

"Fourth, Soviet concession profits necessarily depend
on world conditions. Immediately after the war there
was a period of speculative effort all round, but the
capitalist states have, to a larger or smaller degree,
radically cured themselves of the post-war speculative
delirium; world capitalism on the whole has stabilized
itself, and a 'Dawes-ized' Europe has, by some means
or other, reconstructed its economy. At the same time
the attitude of foreign capital toward Russia is chang-
ing. Very important concession proposals in increas-
ingly large numbers, particularly from the United
States, are coming to the Concessions Committee.

"Fifth, the Russian Government does not want
small enterprises, those operated purely by speculators,
or those which will require Russian capital. We need
all our own capital, and the only object in offering con-
cessions is to attract foreign capital.

"Sixth, the Soviet Government recognizes the neces-
sity henceforth of vitalizing its concessions policy by
not merely awaiting applications for concessions but
initiating concession plans to operate which foreign
capital may be invited."

There can be no doubt that Russia seeks foreign
capital most earnestly, and that the fundamental
policy of the really intelligent men in the Russian

156 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Government to-day is to attract foreign capital. To
be sure, one very influential Bolshevik said to me, "We
do not want your capital. Without it we will move
more slowly, but toward a better goal." But that is
not the view of Stalin and the Soviet Government.

It is a very real question and one the Russians will
be required to face: Can the Russian Government
obtain the capital required simply on the basis of its
own promises and good will or will it be necessary, as
has been done by Austria-Hungary and Germany, to
pledge certain revenues or certain definite sources of
wealth as security for loans or advances of capital?

Certain it is that the supreme dilemma of the Rus-
sian regime is this:

"If we seek foreign capital on terms satisfactory to
foreign capital, we sacrifice a certain amount of our
socialistic doctrines and repudiate, by inference at
least, some of the fundamental principles of the revo-
lution; if we do not obtain foreign capital, Russia can
exist and advance, to be sure, but so slowly as to con-
stitute virtual stagnation."

XX
FOREIGN RELATIONS

THE Soviet Government has been recognized in
one form or another by twenty^two^^ nati^ns^
Recognition has been withdrawn by England omyTThe
relations which have been established, however, are :
of varying degrees of comprehensiveness, and only
with Germany is there a treaty which covers every;
phase of diplomatic relations. frhe Soviet Govern-
ment long refused to have any official relations with
the League of Nations on the ground that the League
of Nations was primarily a body to carry out the
Treaty of Versailles and impose the will of imperialist
victors on the world. What effect the entrance of
Germany into the League of Nations will have on this
point of view remains to be seen. The Soviet Govern-
ment sent a delegation to the Economic Conference
called by the League in May, and participated in the
preliminary Disarmament Conference.

The foreign relations of the country are in the hands
of George Tchitcherin, a highly cultivated product of
European ratheFTEan Russian culture. Tchitcherin
can make a speech in four languages, Russian, French,
English and German, and in each of them with equal
skill. He had been sick on leave from Moscow for
six months at the time I visited Russia and, in his

157

158 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

absence, the foreign relations were in charge of Mr.
Litvinoff, Vice Commissar of Foreign Affairs, with
whom I had several talks. Mr. Litvinoff is a trained
diplomat, thoroughly versed in ways of European
diplomacy. He married an English wife and speaks
English fluently. In one of our early talks I asked
him this question:

"In foreign countries, in most European nations, it
is customary to call the head of a ministry 'Excellency/
With your title of Commissar, I do not know exactly
how to address a minister of the Russian Government.
Should I call him 'Mr. Minister/ 'Excellency/ 'Mr.
Commissar/ or simply 'Mr. LitvinofP?"

To which he replied:

"Personally, I much prefer to be called simply 'Mr.
Litvinoff/ although, in official conversation, the diplo-
mats of other countries still use the old forms."

The Russian Foreign Office, "N^omindel," occu-
pies a ramshackle old building in me lieaK of the
business section of Moscow. It is organized very much
as is the Foreign Office of any other government, with
the relationship between Russia and the various States
of the world parceled out among different "experts."

RUSSIA AND GERMANY

It is the general opinion throughout Europe that the
diplomat in Russia who is closest to Mr. Tchitcherin is
the German Ambassador, Count Brockdorff Rantzau.
He, it will be remembered, was the German diplomat
sent to Versailles to receive and negotiate the Treaty
prepared by the Allies and who, when he saw it,
resigned rather than sign it. He is a diplomat of the

FOREIGN RELATIONS 159

old school, looks like a Frenchman rather than a Ger-
man, and speaks French fluently, though hardly a word
of English. His embassy in Moscow is manned by a
competent corps of assistants, who thoroughly under-
stand the technique of all diplomatic relationships.

In Moscow, one finds a certain friendliness toward
Germany, based largely on the thought that Germany
was the under dog in what Russians call the "Imperi-
alist victory/' but the sentiment of the Soviet Govern-
ment is still one of great bitterness over the fact that
the Brest-Litovsk treaty was imposed by Germany at
the point of the sword. In the event that Germany
should become financially strong and prosperous again
there would be no more sympathy for the "under dog."

Russian relations in Berlin are handled from a very
elaborate Russian Embassy on the Unter den Linden,
and the chief point of contact is Dr. Herbert von
Dirksen, one of the most accomplished students of
foreign affairs of the Wilhelmstrasse, who is also in
charge of the German Government relationships with
Asia. The attitude of Germany toward Russia was
stated in the Reichstag by Foreign Minister Strese-
mann in June, 1927, in these words:

"Germany now, as before, preserves friendly
relations with Soviet Russia and has not permitted
herself to be drawn into an anti-Soviet alliance.

"Germany considered it compatible with a posi-
tion of friendliness to warn the Soviet Government
of the danger of its diplomatic position after the
assassination of Wojkoff, the Soviet Minister at
Warsaw, and had obtained assurances from Mos-
cow that the Soviet Government would take no
drastic steps against Poland."

160 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

In general, the attitude of Germany toward Russia
was summarized for me authoritatively as follows:

The Germans have found the Russians exceed-
ingly difficult to negotiate with, but, once a politi-
cal or economic agreement is arranged, the Ger-
mans have found the Russians scrupulous in
keeping up their part of the bargain.

The Germans have no anxiety about Russian
propaganda. They state that, although in the days
immediately after the war, when there was tense
atmosphere everywhere, the Bolshevik propaganda
made some headway in Germany, at the present
time the Communist Party is growing weaker,
although it has sixty members in the Reichstag.
The worst enemy of the Bolshevist Party in Ger-
many is the Social Democratic Party, which is a
somewhat more moderate element than even the
Labor Party in England. The only restrictions on
Russian propaganda in Germany are where it en-
courages violence. The Rote Fahne the Red Flag
the daily newspaper of the Communist Party,
is allowed to circulate freely. But Germany has
found that as the country itself becomes more
stable and prosperity increases, so Bolshevism
withers and weakens.

The Germans believe the best way to kill Bol-
shevism is to trade with the Russians and to
cooperate with those elements of the population
desirous of trading and developing prosperity. I
inquired if there was any sympathy in Germany
with the view held by some in America that trad-
ing with Russia and making her more prosperous
would be merely placing a greater amount of
money in her hands with which to pursue propa-
ganda in other countries. The German answer is
that the Russian Communist Party would always

FOREIGN RELATIONS 161

be able to obtain such money as it wanted for
propaganda and that failure to- trade with them
would not prevent them from getting that money:
if, on the other hand, the West refuses to trade
with Russia, it means that larger money will be
devoted to incendiary propaganda by Russia.

The Germans regard the effort to isolate Russia
as a step in the direction of throwing Russia
toward Asia, and believe that the way to destroy
Bolshevism is to draw Russia toward the West
rather than push her toward the East. The Ger-
mans do not believe that Bolshevism can flourish
in well-organized communities, where the people
are prosperous; and that its only chance is in dis-
tressed countries.

{ The Germans are very anxious to have American
capitalists interest themselves in Russia, but to do
business with Germany, with German capital as a
partner in the undertaking. The feeling is that the
Germans understand the Russian situation better
than anyone else, and that their knowledge and
experience and technique should be availed of by
American capital.

RELATIONS WITH FRANCE

It will be remembered that before the war France
was an ally of Russia. Russian culture was in a large
measure French culture. France made huge loans to
Russia. There is at the present time a French ambas-
sador in Moscow in the person of M. Herbette, for-
merly foreign editor of Le Temps, the great Paris
political newspaper. The Russian Ambassador in
Paris until October, 1927, was Christian Rakovsky,
until recently one of the leading members of the Rus-
sian Communist Party, and of the Communist Inter-

162 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

national. Mr. Rakovsky is a highly cultivated student
of world affairs.

Mr. Rakovsky was the object of a savage outbreak
of the French press in the summer of 1927, due to a
manifesto he had signed as a member of the Com-
munist Party. His position became unbearable, and
the French Government requested his recall. He has
since been ejected from the Communist Party.

Prior to that time, Mr. Rakovsky had been in charge
for the Russians of negotiations looking toward a set-
tlement of French and Russian financial and economic
relations. Russia owes the French people twelve bil-
lion gold francs, advanced before the war. The obli-
gations covering this sum are said to be held by one
million five hundred thousand French rentiers. The
Russians have refused to acknowledge their debt to
France, but they have expressed a willingness to pay,
provided a loan is obtained.

Before he left Paris, Mr. Rakovsky had been trying
to negotiate an agreement between France and Russia
on a plan of settlement along the following lines:
Russia to agree to pay France an average of sixty
million gold rubles annually for sixty- two years;
France, on her side, to undertake to advance to Russia
four hundred and fifty million gold rubles over the
next five years, with .the understanding that two-
thirds of the sum should be expended upon productive
machinery and other articles in France, one-third at
the option of the Russian Government.

The plan mentioned would be tantamount to giving
Russia a complete moratorium for about eight years.
Russians pointed out to me the fact that when Italy

EOKEIGN RELATIONS 163

made her debt settlement with the United States, our
Government encouraged the making of a loan to Italy,
which in effect gave Italy a moratorium for ten years.

As a sidelight on the situation, Trench life insurance
companies have had a controversy with Russian
policyholders similar to that of the American life insur-
ance companies. These insurance companies wrote
policies on Russian lives prior to the war and, under
Tsarist law, invested the main portion of the reserves
on those policies in property in Russia. When the
Bolshevik Revolution came, it resulted in the seizure
of all private property; the insurance property was
seized along with the rest, yet the Russian policy-
holders, presumably with the approval of their Gov-
ernment, made demands upon the insurance companies
for the payment of the policies.

American courts have, by implication, indicated that
the insurance policy was a contract between the Rus-
sian citizen and the American company, and that the
investment by the insurance company in Russia was
a separate matter not covered by the contract proper.
The Erench courts, I understand, have just ruled in
accordance with a similar line of reasoning that the
policies are valid but also that the policies were writ-
ten in rubles of the Tsarist regime which now have
been deflated out of any real value, and that the poli-
cies should now be paid in Tsarist rubles!

M. Herbette told me that when he presented his
credentials to Kalinin, the President of Russia, Mr.
Kalinin, speaking of loans which France had made to
Russia, said:

"I am a peasant myself and can understand how

164 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

your peasants feel about not getting their money
from Russia/'

When the Frenchman's credentials were presented
to Mr. Rykov, discussing also the same subject, Mr.
Rykov said:

"Our principles do not allow us to recognize Tsarist
debts."

The ambassador asked him:

"How can you expect us to loan you money when
you act that way? If you recognize your debts you
can borrow so much more cheaply."

To which Rykov replied:

"We will have to make an agreement based upon
mutuality of interest rather than recognition."

Of course there is in France a very militant line of
thought which is violently opposed to having any rela-
tions with Russia whatever. In general, however, a
certain phase of the French diplomatic view toward
the Russian situation may be summed up in the fol-
lowing statement:

r "If the West makes the Russian Government feel
that agreement with them is impossible, we simply
force the Bolsheviks to more revolutionary efforts. The
way to deal with Russia is to make her know the West
and know the merits of Western ways of doing things.
Russia recently sent one of its most competent men to
the Russian Embassy in Paris to see how things were
done, but he went home saying that Western nations
alone know how to do things/ and he was deprived of
his commission and sent to some obscure post.

"The French are not afraid of Bolshevik propaganda,
because they do not think it is effective. They refuse

FOREIGN RELATIONS 165

to have anything whatever to do with the Communist
International, and repress its activities in every man-
ner. But France does seek to recover what Russia
owes her, and France is concerned to see an orderly
Europe once more in existence."

RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND

Lloyd George made a trade agreement with Russia
in 1921. That was enlarged to general recognition by
Ramsay Macdonald in 1924. But the English Mission
in Moscow had never been in charge of an ambassador
nor had the Russians sent an ambassador to London.
Both countries were represented in their respective cap-
itals by charges d'affaires; in the case of the Russians
by Mr. Rosengolz, who was sent home recently by the
English on the occasion of the break, and the English
in Moscow by Sir Robert Hodgson, who had inciden-
tally been on sick leave for many months past and
whose place as charge d'affaires ad interim was taken
by Mr. Peters, with whom I had the pleasure of a long
and intimate talk. Mr. Peters also was surrounded
by a corps of competent assistants, one of them repre-
senting special interests of Canada.

The relationship between England and Russia has
never been satisfactory. In fact, in Russia they say
that even as far back as Disraeli's time that great
Prime Minister pointed out the absolute impossibility
of satisfactory relationship between England and Rus-
sia in view of their various frontiers in Asia. It must
be borne in mind, the Russians say, that Russia is pri-
marily an Asiatic power and that Russia looks upon
England as primarily an Asiatic power. The Com-

166 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

munist International has quite frankly been making
war against England ever since the end of the Great
War, although the actual methods of conducting the
hostilities have been entirely different from those
employed in any previous war.

The prevalent opinion among the calmer people in
England concerning the breach between Russia and
England was summarized in these sentences from the
Manchester Guardian, Friday, May 27, 1927:

"Whatever reason there may be for the expulsion of
the Russians there can be none for rejoicing. This is
not a victory; at best it is a regrettable necessity."

England's relations with Russia simply had to be
broken off, and get a fresh start. For start there will
have to be. The bitterness was too great not to pro-
duce a break. Now that the break has come, both
sides can view the situation more calmly, and review
the mistakes which have been made.

XXI
RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

THE American Government, of course, does not
recognize Russia, although Americans have been
since 1923 permitted to trade with Russia at their own
risk. Our trade with Russia now represents a turn-
over of more than $100,000,000 a year. According to
the trade statistics for the first three months of 1927,
whereas England bought from Russia three times as
much as Russia bought from England, Russia bought
from the United States nine times as much as we
bought from Russia.

There are very few American citizens in Russia.
There are one or two there as technical advisers to the
Russian Government in the development of power
plants and other industrial undertakings. (The Rus-
sian-American Chamber of Commerce of New York
has a representative there in the person of Charles H^
Smith, who assists in obtaining visaes for American
citizens desiring to visit Russia and who gives such
information as he can to members of the Russian Gov-
ernment desiring to do business with the United
States. Mr. Smith necessarily eschews all connection
with politics and his activities generally are conse-
quently circumscribed and delicate. He performs them

167

168 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

with remarkable tact, and has so far been able to be
of great usefulness in the situation.

Russia's business with the United States is largely
conducted through what is known as the Amtqrg^QQi-
poration, which is an abbreviation for ^American Trade
Trust. This organization is an American corporation,
but the Russian Government is its only stockholder.
Just how the certificates of stock are made out I do
not know. The Amtorg Corporation has a large office
in New York, maintains important relations with
American banks, and has a subsidiary office in Mos-
cow, the home of its principal stockholder.

THE RUSSIAN" POINT OF VIEW
While in Russia I made a serious attempt to gain
the point of view of the Russians themselves concern-
ing their own policies. Every important official I met
in Russia wanted to know the attitude toward them
of the American people, and I invariably replied that
the people of the United States regarded the Soviet
Government as both dishonest and unfriendly.

I repeatedly went over the same ground in telling
that the American people are perfectly friendly toward
the Russian people, as was evidenced, for example, by
their assistance, freely extended, during the Russian
famine of 1920, and afterward, but that the public
opinion of the 1 'nation was almost unanimous in its
support of the demand of the American Govern-
ment that the Russian Government should do these
things:

1. Repeal its decree repudiating its indebtedness to
the United States.

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 169

2. Make compensation for American private prop-
erty which has been confiscated.

3. Stop all propaganda against our Government and
its institutions.

The statement of these facts quite frankly and even
brutally did not seem to dismay the officials of the
Russian Government or any of the officials with whom
I talked. The Bolshevik point of view with reference
to these three propositions seems to be somewhat as
follows:

1. Repudiation of the Tsar's loans was the funda-
mental principle of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The revolutionists had been well organized for fully
twenty years prior to 1917, and during that time had
at all their meetings passed resolutions and made pub-
lic proclamations that foreign governments loaning
moneys to the Tsarist Government did so at their
peril. Lenin, Trotsky and all the others had frequently
warned French finance that when the revolutionists
should come into power they would repudiate such
loans. In spite of all that, they claim that Trance
loaned to the Tsarist Government 12,000,000,000 gold
francs, of which 55 per cent was used for military pur-
poses primarily to oppress the people and to suppress
the revolutionary movement. When the revolution
took place, the repudiation of these debts was a matter
of course, and now to repudiate the repudiation would
involve a denial of one of the chief principles of the
revolution, a proposition which leaders say the Com-
munist Party could not entertain in principle for one
moment.

Stalin told the October (1927) Plenary Meeting of

170 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

the Central Committee that redemption of the war
debts is a proposition "to which we shall never agree."
But early in the year 1919, Lenin on one occasion said
this: "The peasants ask freedom to sell their grain.
This freedom means also the freedom to speculate. Do
they not understand that it is impossible for us to
allow that? We shall never agree. We will rather die
than yield on this essential point." But two years
later Lenin did yield on this point and proclaimed a
New Economic Policy which gave the peasants free-
dom to sell their grain.

LOANS TO THE TSARIST REGIME
The Communists argue that the Romanoff family
had since Peter the Great attempted to foist upon the
Russian people a despotic regime, that it did nothing
for the people but oppress them and forge ever stronger
chains for their bondage. The loans were not, there-
fore,, extended to the Russian people or for the benefit
of the Russian people, but extended to the Tsarist
regime for purposes foreign to and contrary to the wel-
fare of the Russian people.

Russians argued that when the carpetbagger govern-
ments were sent by the Federal Government into the
Southern States of America after our own Civil War,
loans were floated in England in the name of the
Southern States; that later, when these states came
into their own, they repudiated these loans and the
loans remain repudiated to-day. They say that to-day
when the Committee of English Bondholders issues its
annual statement of government loans in default,
that list contains together with the defaulting Russian

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 171

Government the names of defaulting American South-
ern States Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana.

Russians also claim that they cannot quite under-
stand the attitude of American sentiment on this sub-
ject, in view of the fact that the decree repudiating
Russian debts was published by Lenin on February 8,
1918, and that even as late as the llth of March,
President Wilson sent to the All-Russian Congress of
Soviets, at Moscow, a cable in which he said:

"The whole heart of the people of the United States
is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free
themselves forever from autocratic government and
become the masters of their own life/ 3 x

The Communists point out that Samuel Gompers,
President of the American Federation of Labor, on
March 14, 1918, addressed to this All-Russian Con-
gress of Soviets, a cable in which he said:

"We speak for a great organized movement of work-
ing people who are devoted to the cause of freedom and
the ideals of democracy. We assure you that the whole
American Nation ardently desires to be helpful to
Russia and awaits with eagerness an indication from
Russia as to how help may most effectively be
extended/' *

The Russian Government mind expresses its diffi-
culty in understanding why the act of debt repudiation,
which in itself did not seem sufficiently heinous to the
American people or Government to prevent such mes-
sages being sent to her by the President of the United
States and by the head of the American labor move-

1 |Tor full text of messages, see Appendix, pages 205 and 20.

172 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

merit six weeks after the debt repudiation took place,
should now be considered as an insuperable barrier
even to the negotiations for the consideration of what
steps might be taken to pay that debt even though
the Russian Government professes its inability to
"recognize it"

No SETTLEMENT WITHOUT NEGOTIATIONS
The Communists say that to make a settlement of
the debt to America as contrasted with that to others
of the Allies would be comparatively simple in view
of the fact that the only State loan granted by America
to Russia was a loan to Kerensky himself the head of
a revolutionary Government; "but," emphasize the
Russians, "it is impossible to make such a settlement
without negotiations, for the reason that Russia has
some counterclaims of her own against the United
States." They maintain that in sending 15,000 armed
troops to Archangel, America put the Russian Govern-
ment to a very heavy expense, and that some of these
expenses at least should be extracted from the amount
America claims to be due her from the Soviet Govern-
ment. As to what the proper amount of these counter-
claims should be, the Russians state they are willing
to submit the whole matter to the arbitration of an
international claims commission.

The Russians refer to the "Alabama" case, in which
the United States was awarded compensation from
England because the British allowed the confederate
warship, "Alabama," to be fitted out in British ship-
yards, which was held to be a warlike act on Great
Britain's part without a declaration of war. The

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 173

Bolsheviks contend that the American Expeditionary
Force in Siberia comes under the same category.

The Communists say they cannot understand Ameri-
ca's unwillingness to negotiate on this point, nor are
they able to understand why the United States is so
unreceptive to the Russian suggestion that a settle-
ment of the debt to America should be accompanied
or followed by a loan to the Russian Government.
They point to the fact that immediately after Italy
signed the debt settlement the American people
extended other loans to Italy, which are tantamount
to giving the Italian Government a moratorium of
from ten to fifteen years before any actual transfers
of money are called for from the Italian Government
to the American Government. They also point with
considerable emphasis to the fact that though France
nominally recognizes her debt to the United States
the French Government has so far failed to sign and
French public opinion is strongly opposed to signing a
debt settlement with the United States.

Mr. Rykov, the Prime Minister, told me, as of some-
thing which gave him astonished amusement, the fact
that some American not long since called upon him
and said in effect: "It is not your money we want so
much as it is that we want you to acknowledge that
you owe us the money," Mr. Rykov's view is that if
Russia is willing to pay, then of what consequence is
it that she is unwilling to "recognize" her obligation
to pay! Certain it is that on this particular point there
does not appear to be any twinge of conscience in the
Russian Government's mind, and Radek, himself cer-
tainly one of the reddest of the Reds, told me categori-

174 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

cally that: "No one in Russia, outside of a few stu-
dents, is to-day objecting to our paying the American
debt."

2. With reference to the seizure of private property,
the situation to the Russian mind is not quite so simple.

The Communists maintain that practically all prop-
erty in Russia prior to the revolution was owned by
about 200,000 landlords and members of the nobility.
They claim that this property, principally land, was, in
large measure, illegally acquired, that its owners fre-
quently lived abroad and gave no attention to develop-
ing the welfare of the people they were exploiting, and
that in general these 200,000 owners of property had
practically forfeited all moral right to it. Thus, in
seizing the property, they claim that no real injustice
was done, even if there were a violation of traditional
property rights. This action, they maintain, was uni-
versal in its application, and in seizing the prop-
erty of Russian nationals it would have been impos-
sible to make an exception in favor of foreign owners.

The same argument, they claim, applies measurably
to the seizures incident to the nationalization of all
industries. It would have been impossible to make a
revolution effective but for such seizure and nationali-
zation. One should not forget, they say, that this was
a social revolution carried out according to the con-
sistent plans laid down long before by Karl Marx.
Revolution is revolution, and when a whole social
system is being made over, exceptions cannot be made
in favor of the relatively few foreigners whose tradi-
tional views make them feel that their property should
be exempt from the conditions imposed upon all

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 175

people of Russia. The Bolshevik view is that these
seizures of property and nationalization of industry,
while inflicting an immediate burden upon a relatively
few, were in the long run intended for the "emancipa-
tion and the freedom of all" !

In this connection the Russians claim that they
cannot quite understand our indignation at this action
on their part in the light of the precedent they claim
to have been set by the Emancipation Proclamation
of President Lincoln, which "freed all the Southern
slaves, violating very definite property rights and
inflicting great and in many cases irretrievable burdens
upon the slave holders, many of whom had paid in
cash for the ownership of their slaves and who consid-
ered their possession as inalienable property rights
secured by every precept of the American Constitution
and of the common law." They say that the purpose
of freeing the slaves was the very same as the purpose
of the Bolshevik Government in seizing and national-
izing private property; namely, even though inflicting
injury, hardship and injustice upon a few, to make
"freedom and emancipation possible for all."

Such are the metaphysics of the Bolshevik mind on
this subject. Having taken these steps, it is main-
tained that retreat is impossible without destroying
another of the very fundamental bases of the revolu-
tion.

The amount of American property seized they
regard, however, as so small that even though the
property cannot be restored or the principle of the
obligation to make compensation admitted, neverthe-
less as a measure of rapprochement between the two

176 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

countries the Russian Government is willing "to con-
sider the problem on a business basis/' and to make a
payment to the American Government which may
result in the owners of the seized American properties
receiving compensation for their loss and at the same
time save the Russian Government from performing an
act which the Communist Party "would never agree
upon as a matter of principle."

In private talks with official Bolsheviks, I learned
that the hope of the Government is that in the case of
the majority of foreign properties which have been
seized the Government would be able to make "arrange-
ments" with the previous owners in the form of con-
cessions for doing business now, out of which the con-
cessionaires may be able to earn sufficient profit to
compensate them for their capital losses incident to
the revolution.

Here again the Russian mind conceives that the
American capitalist should view this situation realis-
tically rather than logically, and that if he does so he
will obtain his money back and that that fact should
result in his complete satisfaction. Having thus freed
itself of any feeling that the American business man
who had previously put his money into Russia is under
compulsion to suffer any permanent injustice or loss,
the Bolshevik conscience thus considers itself entirely
clear in relationship to any possible dishonesty which
might be implied in the Russian Government's refusal
to accede without negotiation to the second of the
demands of the American Government.

3. With reference to the question of propaganda
the Russian Government maintains that as a Govern-

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 177

ment it is conducting no propaganda against any
foreign country, least of all against America.

I mentioned to Mr. Rosengolz, lately the Russian
charge in London, the feeling of repulsion American
people have against Bolshevik propaganda. He asked
me to name a single objective act that the Russian
Government or any of its agents had committed in
America. My reply was:

"It is not a question of overt acts committed by your
agents in America; the fact remains that we read con-
stantly in the newspapers of officials of the Russian
Government and men high in the Communist Party,
which is admitted to control the Russian Government,
urging the organization of American workingmen along
with the 'proletariat' of other nations to destroy our
system of government and our institutions, and to
place in their stead a Social System which we regard
as destructive of all that we, as a people, hold dear.
We are not afraid of your propaganda or apprehensive
that our institutions may be undermined, but our peo-
ple regard such imprecations and adjurations as not
those of officials of a friendly government."

The Bolshevik reply is that the Russian Govern-
ment, as such, is engaged in its own affairs within its
own country; that it neither finances, promotes, nor
inspires foreign propaganda elsewhere. What may be
done by individual Russians is not a matter within the
control of the Soviet Government any more than is
any action either of members of the American Federa-
tion of Labor or of officers of the National City Bank
under the control of the American Government.

The Russian Government, Bolsheviks say, is a dis-

178 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

tinct thing. The fact that a large part of its personnel
is nominated by the Communist Party does not give
the Government control over what the Communist
Party or its members may do either within Russia or
outside of Russia. The Government, they claim, has
no more control over the Communist Party as such
than has the American Government control over the
Republican Party, although everyone would acknowl-
edge, so well-informed Russians say, that individual
members of the American Government could influence
the Republican Party, and that, at the present moment,
the Republican Party has the controlling voice in the
American Government.

Likewise, the Bolsheviks maintain that the Com-
munist International is something wholly independent
of both the Soviet Government and of the Russian
Communist Party, in that the International, though
having as its most influential element members of the
Russian Communist Party, at the same time contains
representation from most of the other important coun-
tries of the world, and that, therefore, the Russian
Government cannot assume responsibility for its
activities. Members of the Russian Government point
out, also as to an item they consider significant, that
the recent President of the ThjrjiJ^
viev, one of the principal creators and leaders of the
Bolshevik Revolution, is to-day practically read out
of the Communist Party, and wields no influence over
the Soviet Government. Indeed, he is but a free lance
newspaper writer in Moscow.

Official Russians say very frankly that if the Soviet
Government is to be held responsible by the American

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES 179

Government for the individual actions of either politi-
cal parties in Russia or of organizations such as the
Communist International, which may for their own
reasons have their headquarters in Russia, any agree-
ment is simply out of the question. They maintain,
on the other hand, that the Government is prepared
to bind its good faith in every possible manner in
behalf of an undertaking that the Soviet Government
will not engage either directly or indirectly in any
propaganda within the United States or in any propa-
ganda anywhere else directly against the Government
or the institutions of the United States.

With these propositions clearly thought out in his
mind, the official Russian cannot understand why the
American Government is not willing to undertake
negotiations with a view to an agreement upon a
treaty which will facilitate business between the two
countries and promote the welfare of them both.
Furthermore, as one prominent Russian leader said to
me, "You people in America seem to be apprehensive
lest the Soviet Embassy in Washington should become
a nest of Bolshevik propaganda. I don't believe that
you need have any fear on that point, but even if such
fear were justified, I wonder if your people have ever
thought of the possible effect upon us of having an
American ambassador at Moscow? Suppose you had
an ambassador there of the type of Mr. Houghton in
London, full of common sense and with a generally
friendly attitude toward our people. He would have
access to every officer of the Government officially, but,
far more important, personally. When he saw our
people doing things which he regarded as unwise or

180 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

imprudent, an ambassador of the type of Mr. Hough-
ton could and would go to the proper officer of our
Government and probably say to him : 'Look here, this
won't do; my advice to you is to go very slowly along
that line/ The effect of that upon our people would
be impressive, just as was the influence exerted by Mr.
Houghton himself upon the German Government in
the earliest days of Mr. Houghton's ambassadorship
in Berlin, when the readjustment of Germany to Euro-
pean life was so difficult and rendered so hard by the
nationalistic chauvinism of so many members of the
German Government and of German opinion gen-
erally. What I should like to see is an American am-
bassador in Moscow for his moderating effect upon
us!"

"But," said I, "is not the English Mission there
now?"

"Yes," said he, "but we pay no attention to England.
England is not a European power; she is an Asiatic
power, and her Asiatic empire is endangered. The
United States is the only great country in the world
whose interests do not impinge upon those of Russia
at any point. I believe and our people have always
believed in America and have always had a traditional
friendliness for the American people. The ambassador
from no other country would be or could be listened to
at Moscow with the same friendliness, consideration
and influence as an ambassador from the United States
of America."

XXII
TRADE RELATIONS

/CLEARLY the time has not yet arrived for the
^- / United States to recognize the Soviet Govern-
ment. It would be neither politically possible nor
practically wise. Probably even before there can be
negotiations leading to that end, Russia should make
an adjustment of her relations with France, and there
should be a. rapprochement with England. A country
that cannot live in accord with its near neighbors can
hardly expect an understanding with distant countries.
And an agreement by Russia to subscribe to the
three American conditions precedent to recognition
will be essential just as Germany had to agree to the
Fourteen Points before there could be an armistice.

The Soviet Foreign Office expresses great confidence
in the belief that if negotiations with America are
once begun, they will go forward inevitably to a suc-
cessful conclusion. The Russians, even the Bolsheviks
and a distinct differentiation must often be made
between the two, for the real Bolshevik is an interna-
tionalist rather than a patriot of any country are dis-
tinctly friendly toward the United States and its peo-
ple. I had the feeling while in Moscow that in spite
of all the talk against capitalism, imperialism, etc., the

181

182 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Eussians are looking longingly to the United States for
leadership out of the morass into which they have been
led led partly by events, partly by their leaders.

The Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guard-
ian expressed the situation in the issue of November
2, 1927, of that publication in these words:

"The Russian Government itself has come to
realize that its propaganda is entirely ineffectual
except amongst Communists. The Russian Gov-
ernment is undoubtedly and perhaps desperately
anxious to reestablish a tolerable working relation-
ship with the rest of the world. The collapse of
its foreign policy is complete, and in no foreign
field has it any prospect of success. All its paths
are smothered and caked by the wreckage of its
past policies and crusades except the path that
leads to Geneva."

So inept indeed has the Bolshevik Government been
in conducting its foreign political relations that there
is not much reason to expect great progress in that
direction in the near future. The procedure in estab-
lishing complete diplomatic relations is arduous, too.
These are the steps that have to be taken:

(1) Preliminary and confidential negotiations to
determine whether a basis for formal negotiations
exists.

(2) Formal negotiations looking to the establish-
ment of a definite basis for the conduct of trade rela-
tions.

(3) Establishment of a formal trading agreement
which would not involve formal recognition.

(4) De facto or even de jure recognition followed by
representation of the two respective Governments by

TRADE RELATIONS 183

charges d'affaires, but not involving complete treaty
relations and the settlement of all disputes between
the two countries.

(5) Full diplomatic relations under a comprehensive
treaty covering all phases of international relationships.

The nations which have recognized Russia have
reached various stages in the above progression. Ger-
many alone has reached the fifth stage. France is in
the fourth stage, where England was also up to the
time of her recent break. Up to the time of the Mac-
donald agreement, England had reached only the third
stage. America is not yet ready for the first.

Doing business with Russia involves peculiar respon-
sibility upon any business house, because whether
Russia has been "recognized" or not, all business must
be done in effect with the Government. No one deals
with individuals; one always deals with the Govern-
ment, or with some arm of the Government. Thus, all
business relationship between Russia and the outside
world is with Russia herself. Any effort by an inter-
national firm to collect money in Russia can be made
only through the Government and of the Government.
The Government is, in effect, the sole buyer and the
sole seller on behalf of Russia in foreign markets.
The Government is the sole borrower and the sole
creditor in international finance.

The relations of diplomacy, therefore, between Rus-
sia and the rest of the world resolve themselves pri-
marily around questions of trade and credit. Certain
it is that the chief ambition of the present Russian
regime in its world's contacts is to obtain credits and
to do business. World revolution, the ultimate ambi-

184 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

tion of Socialism throughout the world, is in the back
of the Bolshevik mind, but more and more the gov-
ernment is realizing that the supreme problem is to
obtain the capital with which to develop the industry
and agriculture of Russia to-day.

The Soviet Government officially and nominally con-
trols Russian industry and trade. The fact remains
that the Soviet Government consists of a limited num-
ber of people who are busily engaged in politics,
whereas the actual work of production in Russia must
be done by the masses, who are no more inclined to
Communism than are hard-working people of any
other country. And the Government is coming to see
that the safety of its own position will rest finally upon
giving the people what they want rather than in
merely giving the Communists what they want.
Herein is the real issue between Stalin and Trotsky.

Mr. Lloyd George, addressing the British House of
Commons May 25, 1920, thus described the situation,
true then and true now:

"The fact is that the majority of the Russian
people are more individualist than the people of this
country. You have the paradox of a Communist
government speaking in the name of an individualist
population, where Communism is known as Export
Beer!

"Whatever else the Russian leaders may be they are
men of exceptional ability, and they are men with a
knowledge of the outside world. However much they
communicate this knowledge to their followers, they
certainly know it for themselves. They know they
are not going to get credit from the West upon the

TRADE RELATIONS 185

basis of confiscation and repudiation of debt. They
also know that Russia can never be restored until she
gets credit."

With the foreign political relations of Russia so
unsatisfactory, is it not possible that this road back to
"normalcy" is going to be found through trade, and
the inescapable conditions which sound trade imposes
as precedent to its real progress, particularly as
this government's political relations abroad are inex-
tricably commingled with the policy of foreign trade
monopoly?

What, then, is the present status of Russian com-
merce with the outstanding world?

Up to the time of the adoption of the New Economic
Policy in 1921 there was hardly any foreign trade at
all. The annual turn-over was a bare $100,000,000 in
1922-23. But for the fiscal year 1926-27 it had risen to
some $800,000,000. Even that figure is only about
half that of the Russian Empire in 1913. Allow-
ance, of course, must be made for the fact that
Russia siMeJL913 has logtJPoland, Finland; Latvia,
Esthonia andjythuania; all important producing areas.
But it is clear that the volume of foreign trade is still
lamentably small compared with what it might be.
The conditions which make it so remain substantially
what they were as set forth in the Allied memorandum
presented to the Russians at the Genoa Conference of
1920: "As soon as the feeling of security has been
revived in Russia; that is to say, when the nationals
of foreign countries have guaranties that they can
resume their former industrial or commercial and agri-
cultural undertakings, and start new ones, with the

186 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

certainty that their property and their rights will be
respected and the fruits of their enterprise secured,
then they will hasten to afford Russia the benefit of
their technical knowledge, their work and their cap-
ital."

The Communist Party and the Third International
are still shouting the old phrases: "Down with Cap-
italism!" "Down with Imperialism!" "Long live the
Red Army! 3 ' I have, indeed, quoted elsewhere some
rather startling utterances by some of the more impor-
tant men. Generally, the fact appears to be that
although many of the leaders in the Russian Govern-
ment are still piously quoting from Communist scrip-
tures, in their actual deeds they appear to adjust per-
formance to reality; they are adapting policies to
human nature, and they are finding that human nature
insists upon living in an orderly manner, that the
interests of Russia are fundamentally in peace, and
that the best way to get results out of human beings
individually is to allow them to enjoy the fruits of
their toil.

TRADE WITH ENGLAND

That the important foreign powers are actively cul-
tivating trade relations with Russia, altogether aside
from any political considerations, is clear.

Although Great Britain denounced her trade agree-
ment and severed diplomatic relations with Russia in
May, 1927, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Home Secre-
tary in the British Cabinet, on July 29, 1927, specifi-
cally set on record the British Government view that
trade should continue, in these words:

TRADE RELATIONS 187

"I write to express at once the views which are
not only mine but are those of H. M. Government,
that we do not desire to place any obstacle in the
way of legitimate trade between the two countries.
The action which we recently took in regard to cer-
tain Russians in this country who were carrying
on propaganda of a hostile character to the nation
did not and was not intended to apply to all
Russians. I am quite willing to give any facilities
that may be needed for Russians engaged in bona-
fide trade or commerce to come over either to buy
English products or to sell Russian products."

The remarkable fact is that since the break with
Russia, England has bought more from Russia and
sold less to her than before!

Just prior to the British break, a plan to extend a
credit of $50,000,000 to Russia was reliably reported
arranged. The Midland Bank of London and the
Russian Trade Delegation contemplated orders being
given in England for machinery and plant by the
Soviet trading organizations up to an amount of
10,000,000. Any proposed contract that was to come
under the arrangement was to be submitted for
approval to the bank. The Russian trade organiza-
tions were obliged to fund, before delivery of the goods,
a considerable part of the purchase price either in
direct payment to the contractor, or by the placing of
a deposit with the Midland Bank. For the balance,
notes were to be given extending over a period of three
years and six months. A deposit of a substantial per-
centage of the amount due on the bills was to be lodged
with the Midland Bank by the Soviet organizations.
A lien on the deposit was to be held by the bank as

188 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

long as the bills were outstanding. The bank under-
took to discount these bills at the ordinary trade rate,
retaining a right of recourse against the British con-
tractor in the event of default on the part of the Soviet
organizations.

FRANCE

It may safely be said that the chief reason why the
crisis in Franco-Russian diplomatic relations in Octo-
ber, 1927, did not lead to a rupture was France's desire,
first, to obtain some sort of recognition of the debts
due the small French rentier, and, second, to develop
trade between the two countries. There is, of course, a
strong opinion in France that sound relations with
Russia are impossible, and that the Russian demands
for a loan antecedent to any agreement to pay off the
Russian debt will be so great that adjustment will be
out of the question.

In view of the general opinion among experts that
the limits of France's own capacity to accept payments
in kind from Germany under the Dawes Plan have
now been reached, it is entirely conceivable that France
might be willing to allow Russia to take 300,000,000
rubles worth of machinery from Germany for French
account, upon the theory that France was in this way
depriving herself of nothing and was possibly providing
Russia with working capital value which would enable
Russia to pay France and particularly the French
peasants something at least on account of the
defaulted Tsarist loans, which aggregated 12,000,000,-
000 gold francs. Indeed, there is a strong opinion

TRADE RELATIONS 189

that, assuming Germany's capacity to meet the max-
imum annuities provided for in the Dawes Plan, the
actual transfers can be made only across the foreign
exchanges in the event that the markets of Russia
could be opened up at once for the benefit of the Rus-
sian people and for account of the Allies, to whom the
annuities are due.

GERMANY

Dr. Felix Deutsch, head of the A.E.G., considered
one of the great commercial geniuses in Germany,
recently pointed out that Europe now has more fac-
tories and is capable of a larger production than before
the war; and in the meantime consuming power has
diminished. He called attention to the fact that
Europe has a population of 450,000,000, of which
146,000,000 Russians are large consumers and are also
capable of producing raw materials for Europe. Russia
needs European manufacturers; Europe needs Russian
grain and raw materials.

The only plan to grant actual credit to Russia to
run over a moderately long term, so far put into effect,
has been devised by the German Government. Three
hundred and sixty million marks ($90,000,000) were
allocated to serve as credits against goods sold by Ger-
man firms to Russia. The credits were to run from
three to four years, the government money to represent
65 per cent and the manufacturers to take 35 per cent
of the risk involved in extension of the credits. For a
country the size of Russia, however, such a small credit
is a mere bagatelle compared with the need.

190 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES

The ban of the United States Government against
trading with Russia was lifted in 1923. The Govern-
ment advised that it was entirely proper for American
firms to carry on such trade, but that the risk must be
wholly that of the business concerns involved. Of
course there are two views even among American busi-
ness houses as to the desirability of promoting such
trade. One view is that any such trade merely
strengthens the hand of the Soviet Government and
continues its undesirable existence a little longer, and
that if the whole business world will maintain an eco-
nomic boycott, the Bolshevik system will collapse. The
other view is that the realities of the situation cannot
be avoided, and that it is better to try to improve a
bad situation than to sit idly by hoping against hope
that what one wants to happen will happen. There is
an arguable basis for both these views. One's conclu-
sions are apt to be based upon one's beliefs as to how
human psychology will act under certain possible con-
ditions rather than upon any known facts. Many
people have been predicting for ten years the imminent
downfall of the Soviet Government, but all such
prophecies have so far been belied.

American business through many of its largest enter-
prises has already taken hold of the problem of restor-
ing normal relations with Russia through trade.

The American-Russian Chamber of Commerce has
an office in Moscow, in charge of Colonel Charles H.
Smith, an American engineer of long business experi-
ence. This bureau in Moscow, and the work of the

TRADE RELATIONS 191

American-Russian Chamber of Commerce, is supported
by a membership consisting, among others, of such
American business concerns as: American Car &
Foundry Company; Chase National Bant of New
York; Dillon, Read & Company; Equitable Trust
Company of New York; General Motors Corporation;
General Electric Company; International Harvester
Company; Remington Typewriter Company; Standard
Oil Company of New York; U. S. Steel Products Com-
pany (U. S. Steel Corporation), and the Westinghouse
Electric Company.

The Constitution and By-laws of the American-
Russian Chamber of Commerce state its purposes to
include (1) cooperation with all influential and
responsible Russian or Russian- American organizations
which may exist in Russia for the purpose of an inter-
change of such information as may be useful in the
establishment of mutually beneficial and friendly rela-
tionships between the two countries; (2) aiding in the
organization of Russian-American agencies for the
purpose of assisting and financing direct business nego-
tiations between the United States and Russia; (3)
giving assistance in every possible manner to those
Americans who may be interested in the development
of the vast natural resources of the U.SJ3.R.; (4)
opening the field of the ILS.S.R. to American com-
modities, many of which are peculiarly adaptable to
the uses of the U.S.S.R., and (5) assisting citizens and
companies of the U.S.S.R, in initiating, developing and
expanding their commercial and industrial enterprises
in the United States.

American trade with Russia is growing rapidly. The

192 PKESENT-DAY RUSSIA

total amount of business done between the two coun-
tries in the (Soviet) fiscal year 1926-27 was about
double the money value of the turnover of 1913.

The figures of annual exports and imports, according
to Soviet customs statistics, follows:

Exports to U. S. Imports from U. S.
1913 $7,290,000 $40,730,000

1923-24 4,377,500 49,955,000

1924-25 14,471,500 103,618,000,

1925-26 15,759,000 62,881,500

1926-27 (10 mos.) 8,652,000 55,568,500

(The Soviet fiscal year runs from October 1 to Sep-
tember 30.)

American-Soviet trade is carried on mainly by four
organizations with offices in New York. These are:
The Amtorg Trading Corporation, which represents
most of the large Soviet syndicates; the All-Russian
Textile Syndicate; Centrossoyus, trading agency for
the Soviet consumer cooperatives, and Selskossoyus,
trading agency for the agricultural cooperatives.

The Amtorg Corporation supplies the following data
as to the present status of American-Soviet trade:

"The Amtorg Trading Corporation placed orders
amounting to $26,325,186.07 during the year ended
September 30, 1927. This is approximately double
the amount of orders placed during the preceding year
and considerably more than the amount placed in
1924-25 if we deduct the $21,500,000.00 purchase of
flour (due to the famine). The orders for industrial
equipment placed during the year just completed were
several times larger than those placed during the pre-
ceding year.

TRADE RELATIONS 193

"The total volume of orders placed here during last
year by the Amtorg Trading Corporation, the Ail-Rus-
sian Syndicate, Centrossoyus-America, Inc., and Sels-
kossoyus, Inc. America the last two being representa-
tive of Soviet urban and agricultural cooperatives in
the United States was $72,631,378.38, which is a
record figure for Soviet-American trade. Sales of
Soviet-American organizations for the past year were
$12,857,532,03 also a record figure.

"Since the beginning of trade between the United
States and the U.S.S.R., orders placed by the above-
mentioned organizations totaled $248,040,456.07 and
sales to Russia amounted to $43,471,428.64.

"Imports of manganese ore from the U.S.S.R. into
this country for the past five years amounted to over
$13,000,000.00. Imports of furs by firms other than
those mentioned above may be estimated at about
$13,000,000.00 for the period. There were also some
shipments to the Soviet Union by firms such as the
Georgian Manganese Company and the Standard Oil
Company of New York. These amounted to about
$2,500,000.00 during the past three years. Adding all
these figures together, we get a total of about $421,-
000,000.00 representing Soviet-American trade. Ap-
proximately one-half of this amount is accounted for
by shipments of cotton to the U.S.S.R."

The foregoing figures, indicating that Russia has
bought from the United States in 1923-1927 inclusive,
goods valued at approximately $312,752,000 and that
the United States has bought from Russia values of
about $50,458,000 a balance in our favor of some
$262,000,000, constitute a significant commentary

194 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

upon the suggestion that in buying Russian goods we
are providing funds for propaganda activities in the
United States.

An interesting sidelight on how trade and economic
considerations force their way through the barriers of
politics is afforded by the fact that in the United States
the Amtorg Corporation assumes the function of recom-
mending American passport visaes to the Soviet Gov-
ernment; and in Moscow, the American Russian
Chamber of Commerce undertakes a similar function
on behalf of its members. The United States Govern-
ment allows hundreds of representatives of Russian
trading organizations, many of them directly represent-
ing their government itself, to live and work in the
United States. Indeed it is easier for a Bolshevik busi-
ness man to enter and remain in the United States
than for an American to enter Russia.

Though the Russian Government is not "recognized"
by the American Government, our own government is
fully aware of the activities here of the Amtorg facili-
ties. A significant illustration of this was afforded in
an official communication addressed on July 27, 1927,
by Edward T. Pickard, Chief of the Textile Division
of the Department of Commerce, to the Boston office
of the Department, containing this constructive sug-
gestion to New England wool dealers:

"On account of the severing of diplomatic rela-
tions between Russia and Great Britain, all of the
Russian buying of wool and wool goods in the
Bradford Market is discontinued. A press notice
on this matter has been released and the informa-
tion was also published in the World's Wool Digest

TRADE RELATIONS 195

under date of July 15th, a copy of which is
enclosed.

"This information may be of especial interest to
Boston and Philadelphia wool dealers who may
have on hand large stocks of foreign wools for sale.
Should they desire to participate in the Russian
Business, I desire to state that the firm of Amtorg
Trading Corporation, of 165 Broadway, New York
City, who have for sale all the Russian Syndicate
products in the United States, and who do all the
purchasing for the Syndicate in this country, may
be addressed directly regarding further wool pur-
chases."

The data given above represent very feeble begin-
nings of world trade with Russia on any large scale.
They but suggest the boundless possibilities of a new
Russia, freed from the shackles of a hopeless social and
economic system, freed forever from the feudalism and
tyranny of the Tsars, adjusted soundly to a world
which wants to be Russia's friend.

XXIII
A WORLD DILEMMA

HE who would dogmatize concerning Russia is
indeed bold. The riddle was summed up by Dr.
Schacht, President of the Reichsbank in Berlin, who,
in conversation with me just before I went into Russia,
said: "Russia is a problem in psychology ."

Russia is certainly a country of contrasts and contra-
dictions. One cannot be there long without realizing
that in any attempt to appraise the strength of ten-
dencies in Russia one must bring to his rescue a sense
of proportion, some sense of philosophic humor. If
one takes seriously and literally everything that is
said and done in Russia, the situation appears perfectly
hopeless.

On the other hand, one is confronted constantly with
the thought that the Russians are a very lovable peo-
ple. There are many individual Russians and indeed
groups of them who are not so lovable. The people
have been through terrible afflictions. No matter who
or what may be the cause of their present difficulties,
certain it is that the mass of the people themselves are
the chief sufferers. (They are human beings, 146,000,-
000 of them, and it was Edmund Burke who said: "You
cannot indict a people." J

196

A WORLD DILEMMA 197

My general impressions of Russia might be expressed
under the following three headings:
X s !. The present Soviet regime in Russia is there to
stay. No signs of political instability are visible, and I
gathered from any of the information I was able to
obtain, no apprehension or suggestion of instability .

Active members of the late conservative class
all been killed, expatriated or are in voluntary exile.
Any movement from below the Government might
develop anarchy.

2. The situation is changing daily almost before
one's very eyes. Theories are being tested by facts and
purposes are being subjected to the acid tests of results.
The great mass of the people and Russia should be
thought of as a mass more than as a collection of
individuals is slowly waking up from the long sleep
imposed upon it by a thousand years of repression,
oppression, ignorance and backwardness.

The titanic forces let loose by the Reformation, and
later by the French Revolution in Europe, passed over
Russia without influencing it. Russia, though dressed
in some of the garments of the twentieth century, is
in its mental, spiritual and political state very much
where Western Europe was in the sixteenth century.
The task of the new Russia is to arouse itself from its
age-long slumber and to emerge into proper relation-
ship with a post-war age.

3. The tendency of conditions is toward the estab-
lishment of Capitalism and away from Communism
and Socialism. In the first hours of her national awak-
ening, after the destruction of Tsarism, the Russian
people were fed on a breakfast which revolutionary

198 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

cooks had been preparing for many years. It was a
diet derived from Karl Marx's cookbook, but which
had never been subjected to the actual test of human
digestion.

Even the chief cook, Lenin himself, soon realized
that such a diet did not point the way to national life.
To be sure, Lenin maintained that ultimately the diet
of Bolshevism might through a "world revolution"
constitute the salvation of all nations, but Lenin was
forced to write a New Economic Policy for the Rus-
sian people. It was distinctly a capitalistic meal which
constituted the luncheon of the first day of the Bol-
shevik regime. The dinner promises to be very much
the same kind of food upon which all other nations
have based their health and prosperity.

DEALING WITH HUMAN NATURE
Irrepressible elements in human nature are factors
with which the Russian Government has to deal. They
are factors which sweep aside the theories and resolu-
tions of the Communist Party and even the decrees
of the Bolshevik Government.

Russian human nature is exactly like all other
human nature, and economic law which is a mere
expression of human nature is as resistless as the tides.
The Russian people as a whole are slowly adjusting
themselves to the same conditions which prevail in
the rest of the world. Those conditions, in so far as
they are successful anywhere, are based upon the recog-
nition of the rights of private property and the neces-
sity of giving the largest amount of personal freedom
to the individual human being.

A WORLD DILEMMA 199

My own feeling in coming out of Russia was that I
wished that every radical-thinking man in the world
could visit Russia and see what it was like. A dead
level of mediocrity and stagnation is what one finds
there as the outstanding characteristic of the Bolshevik
regime. Nor could I wish for any better fortune for
the Russian people themselves than to have an oppor-
tunity to be transported to Western Europe or the
United States. Western civilization undoubtedly has
its faults and its weaknesses, but there can be no ques-
tion that the people are happier and that the standard
of living of the average man is far higher than is the
case in Russia. If Russia could but see!

WHAT RUSSIA MUST Do

Russia will never gain the confidence and support
of mankind until, in her external relationships, she does
these things:

First: Establishes a reputation for good faith, and
a desire to comply with every international obligation,
no matter if that obligation is toward the capitalist
world.

Second: Takes all possible steps to remove from
within her borders any organization which seeks to
upset the institutions of friendly nations through vio-
lence. No one can object to arguments or to new
light which may be shed upon the problems of man-
kind/but to bring about reform through violence is a
negation of everything that civilization stands for. No
subterfuge can evade this.

These two obligations toward the rest of the world
Russia must recognize if she is to gain the cooperation

200 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

of mankind. And while Western nations would not in
any way interfere with the internal affairs of Russia,
those in power in Russia must realize that the Soviet
Government can never enjoy the complete respect of
enlightened civilization until within its own borders
it does these things:

First: Establishes real freedom of thought, action,
and belief;

Second: Establishes a system of justice based upon
such fundamental principles as the Magna Charta and
the Bill of Rights, principles which are inherent in the
very nature of liberty itself.

What the Soviet Government may do with respect
to its monopoly of foreign trade, its industries, its
labor unions, and its internal economy generally, con-
cerns only the Government and the Russian people
themselves, but those other items represent moral
propositions of which Russia must take due note if she
is to exercise what Thomas Jefferson described as "a
decent respect for the opinion of mankind/*]

THE ENEMY OF MANKIND

The Russians as a people are all right. The great
enemy of mankind is the Communist International.
The supreme problem is how to drive a wedge between
the Communist International and the Russian people
so that the people themselves will come to feel that
they want none of the International or its works.

How would human nature react if the Russian peo-
ple, instead of having to live on starvation wages, were
able to earn enough to amass a little property? Would

A WORLD DILEMMA 201

they want to hold on to that property or would they
want to give it up?

How has Bolshevism been virtually killed in the
United States? Has it not been done by producing
such a state of prosperity that everybody is at work
at high wages, everyone has a chance to own some
property and, having owned that property, does not
want to give it up?

How has extreme radicalism been driven out of the
United States Steel Corporation? Has it not been
done by making the workers stockholders and self-
respecting property-owning citizens of the country?
Is there not a law of biology upon which many physi-
cians base their practice of medicine; namely, that the
purpose of medicine is to build up the body so that
the body may fight off disease?

Russia is afflicted with a serious disease, one which
has permeated malignantly that portion of the Russian
population which is included within the Communist
Party. But that fragment of the population is small in
numbers. The disease has not yet permeated the great
body of peasants who till the land and in whom rests
the future of Russia. The peasants under the Tsar
were practically serfs, but to-day they have their land;
they get paid for what they produce. They are
willing, therefore, to let the Bolsheviks run the Gov-
ernment, but it will be a sad day for mankind if the
peasants should become infected with the bacillus of
Bolshevism. That cannot be prevented by arms or
guns. The most effective method of prevention, as
someone stated to be the best cure for grief, is to be

202 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

found in "the expulsive power of a new affection/ 7
That new "affection," for the people as a whole, can
be found in the opportunity to own and enjoy the
results of their toil, to taste the joys of high wages,
comfortable incomes, and the possibilities of possessing
property. Once the Russian people and particularly
the Russian peasants have tasted these delights, all
the Bolshevik theories in the world will, through the
sheer action of innate human nature, perish from the
face of the landscape. jFhe law of nature is stronger
than any social theory.

No literature, no propaganda of words on subjects
like this could ever reach the Russian people or be effec-
tive with them. Nothing but experience can teach
these lessons or carry this message. The real problem,
therefore, is how to give the Russian people this experi-
ence.

Trotsky quite frankly stated the dilemma which
faces the Socialist world: It must produce more
cheaply or go down. Can the world of capitalism
wisely accept Trotsky's challenge and show the people
of Russia that capitalism can, does, and will produce
more cheaply and effectively than any form of
Socialism?

Clearly, it is not for the United States or any other
Western country to promote "propaganda" in Russia.
The Russian people are entitled to do as they like,
unmolested by us. But is not the supreme propaganda
the propaganda of deeds rather than words? And is
it not possible that Western civilization is called upon
in the case of Russia to make the greatest experiment
in faith in human nature in all history?

A WORLD DILEMMA 203

We have often heard serious-minded youths assert
with great earnestness: "I shall never marry!" But
our knowledge of human nature makes us smile, for, let
the right boy or girl appear, and we know what will
happen. When Faust had a vision of Marguerite from
his dismal study, he was ready at once to go forth into
a new world and seek new joys. Are we not able thus
with considerable confidence to assert that what the
average Russian needs is but the vision of even a little
possible prosperity? Doesn't our own knowledge of
human nature give some assurance as to what will
happen?

Have the possibilities of trade relations, of banking,
of commercial contacts with Russia been explored and
developed to the limit? Isolation has been tried,
armed intervention by other nations has been tried.
These have not cured the Bolshevik disease. What is
left? Russia is there; her people are there. She will
be either a good neighbor or a bad neighbor to civiliza-
tion.

Politics has played its hand. The question is: Can
trade with Russia on sound business principles save
her?

The Russians say they want foreign capital, but they
want it in order to build up a Socialist State, feeling
that with it they will be able to consolidate their forces
and make the people want a continuance of Socialism.
On the contrary, the Western world, while opposing
Socialism, does want the Russian people to be happy,
prosperous, well organized, good neighbors; it wants to
cooperate with every factor that will lead in that direc-
tion. It wants that not merely for the benefit of the

204 PRESENT-DAY RUSSIA

Russians, in whom interest is secondary, but in order
to restore a healthy world as a whole.

Such is the dilemma which faces civilization. The
problem is: How to draw Russia toward the West,
cure the disease of Bolshevism, avert the menace of a
revolutionary Asia.

In an address at Turin, Italy, just after the war,
President Woodrow Wilson remarked: "The men who
do the business of the world now shape the destinies
of the world." Russia is the supreme challenge to the
business statesmanship of the world!

APPENDIX

Full text of the cable sent by President Wilson to
the All-Russian Congress of Soviets at Moscow, March
14-16, 1918. See reference on page 171.

May I not take advantage of the meeting of the
Congress of the Soviets to express the sincere sym-
pathy which the people of the United States feel
for the Russian people at this moment when the
German power has been thrust in to interrupt and
turn back the whole struggle for freedom and sub-
stitute the wishes of Germany for the purpose of
the people of Russia?

Although the government of the United States is,
unhappily, not now in a position to render the
direct and effective aid it would wish to render, I
beg to assure the people of Russia through the
Congress that it will avail itself of every oppor-
tunity to secure for Russia once more complete
sovereignty and independence in her own affairs,
and full restoration to her great role in the life of
Europe and the modern world.

The whole heart of the people of the United
States is with the people of Russia in the attempt
to free themselves forever from autocratic govern-
ment and become the masters of their own life.

WOODROW WILSON.
Washington, March 11, 1918.

Full text of the cable sent by Samuel Gompers,
President of the American Federation of Labor, to the

205

206 APPENDIX

All-Russian Congress of Soviets, March 14-16, 1918.
See reference on page 171.

To the All-Russian Soviet, Moscow:

We address you in the name of world liberty.
We assure you that the people of the United States
are pained by every blow at Russian freedom, as
they would be by a blow at their own. The Ameri-
can people desire to be of service to the Russian
people in their struggle to safeguard freedom and
realize its opportunities. We desire to be informed
as to how we may help.

We speak for a great organized movement of
working people who are devoted to the cause of
freedom and the ideals of democracy. We assure
you that the whole American Nation ardently
desires to be helpful to Russia and awaits with
eagerness an indication from Russia as to how help
may most effectively be extended.

To all those who strive for freedom we say:
Courage! Justice must triumph if all free people
stand united against autocracy! We await your
suggestions.

American Alliance for Labor and Democracy,
SAMUEL GOMFERS, President.

114479