Isaac McBride

“ But the acute civil war and the economic work of organization, as the fundamental problem which has been confronting the working class during the first year of the October coup d’état, have diverted the attention of the proletariat from a problem of no lesser significance—the safeguarding of its health, as the main source of national economy—and its economic organizations became indifferent. This is the reason why the working class paid but very little attention to questions of labor safeguards and social insurance, as well as to the institutions in charge of these questions. ”

“ LENIN AND MRS. LENIN, MOSCOW, 1919
"If you come with the simple desire to lessen the sufferings of the working population, to lessen the shedding of blood, nobody will touch you. As to officers who express the desire to serve loyally in the Red Army they are received with respect and extreme courtesy. We have not to submit to any kind of outrage or humiliation. Everywhere our needs are attentively supplied. Full respect for the work of specialists of every kind is the fundamental motive of the policy of the present government and of its authorized representatives in the Red Army. ”

“ At the present moment, however, the building of a new life, the reconstruction of the conditions of labor on a Socialist foundation, the safeguarding of production for the life and health of the workers, the betterment of their living conditions, the workers’ insurance against all accidents depriving him of his labor power, the amalgamation of the various kinds of insurance agencies into one powerful organization, and the management of the same, are becoming the most important problems which the vocational unions are to solve. ”

“ I had seen for myself that women in Soviet Russia are shown a respect and deference far exceeding the superficial politeness which in other countries too often serves to conceal political, economic, and domestic oppression. Women are on an equal footing in all respects with men in Russia, and they enjoy a greater measure of freedom and security than the women of other countries. ”

“ We know quite well that the army of General Denikin will be crushed, as was that of Kolchak and of many others who have tried to put at their mercy a working people of many millions of men. We know equally well that truth and justice are on the side of the Red Army, and that you only remain in the ranks of the White Army through ignorance regarding the Soviet Republic and the Red Army, or because you fear for your fate in case of the latter’s victory. We think it our duty above all to write you the truth about the position made for us in the Red Army. ”

“ Workers’ control, which was the strongest revolutionary weapon in the hands of the labor organizations in their struggle against economic disruption and the sabotage practised by the employers in their struggle against the proletariat for economic supremacy, has led the working class into direct participation in the organization of production. ”

“ I have dwelt upon the organization and spirit of the Red Army and upon the education and care of the children more than upon anything else, because these are the things that made the strongest impression upon me during my stay in Soviet Russia. They stand out above all else in the memory of weeks crowded with a multitude of rapid and various observations. The soldiers and the children come first in the consideration of the government. ”

“ While struggling and conquering, it was gradually turning to constructive work—strengthening its dictatorship by taking possession of the entire apparatus of the country’s economic administration.
The proletariat, organized into professional unions, constituted the vanguard of the Socialist revolution. The unions were the hotbeds of revolution, and it has fallen to their lot to solve the most complicated problems—in fact they took into their hands the management of all economic affairs, taking over the factories, the mills and the mines. ”

“ I come back again and again to the men themselves. Before I left Russia I had seen a great many soldiers. I had lived with them, traveled with them, slept in their barracks, eaten in their mess. To the American of course, the conditions under which the European masses manage to maintain existence, even in normal times, is always a matter of surprise and wonder. The Soviet Government does everything possible for the Red Army. It is their constant thought and care. But the utmost that can be provided, even of bare subsistence, seems painfully inadequate to the westerner. ”

“ The great obstacle in the path of future development in our metal industry is the food question, which carries with it the dissolution of labor power. Considering the fact that circumstances have compelled our industry in general, and particularly the metal industry, to supply chiefly the needs of national defence, to which it is necessary to give right of way over all other interests, the authorities and the labor organizations must do everything in their power to avert the food crisis threatening the metal workers, even if this be to the detriment of the population. ”

“ You admit that you have been allowed to mingle with the soldiers of Soviet Russia, that you have been unhampered in making your investigation. You have had a very good opportunity to understand the temper of the rank and file. You have seen thousands of men living from day to day on black bread and tea. You have probably seen more suffering in Soviet Russia than you had ever thought possible, and all this because of the unjust war being made upon us, including the economic blockade, in all of which your own country is playing a large part. ”

“ The Socialist revolution has put before the proletariat a series of the most important problems in the field of reconstruction. Simultaneously and in connection with the revolutionization of the economic relations, the working class, as the standard-bearer of Socialism, must get down to the work of creating a proletarian culture, instead of that of the bourgeoisie, in order to prepare the masses for the complete realization of the Socialist Commonwealth. ”

“ Being placed in the position of organizers of production at a moment when Russia is now more than at any other time, affected by a shortage of various kinds of material which causes a reduction of the output, the unions must safeguard the proletariat against the possibility of its exhaustion or degeneration, as a class of producers, at this critical period, and to safeguard its nucleus against social disintegration and its absorption by other classes ”

“ The speculators are not Bolshevist, nor are the irreconcilable bourgeoisie, nor the Monarchists, nor the Cadets nor the Menshevists, nor the Social Revolutionists and Anarchists. Nevertheless Russia stands overwhelmingly in support of the Soviet Government, just as the United States stands overwhelmingly in support of Congress and the Constitution. There are many who are opposed to Soviet rule in its present form, and this opposition is not confined to the old bourgeoisie and the anarchists. It prevails to a certain extent—variously estimated—among the peasants. ”

“ We might add here that the metal industry, and in particular the metal working industry as its most complicated and many-sided phase, both in assortment of products and in the nature of production, was by no means strong in Russia even under the rule of the bourgeoisie. As compared with the more developed capitalist countries, the metal industry in Russia has been at a disadvantage because of the very geographical situation of its centers, remote from the sources of raw material and fuel, artificially built up and having suffered all the consequences of an unsound foundation. ”

“ It is quite natural that the first period of work in the domain of finance, that is, between the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Peace, had of necessity to be marked by efforts to conquer the financial apparatus, its central as well as its local bodies, to make a study of its own functions and, somehow or other, to adapt itself to the requirements of the time. ”

“ On the other hand, the Commissariat of Labor, as an organ of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, in which the organized industrial proletariat is at the present moment playing a leading part, serves as an instrument for the introduction of the economic policy of the working class, utilizing for this purpose its apparatus and all the power vested in governmental authorities to enforce its laws and regulations. ”

“ Regarding the Russian labor-union movement as one close proletarian class organization, having one common class aim—to win and organize the socialist system, one must admit that any member of any industrial union, affiliated with the all-Russian or local union council, who is fulfilling his duties as such, being at the same time a member of the All-Russian General Vocational Association, upon being transferred from one industry to another, joins the proper union with the rights of an old member, without paying any initiation fee. No one must be at the same time a member of two unions. ”

“ Some day when the war is over and Russia is doing business with the rest of the world, these same shopkeepers will probably find the Soviet stores more attractive even than their own. They may remember, with no regret, their constant struggle to survive competition. Doubtless they will get behind the counters of the Soviet stores, as many of their kind have already done, and there find security of employment and compensation, and in the knowledge that they are rendering a real service to the New Russia they will find an adequate substitute for the stimulation of “private enterprise.” ”

“ Within every nationalized industrial, commercial, and transport house, the local committee for control takes upon itself the supervision of the work of the enterprise and the activities of its management, for which purpose it gathers and systematizes all data relative to the running of the establishment and places the same at the disposal of the control department of their trade union, before which, whenever the necessity arises, the question of auditing the books of the enterprise is brought up. ”

“ When the war stops, as it no doubt will in the immediate future, Soviet Russia will be faced with the problem of diverting into productive channels its three million soldiers, as well as other millions now engaged directly or indirectly in the war. Just as we had our “Work or Fight” measures in this country for the purpose of utilizing the nation’s human energy in a profitable way in time of stress, so in Soviet Russia every effort is being made to place the workers where the greatest results to the nation as a whole will accrue. ”

“ ENTERING RED LAND “You will never return alive. They will slaughter you. They will rob you of everything. They will take your clothes from your very back.”
With stubborn conviction the dapper young Lettish gentleman spoke to me as he attempted to change my mind about going into Soviet Russia. He was attached to the Foreign Information Bureau of Latvia. He had been in Riga all through the Bolshevist régime, from November, 1918, to May, 1919, when the German army of occupation in the Baltic provinces drove them out. ”

“ Recognizing the necessity of a united plan for the construction of all trade unions as the only condition insuring right relations between the individual local organizations and their centers, also insuring the enforcement of union regulations and union discipline, the second Congress thinks it necessary, for the purpose of creating unity of activity on a local as well as national scale, to adopt a united scheme for the structure of the industrial unions and their combines. ”

“ Together with the part which the unions are playing in the matter of directing the industrial life along the channels fixed by the programs of production, based upon the subjugation of private interest to those of society as a whole, comes their activity in connection with the basic element of production—labor. Therefore, the decisions of the central trade union associations are obligatory insofar as they bear on the questions of wage scales, inspection of labor, internal regulations within the factories, standards of production and labor discipline. ”

“ Any wage earner who is not engaged on work at his vocation shall register at the Local Department of Labor Distribution as unemployed. An unemployed person has no right to refuse an offer of work at his vocation, providing the working conditions conform with the standards fixed by the respective tariff regulations, or, in the absence of the same, by the trades unions. An unemployed person who is offered work outside his vocation shall be obliged to accept it on the understanding, if he so wishes, that this be only until he receives work at his vocation. ”

“ Endeavoring to better the economic conditions of all the workers, regardless of whether they are members of the union or not, the unions taking upon themselves the responsibility for the proper functioning of an establishment or institution, for the labor discipline among the workers and the enforcement of the union regulations of wages and standards of production, the unions must endeavor to introduce compulsory membership in all the establishments and institutions entering into it, through resolutions adopted at general meetings of the workers. ”

“ The bourgeoisie inflict upon the working masses of Russia unprecedented sufferings, through the blockade, and through their help given to the counter revolutionaries, but we have already defeated Kolchak and we are carrying on the war against Denikin with the firm assurance of our coming victory. ”

“ It was intended not only to waken the people to a realization that their own lives were threatened, but to teach them that they were a part of the great world that lay outside their own land. The art, the music, the literature and the science of the world was brought to them in simple form so that they could comprehend it and be stimulated to further reading and study. ”

“ If the first All-Russian Conference of Professional trades unions outlined a rough draft of a plan according to which the working class was to steer its course during the period of its supremacy, if at that first conference the delegates were groping in the dark, trying to feel the correct way,—the second Conference found the path sufficiently cleared to proceed forward toward the solution of new problems put forth by the life and practice of the professional movement. ”