What Is Happening in the Soviet Union Today?
Olgin: Now and Then AT THE END OF AUGUST munists in the factory where she works local representatives of the party They that they have begun to quote the complete (one of the factories of the Moskvoshei. look upon them as victims of the policies works of Kaganovitch. will inform you briefly and fleetingly can no longer bring in any proposals to higher up. One must assume, therefore, NOVEMBER S0 as not to lose the freshness of the the factory meetings and whenever anything that the members of the party themselves In the apparatus, in connection with impressions of my journey, my observations has to be proposed, they seek out a non do everything possible to represent them the double handedness of Syrzov and Lomiand encounters. shall not speak of the sucparty worker, because the workers will not selves simple executors of the decrees nadze, etc. there is a great confusion. Cir cesses. They are indisputable and are exlisten to them.
pressed in figures, even though not always of the Central Committee. situation like cles close to Ordjonikidze were informed this, as you understand is full of dangers. that double handedness has made a speexact ones.
Because of the lack of foodstuffs there will only speak of the minis a serious crisis in the personnel of the All those who have been in the village uses, because they are passed over in silcial impression on him. He complains that confirm the great progress in the conscious Leningrad port.
nobody can any longer be trusted, even ence. In the meantime, they are aocumuness of the peasants. They speak in a friends and assistants, and he expresses lating into an ever greater danger. It is The workers had occasion to interview on the lack of products, told me that firmer voice. They see clearer than before.
the duty of a revolutionist today not to great helplessness. We, a peasant told me see clearly that Syrzov was trusted by Stalin until play the official they consider the present situation worse tune but against the the collective is better. But we want colthe last minute and was supported by him.
stream to speak the truth, and not only than that of 1919. This opinion struck me lectives for ourselves and not according forcibly. To my doubts, they replied that Lominadze and Sten. issued an appeal speak it but shout it aloud.
to the decrees from above. This is also in that epoch they were assured of rationsin the Caucasus. They were called to MosThe approaching shux down of indicative.
this is not the case now. They also said cow. In their negeciations with Stalin they many big machinery plants is being spoken BEGINNING OF SEPTEMBER declared that this was a mistake on their of because of the lack of raw materials.
that personally, they are fed more or less Lately. in some places, a very sharp decently at the factory dining rooms, but part. Repentence cheap nowadays. This information was also confirmed by that this does not solve the problem of character was assumed by the antagonism But right after this they went to Syrzov who, as you know, works in this sphere.
between the Russian and the foreign workfeeding the family. Besides that at the for a meeting. When Syrzov house was The chaos in transportation is beyond desers.
factory they eat only once The latter, as is known. have much raided, they found there minutes of meetcription.
a day when to more favorable conditions, to be precise. ings through which they succeeded in exhe satiated at least three meals a day The situation in the Donetz basin is are needed, and as for the remaining two they receive a special ration that assures posing the bloc. Syrzov is presumably unvery critical. You must have noticed it by them a living minimum, which the coopera der house arrest. It is also reported that meals it is impossible to find any, or almost the way through the reflections in Pravda.
tives cannot give to the Russian workers.
any provisions.
Zinoviev is playing at Opposition, after The miners are throwing up their jobs en In spite of this, the foreign workers having been refused the floor at the Conmasse. They now are called loafers.
Some workers to whom spoke told me are also not always satisfied. Even though gress to make the most sincere and the There is nothing surprising in this situaa very interesting story about the shock their material position is considerably su final repentence.
tion. friend of mine, a technician workbrigades. These famous brigades do not erior ito that of the Russian workers, it In exile, under surveillance, and in the ing in the Donetz Basin, an honest nonalways include the best elements. In every is nevertheless considerably inferior to the jails, etc. there are over 7, 000 Bolshevikparty worker, and completely pro Soviet.
factory, they try to create a group of priposition which the Communists press reLeninists (Left Opposition. Their numtold me that the situation was catastrophic, vileged workers who are better paid than presented depicting the as a ber grows because the arrests and exiles and that if the material conditions of the the rest, a sort of an aristocracy, upon country in which socialism has been com are continued.
which the Centrist bureaucracy can support workers existence were not improved, the pleted at least ninety percent. The ridicul At the same time, the Soviet press, day realization of the production program would itself. Excellent workers, actually capable ous official exaggerations produce an un in and day out, talks about the renewed achave no chance of realization. As things of productive enthusiasm, are often forced avoidable reaction. Over zealousness to the tivities of the Trotskyists. the very stand now according to this same friend to stand idle because the materials are point of absurdity produces as always, not same, it is understood, remnants and chips.
given to the brigade first. half of the miners receive en averige In addition, good but harm.
In the factories with every shake up, this creates an antagonism inside the fac wage of fifty rubles a month. The coThe inevitability of a break between Trotskyists and semi Trotskyists appear, tories and the shock brigades often be operatives naturally, have nothing in stock Stalin and. Molotov is being spoken who demand more correct bonds and more and the prices of commodities in the free come the object of a growing antagonism. of very persistently. It is reported that systematic work. They are undoubtedly market are extraordinarily high.
on the part of the workers.
Stalin threw the responsibility for the correct. The Opposition will recover from situation similar to the Don bas Last summer strike of the Odessa turns in party policy for the village upon the continued organizational pogroms only has also been noticed in other places. Undock workers took place. To take the place the latter, and that even though against on the basis of the factory nuclei, even of der these conditions, to speak about prothe strikers, Communist Youth were his own will, Molotov finds himself com though they may consist of two or three ductive enthusiasm. is, to put it mildly, sent in. They were beaten up by the work pelled to go over into opposition. This workers each.
an exaggeration. When you speak to the ers who, at the same time, insulted them, would be a spectacle for the gods. The fact. The official slanders against the Left miners about Increasing production. the calling them strike breakers, etc. In Nov at any rate, is such that in the honorary Opposition are not credited by anybody.
technician told me, they unanimously reply orossisk, as a consequence of the lack of presidiums and other lists, Molotov no long Everybody knows they are lies. But some that they must first be fed. The producproducts, serious disturbances occurred. De er figures in the second, but in the third think it is useful. and others think they tion meetings, as well as the trade union monstrations of women marched through the and fourth place, the Red professors have are hideous. Here lies the whole difference.
streets. Stones were thrown into the meetings, are almost unattended. In the completely stopped quoting Molotov, but for textile industry, the situation is no better.
building of the local Soviet. do not know if you are informed that also wish to communicate to you the in the summer the paper mills were nearly impressions of a comrade who was in Siball closed down for a period of almost two eria for party work at the beginning of months as a consequence of the same April, where the remained until the end It has been a long time since the Stain In consideration of the scientifically reason: lack of raw material. Once again, of Jully. must tell you that this was a legs Knight of Bolshevism, Moissaye established fact that environment is so de the adventurism of the leadership was vividcomrade whom know as a one hundred Olgin, last entered the lists, scarred lance cisive in shaping the human being, Olgin, ly proved. They had established the unin percenter who never risked a criticism in hand, to defend his liege lord from the like the poor working girl who went wrong, terrupted working week and the system of and who had no sympathies for us. Neither assaults of the pagan Trotskyists. We hasten is more to be pitied than censured. For three shifts without a preliminary inventory was he a Right winger. When met him to add that we have no special cause to years he worked in the miasmatic environof the raw materials at hand. As hesitated for few minutes even to regret his absence, because every time he ment of the respectable business men pausual, responsibility was shifted to the ad greet him, because assumed that he would appeared in the past he brought with him per, the Jewish Forward. When Abe Cahan ministrators. can very well imagine the not even wish to undergo the risk of a an unmistakable odor not calculated to im ordered an article saying that the Sisson fate of the administrators had they said, conversation with me. But to my astonish prove the appetite: the odor of the incur documents. proving that Lenin and Trotat the height of the uninterrupted work men he himself came to meet me. Here able Menshevik so similar to that of un sky were German spies were valid, Olgin ing week, that there was insufficient raw is approximately our conversation. cured ham. All the more distasteful is it, wrote about the Bolshevik Kaiser (the Leftmaterial. We have a similar situation in How are you? asked him. You therefore, to comment upon his most recent Right. bloc of those days. Now Stalin orthe leather and tobacco industries. In the look You look tired.
appearance in the columns of the Daily ders an article to say that the Left wing of cooperatives, there was not until recently Why not? You would look bad too Worker (12 29 1930) and the Freiheit with the Party is in a bloc with the Thermidorthe possibility of buying even single if you had been where was for a number an offensive against the socalled Right Left lan Right, and Olgin, out of sheer deep cigarette or a pinch of tobacco. Allotted of months, in the village. will tell bloc of Syrzov, Lominadze and Co. during seated habit, complies again. Cahan used cigarettes are sold only in factories and you right off: if the bourgeoisie had sent which he pulls out of the old bag of tricks to order half a dozen articles to prove that institutions. On the private market. at us as wreckers, it could not have done any the customary revelations against the the Bolsheviks were speculating on the ruin fantastic prices.
better than Stalin. One is inclined to be Trotskyists. So long as Olgin maintained of the country in 1913, and Olgin promptly Queues at the stores have been stand lieve that we are under a colossal provocawhat could graciously be called a penitent filled the order, as the records of the Foring for meat (women wait at the doors tion.
silence, we were willing to likewise, hop ward still show. Now Stalin orders a few of the cooperatives from to o clock in ing that even if he could not learn the wisAnd he proceeded to tell me about the articles saying that Trotsky is speculating the evening until the following morning)
dom of Bolshevism he could at least learn adventures carried out during the famous on the ruin of the Five Year Plan, and for biscuits, for caramels and. for shoe the wisdom of discretion. But it appears Olgin is his man. Who will in the future period of dizziness. shall not repeat repairs. For some of the other commodities that hopes for Olgin learning anything are it, because the picture was the same everytake the place in Olgin life occupied the the question of queues was solved very where. Stalin put up against the party doomed to disappointment.
day before yesterday by Cahan, yesterday simply: they simply did not exist.
not only the middle peasants but also the We have no need to elaborate here upon by Lovestone and today by Stalin we do Textile, paper and silk products were poor peasant Communists, the former parthe characterization of Lominadze and his not venture to foretell, although the predic not to be obtained even on the free market. tis:in fighters.
colleagues as desperate Centrists which tion would not present insurmountable obIn the cooperatives, there are absolutely no The same comrade told me, by the way, we established in stacles: there is something in the nature of past issue of the M111shoes. Their distribution has now been thellt he could not find a single pound of tant. The bloc between them and the equ the man in the nature of the type of manbegun at the factories, but in a completely that facilitates such a prediction with the butter during his journey, which included ally desperate Right wingers should be char.
insufficient quantity. On the market, shoes the whole of Siberia.
acterized not as a Left Right bloc, but same assuredness that it guarantees the sold at fabulous prices: 70 rubles as a minchange in master.
At the end of July. spoke to far more precisely as a bloc between the imum, 200 as a maximum.
Ukrainian worker who spent his vacation Right wing and a section of the Stalinists, In his exhaustive and authoritative study, The crisis in small currency has as in his native village. He is a member of than whom there had been for years no more Treatise on the Natural Evolution of sumel cultastrophic dimensions. There was the party since 1918, a participant in the fiercely loyal a supporter than Lominadze Woman (Vienna, 1903. Dr. Friedrich Adalno possibility of changing money. You ought civil war, an excellent comrude, sympathetic himself. Is it necessary to add that Olgin bert Von Eckenberger remarks: These to is a certain extent. His village is near to see the incidents this produced. People does not even intimate this? On the con wretched creatures are divided into two were buying absolutely unnecessary things Into some of the collective farms the trary, seeks to leave the impression that principal categories. The one adopts its only in order to run up the bill to one worst elements of the village entered the the Lominadze tendency is a direct reflec vocation under the pressure of economic ruble or ito three. Lately even the paper least conscious. In some collective farms tion of the Left Opposition.
need; the other, drawn from all the walks ruble has been missing. Excitement runs he knows, there is no labor discipline; there You listen to Syrzov and you seem to of life, engages in its reprehensible work high. At the top, they close their eyes to is a food crisis. In order to silence the hear Abramovitch; Lominadze speaks and because it feels the need of thrilling experithe general reason for this very well known members of the collectives, tlour was dis his voice sounds strangely like that of Kaut ence. Those who know Olgin at all, know phenomenon, produced by inflation.
tributed among them to a quantity that sky, says the notorious foe of Abram that his fairly comfortable economic poslAlt the factories, the campaign for the would be sufficient for two to three days. ovitch, Olgin. We will not speak of the tion puts him under no compulsion to do Five Year Plan in Four Years loan was trainload of grain for the workers of members of the American party, nor even what he does because of the want of a litexecuted with great difficulty. In many Kiev ttacked by a group of collectiv of the Soviet party. but where did Olgin tle change in the pocket. He commits his factories, especially in the textile factories, ized farmers. Listen Syrzoy or hear Lominadze indecencies, according to the only other alit was very difficult to organize meetings All the comrades who have been in the speak. What documents containing their ternative, because he gets a kick out of it.
for the loan. In some places, they utilized village confirm the presence of great dis views has he ever read, and where were Really, there are such people!
the noon hour for these meetings, but the satisfaction, but at the same time they as they ever printed? We don know, and Olgin workers did not want to listen. Generally, sure us caltegorically that the peasants re is no wiser than we. But Olgin fulfills a We do not live merely in a state but the textile workers are the most dissatis main with the Soviets, that is, deeply bound special function, that of executing blindly in a system of states and the existence of fied: because of the extremely low wage up with the régime. It is interesting that and willingly the orders of his superiors the Soviet republic side by side with imand the intensification of labor. One woman in many places, particularly in the Ukraine, who say: Write this way, and then: Write perialist states for any length of time is comrade, a very good textile worker, a the peasants, even at the acutest moments, exacty the other way, and Oigin does that, inconceivable. In the end, one or the member of the party, told me that the Com did not reveal any bad feelings towards the too.
must triumph. bad.
very a