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Save Soviet Russia The Workers Council Vol.
New York, September 15, 1921 No. Erothers and Comrades: few weeks ago Russia sent out a cry for help. The workers of the Russian Soviet Republic are appealing to the workers of the world for aid in the terr:ble calamity that has overtaken their nation, Decimated by seven years of incessant warfare, deprived of food and clothing, of medicines and drugs, of agricultural implements and industrial machinery by the capitalist powers of Europe, weakened by the internal struggles that follow in the wake of every revolutionary upheaval, Russia now stands helpless and unprepared to face the destruction of its harvests in the Volga district, the great granary of the Russian nation. terrible drought, no rain from March until August, has burnt up every vestige of vegetation for a thousand miles.
Land that in other years brought forth food for millions of hungry workers lies blackened and charred under the blistering sun.
Great herds of cattle, upon which millions of children depend for their food, had to be slaughtered because there is no grass to feed them.
Eleven million men, women and children are starving. Cholera, that dreadful disease that stalks in the wake of starvation, is wiping out entire town.
ships.
Babies are sobbing at their mothers breasts, and there is no milk. Boys and girls are pleading for food, and there is no bread. Thousands are dying from preventable, curable diseases, and there are no medicines.
Cleanliness could check the spread of contagious diseases, and there is no soap.
Even the next harvest is in danger, for the seed corn has been used to assuage the hunger that is eating out the vitals of the nation.
We know why Russia has had to suffer, why war against Russia went on long after hostilities in other countries had ceased.
We know why Russia was forced to keep her work.
men at the front while fields lay fallow, and the factories stood idle.
Russia has sacrificed, year after year, her men, her industries, everything, the very life blood of the nation, that its spirit might live, the spirit of working class solidarity, of working class brotherhood, of working class internationalism.
Russia has been attacked by the great powers of Europe, and by America. It has been slandered and villified, fought with fair means and foul.
The capitalists of the world, the men who live in wealth and luxury because you and your fellow.
workers live in want, hate Russia because she carries the message of working class freedom from capitalist oppression to the world, because she has fought your battles, brought inspiration and hope to you in your struggles.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Cartoon, The Artful Dodger. Front Cover Appeal for Soviet Russia 98 An Announcement to Our Readers 99 The Slaves of 1921 99 Lenin Famine Appeal 100 Still Fiddling 100 Manifesto of the Third International 101 Farewell! to Socialist Party 104 Jewish Federation Withdraws 106 Stateinent of Workers Council 107 Competition Among Sleuths 107 Ship on the Rocks 108 Socialist Party and Free Speech 110 After the Detroit Disaster 111 Rise and Fall of Socialist Party 112 cals, branches and individual members are continually dropping out of the rapidly disintegrating party organization.
Where the foreign language federations have their own publications and their own organizations ready to hand, it behooves the English speaking Third Internationalists and their sympathizers, within and without the party, to meet this new situation and meet it successfully We have already made a big start in the establishment of the Workers Council. Our magazine will now be issued monthly, ready for distribution on the 15th. All subscriptions will be advanced two months to make up for the two missing issues. The subscription rate will be changed to per year, 50 cents for six months.
With this issue we also announce the formation of the provisional organization, to be known temporarily as the Workers Council of the United States. call is being issued for a National Conference to perfect this organization and to decide on its program, principles and policies.
The Socialist Party is dead! We must bring the workers, men and women, her gain; all those scattered to the four winds during the past two years by the party betrayal of Socialist principles. Unity of all revolutionary working class forces, not a new organization, is our aim.
Support your organ, the Workers Council, in this effort. Help build a local organization of the Workers Council in your city or town as a preparation for the national conference. Forward in the struggle of organization! Forward to real unity! Forward to the triumph of the workers in the name of the world party, the Third International.
EDITOR. LOUIS ENGDAHL Will You Desert Her Now. TEN CENTS COPY per year, 50 cents for six months.
This peHughes declares it is not to be a disarmament conference, only a conference to discuss the limitation of armaments. Or merely a conference to disarm the workers of the idea that competing imperialisms are plotting, another war for them to fight. It is the limit. Leave it to Root, Underwood, Lodge and Hughes.
In the daily newspapers you have read that Mr.
Hoover is about to feed the starving Russians. It is true, that Mr. Hoover has already sent a mission into Russia to take care of the sick women and children.
But the means with which this missicn have been fitted out are inadequate to meet the situation.
In Hoover instructions to Mr. Haskell, the American representative for Soviet Russia, he expressly states that other agencies in America must do their share.
Undoubtedly the Government could easily shoulder the task of famine relief in the aflicted areas.
The Russian government has computed that 22. 00 will be sufficient to feed one person until the coming harvest. Already five millions in Russia are in bitter want. Many more will suffer before the winter is over. 220, 000, 000 must be raised within the next few months. big sum, but only a small fraction of what the United States spent and loaned during the war, for destructive purposes.
France and Belgium, Servia, and Armenia, and practically every other European nation has received bountiful sustenance from our government in the past two or three years. In 1916 Hoover extended a credit of 100, 000, 000 to the German nation.
NOT ONE CENT HAS EVER GONE TO RUSSIA.
In this connection it should not be forgotten that Bachmetieff, the Russian ambassador without country, still enjoys official recognition in Washington though the government that sent him there ceased to exist more than four years ago.
culiar embassy has received from the government. in the name of the Russian people, credits the extent of 180 millions. Of this sum only 50 millions have been used. Can the Government find no better use for the remaining 130, 000, 000?
All over the United States conferences have sprung up for the purpose of helping Soviet Russia. Ву their very number they are defeating their own purposes. They are duplicating their efforts.
The American Federated Russian Famine Relief Committee, with headquarters in New York City, has been organized for the purpose of co ordinating the work of the various agencies collecting funds for Russian Famine Relief.
This Committee is co operating with the representatives of the Russian Red Cross in America and funds secured from the various organizations will go to Soviet Russia directly, and will be used under the supervision of the authorities designated by the Soviet Government.
America workers rust raise 220, 000, 000. It is the biggest and most important task you have ever undertaken.
We must call upon every worker to sacrifice one day pay.
We must demand that the Russian People receive immediate and adequate assistance from our govern.
ment.
We must ge! together for one great drive for funds.
WE MUST SAVE SOVIET RUSSIA!
Captain Gregory, Herbert Hoover chief lieutenant in Central Europe in 1919 boasts he used the food administration to help overthrow the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Russian workers, in the present famine crisis, will profit by Hungarian experience. See Chicherin note to the Paris allies.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT This issue of the Workers Council should receive a big welcome among our host of readers who missed their magazine during the summer months.
Many and great events have taken place since the last number, dated June 15th, appeared. In that issue we reviewed the approaching Detroit Convention of the Socialist Party.
We had planned to send another issue to press immediately following the Detroit Convention. But it quickly developed that such an issue would be inadequate. It should also contain the story of the immediate results growing out of the convention actions.
That is the purpose of the present issue, to review the Detroit Convention and explain the disasters that it brought down upon the Socialist Party.
During the early days of August, the comrades of the Bohemian Federation completed their referendum showing the membership in this group demanding withdrawal from the party by an overwhelming vote.
The Convention of the Jewish Federation, meeting in New York City over the Labor Day period, gave a majority for leaving the party, the demand the he elements in this group.
From all sections of the country come reports of unrest among the English speaking membership. Loa THE SLAVES OF 1921 Faneuil Hall, Boston, was called the Cradle of Liberty in 1776, even while slaves, black chattel slaves were being sold for a price within its walls.
The slaves of olden days were lucky because the auctioneers were usually able to find a purchaser.
Not so to day. On Boston 1921 slave market, the Boston Common, the 20th century wage slave, white or black, arouses the interest of but few bidders. Room and board for two weeks! Clothing and pay! and Twenty five dollars a month with board and clothing! were sc ne of the bids that brought to day wage slave off the block.
Thus twelve men on one day got work or charity of some kind. Thousands of others, of course, Send Contributions to The Workers Council Now!
THE WORKERS COUNCIL asks all its readers to send their contributions to Dr. Moses Aronson, Treasurer, Workers Council Russian Fanin Relief Fund, Room 233, 80 East. 11th St. New York City.
Every penny received will be turned over immediately tri the American Federated Russian Fanunc Relief Committee for immediate use.