298 THE CLASS STRUGGLE GREETINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 299 portation, of organization, than lack of actual foodstuffs, that is the cause of the present deficiency. And industry also, with its present raw materials, could attain a much higher productivity if it should work more intensively and with better organization. The German workers have just permitted a good opportunity to pass them by, and may now have to watch Entente capital strengthen itself at their expense, which simply means that the number of victims in the impending inevitable conflict will only be all the larger.
And not only that. There is danger that the aid which Soviet Russia will then be able to give will be much lessened by gradual exhaustion. It is evidently the policy of the Entente to force the Russian Workers Republic to expend a maximum of energy at the countless fronts where the fighting is going on, and thus to transform their limited resources into means of destruction.
Likewise everything has been attempted, on a large scale, to disorganize, by the basest means and bribery, the economic life of Russia, and the effort has been made to attain a complete isolation of Russia, materially as well as spiritually.
But precisely the great number of the fronts represents a breach in this isolation, and an active propaganda by newspapers and handbills is being maintained in six different languages. The astonishment of the prisoners of war who fall into the hands of the Bolshevik robbers and bandits is quite amusing, and groups of Communists speaking English and French are being organized, in order to develop the best elements among them into propagandists for the Soviet Republic. It is hardly conceivable that French and English workers should permit themselves to be used in a new war for the destruction of the Socialistic Republic, which has no intention of making such a plan any too easy to carry out.
But passive resistance is not sufficient, and the delay of intervention is a dangerous proposition. Until a short time ago, time was an extremely favorable factor for the Russian Revolution.
All that seemed necessary in order to establish the new régime immutably was time enough to build up and improve the organization of economic life. Gradually grain came in from the South, and it was again possible to depend on the iron industry of the Ural, and although the productivity of labor was still very unsatisfactory, a gradual improvement could nevertheless be noted very generally. have myself traveled around a bit in Russia in the last few months, particularly along the rivers and canals, visiting a number of cities, and all over there was obviously and unmistakably a slow but sure improvement in the economic life. And it was just the smaller communities, in which such a comparison can more easily be made, in which the best impression was received.
It seemed as if the new life should ripen here, from the bottom up, into new forms, and should furnish, from the working classes, the new talents, capable of controlling even the more complicated apparatus of the central administration and of overcoming both the old and the new forms of bureaucracy, which are still spreading their influence, so destructive to the profitable development of energy.
All that seemed necessary in order to permit Russia to develop peaceably by herself was time. But time may become a fatal factor if exhaustion on the countless fronts is to proceed hand in hand with a systematic undermining of the organization that has been built up with so much pains and care. Already the intellectuals and the technical experts had, in the main, yielded to the inevitable. Although without much enthusiasm, and in many cases still practising passive or even active sabotage, they were again at their employments, now in the new Soviet institutions, But the agents of the Entente, who are still found in great numbers in this country, are attempting, by wild rumors and promises, to keep alive the hope for a change in the direction of reaction.
And now that these questionable middle class elements have wormed their way into all the portions of the Soviet Army, their sabotage has become all the more dangerous.
Of course they are opposed to foreign intervention, and both the Mensheviki and the Social Revolutionists have publicly declared their opposition to it, and even declared themselves ready to aid the Communists, but with a few individual exceptions, such as that of Maxim Gorky, there is not much to be seen of their assistance. And for most of the members of the middle class, most nope seems still to be directed toward the Western Democracies.
Not before these elements are replaced in the economic process by proletarian elements can the dictatorship of the workers be relinquished, can Socialism be realized.
But for the present much would be gained if the secret hope of intervention could be destroyed, and it is therefore the first and most urgent duty of the Western Proletariat to utter here a word that shall permit of no misinterpretation.
Before everything else let them spread the slogan: Hands off Russia! There shall be no troops sent, no ships; there shall be no diplomatic tricks, no dirty intrigues. If the workers in the West will speak clearly, and be ready to enforce their words