Out of Their Own Mouths

Front matter

OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS

OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS

A Revelation and an Indictment of Sovietism

Foreword

FOREWORD

I have been under the necessity of observing the Bolshevist movement from close quarters for many years. I have had to contend with it almost daily long before it seized the power in Russia in the name of Communism and Soviet. Trotzky is only one of the Bolshevist leaders who long sojourned in this country to plague the American labor movement. And the few thousands who have returned to Soviet Russia represent but a small part of the forces of revolutionary mania in America. These forces are not strong enough seriously to threaten American labor—provided they are isolated and understood. But they must be understood and isolated.

While the labor movement of the world is gradually but steadily shaking itself free of the illusion that the Soviets are a workingmen's government—the first workingmen's government—conservative powers are beginning to give them commercial and political support and a part of the press is engaged in finding virtuous reasons for this policy. The pace was set by the British-Soviet trade agreement and by Lloyd George's speech in Parliament in which he contended, with an intentional paradox but still quite seriously, that the Bolshevists had suddenly become moderates. The work of labor in repudiating Bolshevism has thus become more difficult. Certain conservatives and reactionaries pretend—for motives of their own—that they no longer have much objection to the Soviets. They are willing to trade with cannibals, to use an expression of Lloyd George. But labor cannot affiliate or associate with cannibals—or with tyrants who rule over labor by the Red Terror and the firing squad.

Whether an anti-labor despotism rules over one of the greatest peoples of the earth may be a matter of indifference to the masters of the British Empire as long as that despotism is willing to meet the Empire half way—and to sign away the title to the territories and natural wealth of the nation. It cannot be a matter of indifference to labor.

Labor's interest in putting forth the truth about the Soviets is in part altruistic. Labor's regard for the welfare of the Russian workers is deep and genuine. But it also knows that if an anti-labor despotism may be made to work in one country—however inefficiently—it will encourage the enemies of labor to try the same methods elsewhere. Moreover, if the Soviets are given a certain permanence and success as "moderates" by the aid of certain governments and financiers they will certainly continue to represent this success to the labor of the world as having come to them from their own efforts as "ultra-revolutionists."

The outward success of the Soviets—with capitalist backing—would cost the capitalists themselves dearly in the end. But labor would pay, and pay heavily from the beginning.

The Soviets may or may not reach a common understanding of real practical importance with cynical imperialists and capitalistic adventurers. There is no possible common ground between Bolshevism and organized labor. Nor will the proposed economic alliance between Bolshevism and Reaction be able to force labor to compromise with the Soviets. In the long run this alliance will help to make still more clear to the wage-earners the true character of Bolshevism. But its first result is to re-inforce the already formidable Bolshevist propaganda.

The miserable collapse of the revolution called by the Soviets in Germany in March, following upon their failure in January and February to capture the labor unions of Italy and France, would have spelled the end of the Bolshevist menace as far as labor is concerned. But then came the British-Soviet trade agreement, the laudatory speech of Lloyd George, and a renewed flood of pro-Soviet propaganda from capitalist and so-called "liberal" quarters. So that the Bolshevist propaganda menace, while in a new form, is more threatening than ever, and continues to strike at all the foundations of our democratic civilization—and, in particular at the principles that underlie the labor movement.

The American labor movement has lost no opportunity to prove its warm friendship for the Russian people and for the Russian Revolution. It has not hesitated to send its greetings and offer of support even to Socialists such as those associated with Kerensky—although American labor is not and never has been socialistic. Officials of American labor unions have not scrupled for this purpose to associate themselves with certain Socialists of this country who supported the war in a common address to the Kerensky government. American labor also, in its earnest wish to reach the Russian people after the Bolshevist revolution, went so far as to address a mes- sage to the Russian nation in care of the Soviets. Both messages are quoted in the Appendix.

From the early beginnings of the first Russian Revolution in 1905 every occasion has been seized to demonstrate friendship. In 1921 the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor once more reiterated its friendly attitude in the following words:

It should, be understood clearly that between the people of the United States and the great masses of the people of Russia there has been, is and will continue to be the most earnest and sincere friendship, and that the people of the United States express no sentiment to the contrary except towards those in Russia who are destroying the opportunities of the Russian people for democratic self-government, and who, on the contrary, are imposing upon the Russian people a brutal, defenseless tyranny. This friendship is the friendship of the working people and of all the people of our country for a great people whose character and aspirations have ever justified the confidence, respect and friendship of all liberty loving people, and the earnest hope that the situation in Russia may so change that freedom, justice, democracy and humanitarianism may be the guiding principles of their every day lives. For that time and opportunity American labor fervently anticipates that the true bond of international fraternity may be established between the toilers of Russia and those of America.

The present volume endeavors to give a balanced and equal consideration to all the more important phases of Sovietism. But, naturally, I am in a particularly favorable situation to discuss the Soviet attitude towards labor both in Russia and throughout the world. The chapters dealing with this part of the subject should be of interest not only to labor and its sympathizers but to the entire community.

I must take this opportunity to point out that the hostility of the Bolshevists to the American Federation of Labor is of the same degree of intensity and of the same general character as the hostility of a large group of reactionary employers—a group to be found in all countries, but at the present moment far more aggressive and powerful in the United States than in any other nation of the globe. So closely identical are the anti-labor-union policies of the Bolshevists and Reactionaries that a number of instances have already arisen of deliberate co-operation to destroy organized labor. But even when there is no definite alliance the similarity of the purposes and methods of the two groups bring it about that they spread an identical propaganda. The Reactionary, therefore, does not disguise the delight with which he reads of the Bolshevist attacks on organized labor, nor do the Bolshevists disguise their joy at the victories of Reaction. Nor is this the only way by which Reaction aids Bolshevism; in its refusal to grant reasonable economic concessions and to cede to reasonable demands for political and legislative reforms, the Reactionaries inevitably drive the thoughtless and impatient into the arms of Bolshevism.

I have been obliged to deal continually with Bolshevism for the past four years. I have utilized in the present volume parts of several recent articles from the official organ of the American Federation of Labor, The American Federationist, of which I am editor, as well as certain material in the current report of the Executive Council of that organization. Nearly all of it, however, is new.

Mr. William English Walling, who has collaborated with me, is the author of a number of books dealing with the international labor movement and of two volumes on Russia. He spent several years in that country at the time of the origin of the Bolshevist party and has followed it closely for the past fifteen years. His knowledge of Russia and the international labor movement, to which I can testify, has proved most helpful.

Samuel Gompers.

Chapter 1: America and the Soviets

OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS

I

AMERICA AND THE SOVIETS

The American Federation of Labor, at its 1920 convention, resolved:

That the American Federation of Labor is not justified in taking any action which could be construed as an assistance to or approval of, the Soviet Government of Russia as long as that government is based upon authority which has not been vested in it by a popular representative national assemblage of the Russian people; or so long as it endeavors to create revolutions in the well-established, civilized nations of the world; or so long as it advocates and applies the militarization of labor and prevents the organizing and functioning of trade unions and the maintenance of a free press and free public assemblage.

This resolution contains a very conservative statement of the anti-labor and anti-democratic nature of the Soviet dictatorship and the reasons of organized labor for repudiating it.

In response to the overwhelming pressure of public opinion, including not only organized labor but all elemjents of the American people, Secretary of State Colby, on the tenth of August, 1920, a few weeks following the convention, addressed a powerful note to the Italian Government giving reasons why America refused to have anything to do with the Soviet dictatorship. The chief reasons given by Mr. Colby were (1) the unrepresentative and anti-democratic character of the so-called Soviet Government and (2) the utter unreliability it had shown in all international relations, including statements by its leading officials that they did not intend to be bound by their own pledges to "bourgeois" governments.

The Bolshevists' answer was to increase their public and underground labors in this country. In the United States as in all European countries, as well as China, Persia, India, Turkey, Mexico and even in South America, Soviet agents have been repeatedly caught carrying vast sums for the purposes of propaganda. While Russian agriculture is degenerating for the lack of plows and even of sickles and scythes; while the laboring class is starving from the degeneration of agriculture; while the railroads are falling to pieces and three-fourths of the children are out of school, the Soviet finds ample means for vast expenditures not only for propaganda but for military attacks, such as those recently made on the democratic labor government of Georgia and her neighbors. This money has been taken from Russia's dwindling gold reserve and the few other mobile assets such as jewels, art treasures, platinum and foreign securities, which might have been used as a basis for restoring her credit and setting up a currency system at such time as the government became civilized.

Democratic governments, no matter how large and powerful, have no propaganda funds. Hence the undeniable and considerable effect of the Bolshevist agitation in America as well as other countries. Though the evidence coming from Russia, consisting in large part of Bolshevist documents, is vast and overwhelming, it has secured less circulation than the audacious falsifications and inventions of the Bolshevists and their sympathizers—disproven one day only to be repeated in some new form on the next.

The Soviets and their supporters threw themselves into the Presidential election campaign last autumn with the avowed hope of securing recognition from the present Executive and State Departments of the United States. But in spite of the huge bulk of the pro-Bolshevist matter put out—by thousands of publications, the practical results achieved were equal to zero. The great majority of American people read it, pondered upon it and—threw it into the waste basket.

The new administration did not have to hesitate a moment in deciding what to do. President Harding and Secretary Hughes had not been in office more than a few days when, Great Britain having signed her trade agreement (on March 18th), the Soviets immediately played their long expected card in the shape of a note asking that the United States Government officially receive a so-called trade delegation from Soviet Russia. Doubtless one consideration affecting the new administration in its prompt reply was the fact that all such trade delegations throughout Europe had been employed by the Soviets for the purpose of revolutionary agitation to overthrow the gov- ernments to which they were accredited. The offer of three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars to the London Daily Herald, the willingness of the Lansbury semi-Communist organ to accept it—a publication which, unfortunately, is also the chief organ of the British Labor Party—and the proof given by the British Government that Kameneff, the Soviet "trade" emissary, was privy to the offer, are fresh in the mind of the American public. Similar instances occurred in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and other countries.

But the grounds given by Secretary Hughes, in his Note refusing to consider the Soviet overture, were different. Without either re-affirming or amending the conclusive arguments offered by President Wilson and Secretary Colby, without considering the non-representative character of the Russian Government or its instability, Secretary Hughes brought forward additional considerations which have met the almost unanimous approval of the common sense of the American people:

Text of Hughes's Statement Rejecting Soviet's Pro- posal for a Governmental Trade Agreement

(March 25th, 1921)

The Government of the United States views with deep sympathy and grave concern the plight of the people of Russia and desires to aid by every appropriate means in promoting proper opportunities through which commerce can be established upon a sound basis. It is manifest to this Government that in existing circumstances there is no assurance for the development of trade, as the supplies which Russia might now be able to obtain would be wholly inadequate to meet her needs, and no lasting good can result so long as the present causes of progressive impoverishment continue to operate. It is only in the productivity of Russia that there is any hope for the Russian people and it is idle to expect resumption of trade until the economic bases of production are securely established. Production is conditioned upon the safety of life, the recognition by firm guarantees of private property, the sanctity of contract and the rights of free labor.

If fundamental changes are contemplated, involving due regard for the protection of persons and property and the establishment of conditions essential to the maintenance of commerce, this Government will be glad to have convincing evidence of the consummation of such changes, and until this evidence is supplied this Government is unable to perceive that there is any proper basis for considering trade relations.

A few words have been italicized as indicating either features of the Note that were relatively unnoticed or features of especial importance in connection with the data presented in the present volume.

Disturbed by the vast pro-Soviet agitation, falsely labeled "campaign for the restoration of trade relations" which was being carried on in the labor unions—in spite of Secretary Hughes' Note—President Gompers then addressed a letter to the Secretary asking for full information as to the facts in the case. The Secretary's answer to this letter, together with his Note written a few weeks earlier, when taken together, give a clear and positive statement of the American policy. (We quote the two letters at length in a later chapter in discussing the Russian trade question.) In his letter to President Gompers, Mr. Hughes points out the impossibility of aiding the Russian people or of improving American trade with that country or of restoring Russian credit "so long as the present political and economic system continues." Issued at that moment, April 18th, 1921, it had a special significance. It indicated that the American Government attached no importance whatever to the so-called "reforms" and the pretended abandonment of communism by the Soviet Government early in March. For not only the pro-Bolshevists but numerous groups of greedy capitalists and their newspapers as well as a number of well meaning but uninformed or superficial editors and correspondents had swallowed Lenin's bait, that is, his pretense that he had reformed and had compromised fundamentally with "capitalism."

In this letter Mr. Hughes did not limit himself to pointing out the incapacity of the Soviet Government to organize production. Even should it be able to do so successfully, he pointed out that "the attitude and action of the present authorities of Russia have tended to undermine its political and economic relations with other countries."

In the Note above quoted, in refusing to receive a Soviet trade delegation Mr. Hughes had stated that among the fundamental institutions of modern civilization which were indispensable if Russian production was to be restored was the establishment of "freedom of labor." Evidence given below will show that the enslavement of labor is indeed the chief underlying cause of the entire collapse of the Bolshevist system and of the frightful suffering it has inflicted not only upon labor but upon the entire population of the country.

America, then, has fully endorsed the stand of the American Federation of Labor at its 1920 convention. As further evidence of the complete harmony between American labor and the rest of the nation upon this subject, we may point to the able statement of that eminent representative of labor, former Secretary of Labor, William B. Wilson, in his decisions in the Martens deportation case. The decision itself is a highly important state document. Its principles were more briefly summarized in a letter written by Mr. Wilson a few weeks later (January 3, 1921) to Charles Recht, then Counsellor of the Soviet "Embassy" and now in charge of Soviet affairs in this country. In this letter Secretary Wilson, basing his statements upon a vast number of documents in his hands and upon the testimony of Mr. Martens, the Soviet "Ambassador," reached the following conclusions as to the character of the Soviet régime and the American attitude towards it:

In the evidence presented to me in the Martens case it was clearly shown that a group of men calling themselves Communists had set up a military dictatorship in Russia; that they had camouflaged it under the name of a dictatorship of the proletariat, seeking to convey the impression that it was a dictatorship by the proletariat; that it had by force of arms introduced compulsory labor, in other words, slavery, into Russia; that the proletariat were compelled to work at occupations selected for them at meager wages and long hours imposed under the direction of the military masters. Naturally the sympathy of the Administration and of the American people, including the workers, goes out to the Russian people, under such circumstances, just as our sympathies go out to the oppressed of all lands no matter who or what the oppressor may be. …

The evidence was cumulative and conclusive that the military dictatorship of Russia, calling itself the Soviet Government, was appropriating large sums of money to stir up insurrection by force of arms against the United States Government. It is a novel principle in international law and one that is not likely to be generally accepted, that a newly established military dictatorship in one country may capitalize the traditional friendship of another country for its people by making a pretense of wanting to establish friendly relations with the government at the same time that it is seeking to destroy it by stirring up insurrection.

Finally we may quote a few words from Mr. Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, the world's highest authority on European relief. Mr. Hoover believes that nothing of any consequence can be done for the Russian people as long as the Bolshevists remain on their necks and these are the reasons he gives for this position (in his letter of March 21st, 1921):

So long as Russia is controlled by the Bolsheviki. … the question of trade is far more political than economic.

There are no export commodities in Russia worth consideration except gold, platinum and jewelry in the hands of the Bolsheviki Government. The people are starving, cold, under-clad. If they had any consumable commodities they would have used them long since.

There has been no prohibition on trade. The real blockade has been the failure of the Russians to produce anything to trade with.

Trading for this parcel of gold would not effect this remedy—nor would the goods obtained by the Bolsheviki restore their production. That requires the abandonment of the present economic system.

On the day of the issuance of Mr. Hughes' Note (March 25th) Mr. Hoover further declared:

Secretary Hughes's statement on the Russian trade situation this afternoon shows the complete agreement in the views of the whole administration.

The first thing to be determined about Russia is if, and when, they change their economic system. (Our italics.)

If they so change its basis as to accept the right of private property, freedom of labor, provide for the safety of human life, there is hope of their recovery from the miseries of famine. There is hope also of a slow recovery in production and the upbuilding of trade.

Nothing is more important to the whole commercial world than the recovery of productivity in Russia.

These very explicit and positive statements of Messrs. Hughes and Hoover might well have disposed of the question of the American Government's position. But so powerful is the pro-Soviet propaganda and so strong is the purpose to befriend the Bolshevist Government at any cost that a widespread effort was made to explain away the Note as being friendly to the Soviets! The Hearst papers and their Universal Press Service boldly claimed that "not one word of the statement was directed at the Russian Government, and no objection to the form of the Soviet Government was voiced"(!) They then declared, on the very day of the note, that "it is recognized that some of the guarantees demanded by this Government as a preliminary to the establishment of trade relations already have been announced by Lenin."

The newspapers mentioned are ardent defenders of the Soviets. But certain more conservative organs, wholly opposed to Bolshevism, also found some way to take a position favorable to the Soviets. One of the leading Democratic newspapers of the country, reversing the view expressed by the above mentioned journals that the Hughes Note was to be praised because it was friendly to the Soviets, argued that it was to be blamed because it was too hostile. Wilson and Colby were hostile enough; Harding and Hughes go too far when they are more hostile still:

Insisting that "production is conditioned upon the safety of life, the recognition by firm guarantees of private property, the sanctity of contract and the rights of free labor," they, Harding and Hughes, demand in effect an economic revolution in Russia, and it is a demand that cannot very well be substantiated as a basis for commerce.

This conservative paper then proceeded to endorse the entire argument upon which the pro-Bolshevists now stake their agitation: Lenin, it appears, has surrendered to "peasant individualism." "The Communist autocracy has had to yield to rural public opinion backed by the physical power of the peasant. … What was called in the beginning a necessary but temporary dictatorship of the proletariat ran its course much more quickly than in the French Revolution." What truth there is in all this—if any—we shall show in later chapters. Undoubtedly something of this kind may happen if the Soviets are not further bolstered up by political recognition and financial aid from other countries. But nothing could delay the desirable event more effectively than to assume it has occurred when it has not. This newspaper continues:

Now Lenin "solves" the peasant problem, as he is said to be solving the problem of capitalism by giving it up. In what is incomparably the largest field of Russian industry, he drops Communism.

Again the time element is all important. If it is wholly misleading to assume a momentous event that has not yet taken place, it is equally misleading to date in the present an event that has occurred long ago and so to attribute it to present causes—in this instance the yielding of the Soviets to the pressure of the peasants or of foreign capitalists. We shall show that the impossibility of applying communism to agriculture, far from being in Bolshevist minds (as it would be in the minds of the rest of humanity) an argument for abolishing the communist dictatorship, is precisely the one reason they have given from the first for establishing that dictatorship and the one reason why they urge that—in the face of rising peasant discontent—it is more than ever essential for them to maintain it now.

Such views as those just quoted are not confined to the conservative organs of the opposition party. One of the leading Republican papers, which had favored the trade agreement, continued to insist editorially that the question was whether "Lenin and Trotzky mean it when they say Bolshevism is dead"—though this imaginary statement is the very reverse of everything Trotzky and Lenin have been saying. The Washington correspondent of another leading Republican organ declared that "the Russian Bolsheviki are ready to abandon the last vestiges of their program and to return to capitalism in industry as well as agriculture"—a statement for which he could produce no substantiation whatever from any quarter.

Several Republican and Democratic Senators were quoted in the press to similar" effect. One well-known Senator is reported as having said:

The danger that existed of political propaganda inspired and paid for by the Russian Government, has practically disappeared. I think it may be said that the Lenin-Trotzky Government has abandoned the effort to convert the world and is modifying its own Government into a much more conservative form than it started with.

The word "conservative" as well as the word "moderate" is thus being freely applied to those advanced extremists and revolutionaries who are a shade or two less red than others in a scale of violent revolution that now shows half a hundred varieties! The statement here made that Lenin and Trotzky are abandoning their propaganda for world revolt, as we shall show, is negatived by the entire structure and functioning of the Communist-Soviet machine. In the meanwhile we may quote at this point—as fairly conclusive evidence—the official Soviet wireless reply to the Hughes Note, which contains also a smashing rejoinder to the gratuitous newspaper assumptions we have referred to:

The American Consul in Reval has given our plenipotentiary representative the reply sent by his Govern- ment to the last communication of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The Note of the American Government points out that trade between Russia and America can only be resumed when the former recognizes private property, guarantees "free labor" and personal inviolability and has a market large enough for the export of stores of raw material. At the same time the American press states that hopes of trade with Russia are not lost, as Lenin will rapidly change from Communism to capitalism and all the hopes of the Americans will speedily be brought about by the Bolsheviks themselves. The shortsightedness of the tools of world capital is extraordinary. …

The hopes of world capital in the fall of Communism have not been fulfilled. And now that we have reverted to peaceful reconstruction and are introducing a practical policy in order to alleviate conditions for the peasants who have suffered from failure of the harvest, they regard this as a sign that we are reverting from Communism to capitalism. It goes without saying that all the hopes of the capitalists are doomed to failure.

Later the official organ of the Moscow Government, Izvestia, made still more clear the underlying idea of all Bolshevistic diplomatic negotiations, namely that the world of capitalistic governments is being forced to recognize and to compromise with Communism as embodied in the government of Soviet Russia. The mouthpiece of the Soviets repudiates as pure nonsense the supposition that they are surrendering any Communist principles whatever. At the same time it may be noted that the Soviets have reached a perfectly clear comprehension of the nature of the American reply—even if a number of American newspapers have attempted to disguise it. The Izvestia declares:

The essence of the Washington answer is that the resumption of commerce with Russia will be possible only after we have returned to a bourgeois régime. This is pure nonsense. The English bourgeoisie who have signed a trade agreement with us did not consider this change necessary. We did not propose to the Americans to change their capitalistic régime for a communistic one.

But neither this provocative response nor anything the Bolshevists can say or do—no matter how aggressively revolutionary—can put a stop to the claims made almost daily by their diplomatic agents, foreign propagandists and "liberal" admirers that they have reformed. Each minor change in their policy is held to demonstate once more that now at last they have not only thrown the entire Bolshevist system overboard but have become "moderates" and adopted capitalism and democracy. During recent months hardly a day has passed without some Russian dispatch that the final step has been taken and Communism abandoned. Here is the crux of a typical dispatch (dated Riga, May 2, 1921):

Following the restoration of free trade to cooperative societies, the establishment of a system of taxation in kind, and other recent concessions, the decision to restore the coinage of silver marks, is according to recent arrivals from Moscow, Premier Lenin's final admission of the impossibility of the original Communistic theories at this time.

Now the original theory of the Russian Communist or Bolshevist Party was precisely that it is impossible to apply Communism to the dominating industry of Russia (agriculture) at the present time. This theory is not only the one reason for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as we have pointed out, but it is also the sole reason for the establishment of the Soviet form of government as opposed to the democratic Constitutional Assembly.