AGE 14
THE TOILER
SATURDAY, NOV. 0, 192.
Soviet Russia and the World's Workers
By P. J. Prokop.
The most striking characteristic of Bolshevism
s the panicky fear it produces among all the non
assential proiessionals and nonproductive classes
af people. As a contrast to this effect upon the
aonesential and idle class of people stands the
friendly support it receives among the bulk of es
sential workers and wealth producers of all Na
tions who, either by study of communist doctrine
r by close contact with its principles at work, see
in it the only means of solving the present chaotic
wodition of anarchy in production, which is not
aalculated for the benefit of the whole Nation, but
simply for the profit of a few individuals, and
irance leads to the destitution of a great majority
f workers.
That al! those who thus get acquainted with the
bolshevik principles of soviets-at-work clamor for
it is demonstrated by the examplary solidarity of
Soviet Russia under bolshevik leadership, and its
steadfast support by the workers of other coun
tries. Thus we have to accept that from the stand
point of the workers. The Soviet form
is considered to be the best system of
government ever devised and put into
practical operation for, by, and through the.
masses. Therefore the attempt of the nonessential
professionals and nonproductive, wealthy classes
to uppress this bolshevist movement of hundreds
f millions of wealth-producing workers, by force
f militarism, looks to be a tremendous task.
What Successful Intervention Requires.
It would require a permanent standing army com
posed of black mercenaries, cossacks of old czarish
?ualityr ignorant Japanese and Turks. Disregard
ing a few professional rowdies and hoodlums, the
American, French and British workers would find
it deep beneath their dignity to lend themselves as
tools of the international capitalist clique for such
a dirty job as enforcing wage-slavery upon the
workers of Europe.
American troops are chiefly composed of wagd
tarners and small business men. Both of these
classes, in times of peace, are exposed to the
exploitation and oppression of the same big busin
ess which now so ardently recommends the
policing of Europe by the Allied troops ; the same
big business, that through its press, incites the
ignorant people against the Soviets. But the small
American business men, whom only the dread of
life-long wage-slavevy drove to business careers,
realize that the nucleus of common evil resides in
the power that the few- "nothing-doers" derive
from the old and outlived conceptions of "right and
order" which have now become intorable and which
we, like our brothers in Europe, must change.
Taken from this point of view, the result is that
the American soldiers will favor and may support
the emancipating movement of the European work
ers. Would Mean Civil War At Home.
But even if we could examine the future in the
most unfavorable light, we can see that a success
ful meddling into internal affairs of the Workers'
Republics would require, first of all, the autocratic
imposition of mass militarism of the blackest type,
which is impossible without a serious opposition
and contant clashes between the military and civi
lian elements at home.
This in turn would paralyze production and com
merce so seriously that no sane man would find it
profitable. Coupling this with the desperate op
position the working class of Europe would put up
in concert with Soviet Russia, the consequences
look too horrible for any picturization. Only a
madman can recommend intervention. But the
bourgeois rulers of the world are indeed madmen
and when they set out on this impossible undertak
ing they only seal their own doom.
More than 52 per cent of all the workers in
the steel industry labor 12 HOURS A DAY. More
than 26 per cent are SLAVES SEVEN DAYS A
WEEK ! More than 66 per cent of all the employ
ees of the steel and iron industry earn 5 to 25 per
cent less than what the government stipulates as
essential foi !'fe. These two industries afford the
LARGEST RETURNS to AMERICAN CAPITALISTS!