SOVIET MONEY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1926, Page 15

SOVIET MONEY

AIO FOR BRITISH MINERS

A TELLING EXPOSURE.

Remarkable revelations of Bolshevik methods of stirring up sedition in England have boon made to the Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" by Jacob Badian, who, after, occupying in succession a number of responsible official positions in Russia, has left that country with tho professed object of enlightening the outside world upon the real character of the Soviet Government. Badian, who is an Armenian, and.a genuine artisan, is a member of the group which calls itself the "Right Workmen's Opposition." This group, he..claims, speaks for 30 per cent, of the members of the Eolshevik party, and a very much larger proportion of the non-party workmen.

To the question how it was possible to raise among the impoverished Russian workmen the large sums which have been sent in their name to the British miners, Badian said:— "It is ridiculous to represent these contributions as voluntary. The average wages of the Russian workman is 36 roubles (about £3 12s) a month, and he knows very well that his British colleagues are infinitely better off than he. If the Russian workman was to receive but 10 per cent, of the wages of the British miner he would think that he had reached the highest attainable summit of prosperity. Tho fact is that the so-called voluntary offerings are simply deducted from the workmen's wages, together with many other subscriptions for tffe Bolshevik organisations and party undertakings. To illustrate how things are done I can tell you what happened in the province of Orenburg.

The provincial Bolshevik Committee, of which I was a member, was convened, and the secretary read out a series of orders to all heads of local party organisations and Government Departments, instructing them at once to deduct one day's pay from the wages and salaries of all workmen and other employees under their management. These orders did not come from the trade union organisation but from the central committee of the Communist Party, the Sovnarkom (Cabinet),' and the G.P.U. (formerly the Cheka). The two latter orders .were signed respectively by Rykoff and Dzerzhinsky. Tho workmen have' neither physical nor moral strength to resist these actions. Years of inadequate feeding and the perpetual menace of the G.P.IT, havo completely cowed them. They know that, though nominally the G.P.U. has been deprived of the right to execute without trial, it still continues its murderous practices. Information collected by my group shows that from the beginning of 1925 until May last 2000 persons were shot by the G.P.U. without trial. "There are, however, other methods for raising these subscriptions for the English miners. For example, the central committee of the Leather Workers' Union received from Dzerzsinsky a peremptory order to remit immediately 60,000 roubles for the strikers, and as it was impracticable to deduct at once bo much from the wages, the sum was simply taken from tho funds of the State Leather Syndicate on the understanding that it was to be repaid as soon as it could be squeezed out of the workmen." With regard to the attitude of the workmen towards the Russian trade unions, and the efforts of these to influence the Labour movement in England. Badian saic^,: — "In the opinion of my group, the professional associations have no real bearing on the life of the Russian workman. The leaders of these organisations are not chosen spontaneously by the workmen, but are nominated by the G.P.U. The workmen know that if they refuse to vote for the nominees of the G.P.U., just as if they oppose any other wishes of the rulers of the dominating party, they will. be blacklisted and suffer for it. Not one of the men who professes to speak to the trade unionists of Western Europe with the authority of Russian Labour is himself genuine. Some of them, like Amosoff, are primarily agents of the G.P.U. Their whole object is not to benefit Labour, but to serve the diplomatic purposes of the Soviet Government. They get their instructions, not from the Russian workmen, but from the Soviet Government, and the line laid for them iB always co-ordinated with that which is being followed by Chieherin in his diplomatic moves."

The oldest tree in the great Botanic Garden, the Jardin dcs Plantes, in Pans, is an acacia, planted 230 years ago.