Moscow Attacks Labor Committee
Soviet Communist party organ assails union group to release prisoners, 'Labor in Soviet Orbit' book Moscow Attacks Labor Committee Kommunist, theoretical organ of the Communist Party of the...
...On the basis of emigre gossip and fables...
...The pamphlet deals partly with historical, partly with contemporary-events...
...The editors of Pravda were obliged to acquaint the distinguished Laborite Parliamentarians with the facts which are known to the whole world...
...They are born in the morning newspapers, and by evening they are dead...
...The history of the working-class movement and the revolution in Russia is set forth as follows: There once was a kind, liberal Tsar Nicholas II, and there was a young, honest leader of the workers—the priest Gapon...
...Nor do they want to give away their acquaintance with Anna Kethly, the leader of the Hungarian Social Democrats, who also flew into Budapest when a reactionary upheaval was in the air and promptly fled when it turned out that the Horthyite adventure had failed...
...like Ilya Ehrenburg, he managed to survive both the Party purges of the 1930s and the anti-Semitic persecution of the postwar period...
...On what basis are these fairy tales concocted...
...True, in January 1905 a misunderstanding arose between them...
...The pamphlet was prepared with the aid of the editorial staff of the Nnw Li'AW'K magazine...
...They are mortally afraid of even naming Cardinal Mindszenty, of even mentioning Esterhazy and the other "heroes" of the Hungarian counter-revolution...
...They did not understand each other, and the Tsar gave orders to fire 011 the workers whom Father Gapon led to the Winter Palace with the most peaceful intentions...
...Their living standard is alleged to be considerably lower than the pre-Revolutionary...
...Thus the people who prepared the pamphlet give themselves awav...
...The pamphlet Labor in the Soviet Orbit, published with the aid of right-wing Social Democrats, enables us to glance behind the scenes of one of these "Eastern Bureaus...
...In the Social Democratic party of West Germany, this back yard is camouflaged under the name "Eastern Bureau...
...We learn this from a pamphlet it lias published under the title Labor in the Soviet Orbit...
...But then relations began to improve, trade unions were organized with the aid of the Mensheviks, in 1917 the Russian liberals introduced complete freedom, and a very fine bourgeois regime could have been formed in Russia, but the wicked Bolsheviks spoiled everything...
...This cowardly maneuver of some political figures—concealing what is disagreeable to them and pretending that they are unaware of the real facts—is not characteristic of this pamphlet alone...
...Allen Dulles and [General Reinhard] Gehlen [West German intelligence chief] are served not only by mercenary agents of every sort, but also by "independent" organizations, groups, party figures, who deceive others because they themselves want to be deceived...
...And along with those who are deceived are those who wish to be deceived...
...The pamphlet of the international "Labor Committee" was prepared by the same method of ignoring facts and spreading fabrications...
...Thus we uncover the threads which start in the private chambers of Washington and end in those of the Western European political parties...
...There have been two supplementary printings of the original booklet in response to labor demand around the world, and an Italian-language edition (first printing: 50,000 copies) has just been issued by the Unione Italiana de Lavoro...
...It is particularly difficult when these parties give assurances that they have nothing to do and can have nothing to do with American gold, that they are fully "independent" and progressive, even favor moderate "socialism," and are even anti-American...
...Does Pravda really believe that the events in Hungary occurred with the direct cooperation of the American "Free Europe" outfit...
...There are no signs or traces whatever of a link between this committee and American intelligence...
...Other parties also have "Eastern Bureaus...
...In and of itself, the pamphlet does not merit detailed analysis...
...On February 8, in the English liberal paper Manchester Guardian, there was printed an open letter to the editors of Pravda, signed by British Members of Parliament Fenner Brockway, Barbara Castle, George Wigg, Richard Crossman and Anthony Wedgewood Benn...
...How can one fail to exploit such an opportunity...
...Instead, it stresses its ties with "Socialist" and Social Democratic parlies...
...The attack covers 214 pages of an eight-page article on "The American Underground in Western Europe," appearing in the March issue of the Soviet Party journal and signed by David Zaslavsky...
...I will willingly concede that in some cases the leaders of these parties and a great many rank-and-file members do not suspect that, in addition to the more or less elegant facades with "socialist" signs hung on them, there are also back yards to which the outsider is not admitted...
...One cannot close one's eyes to the fact that many honest people are subjected to anti-Communist, anti-Soviet influence and systematically led astray...
...We call attention to one name...
...The Labor Committee to Release Imprisoned Trade Unionists and Democratic Socialists, formed a year ago, now includes more than 500 free labor leaders from 65 countries...
...Not a word about that...
...From these questions one can only conclude that the esteemed British Members of Parliament live, so to speak, in a fantasy world which the real voices of life, the actual facts never reach, and to which only anti-Communist gossip and slanderous inventions penetrate...
...The majority of them are officials of trade unions and Social Democratic party organizations and newspaper publishers...
...The pamphlet concludes with a description of the events in Hungary in which the interesting thing is not what they say but the manner in which they ignore all the fads about the misdeeds committed by the Horthyites in complicity with Ameri-can agents...
...That is Stefan Thomas, chairman of the "Eastern Bureau" of the Social Democratic party of Germany...
...And yet, it must be said, this is very gracious on the part of those who prepared the pamphlet...
...The strength, and therefore the danger, of the underground apparatus created by Allen Dulles in Western Europe lies not only in the fact that a numerous army of spies and diver-sionists, gangsters and bandits has been organized, but also in the fact that this underground apparatus has direct or indirect links with rather broad circles, especially with parties which call themselves "democratic" and "socialist" and whose mass character cannot be denied...
...Labor in the Soviet Orbit, a 35,000-word survey of developments from the Russian Revolution of 1905 through the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, was written by New Leader managing editor Anatole Shub and distributed with our issue of December 24-31, 1956...
...To the pamphlet is appended a list of members of the international "Labor Committee" in various countries as of December 1, 1956...
...Especially many of them are in West Germany—37...
...It is not always easy to uncover the connection between the American underground and political parties...
...Spanish, French, German, Hindi and Japanese editions are' also being prepared...
...anti-Soviet liars have been spreading slanderous anti-Soviet inventions which live like May flies...
...The pertinent passages of Moscow's attack on the Committee and booklet follow: From "The American Underground in Western Europe" By David Zaslavsky Kommunist, No...
...But anti-Soviet "statisticians" string them on a skewer and create an "economics"': "historians" pick them up and write a "history...
...For their press has constantly maintained year after year, from the very first day of the Socialist Revolution forty years ago, that the living standard of workers in the Soviet Union was steadily declining, so that by now there really should be 110 living standard left at all, and, consequently, the tremendous industrial construction, which the pamphlet does not deny, is produced by some sort of disembodied beings which do not drink, do not eat, have no living standard, and just build and build...
...The author is a renegade Social Democrat who procured his release from jail during the Russian Civil War and went on to become one of Stalin's most famous propagandists...
...Soviet Communist party organ assails union group to release prisoners, 'Labor in Soviet Orbit' book Moscow Attacks Labor Committee Kommunist, theoretical organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, has just attacked the Labor Committee to Release Imprisoned Trade Unionists and Democratic and the booklet Labor in the Soviet Orbit, published under the Committee's sponsorship...
...It is a typical pack of anti-Soviet, anti-Communist lies, surprising only for its phenomenal ignorance...
...4, March 1957 In April 1956, yet another foreign "international" organization of an openly anti-Soviet, anti-Communist nature saw the light of day...
...The organization calls itself the "Labor Committee to Release Imprisoned Trade Unionists and Democratic Socialists...
...They asked some "naive" questions: Does Pravda really imagine that what took place in Hungary was not a revolution but a counter-revolution ? Is the Workers' and Peasants' Government of Janos Kadar really a government...
...For forty years running...
...No comment is necessary on this rubbish, nor is any necessary on the monstrously distorted picture of the present-day status of workers in the Soviet Union...
...And this means that the underground apparatus of American "cold war" and aggression has at its disposal a rather extensive voluntary social "overground...
Vol. 40 • April 1957 • No. 16
