s
7

BOOKS

Socialist solidarity: —

U.S. workers in USSR

PROJECT KUZBAS. By J.P. Morray;
history of the Autonomous Industrial
Colony established in the Kuznetsk
Basin by volunteers from the United
States. International Publishers, NY
1983, 191 pp. $5.95 paper.

In this detailed account of a successful
experiment in proletarian international-
ism, conducted in co-operation with the
Soviet government in its formative years
(the early 1920s), the author describes a
series of events all but forgotten in the
United States. The geographical focus is
on Kemerovo, then a community of
10,000 on the Tom River, in the heart of
the Kuznetsk Basin (Kuzbas), a reposi-
tory of vast natural resources.

For six years the Siberians of Keme-
rovo hosted a colony of some 400 foreign
workers, mostly from the U.S., who
came to help develop the industrial base
vital to the first workers’ state.

In his Letter to American Workers
(1918), V.I. Lenin had called for interna-
tional support for the new “Republic of
Soviets.” Three of the activists motivated
by this appeal met in Moscow in 1921.
From differing perspectives they per-
ceived that the transition from czardom
to socialism demanded a strong indus-
trial foundation. They proposed to rally
a partisan force of experienced workers
willing to pack their tools, embark for
Siberia and pitch in, much as the Ven-
ceremos. Brigades would go to revolul-
tionary Cuba two generations later.

Of the original three leaders, best

known in the U.S. was William (Big Bill)

Haywood, leader of the Western Federa-
tion of Miners, co-founder of the Indus-
trial Workers of the World and an early
member of the U.S. Communist Party.

In the Soviet capital he was joined by’
Herbert S. Calvert, travelling salesman
of sewing machines, class-conscious
jack-of-all-trades, a delegate from the
Detroit chapter of IWW to the Interna-
tional Congress of Red Trade Unions
(RIE) S> z ;

Sebald Rutgers, third of the trio, was a
distinguished Dutch civil engineer, depart-
ment head for construction and hydrau-,
lics for the Royal Netherlands Institute
of Engineering. :

Unlike Haywood and Calvert, both
workers from the ranks, Rutgers drew
his commitment to the project from a
Marxist understanding that only in a
planned economic and social order could
engineering and the other sciences be
used to their full potential for the benefit
of all people. ;

The New Economic Policy (NEP)
introduced by Lenin in this period,
encouraged limited participation in
Soviet production by foreign capitalists,
partly to make use of managerial and
technical procedures developed by indus-
tries abroad. Rutgers and Calvert, in
published articles circulated among the
delegates in Moscow for the 3rd Con-
gress of the CPI, argued that the needed
expertise could be provided by class-
conscious workers, “foreign labor with-
out foreign capitalists.” :

The “lobbying” by Rutgers, Calvert
and Haywood brought a favorable
response from state and Party officials,
along with some bureaucratic resistance.
At the suggestion of the Siberian miners’
delegation, they projected as a likely site
the area around the city of Kemerovo,
where coal, iron, timber, cultivable land,
water and rail transportation existed in
abundance.

Travelling east from Moscow, the sur-
vey party carried bags of salt and loaves
of black bread in lieu of money, to barter

for provisions along the way. The train
crew, burning green wood in their
locomotive and behind schedule, wanted
to uncouple the special car. They would
have done so, had not the passengers
persuaded the engineer and firemen that
soon the Kuzbas Project would furnish
the Trans-Siberian with high-grade fuel.

The promise was kept. By 1925, using
new methods, each miner was digging 10
times as much coal, creating a “crisis of
over-production” when coal piled up at
the Kemerovo railhead faster than the
cars could haul it away. .

Lenin had reservations about the

initiators of the project, especially those

from the IWW, whose sectarianism he
had criticized in his Left-Wing Commu-
nism. In a letter to Politburo in October,
1921, he wrote: “...Haywood is half-
anarchist. More sentimental than busi-
hesslike. Rutgers may succumb to
leftism. Calvert is highly garrulous...
Enthusiastic people...may recruit a
group of ‘adventurous spirits’ who will
end up in squabbles...” Consequently,
the managing board of the colony was
enlarged “by nine additional comrades
representing various labor organizations
of America and England,” plus one from
the Soviet Council (CLD)...”

The agreement was signed on Oct. 21,
1921 by the initiatory group, now joined
by Jack Beyer, the Seminole Indian, sign

~ painter and Wobbly, who at 64 became

the first director of the Autonomous
Industrial Colony, and by Tom Barker
of the Australian IWW.

A 32-page prospectus, ““Kuzbas: An
Opportunity for Workers and Engi-
neers,” was published, attracting atten-
tion in the U.S. commercial press, and an
American organizing committee was
formed. The first contingent of 60 men,
eight women and a baby arrived in Mos-
cow on May Day, 1922, followed by a
second group of 101. By year’s end 302
workers and specialists, many with fami-
lies, had left for Siberia. The early arri-
vals had been warned to expect
hardships and all but a few adjusted to
the conditions.

Of 458 colonists, only 50 returned
before their contracts expired, and five
years after the project reverted to Soviet
operation, 25 of the original volunteers
were still working at their jobs, while
others remained in the USSR in occupa-
tions where their skills were in demand.

By 1925 all Kemerovo enterprises
were functioning profitably, and the fol-
lowing year Rutgers. returned to Hol-
land, where he lived until 1961. His
daughter end her father’s biography

- thus: “We showed what the international

solidarity of workers can achieve.”
— Robert E. Hart

Refuting the myths

WAR, PEACE AND THE MEDIA. Edited
by Barrie Zwicker. Sources, 1984. Paper
$3.50. Available from People’s Co-op
Books.

This highly readable and informative ser-
ies of articles originally appeared in the
Summer, 1983 edition of Sources, the direc-
tory for reporters and editors — and was
noted at the time in People and Issues —
but it has lost no timeliness for having been
reprinted this year.

Well-known Toronto journalist and
Sources editor Barrie Zwicker looked at the
mass media presentation of the arms race
and the cold war and found superficial
examination of the issue and, above all,
stereotyped views about the Soviet Union
which was almost universally depicted as
the “Soviet threat.” ;

Yet as he notes, “‘more accurate coverage
of war and peace issues demands, centrally,
more accurate coverage of the Soviet

Union. Without replacement of our gro-:

tesque stereotype of the Soviet Union by
something closer to reality, there is no hope

of ending the Cold War or the arms race.” _

Zwicker sets out to present a more

. balanced — and more accurate view.

In the “Myth of Symmetry”, for exam-
ple, Zwicker challenges the myth that the
Soviet Union is equally responsible for the
arms race, citing sources such as Scientific
American to argue that there “is only one
military superpower. . the United States.”

Several other articles question the bias of
the mass media in their presentation of civil

_ defence, nuclear weapons and the issue of

nuclear war, itself.

A notable feature is the revealing SUIvey
that Sources conducted-on coverage of the.
Soviet Union in three Toronto newspapes
between Nov. 1, 1982 and Mar. 31, 1983.

wae |
Zwicker will be appearing at a Special)
one-day seminar on The Media sa]
Arms Race, scheduled for May 12, begity
ning at 9:30 a.m. at Langara Campus
Vancouver. It has been organized by the
Centre for Investigative Journalism.

Zwicker will give a special presentatloy
during the morning session and will also%
taking part in a panel on “The SOvit
Threat — real or imagined?” with Proving
columnist Ilya Gerol and Peace Education:
director Dianne DeMille. Information
available by phoning 732-8050 (eves.)

RANKIN
&
COMPANY

Barristers & Solicitors

4th Floor, 195 Alexander St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6A 1N8

682-2781

Offers abroad range of |
legal services including:

Personal Injury & Insurance claims}
Real Estate & Conveyancing
Divorce & Family Law
Labour Law

Criminal Law i
Estates & Wills i

Greetings to our friends

supporters and clients on

this worker's holiday. B |
MAY DAY 1984" |

UKRAINSKA KNYHA

(Global Imports) |

2677 East Hastings Street : A
Vancouver, B.C.

Telephone: 253-8642 or 253-3032

$9.95 pb. $17.50 hb.

Waterfront. $6.95 pb.

LABOUR HISTORY
FOR MAY DAY —

@ Man Along the Shore: The Story of the Vancouver

® Building British Columbia: A History of Union
Carpenters 1883-1978. $6.95 pb.

oe

Pete Seeger —

CIRCLES anv SEASONS:
Regular $11 NOW $9

People’s Co-op Bookstore
1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. 253-6442

22 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 2, 1984