Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-09-13
MlNSK: AN INCUBATOR
F0R THE ~B0LSHEVISTS
Prepared and Issued by
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

-
zone of the least interesting
among Russian cities in its physical
aspects Minsk has an economic his
tory that helps in understanding
how Bolshevism spread so rapidly
among the Russian people," says a
National Geographic Society bulletin
concerning the city where the Poles
and Bolsheviks have been meeting
to discuss peace terms.
THE industrial history of Minsk
is especially significant in view of
present conditions in Russia. 1t was
one of the centers where ideas long
terminated which blossomed forth
so suddenly into Bolsnevism under
the dollhouse influences of war dis
tress. There, in the early nineties
of the last century, a group of dill
ettantes formed a Working Mans
Union, later more accurately term
ed the Union for Struggle. Promul-
CATION of literature, struggled into
the country or printed in secret, was
a major activity of this group in
Minsk. Few workingmen belonged
to it.
I'm the course of five years these
groups, working in Moscow, st. Pc
tersburg and Minsk, had accumulat-
tA Il IuIliDGI VI lOllO CTS lew VI
whom agreed. They gave wide pub
LEFTY to the doctrines of Marx,
mixed unfortunately with every
variety Of radicalism native and i'm
ported. With such diversity of aims
little was accomplished, and it was
with the hope of formulating a de-
finite program that the Union for
Struggle and a committee of the
Jewish Bund held their notable con-
vention at Minsk in 1898. From
that meeting arose the Social Demo-
cratic Working Mems Party.
THE professed aims of various
groups at that confession have a ia
miliar ring. One urged that labor
seek complete liberation from the
yoke of Capital another broadly de-
clared for immediate improvement
of the condition Of every working
man. a third frankly provided that
the mass of their adherents should
o have a voice in the direction of
the group, but rather should be dis
ciplined by continuous agitation
"Once Minsk figured in an
interesting chapter of Russia's 20
nomic history when Zubatory set
two ONE to organize a labor party
among the Jews, under police pro-
eCSIACAA OAA5AAoAJ oA 0oSbS RAONO
cateur. Zubatov, when promoted to
a high Office among the political
police. undertook to organize labor
ing men so their growing discomfort
would be directed against employers
rather than against government off,
Gals. In Minsk a rival organization,
the Universal Jewish Labor Union,
Immediately was formed which
quickly eliminated the police I'M
ion.'
''Minsk is built upon the SvisIotck
river, nearly 500 miles southwest of
Moscow by rail, and has a popula-
ton of 10000, fully half of whom
are Jews. 1t was the capital of the
old Russian government of Minsk,
which included some of the least
fertile and least developed regions
of the fallen empire.
Its annual fair held in March,
furnished the chief event in the
towns life. Its trade, mainly in
corn, lumber and leather, gained
perceptibly when it became the in
~tersection point of railway from
Moscow to Warsaw and that from
Libau to Kharkov. Formerly 1t
maintained a municipal ~pawnshop.
The city has passed through the
hands of many masters. In the time
of William the Conqueror it was a
dependency of the Princes of Pod
DISK. By the close Of the twelfth
century it had fallen INTO the hands
of Lithuania. Thee hundred years
later it belonged to Poland and at
the time of the French Revolution
Russia acquired it.. Napoleon occu-
pied it in 1872"