The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-03-19
FROM "THE SECOND CONGRESS OF THE COMMIT
RUSSIAN DIVISION OF THF5

back from US already tenfold And this same
bourgeois, Keynes, Who does not at all
with thd revolutionary move
ment and is IN factiits enemy, says: You
can not reckon in these debts, because you
will never collect them,
Frances Indebtedness. !
frances assets are three and one-half
billions, while her liabilities are ten and
half; that is three 4mes more. And this is
the country OF which one used to say that
it was the usurer ofAthe entire world, the
financial monarch. This is the country
which has lived as b progressive civilized
country because its Savings Colonial thefts,
called savings), maae it possible for her
to lend billions to other countries, and par
ticularly to Russia. IN spite of this fact,
France is now in the position of debtor
All Debts Must Be AnnulIed.
"a German historian says that the debts
Of England and France victorious countries)
amount to 80 to 55( per cent of the entire
national wealth; that of Italy, 60 to 70 per
cent; that of RussiA, 80 per cent
But, as you know, these debts do not
worry us, because we, (even before the book
of Keynes appeared) followed his good ad-
vice: Annull all debts. (Applause.)l
Wages and Prices.
From these brief figures you see that
the economic war has created an impossible
situation for the victorious countries, and
that internally there has grown up an
enormous disproportion between wages and
prices. Even in the most progressive count
ries prices have increased far beyond wages
The Supreme Economic Council (which re.
presents an institution defending the bour-
geois order of the whole world against
growing revolution, on March of this year
adopted a resolution which describes certain
fundamental traits of the economic situation,
and concludes with an appeal for order, in
dustry, and economy S0h the condition, of
course, that the workmen should live as
before in slavery to capitaD. This supreme
organ Of our opponent-the Entente point
ed out that the general increase in prices
during the period of the war amounted to
l20 per cent, while wages increased 100 per
cent In France the increase in prices was
300 per cent, and in wages 200 per cent
And thus it is in all countries. q take only
the victorious countries.)
And when they tell us that Boishevism
is disorder, scarecrow, we cam only smile,
for from the statistical data of the Supreme
Council we see why the workmen can not
live according to the old standards. Because
even if all Bolsheviks should disappear en-
tirely, even in America recently America
sent us 500 Communists ,(applause) )-even
if America should send not 500 but 5000
Communists-there would still remain the
disproportion between prices and wages, a
disproportion which America can not solve
because private property is sacred (although
in Russia we have forgotten all about this),
while against this new power of capital
against these tens of billions collected by the
war, you can accomplish nothing" No
strikes, no parliamentary struggle, no elec-
tions, no reforms can accomplish anything
here, because they have this sacred private
Through private property such
debts have accumulated as will subject the
entire world to complete slavery.
while need increases among workmen
even in the most progressive countries,
profits also have begun to increase in an
and -unheard-of manner.
Comrade Laninsky in pamphlet prepared
for publication entitled The World and the
English Bourgeoisie, points out that in Eng
land the profits on exported coal have been
twice what was expected in official circles.
In Lancaster the stocks of weaving indus
tries have increased 400 per cent; the I'M
comes of banks have increased 40 to so per
cent. We know that bankers are able to con-
ceal the best, the lions's share, of these in
comes, so that it does not appear in the ac-
counts as income, but is hidden under the
form of various reniunerations and such.
Bourgeois statistics prove conclusively
that the wealth Of insignificant groups has
and all this in the most progress
sive countries. In particular one should note
the change in the value of money.
4 I'M. II. -