The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-08-27

TO Russia. For three years hundreds
OF them have been attending classes
regularly training themselves to be Of
special technical service to Russia.
Experience has shown that such Rus
sian Americans if put into large
Russian organization are likely to
lose the advantage of their technical
training and to drop back to Russian
industrial standards. So they will at
first be kept together in organized
groups, only gradually absorbing
other Russians. To them will be given
entire factories which now lie idle,
considerable economic autonomy,
freedom to dispose of their products
as they please. But they are co-opera-
tives, returning to serve Russia, not
to exploit her. "Those Russian-Amer-
leans are worth hundred big con-
cessions," Martens said to me one
day. "The policy of concessions i,
utopian-you cannot really expect big
capitalists to do anything to serve
Russia"
One Of the widest, highest, bravest
dreams that ever | heard was Matched
by group Of such returned Russian
Americans. One day carload of them
left for the Kuznitz Basin in Siberia.
Back of Tomsk lies one of the richest
mineral regions in the world-a noun
tain of iron ore close to hard coal
that needs only removal Of the sur
face earth, in a rich timber country
beside a navigable river. The dream
is, instead of giving concession for
the district to Western capitalists, to
turn it over for development to a
cooperative group Of returning Rus
Americans, most of them |. w.
WIS. 1t sounds wild, yet the achieve
ments of the I. w. W. in Rus
sia must all have sounded wild.
One former I. w. w. is now Buden-
ny's aide-de-camp. He used to read
Budenny the New York Times ac-
counts Of the cavalry generals ex-
ploits; and Budenny, who carries a
Communist Party card in his pocket,
would chuckle until he saw the faxed
pictures of himself in the Times and
then would swear. Another bustling
/. W. w. is Martens very capable
confidential secretary; Martens is
now a member of the praesidium of
the Supreme Council Of National
Economy. Still another /. W. W. has
replaced "spez" (specialist) as
director of new stretch of railroad
under construction and. is said to be
very capable engineer 1t was an
l. w. w. who first brought the Petro-
grad Moscow railway out of the early
revolutionary chaos. Something of the
rowdy, working, fighting, laughing
spirit that those boys are carrying
back to Russia breathes yn a letter
of greeting that came to Bill Hay
wood soon after his arrival in Mos
COW. It's writer happened to have been
born in German Poland, but he is Of
the type of Americans returned to
Russia:
Felser's Factory,
Mini Novgorod, June, 1921.
Hello Bill--Fellow Worker!
A few days ago bunch of German
workingmen with their families got
here and one of them told me you are
at present in this country. Would like
to have a talk with you but it's i'm
possible ! guess. Do you remember
one wobb, Karl W. Sonntag, member
No. 188451, who in the winter of '16-
IT hung around 1901 West Madison
Street all his free time? Well, later
in the spring of II / went off to
Idaho, got pinched there in the strike
of lumbermen, and was sent Tor three
months to the Moscow, Idaho, county
Jail. Herd and Hawkins were in that
bunch and received from the law some
years at Boise. In February, '18, they
got me again out of machine-shoI
] in Seattle; followed some five or six
months of diverse jails, the best Of
them that at Walla Walla. During
those five or six months they dis.
covered that ! was not Polak but 8
German and off ! got sent to Fort
Douglas, Utah. There some eight
months Of disciplinary barracks, bread
and water, and finally two leadca bul.
let's in the leg. What for? 0 hell,
liked to sing, and all the English
songs l knew were wobbly songs
There you are. Personally I'm glad
you are over here, for they would
have hung you yet over there and Il
this country needs, anything it's or.
ganizers so think you'll have a he'll
Of lot Of work to do here supposine
you'll stay here for good. Let's all de-
our best to make paradise for work
ers out Of this country As ! and -four
Others left Moscow one John A.
w;shed In vo along with us: we took