The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-07-18

conviction is based upon the simple
fact that the capitalist great powers
have divergent interests regarding US.
The attempt to exercise joint and
permanent pressure will end in fall
ure.
The question now is whether they
will be able to reconcile themselves
to the existence OF a workers and
peasants republic. II they are not
able to do so, then they can do what
they please. The main question is,
whether they can destroy this repub-
lie. They have already attempted 1t
by military means-but they did not
succeed. They will not succeed in
the next few years in mobilizing the
masses of the peoples in their states
against us. Can they strangle us eco
nomically? Can they carry out an
economic boycott against us? 1t is
easy for America to speak of an eco
nomic boycott, as she does not need
us; England can also play with this
policy for certain time, but the
smaller countries such as Germany,
Italy, Belgium, France, etc, which
have no oil and are interested in our
benzine, cannot carry out a consistent
boycott. They will attempt to intim-
idate us, but our situation is more
favorable than theirs and we will find
the necessary means in order to shat
ter their united front.
The question of the Russian debts
is bound up with the question of the
inter-allied debts. We are interested
in postponing the solution of this
question Should it prove that the
allies can only extract from France 10
per cent of its old debts, why should
we be better payers of debts than
France? In practical politics what
will decide this question is, whether
we conclude an agreement at the mo-
ment when we have a good harvest
and whether the allies will recognize
that we are not afraid OF their pres
sure, or whether this agreement is
concluded at time when our country
is in difficult situation.
THE chief popularity of the policy
L of the Soviet Union consists in
the fact that Russia, in spite of all
its poverty, can thanks to its vast ex-
tent, afford to wait its own time.
We are confronted with a period of
pressure, period which will be &C.
companied by whole number of var
ious threats, but which we shall sur
vive, and which, in all probability, will
smooth the way to agreements which
will permit us not only to maintain,
but also to develop our socialist state.
In regard to the Russian revolution,
world capital exhibited the following
phases: In the year 1919 it attempted
to strangle Soviet Russia, it attempted
to buy a part of the working class
and to crush the steadfast revolution
airy part. We had at that time, on the
one hand, the Intervention in Russia
and the crushing of the spartacists in
Germany, and ON the other hand, the
promises of the socializing of inrustry
in Germany, France and England, the
extension of the suffrage to the work
ers etc. In spite of this world capital
did not succeed in strangling us. The
second phase consisted in the attempt
to negotiate with us and to strangle
the revolution in the east. In 1921,
the imperialists negotiated with us in
Genoa and shot down the Turks. They
reckoned that if they succeeded in
strangling our revolutionary rear
guard we would have to capitulate.
THE third phase began when they
= perceived that we were not throt-
tied by the famine catastrophe and
that the NEP did not mean a return
to old capitalist politics. Then, in the
year 1923, there set in the Curzon DO
Icy. 1t consisted in the attempt to
come to an understanding with the
east, with the Turks, and to exert
pressure upon us. To this period be-
longs the peace Of Lausanne and the
ultimatum which was submitted to us.