The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-10-15
Some Facts on Soviet
American Trade

As everyone knows, the economic crisis has
II brought sharp decline in the exports of
the United States to foreign countries.
Total exports from the United States to all
countries showed a 81 per cent drop in value in
1880 as compared with 1929. The exports of the
United States to Europe dropped 81 per cent in
1880. To non-European countries the drop was
81 per cent, rejecting in part the tremendous
drop in purchasing power of the colonial and
semi colonial countries dependent largely on the
sales of raw material and foodstuffs.
But while this drop was noticed in the ex-
ports of the United States to all countries there
was one exception.
The exports to the Soviet Union chat part of
it which lies in Europe) increased 81 per cent
over 1929.
This was last year before the National Civil
Federation, headed by Matthew Vol, the Fish
Committee, the American Manganese Producers
Association, the mysterious Joint Conference on
Unfair Russian Competition" and similar war
hungry capitalist bodies, assistet by the Russian
monarchist emigrees in the United States, be-
gan their campaign to embargo Soviet goods,
and to spread their wild lies about conditions OF
labor in the Soviet Union.
What has been the result of the hysterical
shouts Of these anti-Soviet Black Hundreds?
The figures for exports from the United States
for the first seven months of 1881 begin to show
it, u S. exports to the Soviet Union dropped
per cent below the same period of the previous
year.
But the drop in orders, which will be reflected
in next years trade, is the most significant point.
Purchases by the Amtorg Trading Corporation,
the sole buying agency of the Soviet industries
in the United States, fell from $88, AGO. 900 during
the first eight months of 1880 to $485o0,O00
during the first eight months of l931-a decline
of As per cent.
Although the United States has been sending
to the Soviet Union a much larger proportion
!. of its exports than before the war, and buying
a. smaller percentage Of its exports from the
Soviet Union the American government, repre-
senting the larger interests" of American cap
italsm, seems willing to sacrifice this trade If it
can strike blow at the FiveYear Plan, which
Is now on the way to being achieved in four
years.
But the Soviet industries have answered the
American propaganda of lies by directing their
orders to country which gives full diplomatic
recognition. AS result the orders placed in
Germany during the first six months Of 1881
were 95 per cent above those for the same period
last year. AS P. A. Bogdanov, Chairman Of the
Board of Directors of the Amtorg, points out in :
the current Economic Review Of the Soviet
Union "this development is direct result OF
the favorable credit terms extended by German
industrialists on orders for the Soviet Union"
Credit terms and facilities for trade, OF course,
depend much upon recognition. But at present
the Soviets are simply demanding of the United
States the removal Of all discriminatory re-
strictions on Soviet products
Unless these restrictions are removed and the
whole dumping" and forced labor" lies cir
culated by the A. F.. of l.. and the capitalists,
are stopped, we may expect to see steady drop
in United States exports to the Soviet Union.
This, as every American machinist and electrical
worker knows, means more unemployment and
greater misery Tor the workers here