Sam Darcy - Whats Happening in the U.S.S.R.?

Only if we understand certain simple facts concerning all of the major countries of the world can we possibly understand what is happening in the Soviet Union today.

Every day the fascists feel themselves in a more difficult situation. Recent press dispatches report that Germany is suffering from increased food and raw material shortages, which have caused shut-downs of numerous factories and dismissals of workers. Even according to official figures, the crops in Germany are worse than they were at this time last year, when they were already bad.

The German, Japanese and Italian governments have badly strained their resources by their attacks on the Ethiopian, Chinese and Spanish people. This strain was far worse than they expected. As a consequence, the situation in these countries is becoming so tense that even the press censorship in Germany couldn't suppress the fact that a delegation of leading business men of Germany went to Hitler a few days ago to demand a change in the situation and a let-up in the strain on the country in preparation for war. And Hitler had to threaten them with arrest to get them to withdraw their demands.

All of these facts point to a situation wherein German, Japanese and Italian fascists are impelled to press for the earliest provocation of a general world-war situation as a means of meeting their precarious internal situation.

These facts bear strongly on what is happening in the Soviet Union today.

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We must go back to what we might arbitrarily call the beginning of this period: from 1929 to 1934. When the history of these years is considered in longer perspective, we realize that they were far more critical than we thought at that time. There were three major factor which characterized that period of four or five years: (1) The tremendous expansion and socialization of Soviet industry and the collectivization of agriculture were world-shaking phenomena, which, if lacking the dramatic force of. the Russian revolution itself, certainly could be compared to' any event in history as a turning point in the development of the world. (2) All capitalist countries during these years suffered from the deepest crisis the world has ever experienced. (3) There was a great rise of the fascist movement: in Germany and subsequently the Heimwehr fascists in Austria; the rise of the French fascist movement after the event of February 6, 1934; the growth of the Heinlein fascists in Czechoslovakia, who dominate approximately one-fifth of the country; the Degrelle movement in Belgium; the Iron Guard in Rumania; the rise of fascist movements in the Scandinavian countries, in England, and even in the United States.

If you go back to this period you can see what a vast expanse of fascist activities there was all over the world! The international fascist organizations began as propaganda units, but year by year became greater espionage and sabotage organizations in many countries including the United States. Even in Britain the ruling class, which for years tried to soft-pedal criticism of German fascism, was forced in 1933 openly to strike back against the German espionage organization there in the famous case of Lieut. Norman Baillie-Stewart who was convicted of selling military secrets to a foreign power. In the United States the German fascists have been the most provocative in the East, but on the Pacific coast Japan has set up a large espionage organization, so much so that the United States last year was forced to make a demonstration in the Farnsworth case. These are agents who don't merely gather military information, but who also try to wreck industry, disrupt the peace and democratic organizations, the progressive organizations, the trade unions, every possible anti-war, anti-fascist force and aid the reactionary pro-fascist elements to win hegemony in the countries to which they have been assigned.

During these years' the fascists carried out a campaign of assassination in every country of the world. The Rumanian Premier, Duca, was murdered by the Iron Guard in 1933. In 1933-34, fifteen prominent people in Czechoslovakia were abducted into Germany and never heard from. In Austria, Chancellor Dolfuss was murdered. Barthou and the pro-French king of Jugoslavia were murdered by one of the trigger men of the Nazi organization "Ustachi' in 1934. The stiletto murders in France occurred this year.

It is interesting to note in this connection the following excerpts from a confidential news service called The Week published in England, which says in the issue of June 16, 1937:

"Opinion is hardening in circles linked with the French Surete, The Week learns that Professor Rosselli, editor of the anti-fascist paper Justice and Liberty and organizer of the Garibaldi battalion of the International Brigade which was largely responsible for the rout of the Italian troops at Guadalajara, was murdered by the same gang who assassinated the Russian banker and emigre Navachrin and Mlle. Letitia, the French Secret Agent, recently done away with in the Paris Metro [subway].

"All the murders bear striking similarities: all three victims were people who had, for some reason or other, crossed the path of the Italian espionage system in France; all the murders were, from the point of view of the criminal, 'perfect murders,' worked out by experts after detailed and prolonged preparation and all the murderersor at least so it would appear at the momentgot away with it.

"Meanwhile French indignation has been increased by the recent report that the quick-firing revolver used to assassinate M. Barthou and King Alexander of Jugoslavia in Marseilles was a German Service revolver of a new type which must have come from the German War Officethe revolver was not issued generally to the German Army until several months after the Marseilles killings.

"It is, of course, known that the Croatian Ustachi, the terrorists who did the killing, had, and still have for that matter, their newspaper published in Berlin with the support of the Foreign Political Office of the Nazi Party.)

"Furthermore, there is reason to believe that the plan to murder Professor Rosselli was not altogether unknown to certain high officials of the Doriot French Popular Party which, it is known, is riddled with both German and Italian secret agents.

"That, even if ever discovered, Professor Rosselli's murderers will go unpunished, however, is now generally believed-certain influential circles both in France and this country holding that to bring them to justice would, in the present explosive state of international relations, be a diplomatic faux pas of the first magnitude."

The kidnaping of the recently executed Jewish patriot Hirsch, and the notorious Jacobs case are indicative of hundreds of similar cases, many of which are never reported. Having got away with the murder of a minister, a king, a chancellor, and as yet an uncounted number of lesser officials, is it any wonder that they dared the greatest atrocity of all, their conspiracy with Franco in Spain? Thus the fascists succeeded in finding groups of traitors in all countries who for pay or promises committed murder and betrayed their people.

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During these years, communists in the U.S.S.R. allowed a certain laxness to develop with regard to the activities of the capitalist countries, especially the fascist countries, which encircle the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. was absorbed with the struggle to fulfil the requirements of the First Five-Year Plan. The work of construction did not proceed as smoothly as it was thought in the United States. The U.S.S.R. needed metal for construction but there was no metal available. The materials and the tremendous personnel necessary for the new construction projects had to he transported across vast spaces, hut the transport system was congested and inadequate. Building material was insufficient for the great demand. The builders and factory workers needed food, clothing and at least elementary housing; but resources and supplies and the skill to handle those vast projects were inadequate. Slovenly methods of work were still left over from the old tsarist regime. The workers had to be drawn from a peasantry of fifty generations who did not easily acquire the skill to man the new industries. There were few engineers and technicians.