The Soviet passed a resolution expressing
"firm confidence that the Soviet Government will
succeed in getting peace and so in opening a wide road to
the construction of a proletarian state." A note was passed
up to Kamenev who, glancing at it, announced that the
newly elected representative of the Chinese workmen in
Moscow wished to speak. This was Chitaya Kuni, a solid
little Chinaman with a big head, in black leather coat and
breeches. I had often seen him before, and wondered who
he was. He was received with great cordiality and made a
quiet, rather shy speech in which he told them he was
learning from them how to introduce socialism in China, and
more compliments of the same sort. Reinstein replied,
telling how at an American labour congress some years back
the Americans shut the door in the face of a representative
of a union of foreign workmen. "Such," he said, "was the
feeling in America at the time when Gompers was supreme,
but that time has passed." Still, as I listened to Reinstein, I
wondered in how many other countries besides Russia, a
representative of foreign labour would be thus welcomed.
The reason has probably little to do with the
good-heartedness of the Russians. Owing to the
general unification of wages Mr. Kuni could not
represent the competition of cheap labour. I talked to the
Chinaman afterwards. He is president of the Chinese
Soviet. He told me they had just about a thousand Chinese
workmen in Moscow, and therefore had a right to
representation in the government of the town. I asked about
the Chinese in the Red Army, and he said there were two or
three thousand, not more.
AN EX-CAPITALIST
February 13th.
I drank tea with an old acquaintance from the provinces, a
Russian who, before the revolution, owned a leather-bag
factory which worked in close connection with his uncle's
tannery. He gave me a short history of events at home. The
uncle had started with small capital, and during the war had
made enough to buy outright the tannery in which he had
had shares. The story of his adventures since the October
revolution is a very good illustration of the rough and ready
way in which theory gets translated into practice. I am
writing it, as nearly as possible, as it was told by the nephew.
During the first revolution, that is from March till October
1917, he fought hard against the workmen, and was one
of the founders of a Soviet of factory owners, the object of
which was to defeat the efforts of the workers' Soviets.*
[(*)By agreeing upon lock-outs,etc.] This, of course,
was smashed by the October Revolution, and "Uncle, after
being forced, as a property owner, to pay considerable
contributions, watched the newspapers closely, realized that
after the nationalization of the banks resistance was
hopeless, and resigned himself to do what he could, not to
lose his factory altogether."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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