Russian Workers and Workshops in 1926

This pamphlet is a report of a visit to mills, mines, and factories of the Soviet Union. Its aim is to present a general picture of conditions as one finds them in a trip through various Russian industrial centres of today. It is not a detailed report of industry, but a series of often quite miscellaneous facts and impressions gathered as we went along. Although pamphlet aims primarily to illustrate conditions in the present Russian industry, it also deals with other working-class subjects, such as the Communist Party, the trade unions, workers’ clubs, theaters, courts, etc., just as we met them on our journey, thus giving a broader picture of the work lives in Soviet Russia. Upon completion, a chapter has been added dealing with the economic and political situation generally in Soviet Russia. Our trip included the following cities: Ekaterinoslav, Stalino, Kharkoff, and Leningrad in the order named. My wife Esther and I visited these towns together. On the trip to Leningrad, we were accompanied by Alex Bittelman and his wife. American workers have been lied to on an unprecedented scale about the Russian revolution. Every phase of it has been intentionally distorted and garbled. All the rag-tag and bob-tail purlers of capitalism, from employers to reactionary trade-union leaders, have shared in this campaign of misrepresentation and vilification of the first revolutionary government of workers and farmers. If this pamphlet contributes even in a small degree towards sweeping aside this curtain of lies and towards giving American workers some idea of the enormous progress being made by the working class in the Soviet Union, it will have fully served its purpose.