Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/229



diplomats have repeatedly acknowledged that one of the purposes of their negotiations for governmental trade agreements is to obtain de facto recognition of the Soviet Government with all the prestige that this implies. Krassin, the chief negotiator with Great Britain, has acknowledged that there can be very little trade for some time and Mr. Hughes has demonstrated that trade will depend upon the extension of credit by somebody or other to the Soviet Government.

The whole negotiations are described by Lenin in a speech before the railwaymen, reported by the Moscow wireless on April 3rd, 1921, as "our game with the bourgeoisie."

But an additional purpose of these trade negotiations is Bolshevist propaganda throughout the world and as part of this propaganda the word has been passed along by the Bolshevists—for foreign consumption—that by the very act of making trade agreements with capitalists, Communism in Russia was being abandoned.

There is no foundation for this claim. All the revolutionary wars, insurrections, general strikes and agitations openly subsidized by the Bolshevists throughout the world for the past three years have been going on simultaneously with the agitation for trade agreements and the effort to interest capitalists through concessions,