Page:Scott Nearing - World Labor Unity (1926).pdf/19

 years. … A peasant or a worker can by his own energies rise in his or any other profession with the aid given to him by the system. The pathetic feature in our own civilisation of wasted and dormant talent, the slave of circumstance, owing to the absence of all possibility of outlet or instruction through lack of means, seems likely to become very rare among the workers of Russia."

Trade unions in Russia are well housed. Their membership has been continually increased, At the 1924 Congress it was 6,300,000. "Being largely freed from their main function elsewhere of protecting the workers against exploitation by the wealthy, and of preventing the public service of the workers from being prejudiced for private profit, the Trade Unions have been able to engage in educating the workers as citizens and rulers." The unions participate actively in the control of labor, in the determination of wages, and in the general direction of social life. So effective has their activity been that the workers of Russia in many districts are living on a standard of housing, education, and other advantages "in many respects better than those obtained by labor in Europe."

After reviewing all this evidence the Delegation concludes: "That the U.S.S.R. is a strong and stable State; That its Government is based firstly on a system of State Socialism that has the active support of a large majority of the workers and the acceptance of an equally large majority of the peasants and, secondly, on a federal structure that gives very full cultural and very fair political liberties to racial and regional minorities, together with full religious toleration; That the machinery of government though fundamentally different from that of other States seems to work well, and that the government it gives is not only in every way better than anything that Russia has ever yet had, but that it has done and is doing work in which other older State systems have failed and are still failing; That these good results have reconciled all but a very small minority to renouncing rights of opposition that are essential to political liberty elsewhere; And that this causes no resistance partly because these rights have been replaced by others of greater value under the Soviet system, and partly because recent movements have been steadily toward their restoration; And finally that the whole constitutes a new departure of the greatest interest that is well worth foreign study and a new development that may be greatly benefited by foreign assistance."