Source: International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 54 [32], 2 August 1923, p. 581.
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To all National Committees of the International Worker’s Relief!
To the Workers of all Countries!
To all Friends of Soviet Russia!
The famine in Russia is over. The All-Russian Central Committee for Combatting the Results of the Famine is dissolved. More and more Russia is being consolidated. As visible signs of the recovery, heavy cargoes of the old and the new Russian crop are being forwarded to impoverished Central Europe. Everybody is interested in the economic reconstruction of Russia. All capitalist countries are sending their representatives to the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow. There are indisputable signs of capitalist resignation to the existence of the Workers’ Republic.
The International Workers’ Relief for Soviet Russia already united in the years of famine and the first attempts at economic relief all proletarian and productive powers in the fight against famine and for Russia’s reconstruction. The I.W.R. established a number of prosperous and productive undertakings, such as the agricultural estates near Kasan, the slice factory in Moscow, the large fishery undertaking near Astrachan and the agricultural estate in the Urals held in common with the Russian Trade Unions.
The I.W.R. collected thousands of helpless orphan children in its “Children’s Homes”, where these are fed and trained. The I.W.R. began the great work of reconstruction at a time when the whole capitalist world condemned Soviet Russia and fought against it with arms in hand.
The “World Conference for Economic Aid and Reconstruction in Russia” convened by the I.W.R., in Berlin, took place on the 17th of June. National and International representatives of proletarian, intellectual and philanthropic bodies and organizations combined to provide an impressive demonstration for Soviet Russia’s reconstruction. The Conference resolved on increased efforts on behalf of the collective work of the Russian Relief, and appointed a Commission to ensure the maintenance of communication between the separate international organizations disposed to co-operation in productive economic relief.
The results obtained by the I.W.R. up to date prove the possibility of productive and successful work in Russia. We are appealing to all Committees of the International Workers’ Relief, to all workers of all countries and to all friends of Soviet Russia to assist in the practical reconstruction of Russia begun by the international proletariat. Only a free and strong Russia can save the proletariat and the large masses of petty bourgeois from their present economic distress.
All men who join in the large work of the collective reconstruction of Russia, are laying the foundations upon which to build a new world.
July 25, 1923.
Clara Zetkin, Kaethe Kollwitz, Arthur Holitscher, Ernst Toller, George Gross, Prof. Eitzbacher, Edwin Hoernle, Maximilian Harden, G.G.L. Alexander, Theodor Liebknecht, Prof. Oesterreich, Willi Muenzenberg, Max Barthel (Germany); Anatole France, Henri Barbusse, Madeleine Marx, M. Cachin, Rose Blanchet (France); Bernard Shaw, Edgar Whitehead, MacLaine (England); Z. Hoeglund, Mayor Lindhagen, Frederic Stroem, Tlure Nerman (Sweden); Sievertsen (Norway); Martin Andersen-Nexoe (Denmark); Henriette Roland-Holst, Edo Fimmen, I.W. Kruyt, Brommert (Holland); Prof. Forel, Fritz Platten (Schweiz); Prof. Graziadei, N. Bombacci, Fr. Misiano (Italy); Smeral, Kreibich (Czechoslovakia); Upton Sinclair, Davis (America).
Last updated on 3 September 2021