FRIENDS OF SOVIET UNION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 137, 10 May 1940, Page 3

FRIENDS OF SOVIET UNION.

(Contributed by N.Z. Welfare League.) When this organisation was started in New Zealand in the early “thirties” we warned the public that it was closely connected with the 3rd Diternational through its (then) Berlin centre. The local officers denied our statement. At the end of 1932 the International Committee of the F.S.U. sent a circular in connection with tlie sending ot delegates to a conference in Russia in Alay of 1933, accompanied by a questionnaire. The circular is too long to quote in full, but it stated that (1) Tho workers’ delegations must be composed of workers from basic industries. No other workers were to bo included. (These seven words were underlined in the circular.) . (2) The F.S.U. must be built up as a mass organisation of workers based on militant groups inside factories and workshops. . (3) The unemployed must be mobilised. (4) Tlie “utmost care must be made of tho delegates on their return —carefully worked out plans must bo prepared for concentrated work in the racteries in which they are employed to form basic-groups of the F.S.U. to prepare them for militant action in defence of the workers’ dictatorship and draw them into the broad revolutionary struggle against capitalism.” In 1934 the F.S.U. in New Zealand actually sent a delegation to Russia who were the guests of tho Soviet Government. Instructions from Aloscow stipidated that the ' delegation should represent our key industries and they asked for a miner, a seaman, railway worker, and an unemployed worker.

' THE QUESTIONNAIRE. The F.S.U. tells us in New Zealand that its objective is to inform the public of the progress in Russia under’ the Soviet Government. But it is interesting to note that the questionnaire sent out in 1933 asked (inter alia) for the number of members, for their trades and occupations; the political feelings, i.e., Labour, Socialist, Communist, etc., and lastly the number of groups started in shops, factories, or industry. The supply of this information from New Zealand to Russia is surely a curious way of telling us of Russian progress! The F.S.U. was on the .black list of the Trade Union Council in England and there' is ample evidence that it- is closely associated with - the Third International and working in tlie interests of Russia; tlie ally of our enemy Germany. Yet.it is still allowed to carry on its work iu New Zealand.