Stalin Joseph. Questions and Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview with the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia

New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1927. — 58 p.One of the most important events in the recent history of the American labor movement is the visit of the First American Labor Delegation to the Soviet Union. To the superficial observer it is difficult to understand why and how it is that the Soviet Union plays such an important role in the development of the American labor movement. In America, we have the most powerful capitalist system. In Soviet Russia, we have a growing socialist economic system. In America the capitalist class rules unchallenged effectively. In Soviet Russia the proletariat rules unchallenged and unchallengeable. But this sharp difference in class relations and in the economic structure of the countries does not itself serve to create a gulf between these two labor movements. The American labor movement has some very worthwhile traditions, Yet, when compared with the older labor movements in some of the European countries, the traditions of our working class are few. Particularly in a country where the labor movement is young, and the traditions are not many, does the existence of a Soviet Republic in another country play an important role as a source of inspiration and a source of experience. At this particular moment great masses of American workers are not consciously, sufficiently interested in the development within the Soviet Republic. Still there is already an appreciable section of the American working class, virile in character and growing in number, which is keenly interested in the progress and development of the First Workers and Farmers* Soviet Republic in the world.