had proved that "the workers could grasp the helm and manage the state."
The Russians, he added, had been accused of hiding their real ideas under certain forms of propaganda. But this was untrue. The Russians were not ashamed of their ideas. "It was in the name of these ideas that in October, 1917, they gave up criticising the capitalist class by resolution and began criticising them by arms. They set free the bankers from the burden of the banks; they set free the employers from the burden of conducting the factories; they set free the landowners from the burden of the land; and on that basis they hold power and have built up a working-class State."
Tomsky asked the delegates to give up mutual accusation and to assist in setting up one united Trade Union International, Russia, he said, was prepared to join such an International. The entire house rose at the word; the "International" pealed forth from the organ; and the delegates spiritedly joined in the song.
Fred Bramley on behalf of the General Council moved the Unity Resolution. He pointed out the need for an International Federation of Trade Unions strong enough to meet the international offensive of the bosses and sufficiently elastic to include, the Labor Movement of all countries. It was with this object in view, he said, that the British General Council had been negotiating with Moscow and with Amsterdam. The resolution before the Congress provided for the continuance of such negotiations.
Russian problems, Bramley said, must be judged in relation to the past history of Russia. Otherwise they could not be correctly interpreted. He went on:
"The Russian Revolution was the first revolution in history aiming at, and securing, the overthrow of economic exploitation. It was also the first great national experiment in working class control. Russia is a Socialist Republic, and I wish to call your attention to the fact that it is the only revolution, the only economic change, that has received the universal condemnation of the exploiting classes.
"The Russian experiment and what has arisen from it hav demonstrated one important fact. You can cut off the heads of kings, abolish royal families, imprison emperors, promote world wars leading to the devastation of whole countries and their inhabitants. Still you can be forgiven and accepted into the comity of nations. But if you disturb the landed interests of a country and abolish the exploitation of the wage earners you will have to face what Russia has had to face and is facing now—isolation, international boycott, and persecution.
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