World Labor Unity/Chapter 9
IX. Report of the British Delegation to Russia
The position of the British in these negotiations was greatly strengthened by the Report of the British Delegation to Russia. The Report, published officially by the Trades Union Congress, is a careful, extended document covering various phases of public life in Russia under the Soviets. There are chapters on politics, finance, industry, transport and agriculture, foreign commerce, education, public health, trade unions, labor regulations, wages, and other topics. At the time of its appearance it was the most comprehensive and thoroughgoing statement in English concerning the life of the workers in Soviet Russia.
It is impossible in a brief space to give any adequate idea either of the extent of this report or of the conclusions which it presents.
Early in its pages the British delegates assert that unless people realize that the working class is the ruling class in Russia they can have no correct understanding of the events which have taken place there since the Russian Revolution. Great emphasis is laid upon the improvement in the political, economic, and social conditions of Russian workers. Those members of the Delegation who had been in Russia in 1920, and those who were familiar with Russia before the Revolution, found the situation in 1924 vastly improved. The Delegation found Russian finance on a sound basis with a stable currency, a balanced budget, and an experimental relation maintained between private trading, the co-operatives, and the state organizations. Great emphasis was laid on the improvement in industry and on the effective work done by the State Planning Commission, whose object is the control of production and trade. "The existing economic system is not only viable, but has real vitality … it does not stunt, but can even stimulate the economic recovery that peace has now made possible."[1] Equally favorable are the reports on commerce, transport, and agriculture.
Health and housing have improved; social conditions are definitely better; education has received an immense impetus as a result of the Revolution. "Every opportunity and encouragement is given to the worker, no matter what may be his or her calling, to obtain the best instruction in any branch of art, industry, science, or literature for which he may feel he has an aptitude. The results which were seen by the Delegation in all the districts visited were certainly astounding, especially when it is considered that the whole system has not yet been in operation for three 
Size of Labor Movement in Various Countries
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."[3] 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."[4]
The British Delegation to Russia did not consist of Communists. On the contrary, British trade unionism was the strongest single element in the Amsterdam International. The delegates state in their report that they were given every facility for making a thoroughgoing investigation of working and living conditions in Russia. As a result of this investigation they presented a series of conclusions, not one of which was generally unfavorable to the Soviet regime, and most of which were specifically pro-Soviet in character. The report naturally produced a profound effect on the thinking of British labor leaders.