This report on the trials of the I.W.W.’s Russian language newspaper offers a rare look at radical Russian speaking workers in the U.S. before the war, where they were located, what industries, language groups, and radical organizing.

‘Report on the Russian Paper’ by Byork Lenekewitzky from Proceedings of the Tenth Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, Chicago. 1916.

BYORK LENEKEWITZKY, Delegate from 593.

Resolution 91 —

To the 10th Convention of the I.W.W

As most of the delegates are aware the Russian I.W.W. weekly, ‘Rabochaya Rech” (“The Workers’ Voice”) was suppressed by the postal authorities.

The ire of the postmaster general was brought about not by any wild and bombastic editorials, but by a translation from the International Socialist Review, and by a passage in another article quoting the I.W.W. preamble namely, “We must inscribe on our banner the watchwords ‘Abolition of the Wage System.’”

Of course the real reason for the suppression of “Rabochaya Rech” will be found not so much in the editorials printed in it (there have been several very radical Russian papers published in the United States and never molested) as in the fact that “Rabochaya Rech” carried the message of Industrial Unionism in a very clear and simple language to the foreign speaking slaves of’ the Steel Trust.

In the Pittsburgh district alone (Pittsburgh, McKees Rocks, Homestead, Braddock) “Rabochaya Rech” had a circulation of about 150 copies weekly. In Gary, Ind., it had about 20 regular subscribers. Several copies of this “silent agitator” circulated in Youngstown, Ohio, and a few got into the Rockefeller owned steel mills of Pueblo, Colo.

It seems not to be altogether a casual coincident, that the postal authorities turned their unwelcome attention to the “Rabochaya Rech” a couple of weeks after copies of “Rabochaya Rech” were taken by the Pittsburgh police from pickets arrested during a strike at the National Tube Co. (a subsidiary of the U.S. Steel Corporation) plant in that city. During the strike at the Pressed Steel Car Co. plant in McKees Rocks, Pa., last May copies of “Rabochaya Rech” circulated freely among the Russian and Ruthenian speaking strikers. Result—the issues of “Rabochaya Rech,” June the 6th and 13th, were confiscated by the postal authorities and in the end the whole paper was denied even the privileged class of mail (first class).

At present the Russian branch of Local 593, which had published “Rabochaya Rech” is publishing a new weekly under another name, “Rabochiy” (The Worker), but it is forced to send it out by first class mail, which means $10 more expenses per each issue. On the other side the confusion, caused by changing the name and address of the paper, caused a considerable decrease in the renewal of subscriptions and in getting new subscribers. To make the matter still worse, several of the most active members of Local 593, who went in the Dakota harvest with the intention to make a good sized stake and devote a large part of it to the Russian I.W.W. paper, came back with hardly enough money to buy a new overcoat or mackinaw for the winter, owing to the bad crop of spring wheat this year.

In a word, the press fund of Local 593 is nearly exhausted, and, unless some immediate help be forthcoming the aim of the postal authorities and the Steel Trust will be achieved — the Russian I.W.W. paper will cease to exist.

For this reason I propose that this convention vote a loan of $200 to the press fund of Local 593 (to be repaid inside of 10 months) as an expression of protest against the action of the postal authorities in suppressing freedom of press and as a means of tiding the “Rabochiy” over hard times caused by the action of the Postmaster General.

I wish the delegates when voting on this motion to remember that, if the I.W.W. is ever really going to organize the great industries of the east, it MUST educate the “hunkies” up to some understanding of the basic principles of Industrial Unionism. One of the members of Local 593 was in McKees Rocks last spring, and he could not find there any traces of I.W.W.’s in spite of the fact that the I.W.W.s conducted there a large and successful strike in 1909. The reasons for this failure to hold ground once won may be many, but one of them, undoubtedly, was the absence of literature and periodicals in the foreign languages spoken in McKees Rocks (Ruthenian [Little Russian], Polish, Slovac, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Roumanian, Greek, and a few others). Russian branches of the I.W.W. existed once in Honolulu, Hawaii; Vancouver, B.C.; San Francisco, Cal.; Minneapolis, Minn.; not mentioning a very numerous and strong Ruthenian I.W.W. branch in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the couple branches of Ruthenians, who came within the influence of the I.W.W. during the strike on the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk railroads in British Columbia.

At present there are hardly any traces left of those organizations. On the other side the Ruthenian branch of the political Socialist party in McKees Rocks flourishes, the Canadian Socialist party has a healthy Ruthenian branch in Winnipeg, and the Federation of Unions of Russian Workers (an anarchistic organization with some nationalistic flavor) has branches in San Francisco, Vancouver, and members in Minneapolis. All because the political Socialist and the Federation of Russian Workers were able to have their own press and publish pamphlet literature.

Also there are not very many Russian speaking workers in the United States (only about 150,000, not counting the Ruthenians, who speak a little different dialect, of which there are 500,000 in Canada and about 300,000 in the United States), they are to a certain extent concentrated in the Steel Industry.

The steel mills of the Homestead, Pa., and Gary, Ind., employ each nearly 3,000 Russians. The “Hunkie Town” of McKees Rocks is populated mainly by Ruthenians, and in the steel wire mills of Joliet, Ill., there work a few hundred Russians.

In Erie, Pa., the Russians compose over 90 per cent of the A.F. of L. union of dock laborers (and it would be an easy matter to swing it in the I.W.W.), several thousands of Russians and Ruthenians are employed as longshoremen at the New York water front; a few hundred belong to the I.W.W. Marine Transport Workers in Philadelphia.

The steel mills of Pueblo, Colo., the eastern sugar factories, the packing houses of Kansas City and Sioux City, the lumber camps and sawmills of Minnesota and Wisconsin, the eastern sugar factories and the machine shops of Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and South Bethlehem, Pa., have each a goodly proposition of Russian wage-slaves. I submit to the contention that it will repay the I.W.W. in general to make a temporary loan to a paper which, although started only a year ago has made steady increasing circulation, which has already passed the 1,500 mark, which is not only read in the United States and Canada, from New Orleans and Baltimore to Anchorage, Alaska, but also has quite a bunch of readers in Australia and a few subscribers in England, France and even Japan. Last, but not least, the Russian I.W.W. paper was instrumental in collecting over $250 for the Mesaba Range strike and the money for the defense of the boys m Duluth jail is still coming in. I may add that there are no “meal tickets attached to the “Rabochiy,” the editor, business manager and circulation manager giving their time and energy entirely free. Much of the work around the printing plant (such as folding and mailing the paper, printing appeals and circulars for distribution in shops, etc.), is done by members of Local 593 free in spare time at nights.

The only work which is paid for is typesetting and running the papers off the press. A monthly account of all expenses and expenditures of Russian press fund is published in the “Rabochiy” regularly. This account contains monthly itemized expenses of the printing shop. The day-by-day expenditures of “Rabochiy” and its publishing bureau are read every two weeks at the business meetings of Local 593, are audited every month by auditing committee elected by 593, and the books of the Russian Publishing Bureau are always in complete order and at all times open to inspection, not only of members of Local 593, but of any member of the I.W.W. in good standing.

By order of the Press Committee of the Russian Branch of the Chicago West Side Industrial Union.

BYORK LENEKEWITZKY, Delegate from 593.

Proceedings of the Tenth Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, Chicago. 1916.

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