As the ninth international congress of International Red Aid (M.O.P.R.) approaches, Münzenberg, as head of the Workers International Relief, speaks to the histories and complimentary relationship between the W.I.R. and the I.R.A.
‘For the M.O.P.R. World Congress!’ by Willi Münzenberg from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 12 No. 48. October 29, 1932.
For the Fighting Alliance of all Revolutionary Organisations
The Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the. International Red Aid has resolved to convene an international congress of the Mopr organisations of the whole world from 10th till 25th November 1932 in Moscow.
The Congress coincides with the 10th anniversary of this world organisation, so important for the revolutionary class struggle of years will have passed since a group of international comrades took the initiative for the formation of the International Red Aid. The World Congress of the International Red Aid convened in in Moscow, like the whole International Red Aid, is a is a matter concerning not only one organisation, but all revolutionary workers’ organisations, and indeed the international working class. During the 10 years of its existence, the I.R.A., like the Workers International Relief, has refuted the unending bourgeois and social democratic slander campaigns by means of deeds, of hundreds of actions proving that in the best sense of the term it is a broad and super-party organisation.
The International Red Aid, like the Workers International Relief, counts among its members workers, peasants, middle class, intellectuals of multifarious parties and trends. The I.R.A. opens its doors to everyone who is ready to give aid, on the basis of its programme, to the victims of bourgeois class justice. The I.R.A. has carried on its struggles in defence of the victims of bourgeois class justice, irrespective of the party membership of these victims. I need only refer to the gigantic international action, now become almost a matter of history, for the anarchist comrades Sacco and Vanzetti, executed in the electric chair.
The tasks of the I.R.A., and the demands put upon this organisation, are very great to-day. In the present phase of decaying capitalism, the capitalist governments are endeavouring to maintain their position, and to gain a pause for breath for their rule, by means of building up fascist dictatorships, and by draconic police persecution, prohibitions, arrests, imprisonment and murder of proletarian revolutionists. It will never be really known how many sacrifices the world proletariat has had to make for its emancipation during the last few years. We only need. remember the Chinese workers who have been murdered, in the gigantic world historical struggle for the social and national emancipation of China, by the foreign or Chinese White Terror executioners. An approximate idea of the incredible number of victims may be gained from statistics (not yet complete) issued by the I.R.A., showing the increase in the number of victims to have been as follows:
“On 1st January 1932, there were 192,673 revolutionary political prisoners in the prisons, delivered over to physical and moral torture, and to disease. The number murdered in 1931 alone was 369,707 (1930: 295,906; 1925: 11,853), the number sentenced to death 1931: 91,548 (1930: 90,842; 1925: 447). The total number of victims of White Terror amounted to 1,090,421 in 1931 (arrested, wounded, severely maltreated, murdered, condemned to death, sentenced to imprisonment and fines), as compared with 877,702 in 1930 and 120,005 in 1925.”
And these statistics of the I.R.A. are not even complete. To-day there is scarcely any capitalist country in which the bourgeoisie is not proceeding against the proletarian class struggle by methods of unprecedented Terror and in most countries–especially in the fascist and terrorist countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Latvia, the bourgeoisie is carrying on an unceasing campaign for the physical annihilation of the foremost and most courageous groups of the proletarian fighters.
To this must be added the recent rising wave of persecution in such countries as Czechoslovakia, Austria, and especially in Germany, the country of the Papen-Schleicher government, of the Bracht enactments, of the innumerable prohibitions of meetings and newspapers, of police searches, of arrests of functionaries of the Communist Party and of all proletarian mass organisations.
Under these circumstances, the International Red Aid enormous increase in the number and importance of the tasks falling to it in its chosen work of aiding the working men and women persecuted by class justice. In 1925 the I.R.A. carried out 25 international campaigns, this number swelling to 170 by 1930.
The International Red Aid, supported in particular by the exemplary and brilliant fraternal solidarity of the Soviet Russian workers and peasants, has collected many millions of marks in the course of the 10 years of its existence for the material aid of the victims of class justice. The sum of its political and moral actions is, however, incalculable. The relief actions of the I.R.A. have maintained and reinforced the resistance, the self-defensive powers, and the active militancy of the fighting class-conscious groups and organisations, precisely when these have been most severely threatened by the White Terror.
The International Red Aid, like the Workers International Relief, is an organisation aiding the proletarian class struggle, and both organisations have much in common. The points of contact between the I.R.A. and the W.I.R. have increased greatly during the last few years, especially in connection with the rapidly rising wave of economic mass struggles and strikes.
The Workers International Relief has set itself the task of aiding the participants in great economic mass struggles and strikes, and especially their families and children, by means of collecting food, money, and other necessaries. But there has been scarcely a single economic struggle of any extent during the last few years in which the bourgeoisie has not attempted to weaken the front of the strikers by police. Terror and persecution. All the great strikes taking place of late for instance the really great mass strike in Brüx (Czechoslovakia), the great miners’ strike in Belgium, and the great textile workers’ strike in England–have been accompanied by mass arrests and police persecution against the strike front of the struggling workers.
In such mass struggles the International Red Aid and the Workers International Relief automatically find themselves working on the same sector of the front. Whilst the W.I.R. strengthens the fighting resolution of the strikers and their families by collecting funds and bringing material aid, the I.R.A. organises help for the political victims of these economic struggles. To this must be added the fact that of Jate the economic struggles have assumed an increasingly political character, and are expressions of the struggle against fascist Terror, against imperialist war, and for solidarity with the Soviet Union. In the future such strikes will render the joint work of the two great international proletarian relief organisations more necessary and frequent than ever. The more necessary, therefore, is close co-operation between these two great solidarity armies of the world proletariat, the International Red Aid and the Workers International Relief.
The W.I.R., at its 8th World Congress in October 1931, when it celebrated its 10th anniversary, adopted a resolution, unanimously and amidst enthusiastic applause, in which this fighting alliance between the two organisations was laid down and resolved upon. The resolution stated:
“The 8th International Congress sends warm fraternal greetings to all proletarian prisoners languishing in the prisons and jails of the capitalist countries.
Taking as a basis the fact that every economic struggle of the working class assumes an increasingly more definite and immediate political character in proportion as the general situation becomes more acute, and in view of the enormous increase of Terrorist methods in the fascist and other capitalist countries against the working class, the Congress draws the attention of all organisations. and friends of the W.I.R. to the militant and relief work being carried out successfully for years by the International Red Aid.
The 8th Congress of the W.I.R. records with satisfaction the fraternal fighting alliance between the W.IR. and the I.R.A. on an international scale, and hopes that the same fighting alliance will be carried out in all countries and in all groups of the two organisations.
The 8th Congress of the W.I.R., whilst expecting. far-reaching help from the Red Aid in its actions in support of the impending mass strikes and in the extension of the Workers International Relief in all countries, pledges itself, and at the same time all W.I.R. organisations and friends of the W.I.R., to join the I.R.A. and to make efforts in all countries for the building up of strong I.R.A. organisations.”
During the preparatory campaign for the World Congress of the I.R.A., the W.I.R. has instructed all its sections to support the World Congress of the I.R.A. in their literature and newspapers, and by a campaign of meetings with explanatory lectures on the history and importance of the I.R.A. and its World Congress.
The Workers International Relief knows that the strengthening of the International Red Aid signifies the strengthening of the fighting powers of the world proletariat.
The Central Committee of the Workers International Relief has resolved to send an international delegation to Moscow to the World Congress of the I.R.A., and will propose that representatives of the Workers International Relief should be elected to the executive committee of the I.R.A., in order to demonstrate visibly the close fraternal unity of the two proletarian organisations.
Precisely at the present juncture, when the bourgeoisie in its savage hate is resorting to the police persecution of not only the fighting workers themselves, but is proceeding in particular against these two proletarian relief organisations, it is the more necessary for the two organisations to march together in closest contact and militant alliance. It is certainly not by accident that within the last few months the sections of the International Red Aid and of the Workers International Relief in Czechoslovakia and Austria have been prohibited, and their separate local groups disbanded by the police of the capitalist governments of these countries. In other countries too the two organisations are carrying on a struggle for their legality, and almost every domiciliary search made by the police on the premises of the Workers International Relief in Berlin or other places in Germany coincides with a simultaneous police search in the buildings of the International Red Aid, and vice versa. Both organisations are recognised by the bourgeoisie and its capitalist governments and police as extremely important organisations in the workers’ class struggle, movement, and are being combatted, and persecuted as such.
Like the 8th World Congress of the Workers International Relief in October 1931, the World Congress of the International Red Aid in November 1932 will be a mighty international demonstration of that proletarian solidarity which can never be suppressed and never be prohibited, which inspires millions of workers, which glows with ardent intensity among the members and friends of these two organisations. and which will succeed, in spite of all persecution, all prohibitions, all White Terror, in aiding the International to triumph at last. over the nationalist and chauvinist poison now being spread in the leading capitalist countries in the process of fascisation, and threatening to poison even a part of the workers and petty bourgeois strata.
To prevent this, and to aid the international proletarian class struggle forward more rapidly to victory, are among the present most important, urgent, and leading tasks of the International Red Aid and the Workers International Relief.
International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly. Inprecorr is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.
PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1932/v12n48-oct-29-1932-Inprecor-op.pdf
