American Communist-Sponsored Groups: Friends of Soviet Russia (1921 - 1930)

ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY

1. Founding Conference --- New York City --- Aug. 9, 1921.The Friends of Soviet Russia (FSR) was formally established at a conference held on Aug. 9, 1921 as an offshoot of the Communist Party of America's primary legal arm, the American Labor Alliance (ALA). The organization was established by a conference called by a provisional committee including the ALA, the Society for Technical Aid for Russia, and the Medical Relief Committee for Soviet Russia. Some 150 delegates representing 87 organizations were represented. The credentials of 2 delegates from an unnamed "counterrevolutionary" publication "which has indulged in rabid and repeated attacks on Soviet Russia" were rejected.

The formation of the FSR organization was a response to a decision of the 3rd World Congress of the Communist International [June 22-July 12, 1921], which issued a manifesto calling for the formation of mass organizations by affiliated parties around the world dedicated to raising funds for Soviet famine relief. The FSR raised funds and collected food and clothing for immediate amelioration of the crisis as well as agricultural tools and equipment for the reconstruction of Soviet agriculture. Membership in the FSR was open without regard to an individual's politics, but the organizational apparatus was tightly controlled by dedicated adherents of the Communist movement. In the documents of the underground Communist Party of the day, the ALA was referred to as "the A" and the FSR (or "Fessar") as "the B."
The Aug. 9 organizational conference elected an Executive Committee to serve for a term of 3 months, including Dr. Hartman, Caleb Harrison, Edgar Owens, Allen S. Broms, Dr. Mendelsohn, Dr. J. Wilenkin, Dr. Reichel. As soon as the conference adjourned, this Executive Committee went into session and elected its officers: Caleb Harrison, Chairman; Allen S. Broms, Secretary; and Dr. J.W. Hartman, Treasurer.
The Friends of Soviet Russia proved successful in raising funds for Russian relief, generating about $250,000 for famine relief in its first 2 months of existence and another $500,000 and clothing worth an additional $300,000 over the course of the next year. The funds were raised transparently, with the name of each donor and the amount given published in each issue of Soviet Russia; detailed lists of expenditures, regularly audited, were also published. In round numbers, about 25% of the group's income went to administration and the costs of fundraising with the balance to relief. The FSR was the American division of International Workers Aid, an international organization headed by the German Communist Willy Münzenberg.
The FSR published a program in December of 1922 which listed the group's aims: (1) to advocate the extension of credits to and recognition of the Soviet government; (2) to raise and distribute funds for clothing and food for the needy of Soviet Russia, to be distributed via the Soviet government "regardless of their political opinions"; (3) to agitate and demonstrate for non-intervention in the affairs of the Russian people in determining their form of government; (4) to raise funds for tools for the reconstruction of Soviet industry; and (5) to disseminate "truthful news" about Soviet Russia and build sympathetic sentiment.
The FSR was structured around over 200 organized branches around the country, which raised funds to support the relief effort and the organization directing it. It maintained an office in New York and a paid staff of about 40 "organizers," members of the Workers Party of America (WPA), some of whom were engaged to travel the country speaking on behalf of the organization and engaging in politics "in their free time." In this sense, the FSR subsidized WPA activity by providing paid employment for some of its leading cadres.
This structure drew the ire of the opponents of the WPA, particularly Abraham Cahan, editor of the Socialist Party-affiliated Yiddish dailly The Jewish Daily Forward, which began making charges of irregularity and extravagance in the handling of funds on the part of FSR in editorials and news stories in the summer of 1922. In response to these charges, the FSR appointed an "Investigating Committee of Five," including Roger N. Baldwin of the ACLU, Norman Thomas of the League for Industrial Democracy, Robert Morss Lovett of the liberal magazine The New Republic, Timothy Healy of the Stationary Fireman's Union, and attorney Walter Nelles. While the last-mention later recused himself to avoid possible charges of conflict of interest, the other four members of the committee issued a report at the end of October 1922 essentially clearing the FSR of wrongdoing and attributing the charges against the group to "factional interests."

The FSR also had a youth section, established in 1922, called the Famine Scouts. The basic unit of this group were "Famine Scout Clubs," organized in various localities to aid in the gathering of relief funds and supplies for Soviet Russia. The official motto of the Famine Scouts was "From the children -- to the children." The "Famine Scout Chief" was Bob Hardy, who maintained an office in New York City at 201 W 13th Street.

[fn. The Young Worker, v. 1, no. 3 (March 1922), pg. 19.]


After a brief run with a typeset newsletter (Russian Famine Relief Bulletin, from Nov. 15, 1921) the organ of the FSR was the magazine Soviet Russia, a plain-paper magazine which had formerly the journal of the Soviet Government Bureau, headed by Ludwig Martens in New York. The magazine was essentially a Communist publication, regularly printing articles by Soviet leaders such as Zinoviev, Trotsky, and Radek about matters of Soviet internal policy (for example, the ongoing show trial of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1922). This magazine was variously a bi-weekly until December of 1922, at which time it went to a monthly publication schedule under editor Eugene Lyons. Effective with the January 1923 issue, the magazine moved to glossy paper with a new name -- Soviet Russia Pictorial.
Near the end of 1924 the magazine was merged with the CP's arts-and-theory magazine, The Liberator, and the Trade Union Educational League's monthly organ, The Labor Herald, to form The Workers Monthly in a 3-for-1 combination. This merger was probably driven by the financial concerns of the WPA and clearly underlines the connection of the FSR to the organized American Communist movement.
In late 1923 and 1924, in response to the economic chaos in Germany, in particular among the German working class following the failure of the October 1923 revolution, the FSR changed its name (briefly) to "the Friends of Soviet Russia and Workers' Germany" in an effort to increase its fundrasing appeal. This interlude proved brief, and the group was not long in reverting back to its original name.
In later years, the FSR carried on under the name Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU), publishers of the pictorial monthly magazine Soviet Russia Today.

-- Tim Davenport