Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume IV

861.5043/9–3047

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State

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No. 1671

Moscow, September 30, 1947.

The Ambassador has the honor to report that on September 10 the newspaper Trud published a decree taken by the Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions on August 30, which represents a further important development in the Soviet regime’s current campaign to whip into ideological line all phases of the social system of the USSR.

The Presidium of the Trade Union Committee held a meeting on August 30 which was attended by representatives of the Central Committees of the various trade unions and officials from the ministries and departments. At this meeting V. V. Kuznetsov,¹ Chairman of the Trade Union Council, reported on the progress of the fulfillment of socialist obligations in honor of the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution; and L. Solovyev,² Secretary of the Trade Union Council, reported on the intensification of the work of trade union organizations in the propaganda of Soviet patriotism among the intelligentsia.

The latter report presumably led to the above-mentioned decree, which was entitled “Intensifying the Work of Trade Union Organizations in Educating the Intelligentsia in the Spirit of Soviet Patriotism and Devotion to the Interests of the Soviet State.” Five copies of the Joint Press Reading Service summary translation of this decree are enclosed herewith.

In keeping with the primary theme of the party’s current propaganda line, that of Soviet patriotism, the decree begins with the following paragraph:

“The education of workers, employees, kolkhoz members, and intelligentsia in the spirit of Soviet patriotism, Soviet national pride, devotion to the socialist motherland, has the highest significance for the creation of a Communist society in our country.”

Never losing its emphasis on Soviet patriotism, the decree goes on to attack the faults of “national self-degradation” and “servility toward the putrifying reactionary culture of the bourgeois West” which characterize a “certain portion” of the Soviet intelligentsia. The decree explains this “illness” as the result of a two-fold influence from the “accursed past” of Tsarist Russia, with its deference to foreign culture, and from capitalist encirclement, whose “agents of imperialism seek in every way to support and vivify harmful survivals of capitalism in the consciousness of the least stable Soviet citizens and thereby weaken the Soviet state.”

The decree then brought the above basic theses home to the trade union movement by pointing out that “the unpatriotic and anti-state behavior of a certain portion of the intelligentsia is to be explained by the weakness of political educational work among the employees in the ministries, scientific institutes, institutions of higher learning, and cultural institutions, and also by insufficient development among these employees of criticism and self-criticism, the real motive force of our development.”

From this introduction the Presidium proceeds to the heart of its decree, which consists of a statement of the actions which trade union organizations must and will take from now on to indoctrinate the Soviet people with national patriotism and to combat the “illness” of servility toward Western culture among the Soviet intelligentsia. The most important of the 10 points of action set forth in this part of the decree is No. 1, which, in a sense, summarizes the other more specific points. It reads:

“The Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions decrees: To consider as a most important task of trade union organizations the education of the Soviet intelligentsia in a spirit of Soviet patriotism and devotion to the interests of the Soviet State, in the spirit of unbending will and character, and readiness, under any conditions and at any price, to defend the interests and honor of the Soviet state.

“To oblige trade union organizations: constantly to propagandize the idea of Soviet patriotism, to show its manifestation in concrete examples; broadly to popularize the tremendous achievements of the Soviet state in the 30 years of its existence, to educate the Soviet people in a feeling of pride in the great accomplishments of Socialism, to explain the superiority of the Soviet system over the capitalist system; to carry on an irreconcilable Struggle against all manifestations of servility and obsequiousness toward things foreign, against all sorts of unpatriotic acts, rousing public opinion against those who do not cherish the interests of our socialist state; to carry on a resolute struggle against the influence of reactionary, decadent bourgeois culture and ideology; to penetrate more deeply into the activity of the ministries, scientific institutes, institutions of higher learning, and cultural institutions, mobilizing the Soviet intelligentsia for the achievement of the tasks imposed by Comrade Stalin on scientific and cultural workers.”

Two of what are apparently considered the sectors of Soviet society most vulnerable to bourgeois penetration are mentioned specifically for attention. These are scientific workers and “the crews of ships engaged in foreign navigation,” both of whom have more than average contacts with the outside world and who are consequently more conscious of the falsities of Bolshevik propaganda.

An article by L. Solovyev himself accompanies the publication of this decree in the September 10 issue of Trud. Five copies of the JPRS summary translation are enclosed. It repeats most of the themes which appear in the decree itself, often in even more violent language, and particularly attacks Soviet scientists who are guilty of too great a respect for their foreign colleagues and too little for the leading role of Soviet science.

The promulgation of this decree and its publication with accompanying propaganda obviously mark the start of a widespread effort to tighten the ideological lines in the trade union movement and to intensify its thought-control activities for the benefit of the present regime. They thus represent one more move in the huge campaign which the Soviet rulers are now conducting in an effort to bring every phase of Soviet society into active support of their aggressive foreign policy and their post-war withdrawal from collaboration with the West.

[File copy not signed]

1. Vasily Vasilyevich Kuznetsov, chairman of the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions; deputy chairman of the World Federation of Trade Unions; and member of the Orgburo of the Central Committee of the All Union Communist Party.
2. Leonid Nikolayevich Solovyev, secretary of the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions.