V. I.

Lenin

321

To:   COMRADE MÜNZENBERG, SECRETARY OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ AID [1]

Supplementing your report at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, I should like in a few words to point out the
significance of the organisation of aid.

The assistance given to the starving by the international
working class helped Soviet Russia in considerable measure
to endure the painful days of last year’s famine and to
overcome it. At the present time we have to heal the wounds
inflicted by the famine, provide in the first place for many
thousands of orphaned children, and restore our agriculture
and industry which have suffered heavily as a result of the
famine.

In this sphere, too, the fraternal aid of the international
working class has already begun to operate. The American
tractor column near Perm, the agricultural groups of the
American Technical Aid, the agricultural and industrial
undertakings of the International Workers’ Aid, the allocation of and subscriptions to the first proletarian loan, through
the Workers’ Aid to Soviet Russia—all these are very promising beginnings in the cause of workers’ fraternal aid to
promote the economic restoration of Soviet Russia.

The work of economic assistance, so happily begun by the International Workers’ Aid to Soviet Russia, should be
supported in every possible way by the workers and toilers
of the whole world. Side by side with the continuing strong
political pressure on the governments of the bourgeois countries over the demand for recognition of the Soviet
government, widespread economic aid by the world proletariat is at present the best and most practical support of Soviet Russia
in her difficult economic war against the imperialist concerns,
and the best support for her work of building a socialist
economy.

Vl. Ulyanov (Lenin )

Moscow, December 2, 1922

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Notes:
[1]
International Workers’ Aid —an international proletarian
organisation, set up in 1921 to help the population of the parts of Soviet
Russia which in 1921 were struck by famine because of the bad
harvest. Its chairman was Clara Zetkin, and its General Secretary,
Willi Münzenborg. International Workers’ Aid was active in
collecting money, provisions and medical supplies, organising
children’s homes, etc. In 1922 the I.W.A. launched a number of
industrial and agricultural projects in Soviet Russia to promote her
economic rehabilitation. The I.W.A. later grew into a powerful
organisation, which rendered great assistance to the international
working-class movement.