Under the powerful influence of the Great October Revolution, the liberation struggle of the working masses of many countries of the world was widely unfolded. After several years of intense class warfare, the revolutionary wave temporarily subsided. In the course of the revolutionary movement, the international proletariat gained a wealth of political experience, but at the same time suffered great losses. Prisons were overflowing with freedom fighters, and thousands of them were forced to leave their homeland. Political prisoners, emigrants, and their families endured severe poverty. Young communist parties in those years sought forms of centralized assistance to persecuted revolutionaries. In 1920-1921, as bourgeois terror intensified, national associations of assistance to persecuted revolutionaries emerged in a number of European and American countries: in 1920, the "Organization for Assistance to Victims of the Capitalist Dictatorship" was established in Bulgaria, and in Poland - the "Polish Political Red Cross". In the United States, there were both the "National Defense Committee" and the "Labor Defense Council". In April 1921, the German "Red Aid" was formed, one of its founders was K. Zetkin. Similar organizations have appeared in other countries.
The idea of forming an international workers 'organization, which, in the words of K. Zetkin, was intended to become a "sanitary detachment of the revolution", originated in Soviet Russia, the country of the victorious working class, which was the first to extend a fraternal helping hand to the proletarians who were defeated in the revolutionary battles. The proposal to create such an organization was made at a meeting of the bureau of the Society of Old Bolsheviks on September 13, 1922. He was nominated by an associate of V. I. Lenin, the revolutionary internationalist Yu. Markhlevsky 1 . It was warmly approved by the presence of-
1 TSPA IML under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 124, d. 12, l. 24. Yu. Yu. Markhlevsky headed the Committee for assistance to revolutionaries persecuted in Soviet Russia from Polish internationalists in August 1922
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The society's Bureau decided to submit this proposal to the Central Committee of the RCP (b). The idea of establishing such an organization was also expressed in the same days in the "Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiled Settlers". In a letter published in Pravda on November 30, 1922, on behalf of members of the "Society of Old Bolsheviks" and the "Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiled Settlers", it was stated that "the time has come to raise the question of helping political prisoners in bourgeois countries, of creating an international political Red Cross" 2 . On the same day, at a meeting of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, on the proposal of F. Cohn, this initiative was approved. In its resolution, the Congress called on "all Communist parties to promote the creation of organizations aimed at providing material and moral assistance to the imprisoned captives of capital..." 3 So November 30, 1922 was the birthday of the International Organization for Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution (IOPR)4 . At a meeting of the organization's initiative group on December 10, 1922, the Central Bureau (CB) of the MOPR was formed. It included: Y. Markhlevsky, P. N. Lepeshinsky, V. S. Mitskevich-Kapsukas and others. The Bureau approved the draft of the provisional regulations on the MOPRe and an appeal to the Communists of the Soviet Republic for assistance to the new organization.
Mauprat's first steps were fraught with enormous difficulties. In many countries, the Communist parties that International Red Aid counted on for support were few in number or underground. Mass repressions by the authorities and the betrayal of the interests of the working class by the leaders of social democracy in Western Europe and America prevented the creation of mass Red Aid organizations. At that time, the IOPRa Central Bank's connection with the existing and newly created national aid organizations and communist parties was still tenuous. Therefore, the main core of the International Organization of Assistance to the Fighters of the Revolution was made up of the working people of the USSR. Our country has just put an end to the last hotbed of counter-revolution and foreign military intervention in the Far East. Soviet people courageously fought the famine that struck in the summer of 1921. Volga region, Ukraine and other regions. Restoring the destroyed economy and rescuing millions of homeless and starving children required every effort. In these extremely difficult conditions, the question of supporting the revolutionaries persecuted abroad was raised. And it was resolved immediately and unanimously, in full accordance with Lenin's principles of proletarian internationalism.
On December 23-27, 1922, the X All-Russian Congress of Soviets was held in Moscow; a representative of the Central Bank of the MOPRa appealed to its delegates to create MOPRa organizations in the provinces and cities of Russia and to raise funds locally for the Red Aid Fund. Already at the end of the year, in many provinces of the RSFSR, commissioners were allocated for moprovskaya work. Most of them were old Communists. Soon commissions, troikas, and departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs began to appear in cities, counties, villages, enterprises, and institutions. There were moprovskie cells, whose members paid regular dues. The first such cell was established in Vyatka (now Kirov) January 22, 1923. The Central Bank of MOPRa decided to organize among the workers of the Soviet republics collections of funds to help foreign comrades. In its appeal of December 29, 1922, "To all Communist parties and related proletarian organizations," the Bureau called on workers and peasants "to render assistance to the fighters for the new world... so that every soldier of the revolution... when he went to prison, to hard labor, or to be shot, he remembered that millions of his brothers in Russia were in solidarity with him, that the working people of Russia would support the heroes of the proletarian struggle with their labor pennies and would come to them with their possible comradely help. " 5
The Central Committee of the RCP (b), provincial, uyezd, and local party organizations took an active part in spreading the ideas of the MOPRa, and helped in the implementation of the project.
by the Government of Poland. The fund for assistance to political prisoners in Poland received funds from the workers of many provinces of the Country of Soviets (see F. Tych, H. Schumacher. Julian Marchlewski. Warszawa. 1966, 340 - 341).
2 "Pravda", 30. XI. 1922.
3 Bulletin of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International No. 27, 6. XII. 1922, p. 16.
4 Abroad, the IDP was better known as the "International Red Aid".
5 " 10 years of IOPR in resolutions and documents. 1922-1932". Moscow, 1932, pp. 8-9.
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fundraising. In January 1923, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) addressed a letter signed by the Central Committee Secretary V. V. Kuibyshev to all party organizations in the country. It emphasized that"it is the duty of the Russian proletariat, which has thrown off the yoke of capital and freed itself from the oppressive repressions of the bourgeoisie, and above all of its vanguard - members of the Communist Party-to come to the aid of the fighters for the social revolution of all countries, who are fighting under pain of arrest, beatings and death." 6 The Central Committee of the party invited all party committees "to provide all possible assistance and support to the MOPRu in its work, in particular, to discuss specific measures of assistance at general meetings of party organizations." The widespread publication in the local party and Soviet press of the appeals of the International Solidarity Organization helped to spread the ideas of proletarian internationalism. This was largely due to the decision of the Mauprat leadership to declare the day of the Paris Commune - March 18 - as Mauprat Day. In a letter sent by the Central Bank of the IOPRa to all foreign Red Aid organizations, it was suggested that on this day they hold demonstrations and rallies to protest against the political persecution of revolutionaries, organize fundraising to help prison prisoners and their families, and launch agitation for joining the ranks of the IOPRA7 . In this connection, the Communist and workers ' press abroad and the press in the USSR widely covered the situation of political prisoners in the capital countries, the results of collecting aid funds, and the growing number of moprovtsy.
The first day of the MOPR in the USSR in 1923 was marked by the publication of a special one-day newspaper " Help the fighters of the Revolution!", which published articles by A. Gramsci, W. Heywood and other prominent figures of the international communist and labor movement. Representatives of communist parties, former political prisoners, and members of the MOPRa Bureau traveled to many cities of the country to participate in the celebration of MOPRa Day. Their speeches at numerous rallies and meetings resulted in a broad demonstration of the solidarity of Soviet workers with the struggling working class of capitalist countries.
In the spring of 1923, the structure of the organization was improved by the decision of the MOPRa leadership. On March 2, 1923, the Central Bureau was renamed the Central Committee. It included representatives of the Soviet section, as well as foreign organizations: V. Kolarov represented the Bulgarian "Red Aid" in the Central Committee of the MOPRa, V. Mitskevich-Kapsukas - the "Red Aid" of Lithuania, V. Budich - the German "Red Aid". During the celebration of May 1, 1923, the first issue of the magazine "MOPR"was published. May Day demonstrations in the USSR were held everywhere under Moprov slogans and were used to promote the ideas of internationalism. They were also a place for collecting voluntary contributions from Soviet people for the needs of victims of bourgeois terror. All campaigns to help the fighters of the revolution were organized and carried out in our country by the International Red Aid, with the broad support of party, Soviet and trade union organizations in the center and in the field. By the end of 1923, the MOPR in the USSR already had a wide network of provincial and regional branches and committees. On November 21, 1923, at a meeting of its Central Committee, the charter of provincial branches was adopted. January 30, 1924 The first All-Union Conference was held in Moscow, which summed up the results of the first year of practical activity of IOPRa in the USSR.
National associations of "Red Aid" in Europe and America, in addition to collecting and distributing funds, sought to provide moral and legal support to the imprisoned comrades. Thus, the" Red Army " of the USA in 1921-1922, even before the formation of IOPRa, collected about 250 thousand dollars for the needs of legal protection of prisoners. She led a broad protest campaign against the death sentences of N. Sacco and B. Vanzetti. In 1923, the American Red Aid Party launched a new campaign of protest against the arrest of delegates to the Communist Party conference in Michigan. For their protection, 167 thousand dollars were collected. In 1921-1924, the German Red Aid provided support to thousands of prisoners, their families, and political emigrants from other countries. She sent books, pamphlets, and newspapers to prisons, and conducted protest campaigns against the harsh prison regime and emergency legislation. The legal defense of the defendants helped save them from the bourgeoisie.
6 Pravda, 28. I. 1923.
7 " 10 Years of IOPRa in resolutions and documents. 1922-1932, p. 10.
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"justice" hundreds of persecuted revolutionaries. In 1923-1924, the Red Aid associations of France, Austria, and Switzerland helped German political prisoners and political refugees from Italy, Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria, and other countries.
From the first steps of their activity, the national sections of the International Red Aid showed themselves to be genuine defenders of the interests of the persecuted revolutionaries. The humane, general democratic aims of the MOPRa, this association of proletarian solidarity, enabled it in the following years to rally around itself abroad significant circles not only of the workers, but also of the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie, and the middle urban strata. But at first, in the conditions of the decline of the revolutionary movement in the West, only the Soviet MOPR could provide effective material assistance to the victims of terror in capitalist countries. Since the beginning of 1923, enterprises and organizations of the USSR, by decision of meetings of workers and employees, established and allocated sums of money to the fund for assistance to political prisoners. Individual citizens also took an extensive part in the training camps8 . In the spring of 1923, the peasants of the Odessa region were the first to sow "Moprovskie strips", the harvest from which went to the fund for assistance to political prisoners. In Abkhazia, corn and tobacco were donated; in Ukraine and the Volga region, thousands of poods of bread were collected for the MOPRa Foundation .9 The workers of Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kursk, Tyumen, Smolensk and other cities gave their last savings for the material support of the prisoners of capital .10 From March to November 1923, the workers of the U.S.S.R. sent $ 48,265 and 3,000 francs to aid the prisoners of bourgeois prisons, 11 and by the opening of the 1st International Conference of the International Criminal Police Organization in July 1924, the sum of their aid to the persecuted revolutionaries amounted to 440,000 rubles in gold .12
In addition to collecting money, food, and clothing, from the very first days of its practical activity, the MOPR also brought to life a new form of international communication of workers - patronage of political prisoners. Patronage organizations sent prisoners, in addition to money, memorable gifts, parcels with food and clothing, warm letters, enlisted well-known revolutionaries as honorary members of collectives of enterprises and brigades. Women and children took part in patronage: they sewed underwear, knitted socks, made tobacco pouches for sponsored prisoners. The Soviet people treated the persecuted revolutionaries with touching care and warmth.
Correspondence with prisoners of Polish prisons was conducted by workers in Kiev, Minsk, Ryazan, and Ulyanovsk. Workers and peasants of the Ural region patronized prisoners of prisons on the island of Java, Leningrad-Finnish and Estonian political prisoners. Under the patronage of the workers of Moscow and Omsk, Smolensk and Tver, Tambov and Kharkov were prisoners of Italian and Bulgarian, Yugoslav and Spanish prisons, etc.The bosses of German political prisoners were the workers of Vyatka and Blagoveshchensk, Baku and Leninakan, Krasnoyarsk and Kharkov. Patronage became an integral part of the effective support of imprisoned revolutionaries, which was carried out on an international scale. Telegrams, resolutions of protest addressed to bourgeois governments and parliaments, discussion of letters from the workers of the Soviet Union in the press, at workers 'meetings and rallies, sending workers' delegations to embassies, parliamentary inquiries of communist deputies drew public attention to the fate of revolutionaries who had fallen into captivity.
These were some of the first campaigns of international proletarian solidarity with the prisoners of capitalist prisons, organized on the initiative of the International Red Aid in 1923-1924, at the very beginning of the activity of this organization. They served as an impetus for the development of mass actions later in defense of the victims of bourgeois terror.
8 See, for example, "To help the fighters of the Revolution", 18. III. 1923; "MOPR", 1923, May, pp. 27-28; August, p. 27; Pravda, 2 and 7. III. 1923; Bulletin of the MOPRa Central Committee, 1923, N 1, p. 4; 1924, N 3, p. 3-4; N 5-6, p. 6-7, NN 8-9, p. 8; N 11-12, p. 7-8; N 24-25, p. 7.
9 See, for example, "MOPR", 1925, N 5-6. p. 70; "MOPR", 1923, August, p. 26.
10 See Bulletin der Internationale Rote Hilfe, 1924, No. 1, S. 2; see also MOPR, May 1923, p. 28.
11 See Bulletin of the Central Committee of the MOPR, 1. XII. 1823, No. 1, p. 4, and also MOPR, 1924, No. 1, p. 26.
12 See " MOPR. I Conference. Verbatim report", Moscow, 1924, p. 31.
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