USFSP Initiates Campaign for Solidarity
and Humanitarian Aid to Striking Russian Workers

Inspired by the call of the Yasnogorsk strikers, the US Friends of Soviet People is beginning a campaign to collect money for humanitarian aid to striking workers in Yasnogorsk and other parts of the country. The workers at the machine-building plant in Yasnogorsk have taken over the plant and the whole small town, holding out against the bourgeois administrators and the police. For details from the March, 1999 issue of Northstar Compass click here. The strikers have requested both statements of solidarity and material aid. Solidarity statements can be sent by e-mail by clicking here.

Similar struggles have been taking place in many other parts of the country. The workers at the Viborg Paper-Cellulose Plant near Leningrad took over the plant after it was privatized and the new British owners attempted to lay off two-thirds of the workers. Russian coal miners have been carrying out a prolonged fight against non-payment of wages. They blocked railroads and set up a tent city in front of the seat of the government in Moscow, gaining support from many other workers. These are just a few examples of the renewed offensive of the Russian workers' movement. When the workers' movement and the communist movement unite, it will spell the beginning of the end of Yeltsin's reactionary capitalist regime.

The workers there are struggling under the most serious conditions, with little money for food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. USFSP has established channels for financial contributions to go directly and totally to these workers. We urge you to contribute what you can -- a few dollars here goes a long way in Russia under present conditions. Please send check or money order earmarked Humanitarian Aid by postal mail to USFSP at the address below, or use the coupon on the USFSP Membership form page accessible from the NSC home page. A special receipt will be sent to all contributors.

U.S. Friends of Soviet People
P.O. Box 140434
Staten Island, NY 10314-0434

The International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People is calling for a similar campaign in the pages of Northstar Compass.

 

Statement in Solidarity with Striking Russian Workers
in Yasnogorsk and Elsewhere

U.S. Friends of Soviet People salutes the heroic struggle of the Yasnogorsk machine-building plant. Their fight in defense of their economic and political rights has been an inspiration, not only to the workers in other parts of the former Soviet Union, but to working people of the world.

We know that the temporary demise of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism there has caused untold hardships for the workers. We are therefore initiating a campaign for humanitarian aid to the striking workers.

U.S. Friends of Soviet People and its international organization, the Organizing Committee for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People, whose official voice is the journal Northstar Compass, call for the re-establishment of the Soviet Union as a Socialist State.

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