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1919
"Letter to Emma Goldman at Ellis Island from Ludwig C.A.K. Martens in New York, December 15, 1919." The head of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau published this open letter to Emma Goldman in the pages of his organization’s official organ, Soviet Russia, in an effort to repudiate the "malicious hysteria" that resulted in publication of an "alleged interview with me" in the New York press on the previous day. Martens reassuring Goldman that she and other political exiles from America would be welcomed in Soviet Russia. Of particular interest is Martens’ reference to an offer made on behalf of the Soviet government to the US government to provide "free transportation to my country of all Russians in America who want to return there, or whose presence in the United States is not desired by the authorities here.”
“The Soviet Republic” , by Santeri Nuorteva [July 1919] This eloquent defense of the Bolshevik revolution by the Secretary of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau was published in the pages of an American academic journal. Nuorteva states that all the Soviet government wants is an end to military intervention and trade relations. An organized blockade had disrupted not only supplies into the country, but information from the country as well, he states, quoting an unnamed Western press correspondent who told Nuorteva that 95 percent of his telegraph dispatches from Soviet Russia had been intentionally delayed or stopped, particularly those mentioning in any way positive aspects of Soviet construction. The Russian revolution was not a simple matter of personalities taking specific actions, Nuorteva states, but rather a massive sociological upheaval based upon the land question and the peasant nature of the Russian army. He declares that "the peasants just took the land. Whether you approve of it or not, it doesn't matter because you can't change it any more than you can change the course of the sun or the moon." Only the Bolsheviks were willing to accept this reality at face value and to conduct a set of sweeping economic changes which were a logical consequence of the collapse of the land ownership and banking system. Russia was not any more chaotic than the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, Nuorteva states—indeed, rather stable compared to other nations. Further, it was hypocritical of the press to obsess upon the 3,000 or so killed in the Russian Red Terror when 15,000 had been executed and 10,000 systematically starved to death during the same period by the conservatives in Finland and while the anti-Bolshevik White Army of Kolchak took no prisoners and systematically murdered government officials in villages falling under its control. Victory by Kolchak would mean an exponentially more vicious bloodbath than the rather limited violence practiced by the Bolsheviks, Nuorteva indicates.
1920
"Resolution of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on the Case of Louis C. Fraina, Sept. 30, 1920." Full text of a leaflet published in 1920 by the Communist Party of America detailing the absolution of Louis Fraina from charges preferred by Santeri Nuorteva of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau in New York that he was a secret police agent. Two hearings were actually conducted, the first by an investigating committee of three (including CLP member Alexander Bilan) which cleared Fraina of the charge; the second a trial reopening the case at Fraina’s request when Nuorteva showed up in Moscow in August 1920. Fraina was again found not guilty of Nuorteva’s allegation and Nuorteva was instructed to cease making accusations against Fraina or else "THE GRAVEST MEASURES" would be used "TO STOP HIM." A further resolution was made by ECCI on September 29, 1920, insisting that Nuorteva retract publicly, in the press, all charges made against Fraina.
1923
Ludwig C.A.K. Martens, by Arturo Giovannitti [Feb. 18, 1921] Lengthy and politically-charged prose poem in honor of the deportation of unrecognized Soviet ambassador Ludwig Christian Alexander Karlovich Martens, written by the noted radical Italian-American labor activist and poet. In Giovannitti's poem Revolutionary Russia is likened to Revolutionary America of 145 years earlier -- but the long-awaited visitor from afar, coming in the name of freedom and liberty has no one to welcome him appropriately, the original American revolutionaries being long dead and replaced instead by tax collectors and policemen and royalty-worshiping bureaucrats and aristocrats. Only the poor and downtrodden American workers, the "stillborn," are in a position to welcome Martens and his mission and to bid him and that mission an appropriate farewell, "And a clod from the grave of John Brown to spread over the grave of John Reed."
“Statement of Ludwig C.A.K. Martens on the Activities of the Soviet Mission: Moscow— Feb. 24, 1921.” Upon arriving back in Moscow after being forced to leave the United States, former Russian emissary Ludwig Martens summarized the activities of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau which he headed in the Soviet press. Martens retrospectively categorizes the activity of the RSGB into three sections: Information, Commercial work, and Technical work. Martens feels the propagation of information about Soviet Russia had been successful, as had the development of technical information and assistance for his country. Commercial work was a mixed bag, in Martens’ estimation, the big failure to open up trade relations being only partially offset by the export of $750,000 worth of goods from Soviet Russia and by the execution of a number of successful purchase orders. Martens also emphasizes the importance of having made contact with the 3 million member Russian colony in America, the mass of which were “undoubtedly supporters of Soviet Russia.” Martens concludes that it is his conviction “that our return to America will take place in the very near future. The program put forward by the Republicans during the Presidential election contained a paragraph demanding the resumption of trade relations with all countries with which America is not in a state of war. This of course applies to Soviet Russia. I think that as soon as Harding becomes President of the USA, Soviet Russia will be given the opportunity of opening the necessary negotiations."