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arrange massive collections. There is a workers' paper in America (Appeal to Reason [103]) which has over half a million subscribers. That Russian worker, we would say, paraphrasing a well-known saying, is a poor worker indeed if he does not hope to overtake and surpass his American fellow workers.
What is very much more important, however, is not the financial aspect of the matter, but something else. Let us assume that a hundred workers in different shops of a factory contribute one kopek each on pay-day to the workers' newspaper. That will add up to two rubles a month. Let us assume, on the other hand, that ten well-paid workers meeting by chance collect ten rubles at once.
The former two rubles are worth more than the latter ten. This is so obvious to any worker that it does not have to be explained at length.
It should be made a custom for every worker to contribute one kopek to the workers' newspaper every pay-day. Let subscriptions to the paper be taken as usual, and let those who can contribute more do so, as they have done in the past. It is very important, besides, to establish and spread the custom of "a kopek for the workers' newspaper ".
The significance of such collections will depend above all on their being regularly held every pay-day, without interruption, and on an ever greater number of workers taking part in these regular collections. Accounts could be published in a simple form: "so-and-so many kopeks" would imply that so many workers at the given factory had contributed to the workers' paper, and if there were any larger contributions, they could be stated as follows: "In addition, so and-so many workers contributed so-and-so much."
If this custom of a kopek for the workers' newspaper becomes established, the workers of Russia will soon raise their papers to the proper standard. Workers' papers should give more information, and of a more varied nature; they should have Sunday supplements and so on, and should have their correspondents in the Duma, in all Russia's towns and in the major cities abroad. The workers' newspaper should develop and improve steadily, which cannot be done unless the greatest possible number of workers regularly collect money for their press.
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Monthly reports on the workers' kopek will show everyone how the workers throughout Russia are shaking of their indifference and drowsiness, how they are awakening to an intelligent and cultured life -- not in the official nor in the liberal sense of the term. It will be possible to see clearly how interest in the workers' democratic movement is growing, and how the time is drawing near when Moscow and the other big cities will have workers' papers of their own.
We have had enough of the domination of the bourgeois Kopeika ![104] That unscrupulous, huckster-minded newspaper has reigned long enough. In a matter of six months, the workers of St. Petersburg have shown how tremendously successful joint collections by the workers can be. May their example and their initiative not be in vain. May the custom of a workers' kopek for the workers' newspaper develop and gain strength!