Declaration of the Rights of Workers and Exploited Peoples

The Declaration of the Rights of Workers and Exploited Peoples was ratified on 7 October 1934. It is a foundational human rights document and component of the Constitutional Laws of 1934 of the United Republics.

History
Most modern states have a document enumerating the fundamental rights provided to the citizens. In typical American extravagance, the UASR has several. The Declaration of the Rights of Workers and Exploited Peoples was taken up by the Constitutional Committee following the ratification of the Basic Law, at the behest of communists who felt that the first document was oriented towards typical liberal rights, and failed to uphold the basic demands that had been made by the workers' movement from its very inception.

This second document would become archetypal of what theorists have described as the "Second Generation" of human rights: rights which are economic, social, and cultural in nature. In the doctrine of theorists such as Karl Polyani, which hold that the notion of human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, the enactment of second generation rights is absolutely fundamental to ensuring the liberty of peoples. Without material resources and control over their economic life, individuals are not free.

This line of thinking was immanent within the body politic amidst the Great Depression. The formation of the popular front coalition and victory in the 1932 election had come through the socialist movement building a concrete program to secure the basic liberties of a people who'd lost all meaningful control of their lives amidst the ongoing crisis.

Codifying guarantees for work, housing, education in the entrenched laws of the Union was inevitable. When the Basic Law of 1934 was presented before the full Congress of Soviets on 21 February 1934, the first remarks entered into record, from Harlem delegate Augusta Savage, reflected the national mood: "Comrade Chairman, while I have no doubt of the importance of establishing the organs of workers' government, I would be failing in my duty to both the New York Congress as well as my neighbors, who have entrusted me to represent them in this august body, if I did not voice our collective fears. The Chairman and the Constitutional Committee must address our real needs; the workers in Harlem are not crying out for constitutional government. They are crying out for bread, for good work for the nearly one-third of them still out of work. The ones who put shoulder to the plow for War Syndicalism want their lives to be no longer ruled by the timeclock. Now that we have won the war, we must win the peace. There is so much work yet to be done, and there is little here guiding our new republic towards the interests of the toilers.​

Savage's remarks would be printed in The Daily Worker's evening edition. By the following week, the talk had spread to the factory canteens, the army mess halls, and in the newborn district soviets. An increasing number of resolutions from district and state soviets called on delegates to enact a second bill of rights to correct the perceived deficiencies.

To tie up the matter, and reassure the people that the Workers' Party and the government had heard their concerns, the leading troika of Upton Sinclair, Earl Browder and William Z. Foster gave their addresses to the Congress on 28 February. Sinclair, serving as the presiding officer of the Congress, proposed a resolution authorizing the Constitutional Committee to take up the matter. Browder stressed the tripartite consensus behind the Basic Law, and argued that the quicker the major institutions of government could be reformed, the quicker that the pressing matters of work, housing and food security could be addressed with the full might of the workers' government. Foster outlined a draft program from the Provisional Government to keep the aid flowing to the volxkuchen and speed the reorganisation of 'surplus housing' to public use during the demobilisation period.

The resolution passed with tripartite support, with only the rump of unreconstructed Democrats voting in opposition. But with the passage of the Basic Law, the Congress would dissolve for new elections, delaying the beginning of work on the future Declaration until after the Congress reconvened in April. With Foster's administration actively taking up the economic issues facing the nation, work on the Declaration proceeded at a more leisurely pace.

A commission of jurists with histories in the National Civil Liberties Union was formed, led by Felix Frankfurter, recently appointed as Chairman of the 2nd Collegium of the Review Tribunal. The commission identified the points of concern expressed in the numerous resolutions drawn up by factory committees and base level soviets to guide their efforts.

Broadly, the concerns could be separated into several genres: the rights of nationalities, economic rights, and social rights. Early drafts of the Declaration proposed a separate bill for each grouping. But faced with growing concerns that such an approach would enable the sabotage of minority rights, resolved on 4 June to unite the concerns into a single document.

The final bill had twenty three articles. The first six articles mostly dealt with the rights of national minorities, though quite deliberately they could not be neatly separated from economic or social rights. The Declaration declared its aims to be absolutely compatible with the Marxian principle of dictatorship of the proletariat and repudiated nationalism for an internationalism that was inclusive of all races, ethnicities and religious groups.

Succeeding articles expanded on robust protections for workers, for housing and health care, and to protect children from neglect and abuse. Social rights protected cultural and artistic expression, and sharply limited any doctrine of state secrets. The Declaration further required that the revolutionary government pursue a uniform level of economic and social development throughout the Union, and authorized the government to punish incitements of racial hatred.​

Full Text
Preamble

With the victory of proletarian revolution in America, and the establishment of a soviet society and economy now achieved, the revolutionary government has the duty to sweep aside the reactionary and oppressive remnants of the old order, which treated people, especially those deemed lesser than the dominant clique of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, as disposable tools.

The dictatorship of the proletariat rejects the selfish and evil sentiment of class society that every man is for himself and let the devil take the hindmost. Freedom is more than just protections from undue abuse by the state. Individual freedom cannot exist without economic security, for necessitous men are not free men. People who are ostracized for their language, their nation, their race or their religion are not free. Women who are subjected to cruel dependency on men to support themselves and their children, and who must undertake the socially necessary but nonetheless unremunerated domestic labor that supports the basis for society, are not free.

This declaration is a compact by the revolutionary workers of the Union of American Socialist Republics to establish a social order where everyone would be free from fear and free from want.

Article I

The strength of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is unity in diversity. While we hold the full compatibility of social and cultural self-determination with the revolution, no article of this declaration shall be construed as undermining the revolutionary democratic institutions of workers power.

Article II

The Union of American Socialist Republics is a nation of nations. Pursuant to this, all peoples have the right of self-determination, and thus the right to freely determine their political status, and pursue economic, social and cultural development.

Article III

The many immigrant nations of the UASR have the right to speak their language, and pursue their own social, cultural and religious practices within the UASR.

Article IV

The development of productive forces across the imperial possessions of the old United States, as well as many areas within the country proper, has been highly uneven and malformed by bourgeois political economy. The workers’ republic: the all-Union government, the governments of the republics, and all devolved governments, shall individually and collectively take steps to provide economic, technical, and educational assistance, maximizing the development of eusocial productive forces so that all may benefit.

Article V

The workers’ republic must ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights in this declaration. This article shall not be construed to prohibit the necessary protections women need as mothers and as a historically disadvantaged sex to ensure they may enjoy equality of condition.

Article VI

The workers’ republic must ensure the equal right of all races, nationalities, and peoples to the enjoyment of all economic, social, and cultural rights in this declaration. This article shall not be construed to prohibit the necessary protections historically disadvantaged groups need against the legacy of disenfranchisement and prejudice to ensure they may enjoy equality of condition.

Article VII

1. The workers’ republic must ensure the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the free association of labor and the democratic management of economic life, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right. 2. To achieve the full realization of this right, the all-Union government shall organize technical and vocational guidance and training programs, policies and techniques to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive employment under conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual.

Article VIII

All persons shall have the right to the enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work which ensure: a) Remuneration which provides all workers with fair wages and equal remunerations for work of equal value without distinction of any kind, in particular with respect to race, sex, or nation; b) Safe and healthy working conditions; c) Equal opportunity for everyone to be promoted to an appropriate higher level, subject to no considerations other than seniority and competence; d) Rest, leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays;

Article IX

The workers’ republic shall ensure: a) The right of everyone to form and to join alternative trade unions of their choice, subject only to the rules of the organization concern, for the promotion of their economic and social interests. No person exercising this right shall be excluded from membership in, nor be sanctioned in anyway by, the official trade union federation. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others; b) The right of all trade unions to establish national federations, and the right of trade union federations to form or join international organizations; c) The right to strike, limited only by restrictions prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others;

Article X

Everyone shall have the right to social security, including social insurance.

Article XI

Everyone shall have the right to an irreducible minimum of resources to ensure an adequate standard of living. All persons have the right to freedom from want, especially freedom from hunger, subject only to the limitations of the level of the development of productive forces.

Article XII

Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing. The workers’ republic must take reasonable measures within available resources to achieve the progressive realization of this right.

Article XIII

Everyone shall have the right to have access to sufficient food and water.

Article XIV

Everyone shall have the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. This shall include, but not be limited to: a) The provision for the reduction of the stillbirth-rate and of infant mortality, and for the healthy development of all children; b) The improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene; c) The prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other disease; d) The creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness;

Article XV

Every child has the right: a) To a name and a nationality from birth b) To family care or parental care, or to the appropriate alternative care when removed from the family environment c) To basic nutrition, shelter, health care services and social services d) To be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation e) To be protected from exploitative labor practices f) Not to be required or permitted to perform work that is inappropriate for a person of that age, or places at risk the child's wellbeing, education, physical or mental or social development.

Article XVI

Everyone shall have the right to free education, directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity, and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups.

Article XVII

Everyone has the right of access to any information held by the state, subject only to the reasonable restrictions of national security and public order, as determined by national security juries.  Article XVIII

Everyone shall have the right to take part in cultural life; to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its application.

Article XIX

All persons are guaranteed freedom of scientific, technical, and artistic work. This freedom is ensured by broadening scientific research, encouraging invention and innovation, and developing literature and the arts. The state shall, as permitted by the level of development of productive forces, take steps to provide the progressive realization of the necessary material conditions for this and support for voluntary societies and unions of workers in the arts. The rights of authors, inventors and innovators are protected by the state.

Article XX

The all-Union government shall take progressive steps to organize the introduction of inventions and innovations in production and other spheres of activity.

Article XXI

To promote the further development of productive forces, and realize the abolition of toil, the workers’ republic shall take progressive steps to socialize domestic labor.

Article XXII

Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

Article XXIII

The UASR shall afford the right of asylum to foreign citizens persecuted for defending the interests of working people, or for their scientific or cultural activities, or for their struggle for national liberation.