Such practical application of the language took place in the context of the dream of world revolution. On a small scale it seemed to anticipate what would one day characterize interpersonal relations in the emerging proletarian civilization. The publicist Lev Sosnovsky expressed this view in 1925 with the following prognosis:
If not today, then tomorrow, a veritable torrent of workers will flow in mass excursions out of the USSR into other countries and vice versa. It is naive to hope that a Russian worker travelling in Europe will learn five or six languages to visit five or six countries. It is true that with Esperanto he won't be able to contact the working masses in the west, since also in those countries the language is insufficiently widespread. But if in every country the communist parties devoted at least some attention to the matter, how much easier it would be for the worker on our side, having no knowledge of foreign languages, to communicate with his brothers and connect with the activities and struggles in other countries.[609]
As if to confirm Sosnovsky's optimism, with increasing frequency western workers visiting the Soviet Union found easy contact through Esperanto. During their stay, such visitors, the first of whom were British,[610] Czech,[611]
German[612] and Swedish[613] workers, helped dispel the skepticism of local authorities about the functional capability of Esperanto and, returning home, issued positive reports of their impressions of the Soviet Union.[614]More direct help to SEU's activities came from a few experienced foreign Esperantists who came to the Soviet Union for longer stays. In addition to political emigres, like the Hungarians Pal Robicsek,[615] Istvan Michalicska[616] and Sandor Szatmari,[617] they included two founding mem- bers of SAT. One, the Frenchman Robert Guiheneuf, was a friend of Lanti.[618] The other, the Austrian communist Lucien Laurat,^2 played a particularly important role because he lived in Moscow for four years as of 1923. Working in the Comintern press office, serving as a correspon- dent of LHumanite and teaching in the Communist University of Eastern Working People, Laurat in those years, during which he was also a mem- ber of the SAT Central Committee and published, under the pseudonym
L. Revo, numerous articles in Sennaciulo, seemed the personification of the close connections between SAT and SEU.
These connections became increasingly important for SEU because the effective advancement of the international correspondence of its members depended on the cooperation of workers' Esperanto associations in other countries and the coordinating activity of a worldwide organization. This consideration caused Drezen to put particularly strong emphasis on the principle of a united front. In a radio talk on the Fifth SAT Congress in Vienna (1925) he not only reinforced the characterization of SAT as a 'cultural association in the service of the proletarian class' but explicitly welcomed victory over 'comrades too devoted to party and doctrine':
We don't have to make propaganda in SAT about our particular political
ideals. We must argue with facts. We should quote facts alone. In the facts
resides the remarkable quality of education, of acculturation.[619]
A year later, the Soviet Esperantists were themselves hosts of the SAT Congress. In August 1926 the Sixth Congress, held in the Tauride Palace in Leningrad, brought together more than 400 participants, of whom some 150 were from abroad. The People's Commissar for Education, Lunacharsky, agreed to be honorary president of the congress; in his written message of greeting he acknowledged 'that the Esperantists, feel- ing themselves to belong to the vanguard of the most progressive forms of human intercommunication, also feel a certain kinship with the great movement for communism'.' [620] A representative of the Association of Proletarian Writers publicly confessed 'a grave error'—namely that he and his comrades had formerly believed Esperanto to be 'a utopia and a fantasy'.[621]
The brotherly atmosphere during the days of the congress put the par- ticipants in a state bordering on euphoria, which had a positive influ- ence on their general judgment of the Soviet Union. Bartelmess spoke enthusiastically of 'a paradise for Esperantists and people with free ideas', called the freedom of the Soviet citizen 'incomparably greater than in any "democratic" country', and spoke of 'enviable health resorts and spas' where workers, after the sweat of hard labor, could enjoy the relaxation they deserved.[622] The conviction that only thanks to Esperanto was it pos- sible to engage with and adequately assess the gigantic progress made by the Soviet Union accordingly inspired unanimous approval of a resolu- tion that demanded that Esperanto be applied in the struggle 'against the efforts of false leaders to trick and to keep in ignorance the workers of the various countries, to hide from them the truth about the living condition of the workers in the various countries, and to impede the creation of a united front'.[623] With pride they acknowledged that the Congress was a significant step forward in demonstrating the suitability of Esperanto 'not only for commerce, tourism, philately, nudism, etc., but also to express with scientific accuracy the proletariat's aspiration for the struggle'.[624]
Another resolution[625] called on all SAT members to give 'priority atten- tion' to correspondence by assisting workers' organizations wishing to make contact with other countries, and organizing the translation of cor- respondence published in Sennaciulo for local workers' periodicals and also letters of foreign workers received by these periodicals directly. SAT's magazine would serve as the central organ of international correspon- dence through Esperanto, multiplying its effect. To avoid hindering this process, Drezen explicitly agreed, in the course of the congress, that in his editorial work for Sennaciulo, Lanti would have the right 'to refuse publication of articles too "communist" or too "anarchist", if they might hinder SAT's united proletarian front'.[626]
Not only did the congress reinforce SEU's position at home, but it also proved fruitful for SAT: after Leningrad SAT's membership in the Soviet Union grew to almost 2000.[627] Interest in Esperanto so increased that in April 1926 SEU complained of its limited capability to respond to the needs: a textbook printed in 10,000 copies sold out within three months.[628] SEU's membership in this period reached a total of 10,000.[629]SEU noted contentedly in mid-1927: 'People no longer treat us with mockery or suspicion, or by ignoring us: they consider SEU and the pro- letarian Esperanto movement a valuable social factor'.[630]
Confirming the position of respect that SEU enjoyed during this period was the fact that in 1927 it received, along with other Soviet orga- nizations, the right to invite guests from abroad to participate in the festivities marking the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. The invitation was accepted by 11 people from 9 countries, to whom were added another 12 Esperantists belonging to various other delegations.[631]They attended, among other events, the World Congress of Friends of the Soviet Union (Moscow, 10-12 November 1927), of whose almost 1000 delegates from over 40 countries one-fourth signed an expression of support for the wider use of Esperanto in the cultural relations between the Soviet Union and other countries.[632] The visit, which took the guests of SEU also to other cities in the Soviet Union, allowed them to gain impressions of Soviet life which were probably deeper than those most other delegates, unable to avail themselves of Esperanto, were able to gather.[633]