The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 11, 1926, Page 10

i. The Organization of Destruction. HE Balkan governments all make use of similar in- struments and organizations of repression. In all these countries, the chief of these instruments, the most powerful of these organizations are the army and the military leagues. One cannot imagine another place in’ the world where the uniform and galloon en- joy more complete power, where the officers are in- vested with an irresponsibility and despotism more absolute. One of the most sadly picturesque aspects of the Balkan capitals are the quarters oceupied by the oficers and the importance which the military. monu- ments display there, At Bucharest, the Military Circle with its opulent architecture, eclipses all the other monuments of the city, even the Palace and the new banks. At Belgrade, the Military School is not a monument, it it an’ entire quarter. The budget of Jugo-Slavia amounts to 12 milliard dinars; 2,700,000 are dedicated to the war budget, not to disregard the one milliard advanced by the good grace of France for new arma- ments. In Bulgaria, out of a revenue of about 5,700 million levas, 2,800 million go to the army and polica In Greece: total expenses, 8,471 million drachmes; min- istry of War, 2,272 million. Military Leagues and Police. Y¥ the side of officia] militarism, semi-official mili- tarism; by the side of the army, the leagues com- posed of reserve officers or of ex-officers. All the Balkan countries are provided with them. Many have several of them. The Serbian White Head (which suc- ceéded the Black Head) has been implicated in ail the recent political events. In Bulgaria, fourteen members of the Military League form the Military Convent, the supreme committee which off-hand is called the Squadron. In addition, there is a Tcheka composed of five officers, members of the League. Operating paral- lel is the secret association, Kubrat, As for the organization of the police: it is every- where formidable. The Roumanian Siguranza (Safety) commands millions, newspapers. It has attaches and agents, ears and hands everywhere. It is a state within the state. The number of Balkan gendarmes is out of proportion to the population. There are 45,000 gen- darmes in Roumania, 60,000 in Jugo-slavia. The gen- daymes are. distributed over the country in small groups ang commit exactions, cruelties, robberies and crimes, certain of impunity, In Roumania, they have profited largely ... by the would-be proletarian law of the division of the estates. Fascists and Cossacks. — goverament of Bucharest, in spite of its protes- tations of neutrality, undeniably encourages the growing and turbulent group of Anti-Semetic Students fascists and provocateurs. Altho it has struck at the Independent Students, in dissolving their organization and in prohibiting their journal, it openly tolerates the propaganda of the Anti-Semetic Students. .In that way, the Anti-Semetic Party, which has never existed at Bucharest (it fortified itself in Yassy under the’ orders. of) M. Couza who, from the height of his. professorial chiair, openly preached: pogroms) has just ‘been installed tliere by the liberals. The Anti-Semites have five jour- nals at their disposal, display their placards and their insignia in the open street, and are never molested in their public demonstrations. One evening, when some of these desperados came to shout in front of my hotel in order to punish me “for infringing upon the national sovereignty,” I was assured that they had been sur- rounded by agents of “Surety” whose principal concern was to keep the crowd from hindering their demonstra- tion. These are the young people who, by their special notion of the honor of Roumania, have hindered the secretary of our League for the Rights of Man from speaking at Bucharest, At the expense of a few com- pliances, the authorities possess in this a convenient means of having their hand forced. One cannot insist too much on the artificial character of this anti-semetic agitation, cultivated by force by hireling provocateurs in the. bosom of the least fanatical population and the one least inclined to race-hatred in the ‘world, Another grouping constitutes a violent agent of exe- cution for the Balkan governments: the ex-officers and soldiers of Wrangel. In the streets of Belgrade one meets cossacks in uniform who are only waiting for the opportunity—one of them has shouted it recently in the street during a brawl—to carry out in the Balkans the counter-revolutionary activity which they were un- able to conduct in»Russia. Vandervelde remarked at the end of the voyage which he took to the Balkans, that the Wrangelites abound by the thousands in Bul- garia, They say there are 40,000 Wrangelites in that country and this figure is not improbable, Jt is at the demand of France that Bulgaria lodges the armed bands of Wrangel. The latter had their official representative, Petriaev, harbored in the. Rus- sian embassy at Sofia. Stamboliski held them in check and life was then difficult for them; but their decisive participation in the coup d’etat of June, 1923 made their fortune, At the congress of the Russian National League in September, 1925, General Miller, representing General Wrangel and the Grand Duke Nicholas, made an edify- ing report: 8,000 of Wrangel’s soldiers, 4,000 Don cos- ee All the Rus- (The White Terror in the Balkans) By HENRI BARBUSSE. re setubele es the country are under the Niece: ore of the monarchists and Wrangelites who fleece them to the profit of the Grand Duke under threat of expul- sion, ridding themselves of non-monarchist refugees. In fact, the president of the Russian Committee plays the role of Russian ambassador and has the greatest authority over the whole Russian colony, The Wran- gelites, those civil war specialists, who “detest the Bulgarian peasants and love the Bulgarian govern- ment,” have founded mixed associations with Bul- garian superior and suborditiate “offices. “They have special institutions. They are dreaming of having their grand military school and they will undoubtedly attain it. They already have a school at Sarajevo. In that way they renew and multiply themselves, In the mines of Pernik, out of 6,000 workers, there are 2,000 former Wrangel soldiers whose hiring has been imposed by the government. When one reads the detailed reports of repressions, one sees the important role which ‘this parasitic, reac- tionary organization (comfortably installed in poor Bulgaria and not less solidly inerusted in Jugo-Slavia, executor of schemes of oppression and imperialism of the two governments, even when these schemes con- flict) has played in the massacre of the Balkan peo- ples. These are the Wrangelite bands which invaded Albania in 1924, overthrew the government of Fan Noli who was supported by the peasant masses, and placed in.power M. Ahmed Zogou who has reestab- lished the power of the feudal Beys and has eonnected the Albanian foreign policy with that of the Serbian, dynasty and of Haly. The nature of the task whic they have to perform is of little importance to these bullies provided that it is paid for and unpopular. On of them, who looks even beyond the fat daily rev nue, has disclosed to Mme, Anna Karima the Wran gelian dream: to restore Russia, then connect to this! restored Russia the “Balkan Provinces.” » By putting these diverse forces in action, there sults a systematic and implacable crushing of all at- tempts at real democracy even under the most attenu- ated forms, The People Are Defenseless. HAT can the people do in this field’ of civil war where the mechanism of power is used to silence them and to subjugate them? Nothing. They have not the right to budge in defense of their interests, for the legitimate and sacred solidarity between worker and worker and between man and man. One may say that the right to organize does not exist in the Balkans. If it exists in the letter of the law, it is in reality impos- sible to realize other than in appearance. The con- gresses are readily stopped and dissolved off-hand. All that is permitted are lamentable parodies of working class organizations which conceal a blind servitude to the regime, sad domestications which are deceptions both for the people interested and for the public opin- ion of the world. At Bucharest, every time that the trade union workers assemble, a police inspector is at the door of the local and examines and registers the cards. All public demonstrations are forbidden. The few proletarian demonstrations that have taken: place in my honor on the streets of Bucharest and Belgrade were anomalies which were only tolerated at this mo- ment for special reasons-and which will certainly not be renewed henceforth in these large cities. One must insist upon the rabidness with which every attempt at real working class co-operation even on the purely trade union ground ig persecuted and annihilated. The Bulgarian trade unions were, in the hands of tha work- ing class, powerful forces of culture and of progress. Ali the independent labor organizations, even , those that confined themselves strictly to trade demands, have everywhere been driven out of their locals and dispersed. One of the most typical examples t# that Scenes From the Hell of Europe of the suppression of the large Bulgarian Workers’ Co operative, Osvobojdenie—Kmancipation—-whieh num bers 68,000 members, 140 branches and 400 agencies. Its goods and its funds were confiscated. This tyrant nical measure did not have for its aim merely tha eut- ting of the bonds of organized popular solidarity but of freeing the merchants from the formidable eompe- tition of co-operation. They have recently srrested without any pretext seventeen members of the Trade Union Alliance at Bucharest. The Bulgarian Inde pendent Alliance of Trade Unions—85,000 members— . has been dissolved just as in Hungary—a quasi Balkan country. Following a strike, they have excluded ‘from the right to organize entire sections like those of the shoemakers and turners (non-Communist)., Im Row mania and Bulgaria they accept only those wutogs which are always ready to do acts of serviltty. In some places they support only democratic and socfal- ist parties which have given guarantees of gervility. In Belgrade, the beautiful building of the proaperens United Trades was confiscated by the police and solé to a merchant—at the time when there are 250,00@ un- employed in Jugo-Slavia (the laws consider them culprits), when the worker there is paying a tax to 6 per cent of his salary, the clerk 50 per cent (wage considered as revenue), when the bureaucracy th (200,000 functionaries) absorbs 50 per cent of the oud- get and when they have suspended their old-age tmsur- ance. In Bulgaria, in 90 per cent of the enterprises, the 8-hour day is suppressed. The cost of ving is forty times higher than before the war while salaries have tereased only fifteen times; the appointments of the functionaries have risen only by the coefficient 16, pensions according to the coefficient 5. And the Silence. i hyrew any eek this Roumania of today, | thrueut this Jugo-Slavia, and thruout this Bulgaria which i the most pathetic circle of the Balkan Hell, the methodle suffocation of every pulsation of liberty transfarms itself at sight into a calm which rends one’s heart be- cause it is the calm of a cemetery. One well knows that the heads which were erect have been strack Gown and that if others here and there raise thetr heads again they will be struck down im ¢hetr turn; that all the living and conscious forces ef the work- ers of the city and country have been or will be anut- hilated. This collective mutilation might lead one to believe that there is a semblance of order which ean only spread over this frightful earth. But this peace is a shroud and the surviving understand that thelr existence depends upon the first gesture, upon the first word. Buglaria, Roumania, Jugo-Slavia, Greece ere é@ying of the White Terror. The Woman Without a Heart. By Roy Nierenberg. . Last night | sat in the moon light Gazing upon the Celestial art, 1 decided to paint a picture Of a woman without a heart. 1 still remember the last time ! saw her A picture of beauty and tone, Her face was as white as marble And her heart as cold as a stone, Her eyes were burning with passion Her lips were as red as a rose, Her soft fluffy hair perfumed the evening alr But her voice was as cold as snow. The picture now seems to be fading As the moon vanished into the dark, The only vision | have now remaining Is of a woman without a heart. TWO POEMS. By Henry George Weiss. INDUSTRY, HONESTY, THRIFT A crazy man commits a crazy crime and goes to the crazy house for several years. Worth fifty thousand dollars when he enters, he comeé out a millionaire, having spun not nor tolled, While 1, who have practiced Industry, Honesty, Thrits digging ditches, washing dishes, respecting property, saving pennies, Am worth after the same length of time ennetly” ninety cents! 7 FUTILITY By HENRY GBORGE WEISS When they hanged August Spies, George Engel, Adotph Fischer, Albert Parsons, They thought they had killed the revolution. When they shot Joe Hill, lynched Prank Littte, tor tured Wesley Everest, They thought they had killed the revolutions Now surely, by God, If they electrocute Gaces gud Vanzetti The revolution will Lh ieatinehaithanetintienistage eeu Maaco aka. 2 ees dead! ” = so*5e 14 bl Faexgs S@eegeaneteses ao sp! See @Bes@e232qa2s S52