The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 18, 1930, Page 6

7 Published by the Comprods Publishing Co., Inc., daily, except Sunday, » Page Six Souare. New York City, ¥. Telephone & t'1696-7-8. Cable: Addrees and mail all checks to the Daily Wo! 8 Union Square. THE By KARL MARX (Correspondence of the N. Y. Tribune) 22, 1853. London, Friday, July ¥ propose in this letter to conclude my ob- servations on India. Gow came it that English supremacy was ostablished in India? The par: t power of the Great Mogul was broken by the Mogul Vice- yoya. The power of the Viceroys was broken by tne Mahrattas. The power of the Mahrat- tas was broker by the Afghans, and while all were struggling against all, the Rritton rushed in and was enabled to subdue them all. A country not only divided between Moham- medan and Hindoo, but between nd netween vaste and caste; frame- work was base] on a um, re- salting fvom s yeneral repul d constitu- tional exclusiveness between ail its members. Such « country and such a society, were they ot the predestined prey “new aothing of the past his would there not be the one great and testible fact, ¢ tould not escape the ing cong d, her past history, if it be any- thing. is the history of ie conquests she has andergone. Indian society has no his- cory at all. ut least no’ known history. What we call its is bat the history of the suc- cessive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and un- changing society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer india, but whether we are to prefer India con- qnered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton. England has to fulfil a double mission in India: one ctive, the other regenerating —the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and ; Moguls, who had suc- cessively overrun India, soon became Hindoo- ized, the barbarian conquerers being, by an eternal law of history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects. The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the. native society. The historic pages of their rule in India report hardly anything be- yond that destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun. The political unity of India, more consolid- ated, and extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph. The native army, organized and trained by the Bri- tish drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non ot Indian self-emancipation, and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first foreign intruder. The free press, introduced for the first time into Asiatic society, and managed principally by the common offspring of Hindoos and Eu- Topeans, is a new and powerful agent of re- construction. The Zemindaree and Ryotwar themselves, abominable as they are, involve two distinct forms of private property in land —the great desiratum of Asiatic society. From the Indian natives, reluctantly and sparingly educated at Calcutta, under English superin- tendence, a fresh class is springing up, endowed with the requirements for government and im- bued with European science. Steam has brought India into regular and rapid communication with Europe, has connected its chief ports with those of .the whole south-eastern ocean, and has revindicated it from the isolated ,o-ition which was the prime law of its stagnation. The day is not far distant when, by a combination of railways and steam-vessels, the distance be- tween England and India, measured by time, will be shortened to eight days, and when that fabulous country will thus be actually annexed to the Western world. The ruling classes of Great Britain have had, till now,.but an accidental, transitory and ex- ceptional interest. in the progress of India. The aristocracy wanted to conquer it, the money- ocracy to plunder it, and the millocracy to undersell it. But now the tables are turned. The millocracy have discovered that the trans- formation of India into. a reproductive country has become of vital importance to them, and that, to that end, it is necessary, above all, to gift her with means of irrigation and of inter- + nal communication. They intend now drawing a net of railroads over India. And they will doit. The results must be inappreciable. It is notorious that the productive powers of India are paralyzed by the utter want of means for conveying and exchanging its various pro- duce. Nowhere, more than in India, do we meet with social destitution in the midst of natural plenty, for want of the means of exchange. It Was proved before a Committee of the British House of Commons, which sat in 1848, that “when grain was selling from 6/ to 8/ a quarter at Kandeish, it was sold at 64/ to 70/ at Poonah, where the people were dying in the streets of famine, without the possibility of gaining supplies from Kandeish, because the clay-roads were impracticable.” ‘The introduction of railroads may be easily made io subserve agricultural purposes by the formation of tanks, where ground is required for embankment, and by the conveyance of water along the different lines. Thus irriga- ion, the sine-qua-non of farming in the East, imight be greatly extended, and the frequently Becurring loca} famines, arising from the want @f water, could be averted. The general im- portance of railways, viewed under: this head, must become evident, when we remember that frrigated iands, even in the districts near Ghauts. pay three times as much in taxes, af- re ten or twelve times as much employment. and gieid twelve or tifteen times as much pro- fit, as tho save urea without irrigation. _ Ratiways wil! afford the ineans of diminish- tag the «mount and the cost of the military ‘ fishments, Cu}. Warren, ‘Cown Major of | the Fort St. William, stated before a Select _ Committee of she House of Commins. “The practicability of receiving intelligence $rom distant parts of the country, in as many Bours as at oresent it requires days and even weeks, and of seiding instructions. with troops ‘Be stoves, in the more brief period, are con- ‘tiderations which cannot be too highly esti- |. Troops could be kept at more distant healthier stations than at present. and f | FUTURE RESULTS OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA much loss of life from sickness would by this means be spared. Stores could not to the same extent be required at the various depots, and the loss by decay, and the destruction incidental to the climate, would also be avoided. The num- ber of troops might be diminished in direct pro- portion to their effectiveness.” We know that the municipal organization and the economical basis of the village communities has been broken up, but their worst feature, the dissolution of society into stereotype and dis- connected atoms, has survived their vitality. The village isolation produced the absence of roads in India and the absence of roads perpetuated the village isolation. On this plan a community existed with a given scale of low conveniences, almost without intercourse with other villages, without the desires and ef- forts indispensable to social advance: The British having broken up this self-sufficient inertia of the village: ailways will provide the new want of communication and intercourse. des, “one of the effects of the railway ystem will be to bring into every village af- fected by it such knowledge of the contriv- ances and appliances of other countries, and | such means of obtaining them, as will first put the hereditary and stipendiary village artisan- ship of India to full proof of its capabilities, and then supply its defects.” (Chapman, the Cotton and Commerce of India.) I know that the English millocracy intend to endow India with railways with the exclusive view of extracting at diminished expenses the Cotton and other raw materials for their manu- factures. But when you have once introduced machinery into the locomotion of a country, which possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withold it from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of railways over an immense country without introducing all those industrial processes necessary to meet the immediate and current wants of railway locomotion, and out of which there must grow the application of ma- chinery to those branches of industry not im- mediately connected with railways. The rail- way tem will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry. This is the more certain as the Hindoos are allowed by British authorities themselves to possess particular aptitude for accommodating them- selves to entirely new labor, and acquiring the requisite knowledge of machinery. Ample proof of this fact is afforded by the capacities and ex- pertness of the native engineers in the Calcutta mint, where they have been for years employed in working the steam machinery, by the natives attached to the several steam engines in the Hurdwar coal districts, and by other instances. Mr. Campbell himself, greatly influenced as he is by the prejudices of the East India company, is obliged to avow “that the great mass of the Indian people possesses a great industrial en- ergy, is well fitted to accumulate capital, and remarkable for a mathematica! clearness of head, and talent for figures and exact sciences.” “Their intellects,” he says, “are excellent.” Modern industry, resulting from the railway | stystem, will dissolve the hereditary divisions of labor, upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power. All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people, depending not only on the development of the productive power, but of their appropriation by the people. But what they will not fail to do is to lay down the material premises for both. Has the bourgeoisie ever done more? Has it ever affected a progress without dragging in- dividuals and people through blood an# dirt, through misery and degradation? The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Hindoos themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke alto- gether. At all events, we may safely expect to see, at a more or less remote period, the regen- eration of that great and interesting country, whose gentle natives are, to use the expression of Prince Soltykow, even in the most inferior classes, “plus fins et plus adroits que les Ital- iens,” whose submission even is counterbalanced by a certain calm nobility, who, notwithstand- ing their natural langor, have astonished the British officers by their bravery, whose coun- try has been the source of our languages, our religions, and who represent the type of the ancient German in the Jat, and the type of the ancient Greek in the Brahmin. I cannot part with the subject of India with- out some concluding remarks. The profound hypocrisy and inherent bar- barism of bourgeois-civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked. They are the defenders of property, but did any revolutionary party ever originate agrarian revolutions like those in Bengal, in Madras, and in Bombay? Did they not, in India, to borrow an expression of that great robber, Lord Clive himself, resort to atrocious extortion, when simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity? While they prated in Europe about the inviolable sancity of the national debt, did they not con- fiscate in India the dividends of the rayahs, who had invested their private savings in the Company’s own funds. While they combated the French revolution under the pretext of defending “our holy religion,” did they not for- bid, at the same time, Christianity to be pro- pagated in India, and did they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims steaming to the temples of Orissa and Bengal, take up the trade in the murder and prostitution per- petrated in the temple of Juggernaut? These are the nen of “Property, Order, Family, and Religion.” The devastating effects of English industry, when contemplated with regard to India, a country as vast as Europe, and containing 150 millions of acres, are palpable and confounding But we must not forget that they are only the organic results of the whole system of produc- tion as it is now constituted. That production rests on the supreme rule of capital. The cen- tralization of capital is essential to the exist- ence of capital as an independent power. The destruction influence of that centralization upon the markets of the world does but reveal, in the most gigantic dimensions, the inherent organic laws of political economy now at work in every civilized town. The bourgeois period of history has to create the material basis of the new world—on the one hand universal in- at 26-28 Unton “DAIWORK.” New York. N. ¥ Daily Central Organ of the Communi Ry mail everywhere: One yesr SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Machetian and Bronx, New York City, and foreign. which a vany of the U.S. A, $6; six months $3; two months $1; excepting Boroughs of t ‘One year $8: six months $4.50 WIPE THEM OFF THE MAP! ae ae ee x By QUIRT By L. HELLER. NDIA is in flames. From Bombay and Ka- rachi in the West, to Caleutta and Chitta- gong in the East, from Peshawar and Lahore in the North to Madras and Medura in the South--throughout the whole of this vast con- masses have come into movement, and are fighting against British imperialism. Strikes, the boycotting of British goods, English insti- tutions, the British government monopolies, the refusal to pay taxes, open armed clashes with the English police and troops, whole towns movement, the unrest of the frontier tribes, and finally, the ever more frequent mutinies in the Indian troops, the refusal to go against is the picture of India as it is at present. Indian-Chinese Revolutions Undermine World Imperialism. Like the great Chinese Revolution, the In- dian Revolution is a powerful ram undermining the very foundation of world imperialism. The Indian Revolution strikes more directly at British imperialism than the Chinese Revolu- tion. India is a vast colony of British imper- ialism; out of the 400 millions of colonial slaves, on the bones of which the edifice of British imperialism has been erected, more than 300 millions live in India alone. The liberation of India signifies the downfall of the present British Empire, and thereby strikes a powerful breach in the entire imperialist front. Causes Behind Indian Revolution. The causes which gave rise to the revolu- tionary movement are: the growing impoveri- zation of the people, of the peasantry, the workers and petty urban bourgeoisie. All the exploitatory and reactionary forces of India, as represented by the native princes, the big land- owners, the usurers—who play such a big role in the life of the Indian countryside—are sup-~ ported by British imperialism, and in turn are the latter’s chief prop in India itself. British es of the Indian population, in the person of the workers, the peasants and the city poor. Indian agriculture is steadily degrading. “Drive England Out of India!” Slogan. The peasantry, who are iuercilessly exploited by British imperialism, the feudals and the usurers are becoming more and more impoverished, are dying out en. masse as as result of malnutrition, diseases, epidemics. The importation of wheat and rice into India is steadily growing greater, whilst exports are falling. Important industries, such as the textile, metallurgical, coal industries, are passing through a chronic crisis. The In- dian bourgeosie and British capital are inten- sifying the exploitation of the Indian workers by rationalization methods, forcing still lower their living standards, which are already on the starvation line. As « result we see the acute intensification of class contradictions and the growth of the revolutionary movement, which has extended throughout the country. “Drive the English out of India!” “Indian In- dependence!” have become the slogans of the broad masses. Militants Lead Struggle; Red Unions Grow. of mankind, ana the means of that intercourse: on the other hand the development of the pro- ductive powers of man and the transformation of materiai production into a scientific domina- tion of naturai agencies. Bourgeois industry and commerce create these material conditions of a new world in the same way as geglogical revolutions have created the surface of the earth, When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois: epoch, the market of the world and the modern powers of production, and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peo- ples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous pagan idel, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulle of the slain the rebels, and directly taking up cause—such | tercourse founded upon the mutual dependency iia in F lames j { tinent, which is called India, the million-strong | seized by the rebels, the widéspread peasant | imperialism is being opposed by the basic mass- | The working class occupies the foremost po- sitions in this move, The last two years have been a period of unprecedented upsurge in the labor movement, which found its expression in the widespread strike struggle. This movement differs sub- stantially in character from the strike move- ment of the first period (1918-1921): at that period the strikes were spontaneous and were directed by leaders who were enemies to the working class, who had come from the middle and petty bourgeoisie. The position is entirely different at present—the strikes of the recent period differ in their organization, their stub- bornness. The workers display great militancy in place of the former leaders, who were not of the proletariat, new proletarian militants are being more and more pushed forward from the midst of the working class. ‘he left wing of the labor movement is growing and strengthening. In the process of the struggle there arose, de- veloped and strengthened such class unions as the “Girni Kamgar” (Red Flag)—the Bombay textile workers’ union, which has approximately 54,000 members, and the Great Indian Penin- sula Railway Union, which has about 40,000 members. These unions have taken up the lead- ing position among the militant Indian prole- tariat, and have become a most influential fac- tor in the entire political life of present-day India. British and Indian Bourgeoisie Combine : Against Reds. British imperialism and the Indian bourg- eoisie, who strive for an agreement with the former, correctly estimated the significance of the revolutionary wing of the labor move- ment, and for two years now have been con- ducting a relentless fight against it, applying the most ruthless government repressions, is- suing special legislation directed against these unions and their leaders, through dismissals of the workers who have displayed their activity and loyalty to the cause of the Indian prole- tariat. Independence Movement Loosens Revolution- ary Elements. Under pressure of the working masses, who are undergoing a rapid process of reorganiza- | tion, the National Congress, the political or- ganization of the Indian bourgeoisie which strove to achieve political and economic conces- sion through agreements with British imper- ialism, which has been foreed to adopt more radical methods of the struggle. The resolu- tion passed at the last session of the National Congress, in December 1929, demanding the independence of India (in place of the demand for Dominion Status put forward by the previ- ous session of the National Congress), and Gandhi's “salt crusade” were maneuvers of the Indian bourgeoisie with the object of keep- ing the leadership of the growing revolution- ary movement in their hands. As has been seen from the further development of events, these maneuvers did not succeed. .The posi- tion in India is so acute that the ‘salt crusade, which had as its object to pacify the masses of the people by creating a semblance of struggle against the British authority, to keep them in subjugation to the National Congress ,and its leaders, has resulted in just the con- | trary: it gave a powerful impetus to the move- ment, it let loose the revolutionary element. British and Indian Bourgeoisies Work Hand in Glove. The mass arrests which are being prosecuted at present by the Anglo-Indian government among the leaders of the National Congress would seem to point otherwise, would seem to prove that there are genuine revolutionaries in the persons of these leaders. This, however, is.only a semblance, a cleverly calculated chess move. The leaders of the National Congress will yet come in use for British imperialism. British imperialism, suppressing the workers and peasants’ movement with the sword and fire, intentionally withdraws from the firing line these people, which it still requires. °’~ | FURTH By V. CHATTOPADHYAYA. OTWITHSTANDING the strict censorship exercised by the British Government of India and notwithstanding the attempt made in the latest official communique of May 17th (circulated in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for India) to produce the impression that there have been signs of im- provement during the week, even the news in India of reactionary French and Italian journals is sufficient to show that the move- ment is spreading among larger and larger sections of the population. There is an all- round inerease in the activities of the Dis- trict and the Village Congress Committees, of the Workers’ Unions, of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Parties, of the nationalist terrorist organizations, of school and college students and of ex-soldiers of the Indian Army. The Congress Committees in various parts since the arrest of the principal Congress leaders. The government has therefore begun inflicting much severer punishment upon members of the Congress Committee. For instance, among the recent Court Martial are the following sentences: the Secretary of the local Congress Committee to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of 225 Pounds Sterling; the president of the Con- gress Committee to five years’ rigorous im- prisonment and a fine of 150 Pounds Sterling; seven members to two years’ rigorous impris- onment and fines of 75 Pounds Sterling each; nine members to one year’s rigorous impris- ment and fines of 37 Pounds 10 shillings each; and four to corporal punishment. The Salt Campaign has been extended from mere breaches of the Salt Law to the “storm- ing” of salt depots at Dharasana and else- where. Of the 2,000 Congress volunteers who attempted to capture the salt depot in Dhar- asana some 500 were arrested, after the police had attacked them with their batons and wounded about #350. Among the arrested is Mrs, Sarojini Naidu who was in charge of the Civil Disobedience movement after the arrest of Gandhi and Abbas Tyabji. She has been succeeded in the leadership by the old Patel. The two most important events since the be- ginning of the present revolutionary outburst have centered in Sholapur and Peshawar. The importance of Sholapur is that it is a very important industrial center where the 60,000 workers of the cotton and silk spiraing mills have been playing a prominent part in the revolutionary movement. These workers are intimately connected with the peasantry of the surrounding areas and, further, the troops of the Mahratta regiments are drawn largely from among these peasants, The revolution- ary movement of the workers has produced an effect both amoag the peasants and among the soldiers, and it is not at all astonishing that the city was in the hands of a committee of workers, peesants and intellectuals for a couple of days. Sholapur is now being gov- *erned by very severe martial law. In Peshawar, Bannu and Kohat, the move- ment of insurrection is spreading, in spite of the numerous arrests of “prominent agita- support. The Congress Committees have been declared to be unlawful associations. And the revolutionary Youth organization of the Pun- jab, the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, that has taken a very prominent part in the organiza- tion of the movement has been declared il- legal in the Peshawar area. An organization known as the “Red Shirts” bearing the ham- mer and sickle as their badge has made its appearance in the north of Peshawar and its members drawn mostly from among the poor villagers, and organized in military form with lances as their weapon, are carrying on an active agitation among the masses to over- throw the imperialist government and estab- lish a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government. This Red Shirt organization is more wide- spread in the Punjab than is admitted by the imperialist press. Similar organizations exist in Amritsar, Gujranvala, Hoshearpur and other cities, where the Workers and Peasants Party has been engaged for some time in organiz- ing the peasantry. The Northwest Frontier. The tribal chiefs on the other side of the North West Frontier, such as the Haji of Turangzai, were invited by the revolutionaries to join the anti-imperialist war. A section of the Mohmands, of the Afridis, of the Wasiris, and of the Mahsuds, have organized small armies for the support of the movement in Peshawar. zai were bombed from the air by the Royal Air Force, during which action his son, Bad Shah Gul, was wounded. The tribes in Tochi are up in arms against the British and a lashkar (armed force) attacked the British post of Datta Khel on May 11th, and on May 14th several villages of the Madda Khel which from the air. The tribes, however, have not taken con- certed action because a number of their chiefs are in the pay of the British Government and are doing their best to prevent a general movement of the North Western tribes, in sup- port of the movement in India. But the events in Peshawar—the mass demonstrations, the fraternizing of Hindus and Mohammedans, culminating in the refusal of the Garhwali troops to open fire on the demonstrators, the sympathetic movement of the tribes, the revo- lutionary ferment among the peasantry and the massacre perpetrate] by the British regi- ments and 40 bombing planes of the Royal Air ultaneously another object is achieved—the ar- rest of these leaders raises their political pres- tige in the eyes of the masses of the people, raises their authority, and thereby their value as future parties in the agreement which both British imperialism and the Indian bourgeoisi are striving for. British imperialism, seem- ingly, deals savagely with the leaders of the National Congress. In reality, however, Brit- ish imperialism wants to help the Indian bour- eoisie to keep the movement in hand. All this is the fundamental problem of the revolution- ary movement—its depth, its character and direction will depend upon the people who are | at the head of this movement, will depend upon | who takes the hegemony. . ‘ (To be Continued) wo that has been allowed to get through to the | A ” ee rei ea rs % | a very prominent part in the anti-imperialist British Press and through the correspondents } Aeisonates done: and qaithellettadie cea tieeens of India have taken up a militant attitude | sentences passed on 23 persons in Sholapur, | tors” undertaken by the police with military | The forces of the Haji of Turang- | were concerned in the attack were bombed | martial law, the Seditious Meeting’s Act and | | { | ER INTENSIFICATION OF FIGHT IN INDIA Force—have shaken the power of British im- perialism in the most sensitive, the North West Frontier. ; The Sikhs, The.Sikh ex-soldiers of the Army have been very active among the soldiers and the peas- antry throughout the “Punjab, under the guid- ance of the Workers and Peasants Party in Amritsar consisting mostly of Sikhs. In Cal- cutta and in Rangoon the Sikhs have played lice. The Sikh ex-soldiers in Bengal have an organization and in conjunction with the ter- rorists, they organized the attack on the ar- senal at Chittagong some four weeks ago. They are reported to have carried off several motor lorry loads of arms and ammunitions for distribution among the peasants of Hast- ern Bengal. Owing to a rumor that an Indian who had been run over by a tram had been murdered by the police, a tremendous demonstration in Bombay took place in which 100,000 partici- pated. Another rumor that the director of the Bank of India in Bombay had taken part in the police attack on the headquarters of the Indian National Congress resulted in thou- sands storming the bank; all business was closed, the Stock Exchange suspended its ac- tivities and a very severe conflict ensued be- tween the masses and the police when the latter searched the National..Congress build- ing, confiscated literature, arrested its presi- dent, K. F. Nariman, who is also president of the Bombay Presidency Youth League and closed the Congress building. The movement is spreading in the Madras Presidency which was comparatively quiet when the campaign started. There have. been mass demonstrations following one upon an- other in the city of Madras and in the latest demonstration the police attacks were met not only with usual showers of stones which have characterized demonstrations in all parts of India, but actually with bombs which wounded several police constables. There have also been similar demonstrations in Masulipatam on the eastern coast. Among the railway and tex- tile workers of Madras there is a growing tendency to join the General Strike that is being prepared by the revolutionary unions. Intense excitement has been caused by the sentence of one year’s imprisonment of Mrs. Lakshmi Patthi of Madras, of Mrs, Sarojini Naidu in Bombay, and of Karmala Devi, a prominent woman member of the Youth League, who has received six months impris- onment. Support General Strike. An event of considerable importance is the mass meetings of Mohammedans that have been held in Bombay and Madras, the one in support of the Arab General Strike and for Arab Independence, the other against Mac- Donald’s imperialist policy in Egypt. The leaders of the Khalifat Committee, such as Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali, who for their own personal ends are against the indepen- dence movement in India are unable to pre- vent the expression of an anti-imperialist tem- per among the Muslim masses. While ad- vising them not to take part in the movement in India they mobilized a mass meeting at- tended by 100,000 Muslims in Bombay to de- mand Arab Independence and to protest against the brutality of the Imperialist Labor Government in Palestine and other Arab coun- tries. The meeting for Egypt in Madras was charged by the police with batons, the masses replying by throwing bombs on the police in- juring several constables. The movement for the non-payment of taxes and of land revenue is being organized mainly by the Congress Committees, the province of Gujrat where the land revenue is paid direct to the government being at present the main center of the campaign. The Trade Union Congress has called on all workers to declare a General Strike and the Workers and Peasants Party has issued an appeal to the peasants to form committees, expropriate the landlords, join the workers and overthrow imperialism and feudalism. The Situation in North-West India. According to latest reports, the situation in the North West Provinces of India is caus- ing increasing concern to the British authori- ties. The insurgents, with the leader of the Tusangsai tribe, Hadshi, at their head, are capturing further fortified positions in the mountains thirty miles from Peshawar and do not think of retreating. The question of rid- ding the Peshawar district of insurgents is a source of considerable worry to the British authorities, as the refusal of Hadshi to obey the ultimatum of the British supreme Com- mand is greatly damaging the prestige of Great Britain in the whole of the frontier districts. Every morning and evening British aircraft carry out demonstrations over, Hadshi’s head- quarters in Ghalandi, as well as over the for- tifications of the village of Matta Mukhal Khel, where the forces of Hadshi’s son, Bad Shah Gul, are concentrated. Volunteers and redshirts (peasant partisan troops) are guard. ing Hadshi’s son and suppiying the village with food. The British aireraft are fired upon by the insurgents. The Redshirts are continu- | ing’to operate along the Swat and Kabul rivers, to cut the telegraph wires, ete, 4 The Fights in Rangoon. The events in Rangoon (Further India) are of special importance in view of the reyolu- tionary movement in India proper. The immediate cause of the events was the ending of the dock workers’ strike, in the course of which the employers and the author- ities did everything in order, for their own purposes, to stir up racial hatred between the workers and the strikebreakers. After. the conclusion of the strike, native strikebreakers from Burma attacked workers belonging to the Andhra tribe who had resumed work. The latter gathered together in large numbers, armed themselves with iron rods and other ob- jects, and offered determined resistance, Col- lisions took place in all parts of the town. Both parties erected barricades. Furious fights and attacks on houses took place. The popu- lation of the town were seized with panic; the shops were closed. It was only with great difficulty’ that the armed police succeeded in restoring order, Many houses and several motor buses were damaged as a result of bombardment with stones. There were many wounded among the Riksha pullers. The total number of the Lie amounts to eighty, including twenty lee, :