The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 28, 1932, Page 6

4 PAGE TWO DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY; MAY 28, 1932 BEFORE AND AFTER THE OUTBREAK OF IMPERIALIST WAR By SAM DON The war clouds are gathering at tremendous speed. In the present charged atmosphere ready any minute. to rain forth death and de- struction. In this situation the work- ing class must display the greatest watchfulness and activity to be- come the decisive factor in defeat- ing the imperialist war plans. The bosses follow a two-fold strategy with one aim in mind, namely, on the one hand with paci- fist phrases to lull the watchfulness of the workers and at the same time create a war atmosphere to mobilize so-called public opinion for war. It is well, therefore, to remember the words of Lenin with regard to war: “It must be definitely explained hew great is the secrecy sur- rounding the policy of war.... It | must be explained over and over | again in a thoroughly concrete manner how the situation was during the last war and as to the reason why the situation. could not be otherwise.’ * * : At the very moment when Japan, n its invasion of Manchuria, ral Ely declared. “We seldom s on the horizon, We get | over night.” Is the gen- > stupid and ignorant | hat we seldom sse vars? | ecurse net! What is the purpose} on of maki:g such a ement? The answer is cleer—To ercete the | idea that war is unthinkable snd | i lull the watchfulness of the} s. He says, “You get em- over night”. What is the} meaning of this statement? Simply | to ereate the idea that the “enemy | forecd war uren us” 2nd how wiat.| war “unexpectedly” is on, there is nothing left to be done, but to de- | fend the country. You see, the “weil meaning” gen- | erals and impetialists have such great difficulty in seeing war.... at a time when they spent billions on preparations for war, at a time when*we are in the midst of wai against the Chinese people, in tie midst of growing war against =he Soviet Union. Such statements are roade at a time when we are so} close to the outbreak ci « new world war, that the thick layers of paci- fist phrases cannot save the com- plete fiasco of the Geneva disarma- ment conference, and when the wart clouds thicken on the horizon. The imperialists aré consciously prepar- ing for war as a way out of the pres- ent crisis. The whole development of capitalism leads to imperialist wars. We do not just get embroiled in them over night, general, as» you. | | | | 1 | embroil cral re 9 believe jgetting closer ; of all pacifists. They are ultra paci- | | talist war” so did Gompers in Feb- ;suing high-sounding | Socialists with their respective im- fect their profits. Therefore they east their lot with the allies. Here we see the real cause for the im- perialist war. At first Wilson “kept us out of war”, then he plunged us into war not to make the world safe for de- mocracy, but to avoid “a panic for Wall Street”, a war to maintain high profits for the house of Mor- gan. This before mentioned brief sentence from Ambassador Page’s letter to Wilson tears to shreds the tissue of pacifist lies prior to and after America’s entry into the world war. Labor and Socialist brand of pacifism is even more dangerous than the official brand of pacifism of the government, Here, too, it is well to contrast a few statements made prior to and during the im- perialist war. Let us take the old} Gompers. On May. 26, 1916, speak- | ing before the League to Enforce | Peace, at Washington, D. C., hel made the following statement: “No class has more to lose and less to gain in the war than the workers.... Recognizing this, workers the world over have sworn undying opposition to the forces that make for war.” ! A few months later as we were to war, in October, | 1916. Goempers came out in his true | colors when he: said: | in our I am an breaking “J am free to say that international rel ms vitra pacifist until the out of this war.” The old servant of the bosses was | quite right. What he said is true | | fists until the breaking out of war; and then they shout the loudest | for war and give their blessing to it by attaching high-sounding ideals. Just as the Japanese socialist de- | clared that the present war against | the Chinese people “is not a capi-} ruary, 1918, officially declared “this war is an honorable war.... It is} not a capitalist war.” The Socialist 2nd International has of late been very active in is- manifestoes against war. The greatér the trea- chery and open participation of the perialist governments, the more pacifist and revolutionary phrases are being used to cover up their! active preparation for and leader- ship in imperialist war. Mr. Thomas appeared before the ; Congressional committee which was | discussing war policies, where he} made the following statements in| May, 1931: “Wf I understand my friend, Mr. LaGuardia, correctly, he is for a constitutional amendment wiich | ;of the strikers. know it yourself. The lessons of the last world war cannot be forgotten, particularly re- membering the treachery and paci- fism of the Second Socialist Inter- national as imperialist implements for the mobilization of the masses for war. America’s entry into the last world war is a good example of how pacifism is used in preparing for war. Take the whole pacifist campaign of Wilson. His election slogan was: “He kept us out of the war.” But the little truth which the capitalists allowed to leak out in connection with their preparations for the last war shed a great deal of light on the past and present war preparations. Take the state- ment of Wilson which he mad2 49 days before America’s entry into the world war. He said: “I am not now proposing or contemplating war. The American people do not desire it. Our de- sire is not different from theirs.” Is it not obvicus that Wilson, the great humanitarian, was lying. But precisely because the American workers did not desire war it was necessary to use such _ pacifist phrases and then to take them by surprise. Just to give one fact which shows that Wilson was consciously lying. The American ambassador to London, Ambassador Page, sent a letter to Wilsun dated March 7, 1917, in which he stated: “that the only way_of maintaining our credit would permit us to take over ev- erything we need for war. If we were on the verge of war, I should probably be for it.... I had want- ed to congratulate the commis- sion and the country upon the dawning, if somewhat muddle- headed, conviction that, when it comes to a real emergency like | war, the ever blessed prefit sys- tem won’t work without an im- mense degree of control. As a so- eialist I rejoice in this even as I rejoiced in the demonstration given by the last war that plan- ned production is absolutely es- sential.” So here we have it, imperialist war presented as a blessing in dis- guise. Mr. Thomas tells us that it} will help to bring about planned production and he rejoices at the “socialist” features of the conduct of the last imperialist war. Here we see that under the guise of so- cialism Mr. Thomas advises the im- perialists how to more effectively carry on imperialist war and at the same time he presents this pro- gram to the workers as a brand of socialism. The socialism and the planned preduction advecated by Thomas at the Congressional hearing: dozs not really differ in the slightest from Hoover’s ideas which were express- ed in a letter to Congressman John J. McSwain, while the House Com- mittee on military affairs was in ‘Anniversary of the Beginning of the Chinese Revolution By M. JAMES May 30 has great historical sig- nificance to the Chinese masses and the general revolutionary struggle against imperialism. This year, the Chinese masses will commemorate this historical day by intensifying their fight against the masacre of the Chinese people, against the im- perialist redivision of China, and for the defense of the Chinese people and the Soviet Union. Un- der the leadership of the Commun- ist Party of China, the anti-im- | perialist struggle, unleashed by the events on May 30, 1925, will be con- tinued and intensified to its suc- cessful conclusion. May 30 of 1925 signified the be- ginning of the great Chinese Revo- lution for national liberation. In February of 1925, the Chinese work- ers in the Japanese textile mills in Shanghai declared a strike against wage cut and for better conditions. With the members of the Commun- ist Party active in the strike, work- ers were solidly organized and com- pelled the Japanese capitalist im- perialists to recognize the demands Among the de- mands were: an increase of the wages by ten per cent, and the re- lease of all arrested strikers. How- | was declared in Shanghai. As the climax of a series of protest activi- ties, big demonstration was held in Canton on June 23rd. When the demonstrators marched to Shaki, opposite to the foreign concession of Shamen, the imperialists, under the leadership of British imperial- ism, again slaughtered the Chinese masses with machine guns, killing over one hundred Chinese. Right after the Shaki Massacre, the workers in Canton and Kong- kong launched the famous Canton- Honkong Strike. The strike involv- ed over one hundred thousand workers. It continued without in- terruption for fifteen months, It broke the nerve center of British trade in the Far East and brought British imperialism to its knees. The betrayal of the Kuomintang was answered by the revolutionary workers and peasants with a series of revolts, such as the Nanchang uprising in August 1927, the peas- ant uprisings in Hunan, Hupeh Kwangtung and Kiangsu provinces, In December 1927 the Canton Up- rising, with the establishment of the Canton Soviet, opened up a higher phase, the Soviet phase, of the Chinese Revolution. All this was-the continuation of the strug- gle of May 30th, of 1925, under the leadership of the Communist Party, The Betrayal of the Koumintang. On May 30, 1930, the Soviet-dis- tricts conference was held in Shanghai. This was the unmistaken answer of the Chinese masses to the imperialist massacre of the Chinese people on the same day in 1925. Since then the Soviets in China have rapidly increased their terri- tory and influence, In 1931, on the fourteenth anniversary of the Oc- tober Revolution in Russia, there took place the First China Soviet Congress in Kiangsi and established the Provincial Central Soviet Gov- ernment of China. Soviet China now embraces over one sixth of It was upon this gigantic mass movement that the Kuomintang de- pended to launch its successful northern campaign against the northern militarists and extended its influence towards the central and northern China. However, when the anti-imperialist revolution reached its height on the basis of the broad masses, the right wing | Kuomintang, representing the na- tive bourgeoisie, seeing the worker's China proper and a population of | over ninety million. By May 30 this Butchery by Japanese marines in Chapei, the working class section of Shanghai, Note the charreé bodies of Chinese workers lying in the foreground. ~ ever, the Japanese imperialists did not carry out the agreement after the workers resumed work. The workers again struck. On May 10, ‘hundreds of workers surrounded the mills demanding the realization of their demands. The factory guards, by the order of Japanese imperial- ism, fired into the workers. One worker was killed and many were wounded. The Demonstration In Shanghai. This outrage was answered by a | gigantic demonstration by workers and students in Shanghai. This de- monstration was fired upon by the English police and troops in Nan- king Road in the International Set- tlement, with seven workers killed, over forty wounded and six hun- dred arrested. This is known as the May 30 Massacre. = This massacre release a tremend- ous revolutionary wave against im- perialism in China. The struggle was especially intensified in Shang- hai and Canton. A general strike ee eee ena and the toilers getting more organi- zation and demanding for their class interests, betrayed the revolu- tion, compromised and united with year, the Chinese Soviets and their Red Army will record further ac- vances in all directions. According to recent reports which could not be hidden by the capitalist press, the the imperialists in their joint strug- gle against the Chinese workers and toilers. ‘This betrayal was carried out by Chiang Kai-shek in April, 1927. The Nanking government es- tablished by Chiang Kai-shek be- same the reactionary center against the Chinese Revolution. The petty bourgeoisie, represented by the “left wing” of the Kuomintang with Wang Ching-Wai at its head, fol- lowed by the treacherous example of the right wing Kuomintang and betrayed the anti-imperialist strug- gle in July 1927. .This marked the complete betrayal of the Kuomin- tang against the Chinese Revolution and the beginning of the indepen- dent leadership of the Communist Party of China among the Chinese masses to continue the struggle against imperialist domination. ooo = NNN ers of requisition under circum- stances that 75 per cent of the estimated value may be paid and the balance determined by the courts in case of disagreement, suspend habeas corpus, and gen- erally complete an absolute au- thority in all ramifications over the whole civilian life with the provision that he may delegate these authorities....” What is most important to bear in mind is the fact that the So- cialist Party again at its recent convention put forth the League of Nations as an instrument of peace. The very institution which stands and avoiding a panic is by declar-|session in April, 192... Hoover ing war against Germany.” The | stated: House of Morgan and Wall St., by “A blanket authority to |the its huge loans to finance allies’ mu-| president to fix prices, wages, nition. purchases in the U. S; was in deadly fear that the defeat, transportation charges, compeni-, |ered sby ‘Thomas é sation, embargoes on imports and | their socialist Japanese. friends who. “the allied armies would greatly ef-,| exports, to exercise the war pow- ‘with brutal cynicism support Jap- more and more exposed as an in- strument of war. Braise was show- find Hillquit ‘on anese imperialism in its present war. Nor can the open or covert hostility of Hiliquit and Thomas to the Soviet Union be otherwise interpreted as giving direct support to the war moves of American im- perialism and to the remnants of the counter revolutionary forces in and around the Soviet Union. Neither pacifism, nor the left phrases of the socialists should fool the workers. The lessons of the last world war should be remembered in order to be able to defeat the imperialist war plans, to defend the Soviet Union To remember the lessons of the last world war—is above all, to xe- member the treachery of the ; ‘Int ti teachings of Lenin, mat, to remember the ex- | ample of the Bolsheviks and the Chinese Red Army has captured many more cities, including Chang- chow in Fukien Province, Meishan in Kwantung Province. Important cities as Amoy, Pengpu and Hankow are being threatened by the Chinese Red Army. , The Chinese Soviets. Events since the armed occupation of Manchuria and invasion of Shanghai by Japan further prove the complete, open betrayal of the Chinese anti-imperialist struggle by the Kuomintang which has really helped to facilitate the imperialist murder of the Chinese masses and the division of China. Only the Communist Party of China unre- lentingly lead the Chinese masses against imperialist division, and for the liberation of China. The increasing anti-imperialist movement, the advances of the Chi-= nese Soviets and their Red Army, and the mass guarilla warfare against Japanese imperialism in Manchuria, drive the imperialists ta the ruthless murder of the Chinese people, to the direct intervention in the Chinese Soviets, and to the re- division of China. All this is a necessary, integral part of the im-< perialist war move against the Sov= iet Unior niversary of May 30, when the im=< perialists are murdering the Chi« ers affd toilefs in t. inten: rae: in the Soviet Union ¢ On the occasion of the seventh an« nese people and when the imperial« ists are more ready than ever to attack the Soviet Union, the work= tates, : nary duty to support the Chinese Revo~ lution and the socialist construction