Every bath in Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle has to be painted with a black and red (sorry) black or red line at the five Inch level.
So reports Reynolds (20-9-42) and goes on to say that in certain parts of the castle the boilers will be shut off and anyone requiring hot water will have to carry it from the kitchen. Does that not show we are fighting for Democracy. Our Royal Comrade will have to carry a kettle of water to fill his ankle-deep bath?
'(October-November 1942)
Spontaneous no rent movements by the peasants:, rising strikes. mass demonstrations.... such was the situation in India when the soldiers were brought out to restore 'order." 'At Peshawar the Garhwali soldiers refused to fire on the people. Hindu troops, broke ranks and fraternised with the crowds.
The Govt. of India subsequently refused all demands for an enquiry into the incident, court-martialled and imposed savage sentences, on the Garhwali soldiers who had refused to shoot in cold blood their fellow countrymen.
Here is what Gandhi had to say on the matter:
"A soldier who disobeys an order to fire breaks the oath which he has taken and renders himself guilty of criminal disobedience I cannot ask officials and soldiers to disobey. for when I am in power, I SHALL IN ALL LIKELIHOOD MAKE USE OF THOSE SAME OFFICIALS AND THOSE SAME SOLDIERS (our emphasis). If I taught them to disobey I should be afraid that they might do the same when I am in power."
(Ghandi, reply to the French Journalist, Petrasch, on the question of the Garwhali soldiers, "Monde", February, 20th 1932)
(Solidarity 55-56, December l942-January l943),
By "ICARUS""
('Icarus': pseudonym of ERNST SCHNEIDER, a merchant seaman active in the naval mutinies at the start of the 1918 German Revolution. A member of the German left communist movement, he came to Britain in the 1930s after the Nazi take-over.)
CONTRARY TO THE NATIONALIST-REFORM MOVEMENT, THE REVOLUTIONARY PROLETARIAT IN GERMANY HAS FOUGHT, AND IS STILL FIGHTING, CAPITALIST IMPERIALISM AND THEREFORE NAZISM FROM ITS APPEARANCE IN THE ARENA OF CLASS CONFLICT UP TO THE PRESENT DAY.
If deeds mean anything, a reference to the real historical events in Germany during the last decades will be sufficient. Moreover, the prisons and concentration camps still filled with oppositional workers, the thousands of executed, and thousands fallen in open street fighting, bear a witness that cannot be ignored. As a matter of fact, the true political opposition in Nazi Germany is entirely a workers' revolutionary movement. That which in Allied propaganda is styled the "anti-Nazi opposition of the Catholic Church", is more or less imaginary.
The revolutionary workers opposition with its equipment of an empirically organised underground network, using continually changing methods, is trying to inform the masses as to just what is going on, so that they will more readily understand the true situation. These workers cannot be fooled with Goebbels', or any other nationalistic propaganda.
In spite of all oppression, there has been during the war, not only successful strikes, as for example, the mass action of the German seamen in Italy, but also revolts, bloodily crushed, of the toiling and soldiering masses in Germany itself.
There always has been, and still is, obstruction, absenteeism and organised idleness in the German war industry. It speaks for the effectiveness and the wide sphere of the anti-Nazi resistance, when even the Nazi Press is forced to complain that:-"Many factories and other undertakings are undermining discipline by offering money premiums to workers who do not come regularly late to work, who do not pretend to be ill, and who work during working time instead of idling."
It is significant that at the same time, Hitler's Commissioner for Manpower has fixed heavier penalties for workers refusing to accept employment, staying away from work without justification or anyone found guilty of breaches of discipline.
According to a decree of August 22, 1942, the working hours in all occupied countries are fixed at a week. The following are extracts from the decree:-
"With a view to mobilising the workers in the occupied territories under the new manpower system for Europe, the workers must be subjected to a strict and uniform direction.... It is necessary to ensure both the appropriate and purposeful distribution of these workers, with a view to satisfying the manpower needs of the Reich and the occupied territories, and the highest possible output.
In the occupied territories the highest possible output is also to be ensured by introducing piece-work and bonus systems. In so far as piece-time rates already exist in the factories, they shall be revised with a view to releasing as far as possible any unused output capacity.... In cases where no piece-work or bonus systems are practicable, consideration shall be given as to whether it is not possible further to increase output by introducing output premiums. This, however, may not be done in such a manner as to endanger the stability of the wages position.
This decree shall also apply, mutatis mutandis, to prisoners Of war."
Meanwhile millions of workers from the various European countries become united with their German fellow workers in the industrial plants. Here, the process goes on. A new, real class movement is developing. History does not "jump", but a certain leap will not only take the class traitors and the "patriots" by surprise, but also the new so-called administrators" when, as the war gathers momentum, the inevitable acute revolutionary situation arrives.
Hail the Proletarian Revolution'.
The following are but a few of the latest news items which factually corroborate our comrade's contentions:-
"BEHIND THE NEWS - The mutiny of the German submarine crews in Kiel was no isolated incident." (Sunday Mail1 11/7/43)
"Mutiny aboard an Italian cruiser at Brindisi1 on the heel of Italy followed an order to sail south on a "special assignment (Glasgow Evening News 3/7/43)
(June-July 1943)
by Icarus
According to a Swedish source, mutiny broke out among German troops at Copenhagen. Some officers who were caught trying to escape were shot immediately. There has been a whole series of German workers' sailors' and soldiers' revolts during the present war, even in Germany itself.
These revolts, however, still remain "secrets" of the Allied authorities. The reason why cannot be in question - for capitalist 1'law and order" is the core of Allied imperialism.
The "people's revolts" in occupied countries which "the Gestapo is unable to crush", the "plots against the Big Three" which the OGPU 1'discover", and the epics of the Stalinist superman "Tito" who annihilates one German army after another before breakfast - all this is propaganda of agents (so-called patriots) hired by the capitalist imperialist governments.
Oliver Lyttleton, Minister of Production, declared at Oxford that the "Beveridge approach to Social Security insists on the worker's contribution as a condition of benefit, and on the obligation to accept work If it was available".
Who said "Rats!" The workers are not only to have to pay for their own misery, but are also going to be liable to forced labour!
Herbert Morrison's keynote in his speech in Dundee was: "If we are to avoid social and economic catastrophe after the war, we shall have to continue war-time control, while both taxes and savings will have to remain well above the pre-war normal."
"Great Britain in the last few years under a system of public control has shown itself the best governed country In the world." (News Chronicle).
This is precisely what J. Stalin claims for his dictatorship In Russia. The tern "public control" is experienced in Nazi State control. "Nationalisation" is on the way, with or without Hitler, because there Is no other outlook for capitalist imperialism. The inevitable form of organised capitalism is Nazism (Fascism). What has happened in Italy, Russia, Poland, Germany, Austria, and so on, is developing in Britain and everywhere else.
To postpone the necessity of workers' action now involves the loss of maybe a century. Revolution or Totalitarian Slavery! Once again the working class is forced to make its choice before it is too late.
Mr Fred Marshall, MP, Chairman of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, quarrels in the Union's "Journal" over the works-committees, which he blames for unofficial strikes. He, the union controller, is naturally wholeheartedly against the self-acting workers, and describes how efficiently he has cornered the bullies.
"It is inevitable, in the nature of things, that sooner or later they (the works-committees) begin to exceed the purpose for which they were set up. They tend to become an organisation within trade unionism possessing power without responsibility."
The honourable MP is of course terrified of any real progressive change, which would deprive him of his job. Though works-committees tied to Trade Unions with their conservative ideologies, will not spoil the wage-peddlers' game. Independent, class-conscious works-committees however, might land the reactionary trade union leaders in the cart!
"Dutch oil experts are being sent from the where they will hold themselves in readiness oil fields captured from the Japanese" (News Middle East to Australia, to assist in re-opening Chronicle 26 Jan., 1944).
The "Refugee Governments" have got their "New Order". They want to "hold" what they have exploited before. It is not only oil that worries these liberators, it is the possession of further resources in raw materials and efficient control of slave labour.
Profit is the soul of their whole make-up; the greater as well as the smaller nations.
Bert Wyler reports in the Daily Herald, January 6th, 1944, about a "secret patriotic army" in France which receives pay by parachute from British aeroplanes:
"The army is organised on strictly military lines. Officer ranks are Group Chief, Camp Chief and Regional Chief. Courses are held regularly to train men in partisan fighting. Without exception the instructors are members of the old regular army. In each camp there is a political commissar, establishing liaison between the fighting body and the central headquarters.
"These commissars write death sentences against collaborationists and traitors. Special squads are ordered to carry out the sentences. Numerous girl friends of German soldiers have recently been executed. It is hoped that this organisation will be the foundation of the regular French Army when the country is liberated."
In fact the capitalist rulers are not able to rule by the old means. Capitalist class needs can only be fulfilled by full-scale Nazism. The patriots, the Allied Imperialist 55 troops - the so-called "special squads" - are preparing to succeed Hitler's "Waffen SS". Just as the latter were used before, so will the former be used in the future to crush uprising workers in any country.
With regard to the proposals recently adopted by the- Russian dictatorial regime, we may quote the News Chronicle for 3rd February 1944:
"The sixteen republics which make up the Soviet Union will have their own Defence Ministers, but these will be subordinate to the Defence Ministry of the Union. They will have their own armies - national units with distinctive characteristics - but all the army formations no doubt will be directed from the centre".
These changes, however, provide nothing new, for Hitler's "Gauleiterism" has proved more effective than the union for hemispheric control. Russia is thoroughly militarised. The war as it progresses, has accelerated this development, and has brought about shifts and rearrangements in the relationships of all existing interests. Further changes of even greater importance, including the objectives for which this war is fought, are bound to follow rapidly. Moreover, the revival of traditional Russian nationalism has inevitably resuscitated the old policy of Pan-Slavism, now used as an instrument of "Soviet" imperialism. The idea is primarily to bring the Slav-populated lands under the supreme rule of Moscow. Events have their own logic; they cannot be outwitted.
This new reform - which has been praised by the Allied press - in no way implies a retreat from the strongly centralised political structure and totalitarian methods In the USSR, for the basic elements of state-capitalistic "National Socialism" ("Socialism-in-One-Country") remain unaltered.
The following Item from BUP was published - without comment - in Reynolds News for 13th Feb., 1944:
"A remarkable speech in which it was stated that Anglo-American co-operation could be carried on after the war only if British and American monopolists were controlled was made by an Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Mr Berge, in Washington yesterday. Britain's support in the American Government's war against International cartels was necessary"
Since the mass-murder machinery is running smoothly, the capitalist rulers are planning for the war after the present war on Bolshevik-Nazi lines. New vested interests abroad are going to be created by the annexation of foreign territory and its enforced submission to the national monopolies of the dominating "mother" country. Subsequently national monopolies in place of international cartels are emphasised.
The trend is towards the formation of a state capitalist empire through the annexation of other countries by The trend is twoards the formation of a state capitalist empire through the annexation of other countries by all and any means. Rival powers are to be wiped out entirely, because it is quite hopeless for capitalist-imperialist rulers to come to any permanent understanding In regard to their conflicting interests.
(May l944)
We are now in our fifth year of this business, which requires that the workers of the world butcher and maim one another, in which the inventive genius of man, and the industry of mankind, is wasted in the building of engines for destruction.
Let us try to discover, then, in which direction, to what goal, we are headed in this country.
There has been introduced military and industrial conscription on boys, girls, men and women.
Industrial conscription has been introduced in the form of the E.W.O. Workers are forced to stay in poorly paid monotonous jobs, which require them to work overtime to have a wage in keeping with the increasing cost of living. Labour is directed from "non-essential" to "essential11 work, young women are transferred from factory to factory to suit the needs of capitalism. And now, the youth of the country is being forced, willy nilly, down the mines.
This conscription of labour, this reducing of the workers into absolute slavery, is being carried out by a British Capitalist Imperialist Government. A government whose record of oppression in India is ghastly, whose Prime Minister denounces communism and openly associates with Italian fascists. A government of coal-owners and financial magnates, whose one aim is profit, profit, profit, at the expense of the workers, and it is introducing these measures under the guise of fighting fascism.
In order to defeat German Nazism and Italian Fascism, British National Socialism is being built up here. That means every gun made, every plane assembled, every ship built and handed over to capitalist control is aiding this British Capitalist government: is strengthening it in its transfer from democratic to fascist capitalism and ensuring an almost omnipotent boss class. Democratic capitalism can only fight fascist capitalism by itself becoming fascist.
The only answer to fascism is the workers' social revolution, by workers' control, by immediately fighting conscription in all its phases, by building up workers' committees in opposition to the Boss and the Trade Unions; by building Workers' Open Forums, where the workers themselves can discuss and decide. By that method can we stop fascism and open up the road to Workers' Power.
Build the Workers' Committees Build the Workers' Open Forums!
(May l944)
by Icarus
The current strike wave indicates changes amongst the workers from within. The tendency is to make a direct stand against the Capitalist controllers.
The flood of misery, official lies and betrayals during the course of the war has awakened greater and ever greater masses. Their instinct grows and class comradeship becomes broader and deeper. This brings consciousness to the mass and changes - though slowly - its ideologies.
The gap between leader and mass widens continuously and the spirit of servility is fading away. More and more workers recognise the true situation. Thus, their fighting activities grows The brilliant examples in Wales, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, etc., spring to mind.
The urgent needs of the working class demanded that they take matters in their own hands. Cutting free from the influence of political quacks, the workers became aware, that what is done or not done now determines what will be possible later on. In Nottingham the miners at 14 pits struck spontaneously, with the effect that their imprisoned fellow-worker was freed immediately. They did not care a fig about the "warnings" of our class-enemies, but boldly defied the Capitalist authorities. Here, the attainment of the ultimate strategic objective is visible. Moreover, here by example of deed, solidarity is shown - how the workers must act in order to put an end to slavery and war.
Solidarity must be first fostered "at home", at the workplaces, pits, factories, on board the ships, etc., before world-wide working class solidarity can arise An example of workers solidarity in the class struggle is of greater importance than a thousand lectures.
It matters little, therefore, whether the "strike in Notts broke before the strike in Midlothian was settled" What really matters is the fact that the solidarity action of Notts miners became rapidly more solidarity Cordorvan struck and was followed by other "unofficial" strikes in different parts of the country. True1 these fellow-workers returned - but unbroken - to the pits and factories again. Clarity of class ideology, however, cannot be achieved by one "lightning stroke" Needless to say, the notorious back-stabbers, the politically-minded professionals and their would-be successors in working class betrayal were ready to hand. They and their press, losing ground, howled at the miners.
Even the miners' own paper, The Militant Scottish Miner, October l943, has been doing its bit to confuse the miners politically. Under the editorial heading "The Need for Political Action", we read:-
"The working class cannot achieve a solution to its pr6blems by industrial action alone, necessary as that action is.
The political party representing the organised working class is the Labour Party....
We must demand a General Election and campaign for the return of a third labour Government."
Nothing learnt and nothing forgotten. The editorial writer misrepresents the workers completely by holding out hope for a "success" under Capitalism by distracting their attention from acute problems of the present and directing their attention to reactionary perspectives.instead of explaining the situation and encouraging the readers, the same writer is playing - despite the historical lessons of a century the old gramophone record, which runs that mass action of the workers must be "advised" and controlled by party politicians. This nonsensical talk about "industrial action" is utterly confusing because every mass-action in the industrial sphere is, in its effect, political. The radical phrases used, however, serve as a cloak for his reformist swindle.
To ask the leaders of the labour Party and TU movement "to break with their class-collaborationist policy" has precisely the same effect as an appeal to lions to become vegetarians.
The same scribe wishes to make a deal with the same parties in order to sustain and save it. This is the "education" which the party "educated" editorial writer of The Militant Scottish Miner offers its readers. Needless to say, this kind of education, as well as its breeding ground, must be stamped out entirely. Class solidarity and class actions can arise not with,. but only against, groups and party interests. The workers themselves - freed from the ties of the Capitalistic labour movement - must control their own actions and organisations.
Since parties and Trade Unions can serve only Capitalistic functions, an entirely new working class movement is imperative. The action of Notts miners is a step along this track, though, the first step only.
We can learn the possibilities of the future, if we grasp the poten of to-day. The "unofficial" strike is a weapon of the working class. All that hinders the revolutionary re-organisation of the working class, must be thrown aside. This must be done now, because time does not wait.
The struggle against the Capitalistic labour leader ideology, the struggle against the treacherous party practices, must be waged vigourously if the victory of the working class shall arise.
(May 1944)
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