Modern Terror, Launched by Soviets, Threatens U. S.
HARRISON, CHARLES YALE
Modern Terror, Launched by Soviets, Threatens U. S. Used toBuildPersonalMachines By Red, Brown, Black Dictators By CHARLES YALE HARRISON Author of "Generals Die in Bed" and "Meet Me at the...
...Many Fascist officers have bean slain and wounded in skirmishes with the still rebellious natives...
...In bet& ways ef life, the.biggest capitalists take advantage of the citizenry...
...There were rumors, of course,' but these were hotly denied by the sympsthizere , and fellow-travelers...
...But, the Stalinist apologist will hasten to interject, these people are enemies of the Workers' Fatherland, traitors...
...A glance st the map that goes with these recommendations aim an what the army and navy men have in mind...
...Modern Terror, Launched by Soviets, Threatens U. S. Used toBuildPersonalMachines By Red, Brown, Black Dictators By CHARLES YALE HARRISON Author of "Generals Die in Bed" and "Meet Me at the Barricades" STUNNED, "bewildered, helpless, the world looks upon the nightmare of what was once the Germany of Goethe, Bach and Beethoven and stammers an explanation of the unpitying, calculated fury which has descended upon the bowed heads of the 600,000 German Jews who are trapped in Hitler's hecatomb...
...SOME light, also, has been thrown on the international situation by Hitler's talk with the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Beck...
...When, however, the truth -could no longer be stifled, with eyes rolled to heaven and in the most unctuous of voices they ¦ intoned with Sidney and Beatrice Webb: "Great -must have been the faith and resolute the win of the men who, in the interest of what seemed to them the public good, could make so nwmen- q tous a decision...
...But throughout the world, there was hardly a whisper of protest...
...A vile, lying, inspired campaign of hatred was instituted and before its last notes had died down about five million poor farmers were either imprisoned, exiled or executed...
...The present dangerous world situation does not permit such an easy attitude...
...They both mouth the word "revolution...
...And it has a philosophy about which many learned books have been written...
...In the Soviet Union, Trotsky witnesses the end results of his "scientific" philosophy of state terror: thermidor, intimidation, the wiping out of every vestige of criticism...
...The author is the distinguished Leon Trotsky...
...The other great concern of liberals and la bo rites must be in social reorganization...
...Let us think of this in relation to our attitude to Fascism and the three great Fascist powers...
...Neither do we...
...The bulk of the money is designed for purchase of planes, training of pilots and establishment ef naval and airplane bases...
...But it need not be so...
...We shall be in it prepared or unprepared...
...In previous historical periods, during the Inquisition or during the Crusades, terror was carried out by cruel, ignorant sadists...
...We actually face Fascism and war...
...Most tragic of all is the position of the German and Czecho-Slovakian Communists...
...Developments since Munich show that aloofness of the democratic nations (including the U.S...
...the armament plants are our plants...
...In this sense the Red Terror is not indistinguishable from the armed insurrection, the direct continuation of which it represents...
...But no one can deny that Stalin's concentration camps are filled with political prisoners...
...To the wretched populace in the cities they were pictured as rich landowners, but she latter had been swept away during the early days of the revolution...
...ONLY ACTION CAN STOP FASCISTS UOW, then, shall we stop the ** march of fascism...
...They have no idea of a two-ocean defense j They have their eyes op the Pacific...
...War to them is the worst possible human experience...
...Tomorrow in America it may quite conceivably be the Negroes, Masons, Quakers, or Jews...
...An outstanding one, written in reply to Kautsky's criticism of the Bolshevik terror, is called l'The Defense of Terrorism...
...I They contend 1 that democracy PsSBLJ w>" be threat___^ ened by war...
...No matter how one differs with his convictions one must grant that he has paid dearly for them...
...But that will take something different in the line of political though and organization...
...Nor should it be forgotten that tyr—ts never resign...
...The repercussions of a Franco victory in the Latin American countries would also, to a large extent, destroy the endeavors made in Lima for a Pan-American solidarity against fascism...
...Those of us who remember are not surprised, for example, when Stalin remains silent in the face of the German pogrom, nor when he keeps the borders of the Soviet Union hermetically sealed against the heartrending clamor of the German and Austrian refugees...
...The dispatch reveals that Peter Forster could have been saved by the Soviet Legation, but in his as in all similar cases it refused a visa...
...Today these enemies, these scapegoats, are the Jews and the Catholics...
...The notion that war necessarily means Fascism at home is pure bunk...
...Society cannot raise itself above the level of Nazi fascism through the use of terror...
...Nevertheless, President Roosevelt's message to Congress was received with mixed feelings, even in working class circles...
...The only language that fascists understand is action, not words...
...HITLER MIMICS SOVIET RULER fJITLER justifies his terror on exactly the game * * grounds...
...However, after years of suffering, hunger and privation they dared to protest against the policies of the Soviet government which they had helped to create...
...The white circle in the Nazi flag, a follower of Hitler will tell you, is for nationalism, the hakenkreuz is for anti-semrtism, but the red, he will hasten to explain, is for socialism...
...Our force is to be brought up to eight thousand...
...First, in accordance with customary procedure, the Kronstadt heroes were denounced as counter-revolutionists in the pay of White Guard generals...
...He still be-i lieves in a policy of mutual security including Hitler and Mussolini...
...A passive attitude has not helped us...
...It remained for the bolsheviks to raise the crime of murder and intimidation to the heights of social philosophy...
...But does she prefer to have him sent to a concentration camp...
...They must be discredited aad uprooted...
...First—and always—the propaganda of freedom to meet the propaganda of Fascism and—along with it—a supreme effort to modify our ways so as to give security along with liberty...
...But prayer is not enough and there can be no effective action until we know precisely with what we are confronted...
...So if we vote against preparedness, we are not really voting against war...
...It is interesting to note thst both the fascist intellectuals and their liberal-Stalinist brothers are equally vociferous in defense of the right to spin tile other fellow'* blood...
...Terror creates s psychological condition in which its meed continues long after its "necessity" has disappeared...
...And finally, the kulaks...
...But Hitler also refers to his opponents as traitors arrd promptly claps them into jail...
...II HWwSHl Have these ^KMMQHf 1 critics a policy ^JPJM^ I °f their own...
...If it is true that a secret protocol annexed to the German-Japanese Treaty foresees the division of the Netherlands East Indies into two spheres of economic influence, allotted respectively to Germany and Japan, it demonstrates better than anything else the world challenge of fascist ambition...
...Each one of us must face this problem before his own conscience...
...the tyrant never says, "The time for terror is past, let us return to peaceful, free ways...
...Italy's King Victor Emmanuel is really emperor of a few isolated garrison...
...In Germany we see a reign of terror that threatens the very foundations of civilization, sadistic cruelty, the burning of books, the wiping out of vast sections of the population...
...Not only is the "Socialist Fatherland" keeping her vast territories shut to persecuted Jews and Catholics seeking escape from Hitler and Mussolini but . . . The Soviet Union is shut to all Communists, leaders and rank-and-file seeking escape from those countries where sudden turns in governmental policies have liquidated the Communist Party...
...Thus "order" becomes the handmaiden of terror...
...but the coming of Hitl»r gives us a new world, a worse world, a world in which old attitudes and principles must be re-examined...
...All of us in these groups are far the administration when it takes vigorous action against Fascist trade aggression or Fascist propaganda...
...But this is beside the point...
...The German dictator appears to have asked Beck to join in propaganda for the re-distribution of colonies—not the return of lost colonies, a demand that seems to, be too modest after the Munich success...
...Dulled by a surfeit of horror, aching for forgetfulness, the mind is lulled to fitful sleep, only to be awakened by a fresh outburst of terror...
...All • *lfce f aim and Socialist forces of Europe and America worked for „ these things and still work for them...
...Hitler's terror, like Trotsky"*, is done in the name of a socialist revolutionary class...
...The United States, it appears, will soon be the last hiding place of political freedom and democracy...
...On Thursday the President ¦ 'Masoned an extra expenditure ef $525,0000,0000...
...Even now he is insolent and proud and declares that he was correct in ordering the slaughter...
...Stalin improved on this technique by getting his opponents to "testify" to their baseness...
...Those of us who know Russian history know full well of the glorious role which the sailors of -Kronstadt played in 1917...
...It did not keep us out' of European affairs...
...We can stop it as soon as we get ready to do it...
...Did that not lead to Munich...
...Our military forces have always been sharply subordinate bjftte eWt ** " ^ -. .Ged knows, we gave up enough civil rights during the Civil War and the World War...
...Forster's head was out off by a Nasi aae man in Berlin four hours after Czechia officials were forced to give him up...
...This was written twenty years ago, but these words might have been uttered last night 'by Hitler at the Sportpalast in Berlin, with his Nasi cohorts yelling approval...
...Sooner or later—as far as anyone can foretell now—the democracies will have to stand and fight...
...Therefore, the democratic nations should not be intimidated by threats but resolutely meet all threats...
...We are just voting in favor of giving the Fascist nations an advantage when "war comes...
...Oar attitudes and theories were developed before Hitler...
...Trotsky, who was the evil genius behind this detestable outrage, is no fascist as Stalin contends...
...Every voice of protest is immediately strangled...
...The mysterious shots at buildings occupied by German officials, shots that nobody heard, fit into Nazi tactics, creating incidents as a pretext for intervention...
...today in Russia it is the Trotskyists or whoever dares to criticize the beloved leader...
...Of course, these words were written before She "hypocritical" Quakers had fed the victims ef Lenin's and Trotsky's realism during the Volga famine...
...The pressure on the Danubisn states has led to Hungary's affiliation to the Rome-Berlin- Tokio axis...
...Our average American doesn't want war...
...Prom our point of view-now the important thing about Fascism is that you can't make peace with it...
...One must remind Trotsky that struggling humanity is ever dull and gray, and that it ill becomes a revolutionist to speak of the masses in the accents of a sniffing, disdainful aristocrat...
...We, through our government, can do with them wha^we like...
...Hitler has already bled Germany for four years, and there is no sign of an end...
...But Hitler also declares that he speaks for the entire German people...
...Surely no American who loves liberty and wishes well to mankind will spend his powers now trying to persuade America to forego adequate armament until that time comes...
...Italy and Germany, we must expose the terrorists ia America was masquerade as democrats—the Stalinists and Fascists...
...it kills individuals and intimidates thousands...
...TROTSKY AS RUTHLESS AS STALIN I ET us go back to the early years of the Russian Revolution and consider the slaughter of the Kronstadt sailors by the troops of Lenin and Trotsky...
...Upon the orders of Trotsky, who today thunders for the democratic right of asylum, they were rounded up- in the streets of Kronstadt and shot in batches, thousands of them, butchered as Thiers butchered the Communards in 1871...
...For this one has to be merely ; a hypocritical Quaker...
...About half of this is to be spent by June, 1940...
...According to a Prague dispatch in Pos-lednie Novosti...
...We need not spend our energy discussing whether we want War...
...He is, I think, a sincere but implacable and ruthless revolutionist...
...We must then view the practical results of terror in both eases...
...Where one man, where one party rules, you may be sure that all political opposition, no matter how mild, is treason...
...These purely socialist demands were met with characteristic bolshevik cunning and ruthlessness...
...We have—to do us justice—worked for the adoption of practical measures to do away with war...
...But there are signs in Britain and France of a revitalization of democratic will...
...On the contrary, it brought the world nearer the abyss...
...There is a name for this wanton destruction, of humanity...
...ROOSEVELT CITED WAY OTHER THAN WAR "OUT we do not want to sacri-fice our sons to the next senseless slaughter," a mother declares...
...04...
...on the contrary, it brought the danger nearer to our shores...
...As long as there is Fnmiiiin there will be war...
...One party, one leader, a united nation, relentless to its enemies...
...the well-informed Russian Liberal paper published in Paris, the Communists have in vain been imploring the Soviet Legation in Czech is to allow them to go to Russia...
...Everytime a British or French Ambassador presents his credentials to the nominal ruler of Italy, Emanuel is addressed as King of Italy and Emperor of Ethiopia...
...This is a primary task if we are to have an honest and effective labor movement, aad nS'Tgn this is done the words freedom,' 'democMLJT tnHT 'socialism' may one day appear only as footnote*¦ in some American fascist textbooks...
...There is no such thing as a choice: Fascism or war...
...And while these monstrous crimes are being committed, a cowed'populace looks on in silence, a populace so nurtured in the tradition of blind, unthinking political "discipline" that there is not one to lift a voice or hand in protest...
...Hitler and Mussolini must fight...
...We can work again for international understanding...
...The capitalists are our capitalists...
...If democracy works in this country, there will be no Fascism...
...Their business is to make them, not help them...
...Who believes that in case of such a victory Italy would voluntarily leave Spain and especially the islands...
...Now they are ready to acknowledge that inventions are made and people must hear about them sooner or later...
...Trotsky speaks in what he conceives to be the best interests of the working-class...
...Here is a job for labor and liberals...
...But the minute war was over, our men shed the hated military uniforms and went to extremes in demanding the return to normalcy...
...Not s visa has been issued...
...If we believe that the permanence of Hitlerism and the spread of Hitlerism is less bad than war—then we are logical in opposing the President's proposed expenditures...
...If Congress backs up their plans, we shall have a series of bases from Alaska downward and special new provisions for the Canal Zone...
...Educational" orders are to be given to manufacturers—bo that production capacity will be gradually provided...
...Hitherto they have rather poohpoohed the airplane...
...But food was scarce, the populace was beginning to mutter and it was necessary to find scapegoats, just as Hitler and Mussolini require scapegoats...
...This new form of slavery is worse than any of the old forms...
...So we cannot pretend that we have an alternative to war...
...His critics declare that his coura-* geous defense of democracy was accompanied by the announcement of greater armament...
...These wars lasted four years...
...In America these kulaks would be considered poor farmers...
...One passage in the President's message that shows the road of an effective, concerted action short of war: "Words may be futile, but war is not the only means of commanding a decent respect for the opinions of mankind...
...JKjmI I could not dis-___| II cover it...
...He naturally fears that this whole business is s gigantic hoax to get money out of him...
...Nearly every word of it could be quoted by Stalin to justify his mas-' • sacre of the leaders of the Russian Revolution...
...We are not much interested in the technicalities of this pro-- gram...
...The civil war in Spain, developed into an international war by the fascists, is a typical example of the interdependence of national and international problems...
...Their demands were simple and fair: more democratic representation, the end of military communism, the institution of a new economic policy, the equalization of food rations...
...Russia's plight, Stalin thundered, was due to these ragged, miserable, hungry peasants who were eking out a mere existence on individual farms...
...Socialists, Social Revolutionaries, Zionists, the middle class, intellectuals, non-conformist artists...
...And then—second to these two great drives—preparedness for war against the Fascist powers...
...The longer war is postponed, the more ehance there is for victory in this intellectual and political battle...
...Our strategists have, evidently, accepted the criticisms which have been made of our aerial preparation...
...We worked for international understandings, for arbitration, for the League of Nations...
...He cannot deny the fact that since then the world has been ruled by force and that force can only be broken by force and terror by terror...
...Many tribal chiefs are continuing regular warfare against II Duce's men...
...This would prevent a capitulation similar to that of Munich...
...The embargo against the Spanish government clearly runs against this country's interests...
...In both countries the populace is cowed and silent...
...Every American who loves democracy must give it the last ounce of his energy...
...It"has often been a weakness of the radical movement to be satisfied with criticism without developing a constructive plan of its own...
...He ass no designs on any other country- He is suspicious of the armament manufacturers...
...Here, then, is a program for American democrats...
...This is to be in addition to our regular appropriations—which are already larger than ever before...
...Soviet Russia wants no refugees...
...Any American who opposes adequate armaments must stand with him...
...As one man put it recently: "Nothing that happens under Fascism ia as bad as what happens in war...
...THE world weeps, protests with fluttering words * —and prays...
...When there are no more great Fascist powers, there Will be an alternative...
...The decision is in the hands of the dictators...
...Experience ginai ban plenty of basis for his suspicion...
...In the face of the catastrophe in Germany the world is bewildered, as I have said, and prays...
...A ND now the civilization^af the last five hun-*™ dred years faces destruction because of the widespread use of this instrument...
...They can't come into a scheme for mutual peace and cooperation...
...the Ethiopians themselves are ripping up the second...
...Activity of the United States in stopping aggression by all means short of war, would strengthen this trend...
...Our thought must be devoted to the preservation of democracy before war and during war...
...the world has known it for the past quarter of a century...
...Subjectively, of course, Hitler and Trotsky are worlds apart...
...Tthe thing about Mr...
...This requires the success of the New Deal— and of much more than the New Deal...
...Germany is said to have ten thousand planes...
...Men like Malcolm Cowley, Hey wood Broun, John Strachey, Andre Mslraux (who Meat for democracy in every country except the Soviet Union) may rationalise this blood-letting with all the contemptuous superiority which characterises their group, but it is this indifference to Buffering mankind which has brought the world to its present pass...
...And once this is established as a social philosophy, it soon becomes the only course...
...Listen to Hitler: "The average man today faces the painful realization that with the advent of Christianity into the free ancient world, there also appeared the first spiritual terrorism...
...AD of this means that the President and his advisers are not plunging in this matter of defense, but that they propose to put our forces on a modern footing...
...HAS TAKEN STEPS FOR PEACE THE bask objection of many of our people goes much deeper than this...
...yesterday in Russia it was the Socialists, the anarchists and the "kulaks...
...I have been told that President Roosevelt has always been a big-navy man, and that greater armaments serves to satisfy 3iis imperialistic desires...
...they both speak of a new world society...
...For the garrisons of II Duce's soldiers in Abyssinia are besieged nightly by tribes that recognize only Haile Selassie ss emporer and have nothing but hatred for the Italian troops that have invaded their land...
...Terror has destroyed the revolution...
...Mussolini has made the first part of that title meaningless...
...In voting for armaments we are voting, at least, for the possi-'- bilityof war...
...This view was long ago defended in this column...
...This does not mean war, but it may be the only way to prevent war...
...There are many methods short of war, but stronger and more effective than mere words, of bringing home to aggressor governments the aggregate sentiments of our people...
...In Great Britain, the World War marked n great advance in democratic controls...
...In this new world ?are are only two possible courses...
...If when wsr comes we have ten million men organised—and if they have more sense of values than our union leaders had after the World War—the next war may give us gains for democracy instead of losses...
...The concerted action of the non-fascist nations could still act to halt aggression — however, on condition that all understand the importance of the League of Nations principle that an attack on one member state means an attack on- all...
...After all, why should bolsheviks come to the aid of refugees...
...mo SEPARATION BETWEEN FASCISM AMD WAR 117E are dealing here with the most precious things in life...
...No one should make his decision lightly or on the basis of old catch-words...
...While these new threats are developing, new dangers are growing more acute...
...A victorious war, generally speaking, de-" stroys only an insignificant part of the conquered army, intimidating the remainder and breaking their will...
...Let the small states go to the wolves, let fascism spread as long as all the evil does not reach us...
...But I don't believe anything else is as bad as Fascism...
...Some of those who are loudest in protest of the Nazi barbarism are those who first loosed this organized state terror on the world...
...For the average- citizen it is the principle of the thing which is important...
...Certainly, no mother wants to sacrifice her son on the battle-field...
...This is the verdict of history and names like Torquemada have become synonymous with torture and inhumanity...
...We are willing to do the things that lead to war—except to arm—yet we shrink tram the ultimate step—or the possibility of it...
...i -'The madness grows apace, feeds upon itself: midnight searches and seizures, concentration camps, frightened children torn from their parents, bands of hapless refugees driven from frontier to frontier, the burning of synagogues...
...The working class was Well enough organized so that it could stand up to the government during the period of reconstruction...
...Beginning with demands on Britain, the next to be asked to contribute to a common fund seem to be France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal...
...For this we must have the intelligent support of million of plain citizens...
...So far as Ethiopia is concerned...
...Last week, German pressure upon Holland apparently emphasizes the danger of this trend...
...And this battle must be the center of activity until war really comes...
...The Nazi party is called the National Socialist Workers' Party...
...He has been reviled and his children have been executed and driven to suicide because of his opposition to Stalin...
...For this struggle, too, we need preparedness and vigilance and energy...
...letters from Italians stationed in Ethiopia complain that it is risking life to go out at night...
...When Hitler and Mussolini want war or need war, there will be war...
...Corns* Lament and Goebbels...
...In the Ukraine alone, according to the very conservative estimate ¦ of Walter Duranty, more than two million died of starvation as a result of the Soviet decrees...
...we have witnessed the ultimate dialectical contradiction, as I have remarked elsewhere, the revolutionists have killed the revolution...
...Mtin Kampf, new American edition, 1939...
...I shall quote a few typical passages: "War, like revolution, is founded on intimidation...
...To gnat sections of our population this step is horrifying...
...Unless we wish to suffer the fate of Russia...
...We must all make up our minds about this * easiness of enlarged armaments...
...LABOR CAM HALT ABMS PROFITEERING r\URING this time of peace, labor and liberal forces can use I their stength to better advantage than in a futile struggle a gamin) bringing our armed forces up to date...
...The effort to streamline our society for this new technological world is a tremendous enterprise...
...In Russia we witness the same tiling...
...The revolution works the same way...
...If war ia worse than Fascism, then we are lost, for war we shall probably have whether we arm or not...
...Joseph Freeman and Papini, Stalin and Hitter, all arc devout believers in the ass of terror—when there is no other course...
...After that, the rest was simple...
...It is called "terror...
...But let us continue: "The State terror of a revolutionary class csn be condemned morally only by a man who, as a principle, rejects (in words) every form of violence whatsoever — consequently, every war and" , every uprising...
...in the Czech crisis encouraged the fascist front...
...Here are the fruits of the monolithic party, totalitarianism, call it what you will...
...If Hitler had not come, they would still be right...
...All progressives—including Sold tWffii trade unionists, pacifists—were electrified the other day when.^e'President iir his message to Congress took the lead in lining up with the anti-Fascist nations...
...When people say that war is worse than Fascism, they are just saying a dog's jaws are worse than a dog...
...The dangers of a policy are not banished by having no foreign policy at all...
...It is only then that n ttsw ¦world order can be created...
...For his courage, he is to be honored...
...If we arm, we are preparing for war and must eailaien it as a national policy...
...Perhaps it was easier for us, three thousand miles away, to realise that one cannot purchase peace by throwing small states to the wolves...
...What would not Trotsky give to have this book withdrawn from circulation...
...We must take our stand with Resident Roosevelt or with Phime Minister Chamberlain...
...Civilization, decency, culture, liberty are at stake...
...Whereas many of the German Socialists have succeeded in receiving visas for other countries, nobody wants the Communists . . . not even Stalin...
...Abyssinia is still a member of the league and recently presented it with documents which prove that the Italian hold is extremely tenuous...
...But this terror is no new thing...
...The barbarism of fascism is rapidly spreading throughout the world...
...Must Arm or Join Appeasemenl Munitions Increase Essential As Fascism Makes War Certain By WILLIAM E. BOHN : fJPMlE time has eeme...
...It has ^SM HI now become un_B Hi popular to plead for plain isola-Tony Sender tionism...
...every possible political opponent is forced to confess his treason and is executed...
...Looking at the World By TONY SENDER Former Socialist Deputy in Reichstag Isolation Policy Will Cause New Munich Treaties Fascism Grows Bolder in Drive on Spain, Netherlands *1*HERE is scarcely any difference of opinion about the Munich * Pact in the United States—the great majority agree that it did not mean "peace in our time...
...The main struggle is in the trenches of people's minds...
...i If we can't come to terms with Hitler, then we must arm...
...It corresponds with the attitude of the Labor International...
...The sooner we stop the march ef fascism, the better this nation - is served...
...f^ROUP after group, section after section, all ^* opposition, however mild, is wiped out...
...Mussolini declared to Chamberlain that he will not withdraw his troops from Spain until Franco is victorious...
...War is just like peace in one respect...
...But humanity, I think, will never forgive him for Kronstadt...
...Chamberlain that irritates millions of us * is that he does not recognize the changed situation...
...It was only the other day that he referred to his victims as "the dull, gray mass...
...But how to prevent it...
...All that is needed is a desperate internal political situation and some scoundrel with a lust for power and a gift for rabble-rousing will be found to fan the flames...
...There is a special danger that interest in war and armaments will distract attention from the center of the fight against Fascism...
...Armament profiteering went on because we let it go on...
...These critics point to the May Bill, which proposes the militarization of the nation in case of _________ such a conflict...
...U.S...
...We are asked to maintain silence because, for the moment, Stalin's policies are in conflict with Hitler's...
...Those who follow the Communist Party line will declare that I am employing the tragedy of the German people as an instrument with which to belabor my political enemies, the Stalinists...
...Armaments are regarded as a prelude to war...
Vol. 22 • January 1939 • No. 3
