France Bans Communists to Stop Pro-Hitler Propaganda
Faure, Paul
"They Even Learned to Sing the Marseillaise" France Bans Communists to Stop Pro-Hitler Propaganda By Paul Faure Secretary of th,e French Socialist Party PARIS.—It is said abroad that France is a...
...Agents entering this country are safe from pursuit and are relayed inland on the underground network aboard vessels plying the rivers and lakes...
...One feature of them is heavy abstentions from voting...
...At first they attempted to form a party which should be at once legal and underground...
...The area contested may spread over a wide area in which the candidate and his backers have but few known supporters...
...But there can be no doubt that many of these votes expressed opposition to the government and the Tories...
...it has the backing of the organized trade unionists and co-operators...
...Only trusted servants of this gigantic espionage ring transport these secret orders...
...The workers vote loyally for their party, against candidates they neither knew or trusted...
...The p* riod was for October 15 to Ds* cember 15, 1939, at a cost of $125 per student...
...and dissatisfaction on special issues— such as at Kettering where the anti-war man ran against a Tory as a "Workers, Old-Age Pensioners and Anti-War Candidate...
...After'campaigns in the press and a full-dress parliamentary debate, this regime has been a good deal modified and the political censorship suppressed...
...An unofficial candidate, challenging the truce by going forward against the representative of the party to whom the seat has belonged, starts with none of these things...
...If this were a party which acted in the dame of our national defense and determined its own policy .and attitude, then, no matter what might be its social doctrines and revolutionary principles, the attitude of the French government and of both chambers would be indefensible...
...How it ousted those opposing...
...Aliens and party figures can be easily shuttled back and forth from this nation's borders without passport "trouble...
...C.) Post, many of the present Communist "leaders" of the National Maritime Union indignantly denied the school's existence...
...And it is going to be an anti-Soviet WAR...
...The importance which the Communists bi# aiaaiiea in tiif < Fnife region, thatkks to large-scale propaganda fed'by funds from abroad daring twenty-years should be considered...
...party ties, and the importance of the party organizations to realize at what cost...
...They had cells in all the factories of the Paris region, which constitutes the vital center.' of • tmfcw5...
...Their startling network forms a complete grip on this nation for, paralyzing transportation...
...Men and women are not sure...
...another will produce evidence of the opposite opinion...
...After that, no doubt, Hitler and Stalin would have the mission of restoring order...
...Seamen Act as Moscow Couriers A PART from those factors the *"* Moscow dictatorship has for years striven to maintain a "courier" service among the seamen to carry messages and orders around the globe...
...I j** During the early months of the war there) was a brutal and arbitrary censorship regime...
...o flic as...
...If a Tory member of parliament dies,' retires, or is promoted, ithe local or national Tory organization appoint someone to take his or her place...
...The only thing nautical or marine show the "students" were the most vital and effective parts of a ship...
...the way people are thinking...
...Should it not be remembered that the Communist Party made itself, in the National Assembly and: the country at large, the mouthpiece of a- foreign government which was the accomplice and associate of the government of another country with which France is at present at war?: Under these conditions the question was absolutely clear...
...The school's aim was set as: "A Communist unit aboard every ship...
...The "glorious" Russian armies answered this in Finland...
...Loudest in the denials were Frederick N. Myers, and Ferdinand C. Smith, branded and tried as a former scab—both top-ranking officials of the National Maritime Union...
...They attacked everything which had until then been the basis of working class action and propaganda...
...He does not talk and the matter ends there...
...No one can accuse Faure of coddling the French war leaders or those who, in both war cabinets, hare dissolved the Communist Party and jailed those of its members refusing to repudiate the pro-German Comintern...
...Trained "Sailors" to Cripple Merchant Marine By LAWRENCE McRYN Synopsis of Preceding Articles [Two previous articles told how Communist opera¦ tives,, on .the American waterfront captured the seamen's unions under the direction of Cheka Agent George Mink, and his successors Roy B. (Horseface, the Bishop) Hudson and Thomas Ray, undercover OGPU spy...
...Then they suddenly became very nationalist and very democratic- They took part in all popular demonstrations ^with the republican parties...
...The government if subjected to and replies to questions and when matters rwhich concern national defense are under debate and necessitate discretion, all the parties and the government agree to discuss them in secret committee...
...Such reports vary with the views of the writers...
...In two of these the votes for the anti-war candidate were very small...
...its uncertainty and non-confidence in the Chamberlain leadership—and until events force decision and movement, all attempts to picture the opinion of the people as unitedly for one course or the other should be disregarded...
...A very large number of suburban mayoralties were under their control, and they made them into centers of Bolshevist propaganda pure and simple...
...Within most democratic countries special attention...
...They advocated war, whether in the case of Spain, Czecho-Slovakia or Poland...
...j-gip3fe'tuae that these new theories were not proof again...
...Recently the Congressional Record exposed the fact that the Stalinists had made abortive attempts to "organize" the silverpay employees and the technical workers in the Panama Canal Zone, despite the workers' own existing organizations...
...Electoral organization must be improvised' in — at the most — two weeks...
...pHEY ENTERED the Popular Front in order to sabotage * its internal policy and to impel its foreign policy towards war...
...Hitler and Stalin are both as meek as lambs and innocent as newly-borns...
...Train Members in Strategy •"PHE curriculum, called for • * study of the "United and People's Front . . . 18th Congress, CPSU (Soviet Union)" as well as "Trades Union Strategy and Tactics...
...this failure to register an opinion for or-against the war cannot be put down entirely to the blackout, shifting of population and the other changes brought by the war...
...v • ¦¦ -* - * • •yODAY NO ONE can doubt that the Communists place * themselves outside the nation, that they obey a foreign » ¦ government...
...Communist propaganda, carried on in cooperation with Berlin and Moscow, sometimes assumes a more subtl&form, more perfidious and more dangerous...
...But there are other factors to be borne in mind when looking at election results under presently conditions...
...it has wide contact and support in local industries...
...This is when it seeks to exploit for its own ends the discontents and sufferings of those sections of the population who are most affected and suffer most from the war, in order to cause disorders, the first result of which would be to break the resistance of our armies...
...and similar tactics can work wonders to effectively tie a ship alongside the dock...
...He roundly flayed the comrade "delegates" for then not being^ able to sabotage the world's transportation facilities should there be any war which might turn against the Moscow dictatorship and its allies...
...S. Ambrovitz Dridzo, alias A. Lozovsky, Moscow profintern secretary, thundered to the assembly—and the world in general: "WAR IS COMING...
...It should be noted, too, that the Freneh government and the chamber were punctilious and used the method of reprimand and generosity...
...Foilliard says in part: "Camp Nitgadaiget, with its Red atmosphere, its Soviet symbols and its Moscow jargon, is to the American Communists what Camp Nordland near Andover, N. J., is to Bundsfuhrer Frits Kuhn's goosestepping American Nazis...
...and it is accepted by the masses as the rightful party of workers...
...There would have been a bullet in the neck for each of them and for everyone who tried to defend or excuse them...
...Tory, Liberal and Lamor parties ali are pledged not td contest seats held by each other...
...J'*-'?:- '.'A , - ~: ~v : - ¦ a m* * IT HAS BEEN SAID that the grounds on which the Com*¦ munists were excluded are not to be found in the Constitution...
...It is the absence of clear-cut, stanchly-held opinion that contrasts with the-state off: feeling in' the 1914-18 war...
...They allowed the Communist deputies weeks of reflection in order that they might disassociate themselves from the Hitler-Stalin collusion and those who thus dissociated themselves—there were examples—were allowed to retain their' offices...
...Their denials fell flat since the school's report for the previous year appeared in the June 22, 1936 Daily Worker...
...Without doubt, there at present exists in the French Republic a state of affairs which tends to restrict, a certain number ejf liberties...
...They learned to sing the Mar...
...Lannon to Halzka admonished him to show the material to nobody...
...The candidate may be unknown or little known...
...v » * • THE local Labor Parties are, in the main, un* happy about the electoral truce...
...The curtain would have fallen on this incident six months ago...
...Rotary hiring means nothing...
...How the party insinuated itself into the formation of the National Maritime Union (CIO) and called off elections to perpetuate themselves in office...
...Examinations are cursory...
...We must capture,the merchant marines encircling the globe, and be prepared...
...That is the situation...
...j ¦ It is wrong to say that Parliament does not exist...
...Special shipping rules take care of that...
...This is the feature of public opinion in Britain today_ its shapelessness, its lack of organized expression...
...The French Republic knows how to' behave...
...Under the auspices of the National Maritime Union data for this was gathered by H. Stoudt in conjunction with the Panama Communist Party...
...A few grains of sand or emery...
...Those Communists who retracted are in a position to appreciate the superiority of democratic methods over those of Bolshevism...
...Then, once more changing their attitude, they accused France and Britain of being responsible for the war...
...Classes in the following years stressed similar aims...
...Those named are all Communist Party members within the National Maritime Union...
...The workers voted the Socialist ticket, and in doing so expressed their loyalty to their organisations as well as some of their discontent with hardships imposed by the government...
...Some fifty Labor Parties have used one of the two resolutions allowed to them on the Party Conference agenda to demand the ending of the truce...
...If questioned, men and women may express an opinion, but they do not display any great conviction that their opinion is a right one...
...He expresses the bitter condemnation of the Communist Party felt by the entire Labor and Socialist Movement of France, first because of the denunciation of the Franco-Soviet pact, then because of the Soviet-German liaison, and most important, because of the defeatist propaganda of the Comintern, secretly disseminated through the country now fighting a vanguard action for what is left of the civilized, democratic world...
...and in one or two cases local Labor Parties have only, been restrained from contesting seats by great pressure from the Party leaders...
...French Assembly and whether it could be informed in the parliamentary commissions or secret committees of the chamber and the senate, of the military and diplomatic situation of the country and given all the secret IptnlKgiBW eotjjrmifcag: jfis tional defense...
...The Communists thus seek to turn French public opinion against Britain, to demoralize the mass of the people and the army in order to provoke moral disintegration and prepare the atmosphere for disorders...
...Only Chamberlain and Daladier, and with them the "capitalist clique and their socialist lackeys"—mentioned by name—have put fire to the powder...
...The cause has to be sought elsewhere, and it is to be found, without any doubt, in the measures taken against the Communists—measures which I do not deny are severe...
...Communist policies within the union, plundered the strike fund and established a job-trust under rigid bureaucracy/] in In 1930, at the Hamburg convention which set up the Red international of seamen and harbor workers (I.S.H...
...Certain abuses- and excesses, it is true, hare' been noted,and against these protest has been made, in order that their effects may be modified...
...A crew member missing at the last moment—on party instructions—and the Communist machine with job-control within the union fills the man's place with the operative they desire to transport...
...It is first necessary to understand the magnitude of^tbe danger which the Communists represent to us in France...
...If a Labor member of Parliament dies or retires, then the local Labor and Trade Union organizations meet in conference and choose another -representative...
...There are circumstances where natural rights make good the weaknesses and loopholes of the written law, and where the instinct of preservation dictates to the individual and to the community measures of self-protection and safety...
...Now turn to the contests in areas where the Tory Party held the Seat...
...Unity or disunity expressed in the House of Commons may or may not reflect the state of mind of the people—no one knows because there is no way of testing the feeling...
...The union is used as a cover-up...
...In the, case where the difference between the official and unofficial candidate was smaller it is significant that the "anti-war" candidate was a well-known local Labor Party figure and ran as a Labor candidate...
...A local Labor Party,, for example, has an extensive electoral -machine...
...Working not only among the unlicensed personnel of the American merchant marine the Communists have captured also the union of radio communication workers, A. C. A. (CIO), longshoremen and some of the seagoing workers on the Pacific Coast, as well as employees on vessels plying the Great Lakes and inland waterways...
...It is necessary to understand the strength of the...
...It is not the above state of affairs to which I have referred briefly, which has' aroused the accusations in.question...
...If this state of affairs is difficult to admit in time of peace, it becomes absolutely intolerable in time of war...
...In Wartime France CO much has appeared in the Communist press slandering Leon Blum and other French Socialist leaders, the French government, and the new cabinet, that'the myth of French totalitarianism which the Comintern has tried to build around Paris has stack in the minds of many honest American liberals...
...GENEROSITY was thus pushed to the point of impru^* dence...
...Public opinion is undoubtedly unstable, shifting, puzzled...
...ftHrience and, with an extreme facility for adaptation, the Communists turned themselves into reformists, while con, tinuing to make use of a most unheard-of demagogy...
...has been given the edict on the merchant marine by the Stalinist Fifth Column on the waterfront...
...The member who pays his union dues is denied the right to ship on the job rightfully his...
...We have only to look at their evolution since 1920...
...It is no accident that the wattr• front section's secret instructions to party members aboard ships, issued in 1936, instructed members of this espionage ring a the same attitude and to "mstt secretly," "classify the crew," "organize the * meetings" (crewY union meets) and "not just be the 'tail' for the union work," as weD as to "keep contact with the than side section representatives" to get instructions...
...No true estimate of working class opinion on the war can be formed from these results...
...They Even Learned to Sing the Marseillaise" France Bans Communists to Stop Pro-Hitler Propaganda By Paul Faure Secretary of th,e French Socialist Party PARIS.—It is said abroad that France is a semi-Fascist country where all liberties have been abolished, where parliamentary government no longer exists,:'where trade, unions have been suppressed and their leaders imprisoned...
...Need I tell you that we are somewhat surprised and disconcerted by such allegations, which in no way correspond to the truth...
...One will report that the British people are united befihiu the war effort...
...In the electoral sphere, thanks to the system of abstentions in the second ballot and to tile Popular Front, they had secured thirty-three out of a total of sixty parliamneary seats for the Seine area...
...An abominable underground leaflet campaign is being carried on which describes the present war as having been desired solely by British capitalism...
...not enough oil on the bearings...
...The letter from...
...TTHIS MAY APPEAR to strengthen the case * of those who argue that the anti-war vote has so far been fairly high...
...But by this method each Communist Party-within its national boundaries keeps contact with the other Communist parties and receives its orders from the Comintern in Moscow...
...Naturally, there have been several developments in the life of this party, but these have always been determined by considerations of foreign policy, dictated by a foreign power...
...They claimed that they were essentially propagandists for the world revolution, and said that the era of reforms had gone by, that parliamentarism and democracy "were things of the past, and that the time had come for armed rebellion...
...They even got to the point of advocating national union and, forgetting or pretending to forget their formula about religion being the "opiate of the people," they ostensibly held out their hands to their Catholic brothers...
...Lannon requested that the other also write him regularly and said he would forward all "the dope from time to time...
...Comintern Ran School for Sabotage in Beacon, N.Y...
...It is partly due to a lack of positive belief in any one course that explains such an avoidance of the polls.' The more one examines these by-elections the more it becomes clear that popular opinion does not find adequate reflection in them...
...It , affords, further, ample opportunity fof military and naval espionage, since supplies for the armed forces as well as equipment for defense are carried on water-borne transportation...
...When caught in rare instances the Communist agent professes ignorance...
...There the "rabble" have had the criminal impudence to defend themselves against "liberators" using methods which are known to have surpassed in horror everything that history has taught us of misery and the massacre of men...
...So it is not off the cards that the next few months may see the end of the electoral truce, and with the Party machines playing full part in by-elections some, more accurate means may be provided to measure actual public opinion in wartime Britain...
...Once more, it justifies French ipolicy and the measures taken against a party of treachery, at the moment when the destiny of France, together with that of Britain, and all hopes of democracy and freedom, are in balance...
...All these facts need to be kept in mind, when looking at election results in Britain today...
...and difficulty this agreement can be challenged...
...To make this clear it is necessary to remember that under the existing electoral truce 5a vacant seat is,filled by the party of the retiring member without a contest...
...Three contests have taken place in seats previously held by the Labor Party...
...It deliberates freely...
...In 1939, however, secret correspondence between Al Lannon, a prominent NMU member and a waterfront section secretary for the Communists, and William Halzka, party operative aboard an oil tanker—the M. S. Calicut —disclosed the secret curriculum for the last school held...
...At the same time they attempted to eause risings in the colonies...
...There the 'anti-war candidate vote was larger, much larger...
...American friends should take such reports with all three of President Roosevelt's grains of salt...
...The party has "provided" many papers before this to be overly worried about government regulations concerning seamen...
...In Russia they would have been shot en bloc, without explanation and without judgment...
...I : * * * S' - DY-ELECTIONS afford little or no guide to...
...In the accompanying article, he exposes the.CP's tactics and endorses the drive against them...
...It had simply to be decided whether a niarty, under the orders and in the pay of a foreign power, could, in time of war, take part, discuss, vote, legislate in a...
...But the Constitution did not foresee, either, the existence of a party of treachery installed, with sly malevolence, in the chamber, in the parliamentary commissions, in the ministerial ante-chambers—and why not on the ministerial benches...
...Here for the first time in America is the statement of the Freneh Socialist Party, coming from ¦ Paul Faure, general secretary of the party and leader of the anti-war faction...
...This, in effect, was carrying out a small part of the Communist Party's network...
...Perhaps...
...Tories Irk British Labor Parties Into Seeking End of Political Truce By REGINALD GROVES I ONDON (Passed by Censor).—Know-alls confidently report -to the neutral world the opinions of the British people...
...As crew members they are safe from detection...
...t- [ • t * * t '• - THIS is the inevitable consequence of the State Emergency law resulting from the war...
...Open Marine Training School *t*0 TRAIN their growing pack * of "couriers" Moscow agents, a few years back, opened a Marine Training School at Camp Nitgadaiget, near Beacon, N. Y. Exposed in 1937 by Edward T. Foilliard, ace reporter for Washington (D...
...They had got their hands on the greater part of the trade union...
...With the capture of the American unions they completed the weaving of their network and are now ready to paralyze this nation with sabotage, terror, disruption, industrial strife and espionage...
...Must it not be borne in mind, however, that the Communists are the direc?*agents of a foreign poTS/ef...
...Above all the challenger is bucking at the strength of Party loyalties and ties...
...K ; OUT HOW can they not be considered legitimate...
...The passion and fervor displayed by the overwhelming majority in the last war are noticeably absent from this...
...In many cases the military authorities have taken the place of the civil authorities...
...This is to a certain extent due to the absence of leadership commanding the confidence of wide circles of the people, a state of affairs that applies as much to the opponents as it does to the supporters of the war...
...Subsequently his findings were brought to N. M. U. headquarters in New York by "Couriers" Al Rothbart and Edwin Bruen on vessels of the Panama Railroad lane...
...Let me repeat: no one can doubt that the Communists have always been the agents of Moscow...
...they encouraged the Alsatian autonomists and seat, telegrams of congratulation to Abdel-Krim at the tittle at the Moroccan War...
Vol. 23 • May 1940 • No. 20
