Leader of London Gov't Reports Labor Party Functioning Actively Under Bombs
LATHAM, CHARLES
Leader of London Gov't Reports Labor Party Functioning Actively Under Bombs By CHARLES LATHAM (Leader of the London County Council) LONDON. — From the start London Labor realized that this war...
...It is useless to attempt to cure her ambitions by patrols or to divert them to peaceftul achievements by enforced control...
...On the European continent they will move only small parts of the population...
...No Revenge...
...Minoux was jailed and other German tycoons disappeared...
...War priorities meant virtual death to German industrial profits and dividends...
...It is unwise and hopeless to police such a nation...
...We reject Hitler's new order because in our opinion it is a European prison with Hitler's stormtroopers as jailers...
...Enthusiasm for the war is as much lacking as in other countries...
...He hasn't been mentioned in the daily press for over a week...
...Hitler has destroyed the old European order...
...I feel however they make a dangerous mistake by overlooking the fact ~that Germany's military successes under the Kaiser and now under Hitler are by no means to be explained only by the mystic word "Prussia," or by some "barbaric system...
...Of course, with the detention of thousands many innocent ones were bound to suffer...
...Walter Ulbricht, Central Committee member, wrote in Die Welt, an official CP paper, "This War Policy—namely, support of the Allies—is the more criminal because Great Britain is the most reactionary force in the world...
...Yes, London Labor is sound at heart and proud of spirit: . it will not quail...
...Production and distribution however are so well organized that no internal collapse is in sight...
...Despite the destruction or damage to local- Party premises...
...We must not gloss over this simple truth by concentrating all our attention on Hitler or Germany alone...
...In the realm of London local government where Labor is in control—in the majority of the Boroughs and on the London County Council — the Labor Party actively and energetically pressed forward the necessary measures for the defense and sustenance of the civil population—often'in advance of the Government's policy which their pressure in many directions molded and brought to fruition...
...It was an inspiration to be at this conference where over 350 delegates representing 235,000 affiliated members, assembled and carried through one of the best conferences ever .held by the Party...
...all burn down...
...Probably the old economic, financial and social order, too...
...In Moscow, long-forgotten theories, buried hoj< are coming to life again...
...A super-Versailles would only lead to a super-explosion...
...It was deliberate...
...However I do not think it is an unsurmountable task...
...It was followed by an immediate t» about in Russian policy...
...A cry went up from some of our intellectual liberals and journals, that our government should have exercised more care before detaining aliens who might be friendly to us...
...We all knew that Hitler's enemies inside Germany are now chained and un-unable to discuss or to organize...
...No more German .arms transported .to S5 no more American commodities to Germany...
...The occupation of Bulgaria, Hungary's annexation of Yugoslav territory, the war with Yugoslavia, the landing of German troops in Finland—every one of these unfrieajy acts was in direct violation of the pact of August 23, 188, which called for mutual conferences on all questions ^ major importance...
...Nor do we know the respective apfcce of influence allotted to each...
...Democrats with a wide international horizon and the knowledge of the world-wide causes of the present conflict cannot indulge in accusing the Germans for a catastrophe which in decades before the world wars we were taught to understand as a sequence of deep antagonism in our social order and of^narchic competition in international markets and sources of raw material...
...True, this destructive ,power has to be checked and crushed...
...The contrary was true...
...Random Notes From London's War Front By HARRY LANDSBERG LONDON (Passed by the Censor), May 14.—The last raid in London, made on Saturday night last, was perhaps the most destructive of all the raids which the German butcher birds have carried out...
...In heaven Allah is the ruler...
...of the "business as usual" attitude of mind which, starting from the Chamberlain Government, infected—not without some satisfaction on their part—some sections of the community who, having done well out of the first world-war, thought that a like opportunity might not be absent from the present war...
...Only a few days ago the world's mightiest battleships were sunk, while aerial infantry revolutionized modern war and may out-mode contemporary armies...
...Hitler has proved to be one of the greatest destructive forces in all history...
...Fritz Thyssen was the first to brpaj^when he saw his steel trust picked off by Herr Goering...
...In addition, Soviet dignity was at the moment suffer^ from a number of smaller affronts against which Moicoi had already made public its protests, -fir.tf here wn a opportunity to square accounts with Berlin...
...Meanwhile the quartet of Germany's rulers has dwindled to a trio-Hitler, Goebbels and Goering...
...Talks like that made by President Roosevelt last Tuesday have conjured - up visions of 1917-1918 defeat, inflation, dead factories and seething millions...
...Therefore in my opinion democrats in all countries must not be satisfied solely with the "Defeat Hitler...
...Would these acts mean a solution of even one of the most pressing world problems...
...London's Wall Street is full of rumors to the effect that Berlin's Bourse crowd are offering acceptable peace terms...
...Four freedoms" and "democracy" do not mean very much when we ignore, for instance, the most urgent problem of war and peace: the reconstruction of Europe.^ » » • f\F course this task brings us face to face with Germany...
...Criticism is widespread in Germany...
...NewJVazi-SovietPM Partitions Near EM By DAVID DALUN v^ WHEN on April 23rd news of the Soviet decree iprohjkjt^ the transportation of arms through Russia was toS2 to the world, there was much bewilderment...
...Different nations react differently to this disease but it exists everywhere...
...On May U the Soviet Union...
...1JITLER, Stalin, and Mussolini are not creations of their * * otwn ill will or of "bad" nations...
...As yet we don't know—and perhaps won't know for aow time—the terms of the Stalin-Hitler agreement dividing Near East spoils...
...How can Moscow not participate...
...We have seen how this poor, pitied "have not" deals with the biggest "haves...
...The same intellectual game was repeated in the long pause between Dunkirk and Salonika...
...Such a post-war Europe is the greatest of all European Utopias...
...I asked one of the lawyers who had lost his home what he thought of it all...
...Under any political or social system she will be the powerful heart of the European continent...
...Therefore they hurried to discuss Germany's fate after her military breakdown and the collapse of Hitler's system...
...But Hitler has paid a price, and it is a small price...
...Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and India seemed, in Hwt distant days, the most promising material for a reaoluOCMfJ movement which was to inflame the entire worW...
...You have heard of the damage to the House of Commons and the British Museum...
...I do not see how the slogan "back to 1938" could, be of incentive power in a time when we are amidst the greatest world revolution of all times...
...One had to content -flRn self with proclamations, theses, and resolutions...
...It has long been my opinion that one of the foremost aims has to be a new order in Europe, a restriction of the national sovereignties and the creation of a European central authority, based on democratic civil rights of all Europeans...
...minister replied: "It is not impossible...
...that two radically opposed conceptions of life were locked in mortal combat...
...Stalin is surely leaving the greasy liquid to Vl partner and contenting himself with the millions of «•* fruits...
...Facing them we will realize that not one of them is going to be solved by feelings of revenge against Germany and suggestions of policing the great central European nation...
...I do not see how Europe can recover after this war with 36 custom barriers, 35 currencies, 35 armies, 35 foreign policies, 35 imperialisms...
...That is what our refugee Communists are trying to tell British Trade Unionists...
...Together with some lawyers, I stood on the charred ruins of the Temple Church situated amidst what had been London's loveliest and most peaceful of surroundings, the chambers and libraries and studies of the legal world of Great Britain...
...The Trades Union Congress adds that new organizations are continually being formed...
...That is a simple geographical and economic fact...
...I do not feel competent to formulate the great aims of war and peace which we should present to the waring world...
...By no means do the' friends of ours inside Germany believe that Hitler in invincible on the battlefields or on the homefront...
...However, on the day after Hitler's elimination a thousand unsolved problems .will be presented to us...
...In exchange for Eastern Poland, Stalin gave JSP France...
...for the Baltic states—Norway...
...But now from London's financial district comes reasoning which sounds plausible at least . . . According to this source, Hess comes as an emissary of the virtually imprisoned and expropriated German industrialists who want peace so that they can rebuild their opposition to Hitler...
...We may deeply regret that these resources have been applied to barbarous ends but we should also learn that it is shortsighted to deprive such a highly gifted nation of its elementary rights, even if this discrimination is only suggested for a short ^ime...
...His reply given in sadness: "Rather than that Nazi or Fascist law shall prevail here, let it...
...However they state that Hitler's enemies neither outside nor inside Germany have proved equal to him in technical efficiency and in vision which can inflame the masses to the highest sacrifices...
...For the second time in one generation the united material and moral forces of the biggest empires ever created must be mobilized to check this one comparatively small nation in the center of Europe...
...He may regret the methods of solution but he is inclined to hope that finally European disorder and European wars may be stopped under Germany's harsh control...
...of the too tender regard for private interests...
...Doubts of the final success of Germany haunt many thinking people including men in Hitler's intimate councils...
...Or all of Iran and Afghanistan, together Beluchistan and an- outlet for Russia to the South S*»-No one knows...
...THHE London Labor Party Annual Conference which * normally takes place in November was, owing to prevailing conditions, postponed until March of this year...
...For fifteen Jtafl even the mention of a revolutionary uprising, or a against England, was venboten...
...Democracy" or "four freedoms" or some similar not very articulate aims...
...Defense or reconstruction of the status quo has seldom created enthusiasms...
...However, if statesmanship and public opinion in the victorious countries proved unable to create a working order of peace after the war, Hitler's defeat would not mean much more than the Kaiser's or the Czar's defeat meant from the viewpoint of saving democracy and peace...
...The training, the equipment, the spirit of the German army are excellent...
...A CONFERENCE with Reich .officials took place at tfc ^* end of April...
...Stalin and his Comintern U extending a having hand to the Arab world, advanSl claims, and stipulating conditions...
...One does not solve age old European problems by Maginot lines and by the attempt to emasculate a very masculine nation...
...Its criticism of the vacillating policy of the Chamberlain Government was not a • criticism of this country's entry into the war, but of the failure to prosecute it with the necessary vigor...
...The more Moscow protests, the greater are Stalin's demands for new concessions...
...But they are to be found not only in Germany...
...They seek to throw man-land back into slavery, to destroy liberty of thought, of speech and of conscience...
...And so with the Courts of Law...
...Theories for Hess' flight have been as numerous as puns on his name...
...for Central Asia—Western Iraq, Syria, and Hff tine...
...A Guess on Hess THIS war has hit so furi-* ous a pace that some of the country's greatest news stories are being forgotten over night...
...We are admonished that the demand to clarify war and peace aims would embarrass the British government...
...Here there was no visage of defeatism, despite all that London has suffered in the last six months...
...For the time being Hitler's personal and political position in Germany is very strong...
...Besides there are immaturities and atavisms in the human mind which may present themselves especially strong in the Germany of today...
...Under the indiscriminate bombing of London, as the world knows, the people of this city have stood up straight without flinching and everywhere the Party, its officers and members, have played their part...
...II* nationalist movements, particularly those of south-wwtai Asia, were to be true principal allies of the "proistata dictatorship...
...There is a historical lesson, too...
...Hitler has, no doubt, tlhi Mosul, the oil wells, and the pipe lines...
...On May 3rd, the Soviet ambasair to Ankara announced Stalin's readiness to accord recognita to the Nazi-inspired government of Rashid Ali...
...After Hitler's defeat the reconstruction of Europe and large sections of the world will not be a police problem...
...The J?est that might be said is that Hitler-Germany's elimination from the world scene would make it easier to adjust world economy and world politics to the necessities of our time...
...Homes may have been lost'and friends killed or injured, but the spirit of solidarity and of belief in Socialism was as high and virile .astver...
...In i*" economy, Iraq is represented by two of her .products: «8 and dates...
...You will remember that after France fell many thousand aliens of enemy origin were detained...
...But the inM '* large, and Asia's riches are not confined to oil...
...The democratic process goes on.- * Here is something of interest to the American Labor movement...
...Quietly, under Prime Minister Churchill's direction, another great story is brewing in Hess' prison room...
...The pattern has byJiow become a tradition...
...The numerous pacts cementing friendship between ti* Soviet Union and the Reich guarantee Germany the right to transport materials through Soviet territory...
...They debated with fervor and energy questions both of how the war effort could be advanced and also the steps to be taken now to secure that the reconstruction and . replanning which must follow peace shall be on the lines of Labor policy...
...CwnZ optimists, who at each rustling of spring hear the-jUja knell of the Soviet-Nazi Pact, beamed and congr*tu52 each othgr...
...Did Hitler promise him SmittaB Iraq...
...THUS London Labor has from the first day of the conflict been behind the war effort...
...their triumph would sweep away everything that makes for a decent way of life...
...They must think of a world order which is able to prevent the rise of Hitlers, Stalins, Mussolinis or their super-successors...
...They are exponents of a world-wide disease in the economic, political, social and spiritual field...
...Business was booming...
...From the start London Labor realized that this war must be won and that it must toe waged with every means and every energy...
...Lftejfj shrewd tradesmen, each trying to swindle the other,** are selling and buying nations and people...
...They were resolute and determined that , the sacrifices the people of London are making for victory shall be recognized and expressed in new and better conditions of life in the future...
...of the failure to mobilize the resources of the nation...
...It is very strange that seemingly few people suggest the punishment of Russia, Italy and Japan, not to mention some smaller robbers...
...The working people know that they have most to lose if the bastions of democracy should fall, for it is their hope and promise of the future that would be shattered and destroyed...
...I have always objected to the superficiality of registering Germany under the "have nots" only because of her lack of some raw materials and foodstuffs...
...hastened to call a conference witb dek-gates from Iran to discuss the question of transportation of war materials...
...slogan...
...We can rebuild our homes provided our democratic law survives...
...She always will be...
...One -wt^i have been justified in assiuiming, therefore, that Russia vooti present no obstacle to the transportation of equipment to Iraq...
...Especially not in nations and social groups which have nothing to gain from the status quo...
...It will be a task as immense as anything the world has ever seen before in the fields of human relations...
...Here,-at the cradle of mankind, on the toil of the Biblical rivers, amidst the ruins of ancient eivilto-tions, the death-dealing blow was to be administered to ft greatest Imperialist power in the world—Great Brtoa Stalin was amior.g those who nurtured such dreams, thoup he only played a secondary role at that time...
...Perhaps for the first time in history the most sinister enemies of liberty and freedom have clothed themselves in the robes of revolution...
...In the view of the average German, however, this new order is taking shape under conquering German divisions...
...This, of course, could still be devious Hitler technique...
...Fifteen to twenty years ago the idea of an uprissiat the "Peoples of the East," "the colonial slaves," playea-ia important role in Communist theory and Communist pm-tice...
...Such an agreement between Hitler and Stalin folk*** pattern of the political game Stalin has played thuwj^f-the war...
...And now, after surrounding European Rata, Berlin proposed to move into Asia and to extend its sphere of military activities to the South of the Soviet Unton'j Asiatic possessions...
...This was not just indiscriminate bombing...
...Food and some raw materials are scarce...
...There may be people who reject Hitlerism, its methods and its aims even more than I, if that is possible...
...But easing Germany's path to one of the world's richest sources of oil—ancient Babylon, known today * Iraq—without compensatory benefits, was not part of Ifo...
...It will fight this war until Nazism and all it stands for is finally destroyed, and when that war is over, it will fight another against poverty, against slums and for decent condition* of life for all, free from the menace of war abroad and insecurity at home...
...Our Parliament met elsewhere and continued With its business...
...It is gone forever...
...Thyssen is now in Dachau, according to reports...
...Subsequently, the period of "relative stabilization1'-* borrow the terminology invented by Moscow—put an ends these nationalist-revolutionary movements...
...for Bessarabia-*1 Balkans...
...Free German League of Culture, Free German Youth, Austrian Centre, Council of Austrians in Great Britain, Young Austria, Working Refugee Women, Refugee Teachers Association, and Young Czecho-Slovakia...
...The decree seems ttenfe another opportunistic move on Moscow's part to nejaqS a* new German-Russian agreement...
...The "peoples of the Es*" dt seems, are about to awaken from their long sleep, the clarion call to revolt is sounding from the minsnft And if not from the minarets, then from the loudspeakw...
...Perhaps we are wise to admit that there is a nation with tremendous physical, intellectual and moral resources...
...It is different outside...
...Here is the list...
...Hitler and his gang are the revolutionaries: there is nothing in history to require that a revolutionary should not be a reactionary...
...I cannot help feel that it is rather untimely to suggest Germany's dismemberment »s long as the united Anglo-Saxon empires have still not solved the military problem of stemming Hitler Germany's victorious march through Europe, including the conquest of Italy...
...A few days before the flight Minoux is suppo ;ed to have voiced grave fears of a vast Germanic explosion —social, industrial and political—if Hitler's policies were permitted to prevail...
...The Axis invasion of Asia dates from April 4, 1941, *hn by agreement with the Italian and German envoys in Anktrv Rashid Ali Gailani staged a successful revolt in Iraq...
...ODAY war has brought turmoil to the entire worii * Since Spring the turmoil has been transposed to * Near East...
...That is why so many people demand not only Hitler's defeat but Germany's punishment and her unilateral disarmament...
...But now we have it on the authority of the Trades Union Congress that the following foreign innocent sounding groups are Communist-inspired and led...
...Three weeks ago a man named Rudolf Hess dropped in on Scotland...
...Even in this nation the bulk of young people are very critical or even cynical about such terminology...
...The leaflets diatrfc uted, according to an Istanbul dispatch, had the follow^ interesting inscription on thesn: v On earth Adolp'h Hitler will rule us...
...But, as one might have surmised, this was all wiifa^ thinking...
...German soldiers are told they are fighting for a new European order...
...The delegates saw beyond the misery and bestiality of today to the possibilities of tomorrow when peace shall have come and the new world they seek be possible and attainable...
...Germany with her intellectual ability and technical efficiency always has been an immense "have...
...What is Stalin getting...
...Since the Churchill Government was formed and Labor took its share in the government of the nation at war, London Labor has redoubled its efforts to aid and assist, both in the political and.the industrial field...
...On the other hand what has the propaganda of the allies to offer...
...More CfKRw.Herr Minoux, great German industrial banker, was jailed...
...Minoux was Hess' contact with German industrial hierarchies...
...PostWar Pan European Federation, With A Free Germany, Urged for Lasting Peace By WILHELM 50LLMAHN (Former Reiehsminister of the Interior in the Stresemann Ca-binet) IN the long lull between the defeat of Poland and the German offensive in the north and west many opponents of Hitler frequently saw his downfall near...
...These are psychological trends which may develop rapidly in the still distant case of serious setbacks on the battlefields...
...It saw in the "phoney" war, or as Marchbanks, the leader of British railwaymen, aptly said, this "private and confidential" war, a failure to realize that it was a fight not so much between peoples as between ideas...
...Well experienced and sober observers in the Reich, irreconcilable enemies of the present system, assure us that there is still no' social or political force visible inside Germany which could overthrow or replace Hitlerism...
...It chafed and bridled against the irresolute methods of the former Chamberlain Government and its false conception of the character of the struggle and_ of Nazi mentality...
...But those who thought that this was the beginning of i major conflict between the two partners showed a> complete lack of understanding of botTt-j Stalin's and Hitler's political game...
...That is the .. essential meaning of Moscow's "protests...
...While a May 12 dispatch tm ' Ankara related that in answer to the question whetttf Soviet Russia would send military aid to Iraq, the In...
...that this was a revolutionary war...
...the evacuation of others, for social or industrial reasons, the Party machine in London remains intact, both centrally and locally: it still functions, meetings are held where possible—the long hours of the black-out in the winter months notwithstanding, collections .of subscriptions go on and contacts are maintained and the faith in our cause is undiminished...
...And remember what the Communist Party of Germany says...
...I should think the British cabinet must face problems much more embarrassing than a general program for the reconstruction of Europe...
...I ET us imagine that the allied armies have defeated Hitler-Germany's armies, that Hitler and his chief aides are sentenced and executed, the German nation is disarmed and put under international control for a limited or unlimited time...
...cow's calculations...
...the loss by death of active members...
...This emotion is as negative as France's fear was after 1918 which proved to be disastrous for her and Europe...
...How then can we expect "democracy" or "four freedoms" to mean much to the German youth,* the Italian youth and young people in numerous other European countries, who grew up in the period of declining democracy...
...Neither we, the German refugees, nor the fighting democracies have any excuse for the lack of great constructive ideas...
...It had 'been apparent that these "popular" Arab upright were German organized and financed...
...At the same time news comes of a number of Soifet "volunteers" on Iraq soil...
...The restoration of Poland and Czechoslovakia and other small countries, the defense of the British Empire, the revival of respect for international law are very important but basically conservative aims...
...The number of protests issuing from Moscow is in direct ratio to the number of new compensations demanded by Stalin for favors granted...
Vol. 24 • May 1941 • No. 22
