World Struggle on Three Continents
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
World Struggle on Three Continents Mexico Camacho's 'Middle Way' Seeks to Stabilize Revolutionary Changes in Mexico By William Henry Chamberlin MEXICO has experienced a more fundamental WEM...
...has obtained ever since...
...His experiences in South Africa had made him a "nationalist" (there was absolutely no word either for "nation" o'r "national,ist" in the Indian languages), seeing the necessity for unity among various Indian groups...
...communal" elections—the vicious system...
...But the helplessness of the peon of the time of Diaz, at the mercy of the big hacienda owner and often held in ? form of debt-slavery, has disappeared with tbo Revolution...
...Only the handful receiving double and triple food rations really had enough to eat...
...It did not, however, relieve indentured Indian laborers from slavery—except for temporary "release" to go to the front—and it was years before anything effective was accomplished for Indian labor...
...One should note here, hcWevef, that there has been nothing like the destruction of religious belief that was a result of the Russian Revolution...
...There was, however, a revolutionary ferment among the Indian Mohammedans...
...The author devotes little attention to this problem, except to recount a few i/icidents which speak volumes...
...v * '· » •"THIS shock, Gandhi writes in his autobiog-* raphy, "changed the whole course of my life...
...The struggle (ef the achievement of minimum educational and sanitary' standards in the rural districts is only in its early stages...
...When the (white) railway workers walked out, tying up communications in South Africa and extending' full cooperation to Indian and other strikers...
...Nevertheless, he was admitted into the Magnitogorsk Communist University (Komvus) which he deli-pntly attended during evenings until his graduation in 1935...
...The Ukraine had been invaded by the Germans in 1918...
...At least half the people are still unable to read and write...
...Mahandas Gandhi, whose social viewpoint is ·*¦forth with such clarity in these words, was ^4 a Vaishya...
...When Mohandas persisted, the Agent showed him the door...
...There was no such deliberate policy during the period of which Scott writes...
...Without underhand methods, a ministership or judgeship was out of the question," especially as his brother was already suspect...
...In 1938, the general picture wa3 as follows: Of the city's ,000 inhabitants, the top 2'/, lived in exclusive Berezki or the Central Hote...
...I had learned a great deal in the Komvuz—my Russian was good and I had a clear ?» of the theories of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, upon which fte social and economic structure of the Soviet Union was presumably based, I knew all the answers, or at least most •f them, and could enumerate the errors and infamies of the Tmtekyite and several other oppositionist groups with a 4<ed and accuracy which made my teachers smile with Pride...
...As in South Africa, however, the Gunga Din policy gained nothing—either for Gandhi or for the Indians in general...
...He sent a special agent south to buy fruit and champagne, and invited the cream of Berezki society...
...They were regarded as the labor aristocracy of Magnitogorsk, but here, too, many led a half-starved existence...
...With the result that it is no longer possible for disgruntled local militarists to start civil war...
...Gandhi's little community, striving against Christian radical influence among the untouchables by admitting them, was saved from financial collapse by a wealthy Mohammedan...
...DY the beginning of the third Five-Year Plan, social crys-tallization assumed a permanent character...
...Habits of corruption in office, of family favoritism and •squeeze" which suggests comparisons with China and other Oriented countries, have by no getns been eliminated...
...In this story of poverty, often bordering on famine and destitution, one element is striking—that is the special process of mounting social differentiation, perhaps more clearly to be observed in Magnitogorsk than in other cities because here it developed where there had previously been little more than a wilderness...
...By 1919 the violent agitation against the Rowlatt Act and the brutal measures taken by some British officers had...
...To be concludedj tosio Political and CI ass Distinctions Divide Structure of Soviet Society By Solomon Schwan IN the course of the successive Five-Year Plans, thousands * of foreigners visited Russia...
...Private homes were built for the director and the leading-administrators...
...In the quest for "unity," however, Hindu and Moslem leaders reached the politically disastrous pact of 1916, endorsed by the Congress at Luckanow, which divided political jobs and representation between the two religious groups on a proportional basis, with the Hindus as...
...While soliciting peace from the Germans and Turks, they called on all peoples for revolution...
...The tempo of construction was such that millions of men and women starved, froze and were brutalized by inhuman labor and incredible living conditions...
...And it was there that be was to establish his reputation as a courageous fighter for Indian rights and a shrewd leader of men...
...Only a wider spread of education probably can cure this difficulty...
...was the Congress which insistedTths|t *? British Government, in its plans for a greater development of parliamentary and...
...Some of the experiments in communal ownership of the land by the peasants, especially in the henequen plantations of Yucatan, have not been successful from the standpoint of productivity, as yet, because it is hard to give the former landless peon an immediate sense of personal ownership and interest in production...
...But the proletarian 75% of the population of Magnitogorsk subsisted either in barracks or in improvised mud huts...
...Another 8% lived in permanent individual houses...
...By committing Mexico to a declaration of war against the Axis he has burned his bridges behind him...
...The present Mexican Chief Executive has followed a policy of close collaboration with the United States, both before and after Pearl Harbor...
...Stalin suppressed such ideas with his usual vigor...
...Their place in Berezki was taken by new "elite" of Magnitogorsk...
...For three generations, in-?*"1...
...And although < the author is something less than an experienced writer, and lftoks the political background and social perception to do an independent and critical piece of work, he has nonetheless written an extremely interesting and valuable book...
...jtila tive institutions In India, should arrange...
...Of course one must guard against exaggeration...
...A militiaman was always on duly near the entrance...
...a ajaMmaeat majority and the Moslems as a permanent minority but with an assured...
...Schenectady...
...So there has been much less land expropriation and the right of the individual to retain possession of 375 acres of irrigated land and of larger amounts of unimproved land is more scrupulously respected than it waa under Cardenas...
...The former "kulaks" generally shared the same conditions with other workers, ate in the same dining halls, and obtained their supplies in the same stores...
...Against the hectic prosperity which some classes seem to be enjoying in Mexico City, and which is reflected in the new building projects which are rapidly filling • efpnty space in the suburbs, in crowded stores and in the many automobiles which create a tnffic problem in the narrow streets of the older part of the capital one must set the unchanged iturk poverty of the countryside...
...However, it ended Mohandas' hopes of following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather...
...By the time of the Boer War...
...The labor movement has passed through several vicissitudes...
...Despite great hostility and accusations of treachery by the more class-conscious Indians, Gandhi and his followers induced the ignorant masses to accept the Gandhi-Smuts "separate peace" and return to work...
...But he has proceeded on the double' assumption that the pace of economic reform had been too rapid and that class struggle is out of place at a time when Mexico is involved in war...
...During Scott's first years in Magnitogorsk, the broad foundation of the social pyramid consisted of about 50,000 Workers who were under direct GPU supervision...
...Smuts had won, with Gandhi's assistance...
...Many individuals questioned whether or not it was worth it...
...In the meantime, the British had launched another war—really a "man-hunt" for Zulus who had adopted <u*il disobedience and refused to pay a new tax which was being levied on them...
...It suffices to point out that as late as 1934—after Hitler had come to power—when the second Five-Year Plan was discussed) 43.7% of all Soviet machine construction (and this includes all defense industries, except the chemical...
...Of.Jiistory J*jWography he was ignorant: But;h« rich Z?*fience in practical affairs helped him to-' jrj™8 the solution of the most intricate ques-]*n* and enabled him to manage hundreds of !rn'" His small collection of-'books included A "^^a of Manu," which antHbritatively j?™* the basis of caste, the high position of B«hmins and the other "twice-born" castes, and the duty of the despised Shudras to serve by bodily labor the "twice-born...
...I.was very glad," Scott writes...
...6—The power of the Catholic Church in politics has been weakened...
...But almost none'really ittempted to become a part of the everyday world of the »Uliesij Soviet citizen...
...indeed the Mexican industrial worker, under this Constitution, enjoyed rights which at that time were not assured to the United States worker, although the material standard of living in the United States has been and is much higher than it is in Mexico...
...Before going, he worked for several months as a welder's apprentice in the General Beetrie plant in...
...India.' Gandhi promised this for December 1, 1921, and set out to get it...
...3—The Mexican Constitution of 1917 contained some very advanced labor provisions...
...The Mexican Revolution has followed a zigzag course which has varied from period to period and from province to province...
...Mohandas, returning from his studies in England and believing that "only influence counts here," approached the Agent— "whom he had met in England—on behalf of his brother...
...Not so Gandhi, who emphasized that though "justice is on the side of the Boers": "If we desire to win eur freedom and achieve our welfare as members of the British Empire, here ii a golden opportunity for us to do so by helping the British with all the means at our disposal...
...By John Scott Houghton Mtffhn...
...The first plans along these lines were advanced as early as World War I. From 1918 on plans were being drafted by a group of Siberian engineers, acting upon the instructions of the late Premier Alexei Rykov (executed in 1938...
...But the "communal" representation, evil stffl exists...
...He was advised by more experienced attorneys that it would be futile...
...There was no genuine friendship between the Hndus and the Muselmans...
...11/HAT stands out with dramatic force in Scott's book is the harshness of Soviet existence during the 1930's...
...Although sympathetic to the Communist cause, Scott did not join the Bolshevik Party or the Young Communist League (Komsomol...
...The caste system is inherent in ¦""nan nature...
...It Was speeded up considerably under the former President...
...BEHIND THE URALS: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel...
...The advice was as bitter as poison to me, but I had to swallow it...
...DUT these Gunga Din services availed the Indiana nothing, mad it was only the labor upheaval in South Africa in 1913-14, that the three-pound poti-tax levied upon Indiana on completion of their term, of indentured labor could be removed...
...15% lived in the Kirov District and other permanent apartment houses...
...It is against the genius of Hinduism to ^»rste to oneself a higher status or assign to a lower...
...And on December 10 the Imperial Government, seriously apprehensive, appointed the Rowlatt Committee to study the situation and devise measures to deal with it The revolutionary ferment among the Moslems, and fanatical zeal of their religious leaders for the Caliphate, gave Gandhi—as he himself expressed it—"such an opportunity of uniting Hindus and Mohammedans aa...
...very well to be taught things one does not Wieve or accepts with reservations...
...Furthermore, the tremendous resources that went into construction in the vulnerable Dnepropetrovsk area.'as well as the concentration of new war industries in the Moscow and Leningrad districts, indicate that Soviet leaders were not as remarkably farsighted as the author would have u* believe...
...Some of them lived in the U.S.S.R...
...When the subject of the Ural-Kuznetsk project was debated at the 16th Congress of the Communist Party in 1930, no one advanced this argument in reply to file opposition from representatives of heavy industry in the Ukraine...
...In 1920, Gandhi was given virtually dictatorial power over the Congress, which was reorganised as a "representative body" for all India, with indirect elections as in Soviet Russia and with its avowed object "the attaining of Swaraj— Home Rule—by the people of...
...A small deer park in the back of the house and a luxurious garden in front were surrounded by a high wall topped by a picket fence...
...But the worker, tike the peasant, leads a more self-respecting life, less exposed to arbitrary oppression by his employer, than was the case before the Revolution^, 4-—Governmental authority has become more centralized...
...employers bad been saved from loss, by maintaining essential services, and—finally—in reaching an agreement with General Smuts ending the special tax on Indians freed from indenture...
...be concluded...
...foreign oil properties were nationalized and the Government threw its influence on the side of labor in practically aft disputes...
...I . · · * yET, although the Mexican Revolution does '*>¦ set fit into any recognizable pattern that has been followed elsewhere (it has been notably deficient in theoretical foundations), it has . wrought, very considerable changes that give much prospect of being permanent...
...The number of strikes has diminished...
...Mohandas was to have followed in his father's footsteps as a Prime Minister...
...It has sometimes been possible for Communist wire-pullers, by entrenching themselves in the top-layers of the union bureaucracy, to wield an influence out of proportion to their numbers...
...But Gandhi already had his organized Satyagraha movement, using the "passive-resistance" and...
...The prices were much lower, sometimes only one-tenth of those which the Soviet workers had to pay for similar goods in their stores...
...Labor was defeated...
...it is quite another thing to teach these things to others...
...There is no doubt that the industrial development in the East has proved to be a tremendous boon in this war...
...This new legend is based upon a whole array of false assumptions...
...At the, time, Indian laborers in Sooth Africa were being drawn' into the spreading labor movement, and when Gandhi heard of the first significant strike, he "was as much perplexed as he was pleased...
...Scott was 19 years old in 1931 when he decided to give up the depression to try Russia...
...The more important of these changes may be briefly summarized as follows: 1—Mexico has acquired a strong, definite national consciousness...
...He was sent off to Magnitogorsk, where construction had begun...
...And after several years of comparative obscurity, while Gandhi was adjusting himself to the situation in India after twenty' years of almost continuous absence, he again began to emerge as a political figure...
...would not arise in a hundred years...
...I *I*HE Indian National Congress, founded by * liberal Englishmen thirty years previously, had been overwhelmingly Hindu...
...South African labor was in a position to win on its own terms...
...It ha' been required since U31 that 80% of all the workers in foreign-owned enterprises must be Mexicans, and it is very difficult to obtain permission for a foreigner to work in Mexico, unless it can be proved that no Mexican is qualified to perform the job...
...large and medium estates still remain in private hands...
...But to become a professional propagandist I had no fejra, . It is all...
...Soldiers at the front were continually appealed to by Turkish mullahs, set in the front lines and at every lull calling out to the Indian "faithful" to be loyal to the Caliph and the Prophet ?? w«re desertions and executions...
...Was still earmarked for the exposed Moscow and Leningrad districts...
...Gandhi was invited to attend a session of the Moslem League at Calcutta...
...Mexico is still plagued with diseases which are the result of tainted water and of an almost complete lack of sanitation outside the larger towns,' with amoebic dyaentery, hookworm and other intestinal parasite maladies...
...and I never missed a single, opportunity to remove obstacles in the way of unity.' Similarly with the "untouchables," who were increasingly hostile to the old restrictions and the caste Hindus who oppressed them...
...By 1938, however, these two groups had almost disappeared, with only some 2,000 prison laborers still at work in Magnitogorsk...
...In the suburb of Berezki, however, a model settlement was built, for foreign specialists, factory managers, Soviet and Communist Party personnel...
...Gandhi's viewpoint won, and he drew from the British a good deal of patronizing appreciation...
...I pocketed the insult...
...Camacho is a professing Catholic and he has considerably relaxed the application of the anti-clerical laws...
...The book abounds with such statements, capped by the assertion that "Stalin's Ural stronghold" is now "the world's greatest bulwark against Hitler...
...or peasant communities, there has been a shift away from the system of big haciendas, or estates, so characteristic of Mexico before 1910...
...More advanced plans, made public in 1923 and 1026, served as the basis for the construction of the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk plants...
...He would have us believe that Stalin, foreseeing the war with Germany many years ago, consciously led the people of the Soviet Union through their terrible trials to prepare this heavy-industry bastion, and that he consciously formulated and embarked upon this policy as early as 1928-1931...
...Other workers in Magnitogorsk also lived mainly in tents or huts...
...the servant came in, placed his hands on my shoulders and put me out of the room...
...The legend, however, is very convenient...
...His father had been Frime 2™*" °f an Indian Stete, and his grand-r^er before him...
...Nor is it true that the Ural-Kuznetsk development was thought of, even in 1928-1930, in terms of an impregnable base in the East...
...Many of the country's internal Priems remain unsolved...
...In the Punjab and Bengal, a revolutionary movement spread and grew...
...Furious at the "insult," he threatened to "proceed" against the Agent—who told him to go ahead...
...It has lost entirely the colonial atmosphere that prevailed under Diaz when .the...
...His brother, who was secretary and adviser to the Rana of Porbandar, had come under the suspicion of the British Political Agent...
...resulted in the death of 400 Indians and nine Europeans, and was preparing the way for civil war...
...On November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia...
...This necessarily had a profound effect on the psychology and moral attitude of the populace...
...OCOTT justifies the enormous cost in human lives of Soviet industrialization with the argument that Stalin foresaw the need for constructing a heavy industry base that would lie outside the reach of any invader...
...This passage reveals the whole of Scott's make-up, the admixture of skepticism' and faith, but in essence always (as he himself put it) only the "observer...
...Scott was fortunate enough to be assigned to one of these, where 80 workers lived under extremely primitive conditions...
...The Soviet Union must have an uninvadable heavy industry base, and must have it immediately, Said the Georgian Bolshevik...
...They included about 18,000 "dekulakized" peasants and about 30,000 penal laborers...
...Full democracy within the Mexican labor movement leaves much to be desired...
...After this bitter experience, Gandhi was glad to accept an offer from an Indian merchant firm (Mehammedan) to go to South Africa...
...was, according to the author, "at least fifty iper cent oandtt"), threw an unprecedented party one night...
...Nevertheless, the conscious transfer of industries to the East for military reasons is a recent phenomenon...
...knowing as we do that a small nation like the Boers is fighting for its very existence, why should we be instrumental in their destruction...
...World Struggle on Three Continents Mexico Camacho's 'Middle Way' Seeks to Stabilize Revolutionary Changes in Mexico By William Henry Chamberlin MEXICO has experienced a more fundamental WEM far-reaching social revolution than any otber Latin American country...
...We cannot choose at this stage our own '•'•nte, or our own birth-place, or our own J^cestry...
...country was largely run by foreign capital and a great proportion of the better paid jobs in industry and transportation were held by foreigners...
...Private property in land has not been destroyed...
...They lived in a community of about 150 modern houses, equipped with Tunning water, central heating and other modern conveniences...
...2—With the transfer of sixty million acres of bind to the ownership of the ejidos...
...It was under pressure of this injustice that Gandhi developed the intense "Nationalism" which was his main acquisition from the West...
...in Mexico the attitude of the Government is important in determining both the number and success of strikes...
...In the Insnab store, residents of Berezki could purchase luxuries, as well as necessities, of which the people of Magnitogorsk could scarcely dream...
...Lasars Cardenas, who has recently been brought into the Cabinet as Minister of Defense Under Cardenas band expropriation was puahed ahead rapidly...
...Mexico is getting airplanes and other modern arms from the United States and the circumstances of global war and virtual isolation from overseas countries has forced the closest kind of Mexican-American economic .cooperation, reflected in the fact that the United States accounted for 91% of Mexico's experts and 84' ? of its imports in 1941...
...only a minority were housed, in wooden barracks...
...Zavenyagin (the Director) himself appeared at the party only at one A. M. but such was the general tenor of relations between these people that neither Shevchenko nor any of his guests began either eating or drinking until the chief appeared...
...Thus a new Stalin legend is bom...
...When the leader Tilak, who had never tried to conciliate the Moslem "foreigners,'* died in 1919, the opportunity was opened to Gandhi to emerge as "leader" of a new unity...
...The most influential organization now is the CTM (Confederacion de Traba-jadores de Mexico), founded by Lombardo Tole-dano, who is the* most influential figure in the Mexican labor movement at the present time, although the leadership of the CTM is in the hands of Fidel Velasquez...
...now this department has about a thousand students...
...Many later described their experiences, but with rare exception these were all books by people who saw Russia/ through foreign eyes...
...India A Profile of Gandhi—Twenty Years In 'Exile' and the Seeds of Nationalism By Harry Paxton Howard "THE law of heredity is an eternal law, and any attempt to alter it must lead to utter j-wrfuaion...
...The manager of the coke and fchemical plant, who was also a member of - the District Party Committee and wore the Ordcf of Lenin (ye...
...It was there that Gandhi met "Jim Crowistn," for there wag bitter discrimination against Indians in hotels, trains, stage-coaches and elsewhere...
...In England, Gandhi urged assistance to the British Government in the World War then beginning, and was influential in the adoption of this policy—in opposition to some who pointed out that the Indians should at least make specific demands in exchange for supporting the war...
...Both categories lived (and perished) for the most part in tents during winters with the temperature dropping to 35 degrees below zero...
...born to serve God's jetton, the Brahmin with his knowledge, the "bstriya with: his power of protection, the Jtishya with his commercial ability, the Shudra hie bodily labor...
...The situation in Mexico, as in the Soviet Union, although not to the same degree, has lees obscured by the amateur observations of jentimentali.ns...
...Gandhi refused to leave, so...
...Changes of per-sonalities and groups, sometimes accompanied wfieience, are familiar enough in the mercurial jjjntries south of the Rio Grande...
...In the first place, it is not correct that the idea of the Ural-Kuznetsk project originated in 1928-1931 when Stalin was already firmly entrenched in power...
...Gandhi and his group, working desperately in their own interests, succeeded in hatting a proposed "Indian march" by inducing laborers to postpone strikes until...
...I la this respect, John Scott's book* is of particular value, litis an unpretentious and honest account of the author's experience while working and living among Soviet toilers ef Magnitogorsk from 1932 to 1938...
...Among these labor provisions were the eight-hour day, the six-day week, double pay for overtime, restrictions, on the labor of women and children, compulsory schooling for workers' children (with the employer furnishing the school building and the Government appointing the teachers...
...He arrived in Moscow, armed with a welder's certificate, credentials from the Metal Work-en' Union, and letters of recommendation...
...This is merely one symptom of the way in which Mexicans, under the new conditions, are taking an increasing part in operating the industries and natural resources of their own country...
...Some Indian leaders pointed out that on the issue of justice, they should oppose any aid to the British in the war: "We are more or lees ? community of slaves...
...However, this three-year preparation for a premiership availed him little...
...Why should we claim as individuals ** right during this present brief life-period 10 break through all the conventions wherein * »re placed at birth by~God himself...
...Director Zaven-yagin's house was a fourteen-room mansion...
...Gandhi returned to India, where he enjoyed cordial relations with the Viceroy and other high British officials, and actively supported recruiting...
...Within a month, it was grimly clear that the Bolsheviks were holding on to power, and that Turkish propaganda was being supplemented by Moscow's appeals to "oppressed peoples," a "people's revolution," and a "people's peace...
...These were the foremen, brigadiers, skilled workers, teachers, doctors and city employees...
...It might be invaded again...
...He has not repudiated the ideas of the Revolution, and he has personally remained on good terms with his former chief, Cardenas...
...President Manuel Avila Camacho is pursuing a much more moderate course...
...His word was law...
...The Agent, however, rejected this attempt to "exploit friendship" as Gandhi himself terms it), and pointed out that his brother would have to "apply through the proper channels...
...the Gandhis had been Prime Ministers »the States of Kathiawar...
...All are...
...The members of the Corrective Labor Camp battalion, on the other hand, lived under armed guard, received virtually no pay and were little better than slave labor...
...Mohandas ("M*-«d»") tells us that his father "had no eduction, save that, of -practical life...
...A temporary unity was obtained at the expense of democracy...
...Hinduism has simply reduced it 10 » science...
...for many years, enjoying the privileges accorded to foreign specialists or foreign journalists...
...But it became advisable for the Indian to leave South Africa, which he did...
...It was beneath him, the son of a Prime Minister, to conciliate the Agent by acknowledging the impropriety of his approach...
...There was no department of chemistry at the National University in Mexico until 1917...
...Gandhi was a leading figure in the Indian community...
...The new times made an education prerequisite, and so he was sent to England to study law...
...Little is left of the unity thus obtained...
...Gandhi, now a recognized leader, agam offered his services to the British and agam served the Empire— though "to hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles exploding like crackers in innocent hamlets, and to live in the midst of them, was a trial...
...But in Mexico there has been a genuine change of social 5Bi and social phychology since the period before 1910, when Porfirio Diaz ruled the county with an iron hand and, as his radical critics "made Mexico safe for everyone but the Xtx icans...
...others lived in 'the artificial little Comintern world, or in the semi-pririleged conditions of foreign workers who flocked to the Soviet Union as a socialist Mecca...
...crowd-the-jails" tactjes of the I.W.W.., and the illiterate Indian workers were thus brought under Gandhi's control and separated from the international labor movement ' In one area after another, the Gandhians induced the Indian laborers to remain at work...
...Foreign specialists disappeared...
Vol. 25 • October 1942 • No. 43
