THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Barnes Examines Our Stand On Soviet Russia Dear Sirs: For some reason, a number of the readers of, and some contributors to, The Progressive, turn to me when they...
...Barries' criticisms appears on page 9. War And Incomes dear sirs: philip henry, in the may 21 issue, raised the question, "have workers cleaned up on the war...
...R. h. harris Detroit, Mich...
...No rationing or inflation controls can alter that hard fact...
...We only contacted the weaker side of a near-corpse and, at that, nearly got our teeth kicked in about last Christmas...
...give a Friend the Truth send him the progressive today Planned Starvation Dear Sirs: At the time of the Quebec Conference it was announced that the United Nations had agreed to a proposal by Mr...
...Had it not been for this, we and the British would have found ourselves in a desperate situation...
...And this can oe defended only by subscribing to the racial superiority doctrine that we so roundly, and deservedly, condemned when upheld by the late Fuehrer...
...At the same time, we should not overlook the cogent fact that there a-e more unfree people under British rule than there are under the dominion of any other half-dozen states in the world today...
...rose andrews nichols Raggedgarden, Blowing Rock, N. c. * * * 'Anti-Russian' Dear Sirs: I have just finished reading your issue of July 16 and am writing to say I am much pleased to see less anti-Russian propaganda than in some former issues...
...If we regard portions of Eastern Asia as areas we must protect, how can we be outraged if Stalin covets portions of Eastern Asia that once belonged to Russia...
...We Americans should not be forgetful of the fact that we built up our great nation by forcibly dispossessing the original and legal occupants and by slaying them as brutally as any conqueror in history...
...We have not suffered directly from any of Deacon Stalin's mendacity, real or alleged, but Winnie's whopper will really "set us back"— to the tune of about 2 million human casualties and half a trillion dollars...
...That was the whole logic back of Churchill's determination to open the Second Front in Italy and the Balkans, which was balked when President Roosevelt sided with Stalin at Teheran and decided that the Second Front should be opened in the West...
...The income of the average worker in the country has been reduced one-third by the war...
...Just how you allowed the silly ravings of Martin Crowe in, I don't know, but I suppose every paper should have a comic page...
...i only ask to say in reply that when clearer economic thinking and better translating of that thinking into intelligible English is done in our time, Stuart Chase will do it...
...As nearly as I can understand what Chase's critics have to say, it is not his ideas that they reject so much as it is the fact that these progressive ideas have not yet been adopted...
...Well, we were informed on the best authority that, for 2 years after Pearl Harbor, Britain received more Lend-Lease materials to repress revolution in India than China received to wage war against Japan...
...but in 1944 the Government was taking about $94 billions of that higher income and burning it up, blowing it up, or sinking it in the ocean...
...Chase's exciting program for a compensatory economy...
...in 1944 it was about $150 billions...
...james W. mccrea Carrington, n. d. t * t Agrees With Plath Dear Sirs: I want to commend heartily the stand taken by A. J. Plath in his letter in the July 2 issue...
...That is their privilege, of course...
...Lehman has recently confirmed that decision, saying no provision had been made for shipments of food to Germany and none would be sent...
...They have not voted for or adopted one single piece of law or legislation that has been of any benefit to the 130 million or more common people of this country...
...THE CRITICS of Soviet Russia assail Stalin for aiding or favoring the Chinese Communists...
...but the government could not produce income...
...It would seem to me that the main guilt and the chief weakness in your recent comments on Russia are that, in your writing about Russia in the world situation, you adopt the same unilateral policy that you criticize Russia so sharply for using in worlj politics...
...Any Russian atrocities in these areas I regret and condemn as severely as any other civilized person...
...Let's not follow any false Messiah...
...I knoiv of no Polish statesman in history who can urpass him in ability, courage, or evotion...
...now, mr...
...It is well to recall that Russia did not want to fight Germany...
...especially do I recall Milton Mayer's remarkable article: "We Must Lick Churchill Too...
...Since my ancestors all arrived here before 1650, they presumably participated in the process for 2 centuries and gloated over their accomplishments...
...The 3 votes for Soviet Russia in the new "world security" organization have come in for much criticism...
...But Russia has good reason for this attitude...
...Recently, it has been alleged that Russia has been using Lend-Lease goods, especially food stuffs, to force Balkan countries into line with Russian policy...
...3. The Communistic element that is using the condition we are under and in, because of the other 2, to get their dirty un-American, un-democratie dictatorship system over in this country as they have in Europe and Asia...
...chilberg's letter of june 25 attacking william henry chamberlin, i should like to say: no, mr...
...I have been reluctant to do this, but the editorial "Last Column" in the issue of May 28, and some later comments in your paper would appear to call for an amiable rejoinder...
...Roosevelt denounced | Russia as bitterly as Nazi Germany ; until June 22, 1941...
...What these blind, fuming, stewing zealots for Communism fail to comprehend is that the same people or kind of people they kick ^fut as ! capitalists or oppressors are the very same kind of people who slip into places of power and control in Communism where they continue the same old injustices...
...Just so long as war spending continues, the real income and the standard of living of the American worker and his family must continue to go down, down, down...
...Hardly had we destroyed Hitler's regime and reduced Germany to chaos, outside the Russian area of occupation, before conservative Americans and British Tories began deploring this situation, warning that Bolshevism would seep into the vacuum, and blaming Russia for this sad state of affairs...
...It has already brought a number of prominent "Isolationist" Senators into the camp of violent Russia-baiters...
...i am against military conscription without a vote of all the citizens...
...that is probably quite true...
...Britain, like Russia, is struggling for survival and dominion, and, in the current state of world politics, is justified in using any means at her disposal...
...in 1939, the American national income was about $75 billions...
...Stalin maintains that they are guilty men, and most of them have confessed their guilt...
...His books in the postwar series have been extraordinarily fine, and The Progressive is to be congratulated for pushing its circulation among its subscribers...
...james mahoney south hanover, mass...
...Indeed, Hitler had nothing but lyrical praise for the dominion of "Aryan" Britain over the black and brown races...
...that is war...
...and that, if Bolshevism thieatens Europe, this is only the end product of the policies of Messrs...
...We will do well to bear this in mind in these days when we are celebrating our victory in Europe...
...he is getting more money in his pay envelope but he has less to live on...
...it only continued inflation...
...Injustice is injustice no matter what system it is under, what country it is in, or what church or system blesses it...
...We have given ten-fold, perhaps a hundred-fold, more aid to the Kuomintang Government than Stalin has given so far to the Chinese Communist regime...
...Roosevelt...
...Further, Britain has entered where she could—in Greece and Italy — and she sought entry into Yugoslavia...
...they were in the position of a man who has been getting $75 a month, has his salary raised to $150 but has a monthly hospital bill for his wife of $94 a month...
...While I used to have a lot of faith in The Progressive, for several months I have been so disgusted...
...Russia's diplomatic campaign to get the Straits, engineered by Izvolski, was the chief cause of the First World War...
...The hypocrisy we had in the last 3 2 or 13 years has been a disgrace to any intelligent American...
...By and large wage-workers have not taken as heavy cuts as other groups, such as professional, white collar, custodial, and service workers...
...Then, we will not be tackling the weaker half of a near-corpse...
...Russia's insistence upon vetoing the use of force against a major nation has been especially criticized...
...Of late, several of them have urged me to write something in protest against what one of your most distinguished contributors has called, in a recent letter to me, your "extreme Russophobia...
...chamberlin did not "hang himself", mr...
...Our S10,000-a-year- men in Washington have sold us down the sewer to the greedy war mongers and parasites of this country...
...For the Allied governments to demand Unconditional Surrender and then fail to do anything more than concern themselves with the comfort and convenience of occupying forces, looks to me like deliberately planned starvation of German civilians...
...LATELY, we have used every de vice "short of war" to bully the Argentine into setting up a puppe government favorable to our inter national ideology...
...Wasn't the Communist Party sitting on the throne like a tyrant whipping the i hordes of poor, ignorant Russians into oppression and injustice...
...the people of the nation had only about $55 billions for themselves, a cut of about a third...
...The straits may be indispensable to Russia, but without insisting upon the justice of her claims, it is certain that it would be an extremely wise move to give Russia the Straits for good and all, on which she has a far more logical and proximate claim than Britain l.as for maintaining her hold on Gibraltar, and to remove this perennial threat to the peace of Europe...
...the question is whether american workers are going to repeat the same mistake after this war...
...who dares even to whisper a word in criticism of "holy" russia without being immediately stigmatized as a nazi, capitalist, and other names carrying the barbs of hate and feeling...
...Finally, Russia knows the great power and resources of Anglo-American propaganda, which would make it easy for the United States and Britain t» line up "the family of nations" against Russia in any great international crisis...
...The Russians fought solely because they were attacked...
...no one can criticize that difference up to a given point...
...Certainly, Russian domirration of these areas is more defensible than British control, but the British sought to occupy and dominate these countries...
...She ; knows that Mr...
...after the last world war the standard of living of the german people had been lowered from that of 1914 to that of 1870...
...The Straits caused the Crimean War, and would have caused war in 1878, had Russia not backed down and consented to the revision of the Treaty of San Stefano...
...This issue, of July 16, however, is more encouraging...
...I hope that she will not succeed in so doing, provided she wishes to do so...
...And even if we have forgotten that fact, they have not forgotten that they had Germany licked at Stalingrad before our aid to Russia became of any decisive significance...
...Among those held in prison was Pandit Jawarhalal Nehru, perhaps the ablest and noblest public character of our day...
...But Stalin showed great restraint in not asking for 16 votes, which would have been as defensible as permitting the several British dominions to have separate votes...
...reading his letter causes me to wonder how folks who never were in russia and haven't the faintest first-hand knowledge of that country pretend to be such infallible authorities...
...Roosevelt that relief food sent to Europe would apply only to displaced persons...
...It is individual Americans who are paying the war bill...
...American critics of Soviet Russia row fall into the same Pharisaic attitude that the late President Roosevelt did in lecturing foreign nations on political and diplomatic ethics...
...Russia is surely seeking to gain a dominant position in Central Eujh rope and the Balkans...
...She knows that the reason why Hitler attacked Russia was that Churchill and Roosevelt would not give him peace after Dunkirk, and that Churchill and Roosevelt put their personal political ambitions ahead of the integrity and safety of Soviet Russia...
...Likewise, even if we took the most sour conceivable view of the Lublin Government in Poland, it was surely more representative of the Polish people than the representative of India at the San Francisco Conference was of the Indian people...
...When they chose war consumption of guns and tanks they gave up civilian consumption of clothes and houses...
...It would require a brave ran, indeed a brazen man, if inarmed and impartial, to declare "'inston Churchill his equal...
...philip steinman San Diego, Calif...
...It is perfectly correct for you to tell the full truth about the misdeeds of Russia and to point out any deviations from professed principles in practical policy...
...Wasn't Stalin a more "terrible" czar than old Ivan...
...That is not necessarily unjust...
...Let's give him full examination and test him before selling out our birthright...
...once emma Goldman swore bloody murder by her omnipotent goddess russia—off with the head of anybody even remotely having the appearance of criticism in his eye—but she did pay her blessed deity a visit once...
...It is an immoral act without precedent in the annals of American history...
...For every person who has suffered a smaller cut than that, another worker has had to take a larger one...
...But you should not concentrate on the offenses of Russia, thereby implying that the other members of the Big S are "lily white" and without guile...
...She knows that Britain planned her destruction from 1935 to 1939...
...We do not know precisely what promises Stalin made, but suppose that we accept all of the most extreme charges made against Stalin on this score, put them all together, and then multiply them by 10...
...For this^she has good reason, since these court1 tries lie on her very borders and their domination by any other powerful state would be a menace to Russian security...
...I have been . very much discouraged at the amount of propaganda being spread in this country through the newspapers by certain interests to build the people up to a mood to want war with Russia...
...If we insist upon the necessity of having puppet governments in far-off Buenos Aires and Chungking, then we can hardly condemn Deacon Stalin for wishing puppet governments in Bucharest, Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Warsaw, which are veritably right under his nose...
...It is estimated that the British are currently imprisoning some 50,000 Indian leaders, hundreds of them admittedly of saintly character and having as their only offense the same desire for national independence that assumedly dominates the arrested Poles...
...They are: 1. the uncontrolled, undemocratic, capitalist monopoly system...
...The most important issue at stake for Americans is the fact that our objectivity in Russo-Biitish squabbles, current and future, is our only guaranty against being involved in a third World War within a decade...
...While we are rightfully appalled by the starvation of people at the hands of Russia and Germany, we should not overlook the starvation or near-starvation and the acute suffering of millions of Europeans for years because of Churchill's steadfast refusal since 1940 to let the Red Cross or the Friends feed the occupied peoples, a policy that has aroused the ire of distinguished Americans, including Herbert Hoover and Mrs...
...The Germans always kept the bulk of their forces on the Eastern Front...
...A great hullabaloo has been raised because Stalin arrested 16 Polish leaders...
...All the 2,400,000 families in the country with higher incomes added together do not have one-tenth of the power that government has to cause inflation...
...Our policy of Unconditional Surrender has deprived the German people of a provisional government with the duty of collecting and distributing equally whatever may be available of foodstuffs, making jobs, some kind of shelter for homeless millions...
...his answer left out some important issues for postwar policy...
...Harry Elmer Barnes Cooperstown, N. Y. EDITOR'S NOTE: A comment on Mr...
...Instead they knifed them in the back and sold them out to the greedy clique which has been allowed to rob, swindle, and plunder the people and nation to a point where about 95 per cent of wealth has been gobbled up by a few...
...We were told we could have guns and butter, but there never was a moment's excuse for believing it...
...Certainly I know of no better way of leading America along a path of democracy and progressivism, shunning totalitarianism, whether the fascist type of the right or the communist type of the left, than by acting on Mr...
...You can look at their record in the last 20 or 25 years...
...Indeed, there is reason to believe that Churchill coyly let the poor nitwit, Adolf, believe that he might help him rub out the Russian Bear...
...chamberlin, who has lived there for many years and visited frequently, doesn't know anything about it according to a lot of folks whose prejudices, passions, feelings, and self-love overleap all sound sense and reason...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Barnes Examines Our Stand On Soviet Russia Dear Sirs: For some reason, a number of the readers of, and some contributors to, The Progressive, turn to me when they wish to get an objective interpretation of Russia in world affairs...
...In this war, the worst suffering from hunger has been due to Churchill's ban on feeding starving peoples...
...As I understand it, she found out that Russia, yea this beautiful bluebird of Communism, was not Utopia and that cruelty, inhumanity, and injustice prevailed more intensively than ever...
...lottie B. hastings Los Angeles, Calif...
...and lo and behold, she was changed...
...that is quite untrue...
...My only aim is to indicate that, surely, what is sauce for the British goose is sauce for the Soviet gander...
...clarence pederson Seattle, Wash...
...The standard of living of the American family will certainly be much lower than in 1941...
...2. The corrupt, rotten political system that has betrayed, sold out and double crossed the 130 million common people of this country...
...If we get into such a war, the losses in men and materials will make our participation in this war seem a picnic by comparison...
...that the Russians did not bomb the German cities into ruins...
...But if she does, would that be any more reprehensible than the British re-occupation of Hong Kong...
...Roosevelt and Churchill, an outcome which was not difficult for any discerning person to predict, once Stalin turned the tide against the Wehr-macht...
...Great horror is expressed over the fact that Stalin has not strictly honored all his promises, such as liberalizing the Lublin Government...
...Rob's Masterpiece Dear Sirs: 1 have just written a congratulatory letter to Sen...
...Well, we have aided, favored, subsidized, and armed the Chinese Kuomintang Government for some years...
...But we should not be unmindful of the fact that some 6,000,000 persons in India are reported to have starved in the last year or so...
...Any suffering from hunger in German prison camps has been trivial compared to this...
...Chase's Progressivism Dear Sirs: I note that several readers of The Progressive have taken pot-shots at Stuart Chase of late...
...While I enjoy reading The Progressive for the most part, I would not aid in extending the circulation of any paper or magazine advertising agnostic or atheistic literature...
...then he adds that "their plight is the result...
...the german workers refused to believe they had destroyed their own standard of living, and turned on the employers, asking the government to help them...
...It is probably true that millions of Americans are undernourished, but it is the diversion of more than half our national income to war goods which explains it...
...Whatever its other virtues, Soviet Russia can boast of no greater libertarianism than Hitlerite Germany...
...But, when you are criticizing Russia, you rarely recall such criticisms to the minds of your readers...
...This has all happened in a few short years...
...She remembers Churchill's ! touching tribute to Fascist leaders j for having saved Europe from the I "foul baboonery of Leninism," his j eulogies of Mussolini, and his pleas-j, ant impressions of Hitler...
...And, if we asser' that remote Eastern Asia is an are: of "national interest" for us, we can hardly blame Russia for regarding the neighboring Balkans, or even Manchuria, as an area of vital Russian interest...
...of inflation...
...Settling the Straits question would do far more than the San Francisco Conference to safeguard the peace of the world...
...There are 3 enemies in our country who should be dealt with as dangerous criminals...
...We must remember that this statement was made long before Germany attacked Russia and when the whole British Army, however well tooled, could not have mopped up a dozen crack German divisions...
...There is considerable excitement over Russia's demand for control over the Straits leading out of the Black Sea...
...There is hardly a more lunatic kind of nonsense than this which says that capitalism is the cause of all our evils...
...john regenald Portland, Ore...
...Robert M. La Pollette on the masterpiece "The Democratic Way to Enduring Peace" in The Progressive of June 25...
...I am not one of those who wishes to sell what little liberty and freedom we have in America down the river merely to please the selfish whims, the narrow prejudices, the unmeasured zeal of a few cranks or deluded dreamers...
...We are indignant over the rumor that Russia may assert a dominant position in Korea...
...when the war is over the people of the United States will have burned up or blown up or sunk $300 billions of real wealth...
...None of the foregoing should be regarded as anti-British...
...that the "Commies" did their best to keep America out of the war...
...Moreover, when we jump on the Russians for setting up puppet governments, we should not fail to remember the government we set up in Panama when we wished to dig the Canal or the intervention of our armed forces to support our imperialism in numerous countries of the West Indies and Central America...
...But the proper basis of comparison is not whether wage workers are getting less than in January, 1941, but whether their cut has been more or less than the base line of at least 33 per cent...
...I have burned my copies instead of passing them on to others as I used to do because I thought the newspapers are doing damage enough...
...edna lonigan new paltz, n. y. * * * Stalin Stooges dear sirs: i am glad to see the progressive refused to join the Daily Worker and other communist 5th column sheets even though you lose a few stalin stooges...
...It was admittedly silly to claim, as many currently bitter critics of Russia were doing only a few short months ago, that Soviet Russia is a country that has been doing battle to the death for civil liberties and free speech...
...In the First World " War, the worst atrocity was the British blockade of Germany for eight months after the Armistice...
...But let us assume that they are both clearly innocent and men of saintly character...
...chilberg did that...
...I do not overlook the fact that you have criticized the weaknesses and crimes of the Roosevelt-Churchill policies...
...pass the progressive along Injustice In Russia dear sirs: in reply to mr...
...they have the more variable incomes, deeper cuts in depression, higher gains in booms...
...henry said that millions of American workers are "living in a deficit," borrowing money to keep going...
...renew your subscription today Enemies In This Country Dear Sirs: After looking at the trend we have been going through and the road we are traveling on, we should, as a people, organize and unite in the one common effort of making this country safe for Americans and America safe for democracy...
...STALIN has been bitterly criti-) cized for having starved, executed, or transported thousands in the Baltic States and the Balkans...
...They can not spend $94 billions on goods to be destroyed, and have it to spend on shoes and steaks...
...Would all of the mendacity of which Stalin is alleged to be guilty, raised tenfold, even faintly approximate Winnie's whopper: "Give us the tools and we will finish them off...
...that Russia, despite great shortages at home, is treating the Germans better than the English, Americmis, and French are treating them...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 31
