EES SOE et Ea mnt

PEOPLE’S

ADVOCATE

July 16, 1937

WN his book “Mein Kampf”

Herr Hitler constantly
points out that Eastern Eu-
rope is the most favorable
field for Germanic expan-
sion, and since 1933 the
Nazis have taken this as a
guiding principle for their
fereign policy.

The advantages of such a policy
are obvious. By concentrating in
the Hast, Germany does not direct-
ly antagonize French and British
Imperialist interests. By pushing
eastward towards Soviet Ukraine
she can proclaim herself to be the
pulwark of capitalist civilization
against the “Red Menace.”

The agricultural and mineral
wealth of the Danube valley is
today just as tempting to the
Wazis as it was to the pre-war
German imperialists.

The main task of Nazi policy
has been to break up the French
system of alliances—with Poland,
with the Little Entente, and with
the Balkan Pact—which has been
the centre of support for collective
security and the League of WNa-
tions. Till this system of alliance
was broken, no serious expansion
was possible for Germany-

*

Mee first method employed by
the Nazis was that of simple
terrorism, aS in the murders of
Dollfuss and of Duca, the Rumani-
an Prime Minister; but it soon be-
came clear that these moral
“storm-troop” tactics would have
- to be supplemented by diplomatic

penetration.

In this they were greatly helped
by the fact that, with the excep-
tion of Czechoslovakia, all these
Eastern states-are ruled by semi-
Fascist authoritarian dictator—
ships, and that each of these gov-
ernments contains groups which
would rather sell their country to
a Fascist Germany than form an
alliance with a Popular Front
France or with the Soviet Union.

By means of economic pressure,
open terrorism, bribery, and the
dispensing of subsidies, these pro-
Fascist froups have been enabled
by Germany to gain control of
foreign policy ,and to swing their
countries into the orbit of Wazi
influence.

In Poland it was necessary for
Germany to renounce her claims
to the Corridor (at least on paper)
and to exploit Polish hostility to
fhe Soviet Union, before the pro-
Fascist Colonel Beck was able to
move Poland away from the tradi—
{ional Hirench alliance.

In Rumania stronger methods
were used, involving several mur-
ders by the Fascist Iron Guard,
and the anti-Semitic Gogo-Cuza
group, before it was possible to
get rid of the Francophile M.
Titulescu, and thus separate Ru-
mania from her Little Entente
allies.

In Jugoslavia the Ljotitch Fas-
cist bands were subsidized, but
fhe main weapon employed was
that of economic blackmail. Dr.
Schacht’s clever technique of ac-
cumulating frozen credits’ in Ber-
jin, and then refusing to liquidate
them except by increasing the ex-
port of German goods — often
armaments—has been especially
successful in the case of Jugo-
slavia, where all the old construc-
tion jobs (canal, bridge and road
works) have been transferred
from French to German firms,
and where Krupps are n0w Te
pbuilding the huge Zenica. arms
factory. ;

Use was also made of the strong
White Russian colony in Belgrade,
which still has close contacts with
the group of General Zivkovitch,

Up th

HE trench line along the
Sierra de Almaden was
busy with activity as the
men of the International] Bri-
gade worked to improve their
position. Far below them
they could see minute dots on
the landscape working their
way Slowly forward amid little”
puffs of smoke from bursting six
inch shells. In another hour the
advance guard of Italian Frascism
would be within long rifle range
of their hastily constructed
trenches. The decisive battle for
possession of the rich Almaden
mercury mines would be fought
on the morrow.

Somewhere along the trenches a
rich Ivish brogue was heard sing-
ins: “Wrap the green flag around
me.’ Almost immediately, the song
echoed back from the mountain
peaks behind them as men from
Mayo, Kildare, Dublin, Belfast,
Limerick and almost every other
Irish county joined in the air. The
James Connolly battalion, van-
esuard of Irish democracy, held the
key position covering the pass to
the lowlands toward which the
Fascist thrust was directed.

Suddenly the rumor spread:
“phe O'Duffy’s are below.” The
sone stopped immediately as the
men fathered together in little
clusters to discuss this news. They,
jad fought in the Gaudarramas,
in University City, at Guadale-
jara and on the Jarama front.
But nowhere had they been in con-

tact with men of the Trish Chris-
tian Front under General O'Dutty
who had come to Spain “to defend
the faith.”

Many an Irish Republican Army
veteran slept that night with his
rifle butt for a pillow and a grim
smile on his lips. Half of them
had served time under QO’ Duffy's
warders and had entered the in-
human regime of Mountjoy Prison
in Dublin for the crime of advocat-
ing complete independence for
Treland.

the right-hand man of the mur-
dered King Alexander. The
strength of this influence is shown
by the fact that Jugoslavia is one
of the four states left in Europe
which has not yet recognized the
Soviet government. The WNazis
also found a strong supporter in
Dr. Anton Koroschetz, head of the
Slovenian Clerical Party, Minister
of the Interior, and a fanatical
opponent of the French Popular
Front.

*

WN Hungary and Bulgaria the
task of the Nazis was easier,
for these two revisionist states
were naturally attracted by the ex-
ample of a Germany which had
violated so many of the Versailles
stipulations with success and im-

punity.

Moreover, in the case of Bul-
garia, German economic pressure
has reached fantastic proportions.
In the early months of this year
Germany was taking 53 per cent
of all Bulgarian exports and sup-
plying as much as 69 per cent of
all Her imports. |

Germany is thus:in a position,
without much loss to herself, to

. dislocate the whole foreign trade

of Bulgaria at any minute—a very
strong bargaining weapon.

In Austria the task of penetra-
tion was made more difficult as a
result of the reaction following
the Dollfuss murder and, despite

been reached if the governments
of Great Britain and France had
strongly exerted their influence
on the side of peace. But the gov-
ernments of the democratic coun-
tries have continually refused to
face up to the Pascist offensive
in Eastern Europe.

The policy of “non-intervention”’
in Spain, and the approval of
Belgian neutrality are calculated
to throw these small countries
into the hands of Germany. And
in his notorious Leamington
speech Mr. Eden admitted by im-
plication that the National gov-
ernment would not impede an at
tack by Germany upon G€zecho-
slovakia.

Believing that they will receive
no support from the West if they
are attacked by the Nazis, these
countries have been forced to
adopt the expedient of buying off
Germany with concession after
concession.

Tt is only against this back-
ground of vacillation and retreat
en the part of the democratic

powers that the German offensive ~

has been able to proceed.

Waving gained this much, Ger-
many is DOW attempting the sec-
ond stage of her campaign—the
organization of a bloc of a re-
actionary vassal states under her
own leadership. She has already
had considerable success.

The agreement of July i1 with

Will Czechoslovakia be the next vic-
tim? While Nazis wipe out whole popu-
lations in Spain to obtain the rich mines
in the Basque provinces—in which, in=
cidentally, British capital has a domin-
ant interest—they cast covetous eyes to
the East—to Czechoslovakia and the
prosperous Soviet Ukraine.

strong economic and political
pressure, little headway was made
till the end of 1935, when it be-
came clear that, as Italian inter-
est became concentrated on Abys-
sinia, her influence in Vienna was
declining.

The first sign of the swing-over
of Austria from an Italian to a
German orientation was seen in
the fall of Starhemberg, and this
change was finally consolidated in
July, 1936, when Schuschnigg an-
nounced that Austria was a Ger-
manic country.

Since this time it has been in-
creasingly evident that in relation
to Austria it is the Northern pole
of the BerlinsRome exis which is
decisive.

Only in Czechoslovakia have
German efforts so far proved
abortive. The activity of the sub-
sidized Henlein Fascists in the
Sudeten areas has so far only
served to consolidate the demo-
cratic parties more strongly round
the French and Soviet alliances as
the only remaining barrier to
German invasion.

i@ js impossible to deny that as
a result of these persistent
and varied methods of penetra-
tion, Germany has gained a great
many of her original aims, and is
now in a dominating position in
Fastern Hurope-

The Little Entente hardly exists
any longer except in name; the
Balkan Pact—its southern coun-
terpart—is in no better position;
French influence has been reduced
to vanishing-point; and Czecho-
slovakia has been practically iso-
lated.

This position could never have

AG dawn when the order came
to go over the top, the Irish
moved forward. Let Frank Ryan,
commandant of the Connolly bat-
talion, tell of it:

“wyhen the order came to £0
over you should have seen our jJads
charge shouting the old war cry
‘Up The Republic” But we found
nary an Irishman in the opposite
trenches. Mostly they were Ttal-
jans who broke and ran as soon

as our lads’ cries reached their
ears. We found out later that
O'Duffy's men (since returned

home) were mostly doing police
work back in Salamanca.”
KK

Ryan and O'Duffy are the two
Irishmen who have taken leading
positions in their homeland on the
Spanish issue. Early, Ryan organ-
ized a group of Irmsh Republican
Army veterans in extreme secrecy
and sailed for Spain against the
overwhelming opposition of

the

Tatly, together with the Rome
Protocols, already links Germany,
Italy, Austria and Hungary into a
fourfold alliance. By her recent
pact with Italy, Jugoslavia has
now virtually joined this bloc, and
the Jugoslav - Bulgarian Pact,
signed last Hebruary, continues
this claim eastwards.

With the Naziphile Colonel Beck
in charge at Warsaw, it is certain
that Polish policy will follow Ger-
man lines, and it is now clear that
during his recent visit to Bucha-
rest Beck attempted to draw Ru-
mania finally away from France
into the German orbit.

*

iE appears, then, that if the stage
is very nearly set for the third
task — the dismemberment of
Gzechoslovakia, either by war or
by the threat of war. Will it be
possible to avert this? Is there
still time?

There can be no question that
there is still time, if only it is
properly used. A superficial survey
of the diplomatic moves jin Bastern
Europe gives an impression of
hopeless corruption, cynicism and
indifference to the questions of
war and peace.

But a glance at the populations
of the various countries gives 2
very different picture.

Wherever the peoples of Eastern
Burope—as distinct from their
governments—hbave been given the
opportunity of making their voice
heard, they have always issued a
call against Nazi intrigue, against
war, and for collective security.

In Poland when General Goer-
ing arrives in Warsaw he cannot
appear in public for fear of a pop-

Irish press. Sometime later O' Duf-
fy announced the formation of the
Irish Christian Front army for the
“defense of the faith’? in Spain.

The entire reactionary press,
Lombard Murphy's “Independent”
leading, was open to O'Duffy.

Funds came pouring in. His well
equipped detachment sailed for
Spain and landed in the north.
While Ryan's men were fighting
on all fronts, O'Duffy's band con-
tented itself with policing Sala-
manca and fighting Moorish, Ital-
jan and Spanish allies in Sala-
manca bar-rooms. Ryan was in-
valided home in April to recuper-
ate from a wound received on the
Jarama front. He has since re-
turned to Spain where he again as-
sumed command of the Connolly
battalion. O'Duffy and his men
recently reached Dublin without
having endured more than a series
of bar-room brawls.

Frank Ryan is today a symbol

ORIN

Scene in Lemona, one

%)

SSS

of the Basque towns destroyed by Italian
and German Fascists, in their attempt to crush

Spanish liberties,

itler Looks Eastward

ular counter-demonstration, and
yet when General Gamelin from
democratic France arrives he is
greeted with a public ovation.

In the key town of Lodz the
government received a smashing
defeat in the recent municipal
elections—the only partially-free
elections allowed in Poland.

In Jugoslavia the arrival of
President Benes from Prague is
made the occasion for a huge
mass demonstration in favor of
the Little Entente and against the
government policy.

In Austria’ a football match is
employed as a vehicle to express
the popular hatred of Fascism.

In Bulgaria the totalitarian gov-
ernment trade unions have to be
dissolved because they call for
closer relations with the Soviet
Union.

*

Ale it is not only the great

mass of the common people
of these countries who are in favor
of a true peace policy. Many sec-
tions of the government parties
themselves feel uneasy at the way
in which their leaders are pre-
pared to sell out their national in-
terests in order to satisfy German
demands.

In Poland there is strong oppo-
sition to the fact that Colonel
Beck is ready to act as a special
agent of Hitler while Germany is
trampling under foot all Polish
rights in Danzig and continuing to
foment irredentist agitation in
Upper Silesia.

In Rumania many influential
figures have pointed the moral of
the Treaty of Bucharest imposed
by Germany in 1917, and have de-
manded the recall of Titulescu and
the revival of a close entente with
France.

In Jugoslavia it has been very
difficult for the government to
convince its supporters that in the
recent pact Italy has really re-
nounced all her territorial ambi-
tions in Albania and along the
Dalmatian coastline, while in Au-
stria the recent series of diplo-
qaatic visits has shown that
Schuschnigg himself has become
uneasy at the extent to which Ger-
many dominates Italian foreign
policy.

W fact, there can be no question

that, if the objective conditions
were adequately exploited, those
forces fighting for peace and
against Fascism would be able to
triumph in Eastern Hurope.

Wone of these states has willing-
ly joined the Berlin-Rome forma-
tion. They have only been pushed
into this position because there
seems to be no other way of as-
suring themselves against Nazi
aggression.

Two conditions alone are neces-
sary to bring them back within
the system of collective security.

The first is that the growing
peace forces in opposition in each
country should finally unite them-
selves into a single movement
working for the common aim of
re-establishing democracy and re-
turning to a policy of peace.

The second condition is that the
two governments of France and
Great Britain, to which these na-
tions look, should without delay
be forced to adopt a policy, prim-
arily in Spain but also in Hurope
as a whole, that holds out to these
small states the assurance of ade-
quate collective support against
the menace of Nazi invasion.

Only if we are successful in
changing the policy of “non-inter-
vention,” of “limited commit-
ments” and of “localized war” as
at present operated by the British
national government, will the
peace of Eastern Burope be saved.

ec Republic By Patrick Murray

of the Ireland of the future. He
is in his middle thirties and has
fought Since his late {eens in the
ranks of the Irish Republican
Army. He is the one IRA veteran
whom Scotland Yard compliments
with a shadow on. his infrequent
trips through England, Since 1917
he was the editor of “An Phob-
Jacht” (Zhe Republic), which has
been suppresed by the ree State
government. His Jeadinge role in
the fight for Irish independence
brought him a half dozen prison
terms, the latest of which ended
in 1932 with the accession of the
De Walera government to office
and the proclamation of a gen-
eral amnesty for political prison-

ers.
x

ODAY, he has realized the in-
timate connection between the
Jrish struggle for complete inde-
pendence and the world struggle
against Fascism as earried on by
Father Michael O'Flanagan,
among others. Writing from Al-
pacete, he expressed it as follows:
‘We have got to let the world

iknow that the lives of Conroy,
Ryan, Boyle and all the other
Trish lads now buried in Spain

have not beén wasted, that their
deaths are not tragedies. Honor
for those who died for the free-
dom of all humanity. They could
have remained home and been re-
garded as ‘soldiers of Ireland.’ In-
stead they came here bacause they
believed it was their duty to do
so. They came here asking neither
pay nor preferment, coming to
participate in this decisive fight
against Fascism. And for my part,
while it woud be wrong to accuse
me of bringing them here I would
never regret having done so- Our
50,000 who died in the World War
were sacrificed uselessly. No life
given here is given in vain. Look
at it from a purely selfish view-
point—which is better—that some
of us Should die here, (or that
thousands should die at home? For
if Fascism triumps here, Treland’s
trial will soon be at hand.”

& =

Statesmen of the Little Entente—Premier Stoja dinovitch (Jugo-Slavia), Foretgn Minister Antonescu

(Rumania), Premier Hedza (Gzecho-Slovalia), Premier Tatarescu—meet on a river steamer to discuss

mutual problems.

They Guard The Frontier

FEW days ago a border

guard on the western
frontier stopped a man act-
ing rather
questioned him, discovered
he was a Trotskyist Fascist
spy trying to get out of the
Soviet Union. Formerly he
worked in a Soviet institu-
tion. Now he was on his way
to report the results of his espion-
age to a certain foreign power.
He confessed he had been in-
structed to report to Trotsky for
further instructions—but this is
one report the Trotsky Fascists
will not get.

This is one of the incidents that
zo to make life on the vast Soviet
porders intensely exciting- The
frontier lives a restless but Silent

life. Here and there, over the :
snow, over the leaves, over the
boss, stretches an enemy trail.

dere and there signals are given
— flashes, sounds—showing an at-
tempt to cross the frontier.

_ rom time to time people seek-
ing refuge, people fleeing from
oppression and unemployment in
other lands, try to come over the
Soviet border.

Sometimes among them are
people dressed in ragged sheep-
skin coats to make them look like
farm hands, disguising the figure
of a trained foreign Spy.

In the darkness of the night, in
the snow drift in the twilight, in
the blizzard, what does the border
suard see before him? He does not
stand at the border post.

We lies on the snow, the icy
winds blowing over him. He
freezes heroically in the marsh,
hidden from sight. In addition to
his rifle, he has a number of
technical instruments, € lever,
yaried, Sensitive as a heart and
vigilant aS nerves.

We has good helpers. First of
them, the most jmportant, are
peaceful people, peasants, workers,
intellectuals, old men and children,
who live in the border district and
feel themselves to be the border
fighters of Socialism,

By Ben Francis

suspiciously, ©

66FT is the duty of every
citizen of the USSE

to safeguard and fortify
public Socialist property as
the sacred and inviolable
foundation of the Soviet
System, as the source of
wealth and might of the
country, as the source of the
prosperous and cultural life
of all the toilers. — :
“Persons attempting to
infringe upon public, S0-
cialist property are enemues
of the people.” (Article 131.

Constitution of the USSE M2

Fees a party visited this
Soviet western frontier and on
their return gave 2 eraphie pic-
ture of how the people living near
the border help the porder guards.

Ivan Grigorovich, 64 years old,
Jeft His work as a farm Jaborer
to become a railway watchman,
and for 16 years walked the first
few miles of track beginning at
the arch on the frontier. Unarmed,
old, illiterate, he has detained in
recent years 20 people who haye
erossed the frontier:

He walked up to people armed
with bombs and revolvers: - He
talked to them in yarious Wways—
with some of them directly and
with some cautionsly, with the
slyness of a White Russian, stcok-
ing his heavy drooping mustache. —

He crept over the Snow, he hid
in the darkness, he seized people
by the collar, but he also knew
how to give them milk ‘to drink,
amuse them, feed them and keep
them interested until help arrived
—until his wife, leaving her three
ehildren, had rushed to the near
est border post. :

Once a Man came Up to him
and asked: Where am 12”

«qn Latvia, my dear fellow, in
Latvia,’ replied the old man read-
ily, looking over the guest. “Come
along, I will take you to a soldier

if you want.’ And he took him to
the border post.

Be why talk about old men?
Vanda Laskevich, a 12-year-old
pupil in the fourth class at Ple-
shitsky, noticed a suspicious per-
son hiding in her relative’s house.
She was-told to say nothing, and
they threatened her with an axe-
Vanda Laskevich is a Pioneer.
She was not afraid of threats and
helped to expose her relative, who
was an agent of a foreign-intelli-
gence Service.

A schoolboy, Kiuchnikov, of the
some age, from the viliage of
Rogovo, saw a man hiding in the
pushes. There was not another
man to be seen in the fields. He
shouted to the women, Anna Diba
and Maria Malechis, arrested 2
fugitive officer and spy-

Qnce the collective farmers de-
tained some men in Red Army
uniform. They did not like the
men’s boots. They did not seem
right. The collective farmers were
not mistaken. -

Such episodes are not rare where
the villages stand right at the
frontier.

A spy who had crept over the
border offered money to Anna
Bobovich from the “Pive-Year-
Plan’ collective farm. “Stand off,”

she shouted. “I am a Soviet
woman!” —
She seized him by the collar

and took him to the proper place.
When he was questioned, he said:
“7 have been travelling for 13
days and have come through sev-
eral countries. IT was not stopped
anywhere, but I had hardly got
into the USSR when a woman de-
tained me. I feel insulted.”
People abroad do not know the

“Soviet women. They do not know '

Feodora Koshman from the “Red
Homestead” collective farm, who,
on seeing people crossing the ‘or-
der, went up to them with an axe,
arrested them and marched them
to the border post. :

They do not know tha if an
alarm is sounded, the population
of the border villages rise aS one
person.

OLD DIARY LEAVES

“How shall we tell, if so we live to tell

in a new world, our children at our knees,
this saga of old fears, and high emprise
when youth was eager aS a questing flame,
as clear and bright, to light a life that

seemed

By Peter Warren

it ran?”

a mist of doubt and terror, clamped between

a floor of mud and crosses and an arch
rumbling death?”

of whining,

7 t 7

Tell them that the gory generals
Dossed ten miles behind the line ;

Tell ihem copulating padres

their wine;

vilian canting

More than Heinve, Fritz, or Gus;

né their refles—
Facts of life withheld fronv ws.

Stole our rum to peg

Say we loathed ct

Teach them where to por

“About our funk-holes? Pits behind Ypres
scooped from the clay of Flanders, or carved

out :
in chalk of Picardy.
tinge,

roomy enough to stand in. Blown to hell,
and Charters with it; l upon a yaid
while dawn tossed flaming lances through

the wood

of trunks macabre, and stumps like jagged

teeth.”

os t F

Too bad we lost our happy home :
But not too bad that Charters fell!
only youth and swords,
Clean things, like death and fear and hell;
He never saw the slimy frail
Of statecraft over Paschendage.

ch aw

For he kerew

cA

“Graves? The grave of Charters, buried by

the wind,
of Shannon, Picctte,

Seine

and eastward to the Don. The grave of Bill;
Bill of the north, hard-hammered, keen and

gay,

who bore two packs upon the weary hill
that climbs to Etaples from the whisky sign
flaming above the harbor at Boulogne.
Etaples, the bull-ring, riot at Paris
Loos, Paschendaele, the Somme, and the

long rest

at Raiembart, near
served

vin blane et rouge—

You dropped a penny in the slot there, and

behold!

That nest at Vlamer-

side by side at Lens;
nine million graves between the Rhine and

Auchel, where Rosy

For two long minutes sullen guns gave way

to croon of ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ or lilt of
Madelon ;

‘Pour l’embrasser dernier la porte—’ was
that the way

cf of =f

Rosy knew! She knew too well!

She hissed the lips parched gray w hell;
And sought her love beneath the throat

hanged

dawn

oaths

Of guns that bellowed exery note
Between the Pit and Hedaven-on-High,
The requiem of worlds that die.
Sexton—or midwife—this her boy?
Did Rosy care? She snatched her joy ui

=f cA cA

“Estaminets and wine. That long carouse
after Hill Seventy, when ten men sat
within a barn, and toasted one by one

the four-score corpses rotting on, the slope;
then nine who cut next morn the belts that

their comrade from a rafter in the night,
and shot him twixt the eyes, while hate of
drowned out the rifle’s crack, and plotted

to blame his passing on a straffing plane;
so saved his name on orders, and thus gave

a hero to his mourners in St. John.”

Plage,

IT ero2s?
Brass hats laden down with tin,
Begged for them by rural deans .
For reciting Gunga Din.

The staff got medals by the gross,
A proof of solidarity ;
What was the rankers
Sweet copulate-totality !

“So shall we teach d
is to destroy, and strip the gauds away
that blazon glory in a charnel-house?
Surely for ruin there yet are USES fit
¢o furnish glory for another youth.”

=f if rh

We had many such!

ration worth?

tf t

v x

5h
The things we hated blindly
Teach them are one. to hate;
The Kaiser and their masters
Peach them 10 integrate.
Fell them no charge of comrades
Opposing fear
Can burst the chains that bind them

to fear,

Fo rulers in the rear.

Teach them where plots the enemy—
A fact withheld from you and me!

estruction’s only bent