re |

t

sm of an “Asiatic ¢o-
‘ity sphere,” the first
their plans of world con-
is crumbling today. But
ganese fascists still hope,
the Nazis, to be saved
defeat by division and.
+ among the Big Five. of
united Nations. They
also on one other thing:
‘yelopment of inter-racial
5 and strife in America
4é Help of the colonial
's of the western powers
| Pacific area. -

)ecordance with this hope
upanese are today step-
ip their propaganda, de-
» themselves more loud-
nm ever to be the “cham-
of the darker races.”

vill be most dangerous to
» or minimize the potency
iis propaganda, baseless
ih it is. If the lesson of
xasy conquest of Burma,
ya and other South Pacific
earlier in this war has
een learned, we shall pay
; dearly in the struggle to
t Japan. .

an imperial power Japan
extended her dominations
xgression over the 70,000,-
seoples of Manchuria, Ko-
4nd Formosa, not to men-
the millions more within
more recently conquered
rities. Japan is herself
best evidence of the fact
imperialism is not basical-
question. of color but of
omies. It is the dictator-

in alliance with the ruling
tary clique that must be
accountable for the cruel
‘session of the supject mil-
s in the Japanese empire.
7 @

2AN joined the Alles in
World War One for the sole
sose of getting eontrol of
“many’s ‘island colonies in

‘Pacific. This was arranged
-ecret pacts which she enter-
‘into with England, Tsarist
ssia, Italy and France. The
wanese leaders had, in fact,
joed for a German victory.

TLIGER JOE AND JOHNNIE
ARE TRYING TO KNOCK OUT
A dA? SENTRY SO THEY

CAN GET HIS MACHINE GUN...

FROM A PERCH AGONE,
| JOHNNIE THROWS A ROCK
AT THE JAP.....

by
ON
VCO,

Japanese war. lords’
‘brated each

of Japanese finance capi- .

Their newspapers openly .cele-
German triumph.
Even then, in the first World
War, Japan énvisioned an
agreement whereby Germany
would have a freé hand in Eur-
ope while Japan would rule
Asia. Pao

The defeat of Germany meant
the necessity for the adoption
of a new strategy of conquest.

._ by Japan. At the peace confer-

ence she began to play her role
as “champion” of the darker
yaces by advocating the incor-
poration of the principle of ra-
cial equality in the peace settle-
ment. This was a deliberate
policy of undermining British
prestige in the East so. that
Japan might win over the ter-
ritories held there by Britain
and other western powers.

Ignorance of Japanese impe-
rialist aims: has led several Ne-
gro commentators recently to
point approvingly to Japan’s
sponsorship of racial equality
principles in 1919 without real-
izing the motives behind this
act. -

With the establishment of the
League of Nations, Japan
sought an artful substitute for
direct aggression. The Japan-
ese leaders began to raise the
slogan of “Asia for the Asia-
ties” and to promote the idea
of a Pan-Asiastic League. The
appeal was widened to embrace
darker peoples all over the
world. These peoples, it was
said, should unite under a
strong leadership — naturally
Japan’s — against their white
oppressors. Japanese agents
carried this mesage to the Phil-
ippines, Siam, India, Ceylon and
even to Ethiopia and the Uni-
ted States in the early twenties.
The Back-to-Africa movement
sponsored by Marcus Garvey in
the same period was based upon
the same principle of racial
separatism.

The Japanese propaganda ef-
forts failed. The agents gave
up their tasks or were with-
drawn. But in the next decade
of the thirties, as Japan

tulers Of Japan

By Alphaeus Hunton

jJaunched her attack upon: Man-
churia, the slogans were again
revived. The world-wide crisis

of imperialism brought on _by —

the depression launched Japan
upon her career of open fascist
aggression. “Our imperial
spirit,” said Gemeral -Araki in
1932, ‘which is the embodiment

of the union between the true

soul of the Japanese state and
the great ideal of the Japanese
people, is by its nature a thing
which must be propagated over
the seven seas ‘and extended
over the five continents. All
obstacles imterfering with this

must be destroyed with strong
determination, not stopping at
the application of real force.”

The failure of the League of
Nations or of the major world
powers. to attempt to block the
rape of Manchuria prepared the
ground for Italy’s invasion of
Ethiopia four years later. The
Japanese government was
prompt to offer its official re-
cognition to Italy’s sovereignty
over Ethiopia, and Mussolini re-
turned the compliment by recog-
nizing Japan’s dominion over
Manchukuo (Manchuria). In
1936 these aggressors, together
with Germany, sealed their par-
tnership with the establishment
of the anti-Comintern Axis. And
the very next year, 1937, mark-
ed the opening of Japan’s all-

out invasion of China. The rest
of the story needs no retelling.

S regards the future of the

Asiastiec peoples and other
colonial subjects in Africa and

elsewhere, there are two key

problems of immediate urgency:
the liberation of India and the
welding of China into a unified,
democratic, industrialized state.
A strong China, free of the
present internal strife of the
yeactionary regime against the
forces of democracy led by the
Communists, is the main hope
for-the abolition of both decad-
ent feudalism and colonialism
throughout the East.

While our armed forces press
forward, beating the Japanese
military machine into submis-
sion, we must address our-
selves to these two tasks and to
the problem of eradicating co-
lonialism “in its entirety.

Soviet Democracy Continued

Thus the supply of fuel has
been insufficient during 1944
and the first quarter of this
year, creating a strain on the
operation of our industries and
municipal enterprises. But this
doesn’t seem to bother the pet-
roleum supply leaders and the
coal supply authorities.”
-Kuznotsov also roundly crit-
icized the commissariats of
non-ferrous meeals, heavy ma-
chine building, and others. He
was not the only delegate to ex-
press discontent with the work
of the state apparatus. Many
asked for increases in monetary
grants to their republics and
provinces, and some of these re-
quests were jncluded in the re-
vised budget as finally edopted.
So much for the Supreme So-
viet, which, after all, is at the
top of Soviet democracy. But
how it is below? To under-
stand the operation of some of
the more unusual aspects of
Soviet democracy this corre-
spondent has had to recast his
concept of democracy as a
whole, from the point of view
of its granted rights.

The Russians understand de-
mocracy, for example, as gua-
ranteeing the right to work.
Proceeding from this point of
view the Russians attempt to
exercise their democracy to
ereate more work, to produce

Hh

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if”

LOOKS LIKE WERE SUNK!

AND NOW THEY'RE BOTH

1 HE'S TOLD THE OTHER NIPPO

COMING UP AFTER US! ITLL
TAKE A MACARTHUR TO GET y

wow! YANK
PLANES ! IT
IS MACARTHUR!

more to improve the. conditions
of work. In factories, this as-
pect of Soviet democracy is ex-
pressed by meetings of work-
ers, engineers, management,
unions, at which measures
necessary to improve output are
debated, and at which all bar-
riers to further industrial and
social progress are discussed
and then eliminated if possible.

An interesting aspect of So-
viet democracy is the right
granted by law—indeed duty
imposed by law-——upon the trade
unions to elect public control-
lers of stores and services.
These controllers have the right
to enter any store under their
jurisdiction, examine prices,
go into the quality ‘of goods,
deal with complaints ‘and refer
breaches of regulation to the
courts.

Soviet democracy is also ex-
pressed in meetings of collec-
tive farmers who govern their
own community, create work
plans, establish standards of
pay, do what they. can to in-
crease production to achieve
greater income thus improving
their own, and of course their
country’s life.

Friendly questioners in Amer-
ica and Canada ask: “How can
democracy function under a
one-party system ?”

Py

ey a
lS

s\
pemines

The Russians say frankly
that their country is governed
by the workers in alliance with
the collective farmers. They
admit that their democracy is
a democracy of these two
classes and the intellectuals.
But in their elections any small
group of citizens may nomi-

/ nate candidates, and even do so

on the basis of whatever issues
it pleases them, so long as these
issues are within the frame-
work of the above-described
coneept of democracy. Commu-
nists and non-communists alike
are elected by secret ballot on
the basis of their own individ.
ual record.

e

The Russians do not look at
their democracy as something
complete and definite in itself.
“Democracy is a historical
phenomenon,” wrote Sokolov in
his article in War and the
Working Class. “One cannot
speak of one unchangeable de-
moecracy for all times and for
all peoples. Present day demo-
cracy bears little resemblance
to the democracy, say, of an-
cient Athens.”

Sokolov draws some interest-
ing conclusions: “It would be
quite hopeless,” he argues, “to
demand that democracy should
be built up in all countries of
Europe on the British or Amer-
jean model. This would be a
totally unwarranted attempt to
interfere in the internal affairs
of other peoples, an attempt to
impose definite political canons
upon them from the outside.
Such an attempt would of course
have no chance of success be-
cause it would contradict the
very spirit of democracy, the
indisputable right of the peo-
ples ‘to create democratic in-
stitutions of their own choice!”

Whether democracy is of the
Soviet type or the American
type, the Russians argue, it is
still the same democracv in dif-
ferent stages of its develop-
ment. Its implacable enemy is
fascism. That is why they say
the test of a true democrat is
hatred of fascism and devotion
to the task of rooting it out
completely. And in this work
of exterminating fascism, the
definition of democracy is the
same for all—the right to live
freely and govern themselves.
The more perfect the demo-
cracy, the more rights it gives
to the people to live well and as
they wish to live.

SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1945