Imperialist “Dust” Stor By JOSEPH STAROBIN A DUST-STORM is kieking up over the plains of Man- churia, and it is not only blind- ing tens of thousands of Chi- but nese spreading across American and Ganadian edi- torial pages It’s Something like the Spy-scare; behind the hub-bub are powerful forces With dangerous motives. The Soviet Red Army enter- ed Manchuria last August by agreement with the United States and Great Britain. The late President Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed at the Yalta Conference, that the USSR would enter the war in Asia within three months after Germany’s defeat. : The Soviet purpose was clear: It took upon itself the job of smashing Japan’s most power- ful land foree, the Kwantunge Army, which numbered half a million picked soldiers. The USSR was to share in control of the Ghinese Kastern and South Manchurian rail- ways. Port Arthur and Dairen were internationalized. As a matter of fact, the Soviet Union undertook. during its occupation even greater service to China and the cause of peace. It uprooted the Jap- anese feudal-fascist structure and smashed «the intricate web of Japanese “development cor- Porations,” through which the Japanese had inhibited Chinese industry and enslaved the Manchurian peasantry and working population. This involved not only the re- moval of some parts of Japan- ese ma@inery; it was a surgical operation to clean out Japan- ese influence from Manchuria as a whole. The Red Army did not impose any particular government in Manchuria. It did not encour- age (or discourage) the 300. 000 Chinese Communist guer- rilas in southern Manchuria or the various independent, pa- triotic Manchurian guerrilla, formations. And the Soviet troops, sched- uled to leave on November its 1945, stayed on because the Chiang Kai-shek government asked them, for reasons of its own. : Both the Kuomintang and American foreign policy were -on the horns of deep contradic- tions which are now coming to the fore and explain the pres- ent crisis. After the initial at- tempt to impose the Kuomin- tang dictatorship everywhere in China by armed force, GChi- ang Kai-shek was compelled to come to terms with the Gom- munists and lesser democratic parties. The most reactionary. open- ly pro-fascist elements in the Kuomintang (which organized the anti-Soviet demonstrations of the past week) oppose the VANCOUVER, B.C. al MMMM MMMM have it both ways. SMM MMMM INCOME TAX RETURNS —for— Trade Unionist Wage Earners Only CHARGE — $1.00 to $3.00 TRADE UNION RESEARCH BUREAU 1412-13 Dominion Bank Bldg. truce with the Communists. They are angry because they could not prosecute unlimited civil war. They are worried be- cause the USSR has liquidated the nests of Japanese espionage and power in~ Manchuria. They had hoped to integrate their own speculators’ and grafters’ interests with the Japanese in Manchuria. And so they are behind the current uproar against the Soviet Union. They did not want the Red Army in Manchuria, but they could not help themselves. They asked the Red Army to stay because they feared the auton- omous Manchurian democratic gevernments would arise if the Red Army left as per schedule. They hope to fet enough armed forces—now numbering 60,009 —into the Manchurian cities (with American armed help). They would then have a better position from which to bargain with the Chinese Communist Party, whch of course stands for rebuilding the Manchurian administration from the bot- tom up. American policy, as repre- sented by Gen. George G. Mar- shall, is tor by similar dilém- mas. On the one hand, the United States knows it cannot encourage civil war in China and expect to win. It is com- mitted by the Yalta agreement to a recognition of the Soviet position in Manchuria. Tt wants to see the Communist-Kuomin- tang accord ratified and hopes Chiang will be able to take care of himself with economic. and concealed military backing of the United States, On the other hand. American imperialism is itself hostile to the Soviet Union, and has its own aims in Manchuria. Ameri-_ can corporations hoped to pick up the pieces of Japanese in- dustrial empire themselves. And there are imperialist generals, like Albert GC. Wede— meyer,- who speculate on war with the Soviet Union and would like to fight it on the plains of Manchuria. But neither the Kuomintane . nor the American policy can They can- not. have normal, friendly re- lations with the USSR, and ex- pect to pour American troops into Manchuria while Red Army troops withdraw. And because the situation is still so fluid, the Soviet radio broad- cast last Wednesday empha- sized that some Soviet troops remain until American troops withdraw from Ghina as a whole. There lies thé real issue. Will a democratic China be allowed to emerge, and will all inde- pendent influences be eradicat- ed in Manchuria? Or does the United States intend to stay and entrench itself on the mainland of Asia? E Phone PAc. 5831 PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 19 Indian seamen who mutinied against Royal India n Navy insults and poor food. drive through street on command: Swept Bombay when civilians joined nayal reyolt. The Fuss In fran —— wy resinata 6 | Ea is a politically very im- portant country for two rea- sons: Her strategic and her oil resources. Britain has consistently tried to bring Iran under virtual British suzerainty, and strong competition exists. there be- tween British and American oil interests. In 1919, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, tried to bring off an Anglo-Iranian agreement which was rejected by Iran two years later. be- cause of the extreme national subjection which it implied. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, is deeply interest- ed in making sure that Iran cannot be made a jumping-off round for attacks upon her— as she was before, during the British intervention in 1919. WHAT ABOUT IRAN-USSR RELATIONS? N 1921 the Soviet government concluded a treaty of friend- ship with Iran. whereby the Soviet Union renounced the col- onizing policy of Imperial Rus- Sia and declared all treaties concluded with Gzarist Russia null and void. The Soviet Union renounced the rights in the northern Provinces previously secured by the Czarist government on the understanding that Iran would not grant concessions and land which they restored to her to any third state or its citizens. Since then, the oil of North Jran has not been developed at all, although for a number of years representatives of Ameri- can oil interests have been try- ing te get in on it. Representatives of the Shell Group have been negotiatine for these concessions since 1942. Knowing government position Soviet the this, the approached fj 1I©anian government in 1944 for oil concessions, on uniquely generous terms, offering guar- antees as to wages to be paid, housing conditions, and train- ing for Iranian technicians; and undertaking to return the wells to Iran after an agreed period. The Iran fovernment was to hold 50 per cent of the shares in the proposed Soviet company. At first this was welcomed by the Iran government. but it seems that British and Ameri- Can oi] interests got busy and as a result of their pressure. the Iran government finally re- jected the offer. The Soviet government later complained that concessions had been secretly granted to an American company, and such was the feeling of the peo- ple, that the then prime minis- ter, Mahomet Said, was obliged to resign. Since then erisis has followed erisis in Iran. WHAT IS THE TUDEH PARTY? T= TUDEH PARTY is the strongest of the organiza- tions in Iran pressing for a genuine advance to democracy. It is the strongest in the more industrial north of the country, and the Iran govern- ment uses this fact to pretend that it is “under the influence” of the Soviet Union and works “under the protection” of the Red Army and naturally ac- cuses it of being “anti-nation- alist.” This, although the policy of the Tudeh Party is for the ad- vance of the Iranian people toward democracy and a het- ter standard of life instead of exploitation and colonial Stand- ards under the domination of the oil kings. A SERIOUS internai Situa- tion has developed in Azer- baijan, not owing to Soviet in- because of Jong-continued discrimi eered truck during height of noting 5 = sas a dgen terference but because one of the provinces most hit by the refusal to gran eoncessions to Union. It is also the wealthi most populous province of and has long been incre restive over the behavio local officials, appointed scarcely controlled by the tral government. Therefore a local, roy. government has been estah ed there. to manage local fairs, within the Iranian s WHAT POLITICAL DEVELOPEMENTS ARE LIKELY IN IRAN? Wa the democratic n ment is strong and ing in the north, and the oy throw of the Iranian go I ment immediately on its 53 senting its anti-Soviet case fore UNO is a hopeful sign, possibility of an attempt reactionary interests to gs power once more by f should not _be ignored. In southern Iran the p tive. nomadie tribes (nu ing between two and f# million) present a real ger. As fanatical Moslems the might well be rallied by a magogue like Seyyid Zia j cause which would be calli “national.” : Today they are supposed possess 50,000 rifles, and conference of their leaders 1945 the formation of a “Bh Army” was discussed, by m ai of which the supporters of Se yid Zia might seize power soon as the Allied troops | evacuated Iranian territory, From which it will be s a that the way Iran goes in near future is by no means foregone conclusion. FRIDAY, MARCH 15, is