“March 8, 1943

e

Page Five

y ) B.C. LUMBER WORKER
O aa

—__——

R. LAL

mense.

The All-India Trade Union Con-
gress made unequivocal declara-
tions in support of the Chinese peo-
ple against the Japanese agres-
sor; in support of the Ethiopian
people against the Italian invader;
in support of the Spanish Loyal-
ist government in its struggle
against the Hitler-Mussolini puppet,
Franco.

All of these declarations and
many more have been direct chal-
lenges to Gandhi's leadership, a
leadership which has been the
main obstacle within India to a
. militant nationalist movement.
Gandhi's policy of “non-violent non-
cooperation” has been the policy
of reaction, the policy of pacifism,
the policy of defeatism. The trade
union movement of India has been
in the center of the struggle to de-
feta the policies of the Colonial
Tories as well as the pacifism of
the handful of individuals led by
Gandhi.

Members of an American union
discussed this question of Gandhi
with Secretary Joshi of the All-
India Ttades Union Congress. The
attitude of the Indian trade unions
was expressed by him in strong
terms: “Labor does not follow Mr.
Gandhi. .., We made it clear that
we favor a policy of national de-
fense for the motherland, together
‘with the unification of all elements
in Indian life around such a pro-
recat

The position of the trade unions
in India can be summarized in the
following words of the secretary
of the All-India Trade Union Con-
gress: “No one more than we hate
fascism both local and foreign... .
We favor a definite stand and ac-
tion against the Axis... . The ma-
Jority of our unions and member-
ship believe that real support of
the war can only be secured with
the realization of India’s indepen-
dence.”

Tt can safely be said that the
trade union sector of the Indian
National Congress is becoming
‘strong and influential. The Con-
___BFess itself is the great national or-
_-Ranization whose leadership of the
_ Indian masses is unquestioned. The
~ trade unions will become the back-

4
3

its’ union and the’ Indian
ts’ Federation as well as the
port of the Indian National
a, in all of the anti-Fascist
actions listed above,

“The Indians have been fighting
battle against fascist slavery
a long time. The Indian Trade
- Union Congress, through the In-
_ dian National Congress, called out
every Indian worker on strike

India’s Trade Unions
Support War Program

Editor, “India News,” Member Indian National Congress

z There are trade unions in India. Although India is still an
_ agricultural country, with some seven hundred thousand vil-

and with the overwhelming majority of the population
engaged in agriculture, it remains a fact that India has started
on the path toward industrialization and now has six hundred
and sixty-six registered trade unions.

The total membership of the trade unions of India is only
511,138. The trade union movement has only 18,612 women
members. Although these figures indicate that the present
trade union movement’ is small, its political influence is im-

‘ America.

Japanese-owned tin mines in
after the invasion of China!

SINGH

in 1937; and Indian longshoremen
refused to load ships going to
Japan which were carrying ma-
terials for Japanese war industries.

Victory for the United Nations
is thus clearly, in the eyes of the
Indian trade union movement, a
necessity, a pre-requisite for Indian
freedom in any form.

Freedom for India will help the
United Nations win the war. We
have at Calcutta the largest steel
plant in the entire British Empire.
With freedom, we could greatly in-
crease its output. Our iron ore is
a sixty-five percent grade, one of
the very richest in the entire world.
We have millions of tons of coal
near our industrial centres. Our
production of cotton is very great;
488,554 workers were employed in
the cotton industry, according to
the figures of 1939, Our rice pro-
duction is almost one-half of the
entire world production. We pro-
duce twice as much sugar as any
other nation. We have a world
monopoly in lac, for shellac. Bengal
is the world capital for jute. India
produces more leather than any
other country.

And India’s manpower is so great
that Jawaharlal Nehru stated last
year that with freedom India could
organize an army of one hundred
million along the same lines as the
Chinese or the Russian guerrilla
and regular troops.

Can America, can the United Na-
tions, afford to ignore such help?
With shipping space at a premium,
can America, can the United Na-
tions, afford to assume the entire
burden of war in the South Pa-
cific? The question of supplies is
becoming critical, Why should not
India be allowed, be encouraged, to
industrialize her economy as soon
as possible?

The fullest development of In-
dia’s resources, the fullest use of
her manpower in the war, may well
become one of the main factors de-
termining the length and the in-
tensity and the cost of winning
the war in the Asiatic theatre.

I believe from this that you will
see that Indian freedom will help
Nor should you forget
that during the post-war period
the further industrialization of In-
dia will undoubtedly help greatly
in the economic rehabilitation of
the world, If India is free, that re-
habilitation will come with much
greater speed.

Now what can you trade union-
ists of America do about it? We
hope you will pass resolutions ask-

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Russian Medical Miracle
Save Millions Of Lives

On 2000-Mile Front, in All the War, Only 1.5 Percent of Soviet Wounded
Have Died, Relief Agency Reveals; More Than 2,000,000 Of
Country’s 5,100,000 Battle Losses Back in Action

NEW YORK.—Of Russia’s 5,100,000 battle losses, the Russian War Relief, Inc., says that
2,000,000 are back in the war, 70 percent as fighting soldiers.
With this announcement the bureau tells the first story of one of the war’s medical

miracles.

On the 2000-mile front, in all the war, only 1.5 percent of the Russian wounded have died.
That is slightly higher than the remarkable recovery rate at Pearl Harbor, 96 out of each 100.
The report says the Russian recovery rates is 98.5 out of all wounded. The 5,100,000-losses
figure is based on a Soviet communique of last August. Since then the recovered wounded

have passsed the 2,000,000 mar!

Ix.

This Russian miracle started 20 years ago. Then Russia had only 20,000 physicians. By
1940, she had 160,000. That wasn’t enough for the war. Accordingly the Russians stepped up
their doctor graduation rate’ from 12,000 yearly to’ 42,000 in 16 months.

Ahead of the Germans they moved medical colleges, everything but the buildings, back
beyond the Urals. One of the oldest, Kharkov Medical Institute, loaded faculty and students
on freight cars and third-class coaches, with carloads of books and laboratory equipment.

ing for immediate freedom for In-
dia’s imprisoned anti-fascist lead-
ers; asking that negotiations with
the Indian National Congress be
re-opened, with a view to accom-
Pplishing self-rule for India. Such
resolutions should be sent to Presi-
dent Roosevelt and to your parlia-
mentary representatives. It is very
important, also, that such resolu-
tions be sent to the British Trade
Union Congress, Transport House,
London, because the British trade
union movement must take the
lead in England in the fight against
the Colonial die-hard Tories who
are preventing Indian freedom and
thereby obstructing the war effort.

Yes, there are trade unions in
India, And every trade unionist
is aware that the present war is
indeed a war of liberation and not
even the mistreatment of the In-
dian people by the Colonial Tories
can change its character. We In-
dians are determined to find ways
and means of using our immense
national energies to help defeat the
Axis. Our help is needed by the
United Nations. We hope therefore,
that you trade unionists of America
will help us gain the fredeom which
alone will make possible our fullest
participation,

Three days later the classes re-
assembled, in Chkalov, in the Urals,

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1,000 miles away.
To the doctors they added nearly
500000 feldschers doctors with less
training than M.D’s.
Half of these feldschers were wo-
men. Their duties are in the front
lines, alongside soldiers under fi

The feldscher story is an epic
and one of the three main causes
of the high rate of life-saving.

No. 1 saving is by use of sulfa
drugs, which delays the onset of
infection. :

No. 2, but equally important, is
transfusion, both by liquid pasma
and preserved blood.

‘The third great life-saver is get-
ting’ the wounded out during the
so-called golden hours, the first
six after they are hit.

The Russian method is the job
of the 500,000 feldschers. These
medical attendants carry shovels,
transfusion, first aid.

They crawl, men and women, to
the wounded, as the men fall.

They dig in if necessary to make
a first-aid shelter, when no shell-
hole or fox hole is convenient. They
load the wounded on their backs,
all the time crawling on their
bellies back to the first evacuation
posts. The feldscher's mortality
rates are high, (Russian officers
try to keep the women out of the
most dangerous places, but don’t
succeed altogether.

Alexandra Kalenina, 23, carried
100 men off the field in a single
day of battle. Asked how she felt,
she: said:

“I was frightened. Afterward, I
was tired. But I did it.”

Nurse M, Krasinskaya-Molitskaya
writes:

“A bridge — not very large and
rickety. Bullets whistled. Enemy
shells were bursting at the river
crossing. The soldiers were cross-

t

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ing the bridge and fording the
river. Our soldiers kept going.
“Then a girl appeared on’ the
bridge leading by the bridle a tired
roan drawing a cart. She was
wilted with fatigue her uniform

.|was covered with blood, her hair

blew about her face. Her eyes
burned with a dry and terrible
fire.

“Later we found that this was
the third cart laden with wounded
whom this girl had rescued from
the battle field. Now, the cart was
empty, she was returning to the
firing line for a fourth time.

“All of a sudden, right next to
the cart, a mine exploded.

“Dear friends! Never let the
memory. of this girl grow dim. Her
name is still unknown, but all the
soldiers who crossed the river that
cloudy morning have her memory
in their hearts.”

Another. Valya Kovaleva, 19,
thin, fair, blueeyed, washed
clothes for the German captors
of her village. At night she donned
peasant clothes, crawled on the
battlefield nearby, bandaged the
wounded and hid them in hay-”
stacks and cellars of wrecked
houses. Most of her wounded sur-
vived, ‘Ten days later the Russians
recaptured that point.

The award for carrying 40
wounded from the battle field with
their arms is the Order of the Red
Banner. For 80, it is the Order
of Lenin.

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Men who Stay Young”

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