. ® 0 rt J a Dp ge sesnnnsontunrsmnsemuensessninonnnnt HURST ATA

Foolishness repeated

F some of the critics whose writings were referred
to in this column a few weeks ago, who made the
false claim that the Communists in Germany made a
great blunder in voting with the Nazis in 1932 to oust
the Social Democrats, will keep their eye on Remadier
in France today and see the Social Democrats in
action they may change their opinions and come to
the conclusion that they might have been wrong. For
they will see being played on the stage of French
political life a drama, which if not’ prevented .by the
French people, will result in fastening on the neck of
the republic the same type of government with which
Hitler shackled the Germans.

If sincerity and integrity were behind the policies of
the Social Democrats the results of the last French
municipal elections should have made them stop and
take notice of the meaning of the defeat of their candi-
dates, whose working-class supporters, since the Social
Democrats hdd made no genuine. effort to solve the
problems of low wages and high prices, were won from
them by the demagogy of De Gaulle. Their colonial
policies of repression, particularly in Indo-China, had
cost them much support from the working class and
had brought about the split which led to their forcing

the Communists out of the government on orders from

Washington.

At the same time Ramadier lost the support of the
super-nationalist and imperialistic elements whose alle-
giance to the Social Democrats was of a temporary
kind, whose natural place was in the De Gaullist camp

rallying behind the nationalist battle-cry, “Save the
Empire” and keep France “great” and “free,” a na-
tionalism in the style of Louis Bonapaste who first

became president in 1848 and in 1851 pulled off a coup
d’etat and made himself Napoleon the Third, Emperor
of the Third French Empire.

Ramadier, the Social Democrat, knows what De
Gaulle’s objectives are, just as the Social Democrat lead-
ers in Germany knew the heights to which Hitler
aspired. He has spoken scornfully of De Gaulle per-
sonally, referring to him as “a modern Joan of Arc.”
The Social Democrat leaders in Germany treated Hit-
ler in the same manner. They spoke of him contemptu-
ously as a crackpot paperhanger. The Social Democrats

Gl’s in

\_SEOUL, Korea.
NUMBER of GI’s who
were prisoners of the

Japanese will remember
Moon Eun-chong, the shab-
by baggage cart puller in the
Seoul railroad station who
slipped them rice cakes and
cigarettes when the guards
weren’t looking.

In those days Moon thought
of Americans as something like
knights in shining armor.
“Whenever I saw a B-29 come
over,” he told me, “I’d want
to shout a welcome — even if
I were to- be killed by its_
bombs the next minute.”

Now Moon, director of ‘gener-
al affairs of the Korean Fed-
eration of Trade Unions, has a
new slant on things American.
Two days after my last inter-
view wtih him he was impris-
oned for the third time since
the US. army brought its
brand of law and_ order to
south Korea.

Like most of the Korean labor
leaders now in jail or hiding,
Moon has devoted his whole life
to the labor movement. He
started organizing when he was
18, while still a student. A
seaman and railroad worker for
six years, he kept up the strug-
gle for the related goals of a
free labor movement and an
independent Korea. He was im-

are not like the Bourbons who “learned nothing and
forgot nothing,’ they learn nothing and forget every-
thing, except their inveterate hatred of the Communists.

For when faced with threatening disaster to France
they go through the same foolish antics as their Ger-
man fellows of twenty-five years ago. After the recent
electoral defeat, Ramadier appealed for a united front,
but not to the Communists, not to the General Con-
federation of Labor, but to the same inept and incom-
petent political groups as those which formed the
Weimar government. And not so much to save France
from De Gaulle and reaction but to save her from
Communism. “

That is the line followed by the German Soéral
Democrats that made Hitler’s Third Reich possible; if
pursued unchecked in France it will end up in a fourth
empire with De Gaulle at its. head—and a fascist dic-
tatorship. For that, he has already established a
following behind the fascist slogan ‘abolition of all politi-
cal parties.’

Philpott wrote in his column once that he con-
sidered De Gaulle to be one of the most dangerous
men in the world today. That estimate is correct, but
with qualifications, only if he gets the same help from
the Social Democrats as Hitler did and if he is not
stopped by the massed force and intelligent action of
the French workers. :

The situation in France today is a replica of what
happened in Germany in the early ‘twenties. Sizing
it up rightly will convince anyone that the Communists
in Germany were not to blame in the least for Hitler
and that Social Democracy is no different today to
what it was then.

Count Karolyi was leader of the Hungarian govern-
ment in 1919. He was a Liberal, about the only sincere
Liberal in European politics. He was unable to deal
with the situation in Hungary as the people demanded.
He called in the Communists and turned the govern-
ment over to them. They carried on that government
admirably in the interest of the Hungarian people until
defeated by blockade and military invasion, directed
by the “savior of Europe,” Herbert Hoover.

But Ramadier is not a Liberal like Karolyi; he is
a Social Democrat. If he or some other Social Demo-
crat turns the government over to any one, it will not
be to the Communists but to De Gaulle or some agent
of his who will in turn transfer the power to De

by OL’ BILL

TY
Gaulle. Therefore it behooves the French workers, the
only force that can save France, as they have done
before, to prevent the fulfilment of the Social Democrat
policies.

If, however, in spite of their efforts, De
should establish a dictatorship of big business, the
Social Democrats will go on peddling the same old
weatherbeaten lie—the Communists were to blame.

Gaulle

b] "C6
There’s no difference
WRITER in one of these digest magazines (net

A Reader’s Disgust), comments on the difficulties of
translation which confront the staff who have to make
the speeches understandable to the Babel gathering of
the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Translating the texts of documents to which some
time can be devoted and authorities consulted, is not
so difficult but the oral :translations which have to
be made, like a running commentary as the speeches
are being made present greater tests, often conveying
meanings not intended by the speakers.

The writer quotes an instance from the discussion
of a.meeting of the committee on Employment and
Trade. The chairman, speaking in English, referred to
“industrial combines.” 'The young lady who was inter-
preting into French, although a whiz as a _ linguist,
appeared to have little or no knowledge of business
jargon, repeatedly translated the phrase “combines in-
dustrielles” which in the French vernacular means
“crooked combines.”

Personally I am on the side of the translator, She
may have been a little free in her rendering but she
was, beyond any peradventure of doubt, correct, for
crooked combines are the only kind there is in industry
or trade.

Korea will remember Moon

prisoned three times by the : ;

Japanese for a total of nine Carrying their banners, Koreans parade in Phyongyang, North Korea, after am election campaign. In the Russian zone Koreans

years. have welcomed land reforms, equality for women and a radically reformed educational system, and the new freedom won by
€ workers’ organizations, after years of suppression under Japanese rule stands in marked contrast to the continued oppression of trade

unions and other popular organizations in the South Korean zone under United States administration.

FTER Japan’s defeat, Moon
took part in the mass organ-

ization of Korean workers which
brought half.a million into
unions inside of eight months.
Then last fall came the first
all-out crackdown on the new
unions and Moon and other
leaders had to operate under-
ground, as they had under the
Japanese.

When I saw Moon, he was
working too hard, eating too

~ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 238, 1947

little and was very tired. He
and the other top union lead-
ers are in bad health from their
long years in prison. Many have
TB and some show the marks
of torture. Now they are lead-
ing an ‘oppressed labor move-
ment that is fighting for its
life while they themselves, when
not in jail, live the lives of
hunted men, always watching

out for terrorists; moving from
one sleeping place to another.

Moon told me about the great
wave of strikes last fall, how
the strikes were broken by
police and terrorists with the
support of U.S.. authorities, how
U.S. troops fired on a hunger
demonstration of coal miners in
Hwason, South Cholla Province.

“The Americans claimed we

were trying to create ‘chaos’ and
‘sabotage production,’ . that it
was all a Communist plot,”
Moon said. “This is false. We
struck basically because we were
being squeezed by the _ infla-
tion while the black market
flourished and the _ profiteers
got rich . .. We have nothing
to gain by sabotaging produc-
tion. We know better than any-

one else that our livelihood de-
pends ‘on production. But .we
want a decent livelihood and
free unions.”

Two days after we talked,
Moon went to the police head-
quarters to protest a new ban
on public meetings. He was jail-
ed immediately. Probably he
could use some rice cakes and
cigarettes. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 12

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