hunting atmosphere

LIFE FANS ‘COLD WAR’

U.S.-cultivated

war atmosphere
fear of Europe

By ISRAEL EPSTEIN

NEW: YORK

War talk continues in the U.S. One week, Washington -and the
press discuss whether to make the hydrogen bomb, a ‘man-killer a thousand
times more powerful than the no longer, secret atom type. Another week,
Life magazine, which boasts 20 million readers, devotes many pages to

the Nazis’ use of Russian traitors when®they invaded the USSR. The

purpose of the Life article, its
writer says frankly, is to teach
U.S. troops to avoid certain Ger-
man mistakes when they, in their
turn, occupy Russia,

Three years of propaganda have
succeeded in cultivating a feeling
that war is inevitable, and merely
a question of time. It has become
“abnormal” and even “subversive”
in America, to suggest that peace,
not a “hot war”, can possibly fol-
low the “cold war’ of today. Al-
though the U.S., with other coun-
tries, accepted a United Nations
ban on warmongering few protest
utterances like Life’s which come
squarely under the UN definition

—and are therefore actually ille-.

gal.
A reasoned report issued by the
Quakers, who have been exploring
ways of U.S.-Soviet settlement was
recently described as ‘“mischiev-
ous” in a New York Times book
review—for merely hinting that in-
ternational problems can still be
solved without world slaughter.
One idea is being painstakingly
promoted by scores of big business
politicians army generals both be-
fore and after they retire to be
corporation directors, fire - eating
ambassadors and journalistic “ex-
perts.” It is that America cannot
dodge a war because Russians,
and all Communists, believe it
must come. Coupled with a witch-
that makes
most Americans afraid of being

‘seen with a Communist book or

newspaper, this effort has been
fairly successful.

Actually, Communists do believe
that socialism must take the place
of capitalist “free enterprise’ as
an economic system, They definite-
ly do not believe that war must
come.’On the contrary, they insist
it can be avoided. '

The international weekly news-
paper of the Communist Informa-
tion Bureau, which the press care-
fully describes by the _ sinisterly
anonymous term “Cominform
journal” is actually entitled For a
Lasting Peace. No visitor to the
Soviet Union, not even the most
hostile, has reported a single ar-
ticle printed there as actually pre-
dicting a war with the U.S., much
less speculating how many Ameri-
can cities the’ Soviet atom bomb
could knock out.

Stalin has stated repeatedly that
the co-existence of the Soviet and
capitalist systems in peace is not
only desirable but a basic Com-
munist principle “first expressed
by Lenin.” He told Harold Stassen,
nearly three years ago: “If two
different systems could cooperate
in war, why cannot they cooper-
ate in peace? Of course, given the
desire to cooperate, cooperation is
quite possible.”

Commenting on Winston Chur-
chill’s call for a third world war,
Stalin said: “The horrors of the
recent war are still too fresh in
the memory of the peoples; and
public forces favoring peace are
too strong for Churchill’s pupils
in aggression to overpower and
turn toward a new war.”

Of course, it. may be argued
that Soviet leaders have also call-
ed western leaders nasty names.
But how to explain one contrast?
When western leaders express dis-
trust of the Russians, they draw
the conclusion that we must go to
war. But when Soviet leaders de-
nounce some western leaders as
warmongers, they draw the con-
clusion that all people, their own
as well as those of the west should
Pressy all the harder for peace.

Every actual Soviet peace pro-
‘posal has been attacked in the
American and Canadian press as
a “dangerous” blind cloaking
other designs, Yet no Soviet
statesman or newspaper has
warned of western “peace offen-
sives.’ On the contrary, they
have invited proposals for set-
‘tlement, ;

Considering the fact that “dan-
ger of a conflict’? has become an
article of faith in the U.S., and is
the reason the American public
is being taxed for all kinds of
arms and other preparatory meas-
ures, it is surely strange that peo-
ples much closer to the Soviet bor-
der frankly see.no such “danger”
from the east.

Instead, many Europeans are
worried by U.S. policies and the
“inevitability of war’ psychology
created right in this country. It
is here that they see the greatest
danger that they, as well as Am-
ricans, will. be involved in a war
no people wants.

a a ‘eo ae a
Housing an issue in British elections
Housing, still an urgent need for thousands of British families more than four years after the war,
’ will be one of the issues in the forthcoming British general election. The Communist party, which
maintains that the Labor government has bartered the many promises it made to the people in 1945 for
a mess of Marshall pottage, is running some one hundred candidates to place the real issues before

the electorate. Above is a camp on Southampton Common, once used for soldiers waiting for. the ~
invasion of France, converted for homeless families, -

Seamen take over Chians
ships, fly People’s flag _

; - HONG KON
Union seamen aboard 13 merchant ships operated by the China Merchants Steam Navigation Compar _
owned by the former regime of Chiang Kai-shek, last week ran up the flag of the People’s Republic of Chir

and announced that they were taking over the vessels for the Peking government.
Crews of 80 other vessels operated by the same company, many of them on the high seas, were reporl —

to be preparing similar action.

From Formosa, Chiang Kai-shek |

immediately threatened to use his
air force, composed of planes sup-
plied by the U.S., to attack all

“mutinous” vessels.

/

The |U.S. has demanded that
Chiang Kai-shek return 42 Liberty
ships supplied to him since the
war on the ground that payment

for them has not been met.

US. officals admitted
that -the action was being taken

frankly

to keep the ships out of the hands
of the Chinese people’s govern-
ment. f

Actually, Chiang Kai-shek could
not return the ships even if he
wanted to. Six of them are among
the 13 that have already gone over
to the people's government.

Hyderbad workers
supported by peasant

Some 23,000 Swen are striking for higher wag

NEW DEL! |
es in the Ind~

state of Hyderabad, mainly in the power industry, water works and ot
utilities. Prime Minister M. K. Vellodi has declared that walkouts —

volving 10,440 of the workers are
them by force.

Vellodi was obliged to acknow-
ledge however, that he would not
find “it easy to smash the strikes
by force because police for the
purpose would have to be drawn
“from areas. where there is lawless-
ness” —- meaning rural districts
where starving Hyderabad peasants
are rebelling against landlord op-
pression. .

Simultaneous; action by Hydera-

FBI BUDGET UP NEARLY $10 MILLION IN 2 YEARS

By AL RICHMOND
SAN FRANCISCO

In presenting its case, the prose-
cution in the Harry Bridges trial
produced nine stoolpigeons who
claimed one-time membership in
the Communist party. “

Considering the time, money and
effort expended by the U.S. de-
partment of justice, the stool-
pigeon parade was hardly a tri-
umphal procession,

Government agencies, assisted
by freelance witch-hunters, have
beeen shadowing . Bridges © for
some 15 years, have employed an
army of agents to explore every
recess of his past, to stalk every
past acquaintance or associate, no
matter how remote. Government
agents have visited, threatened,

stoolpigeons hig

cajoled, and offered to bribe hun-
dreds of persons up and down the
Pacific coast.

All this effort finally “hooked”
nine stoolpigeons, t

Consider the money available to
the justice department to buy
stoolpigeons, The justice depart-
ment budget was $126 million in
1949, $133 million in the fiscal year

1950, Now President Truman has

requested $148 million to finance
the department through 1951,
The two bureaus most directly
involved in the sordid business of
anti-labor and anti-progressive es-
pionage have received the lion’s
share of the department's funds.
The FBI budget soared: $48.5 mil-
lion in 1949; $53.8 million in ‘1950,
and $57.9 million in 1951, if Presi-
dent Truman’s request is granted.
It always is in the case of the
FBI, j ‘

The Immigration Service, ence a
relatively modest agency, has been
compelled tc struggle along on an
annual budget of $32 million.

Queried about the stoolpigeon
parade, a veteran Communist par-
ty official, with considerable ex~
perience in ferreting out  stool-
pigeons, retorted:

“The government tries to
squeeze everything it can out of
each stoolpigeom, and plays him
for all he’s worth. There is a
deliberate design to create the im-
pression that stoolpigeons are ev-
erywhete, to exaggerate their
number and potency. _

“But the fact of the matter is
that for all their effort, the FBI
and such agencies have relatively
little-to show. There are two major
reasons for this.

“Soonenh or later a stoolpigeon
exposes himself. It might be some

in U.S.

trait of the inevitable personal de-
generation. It might be a slip that
bares his hostility to the Commun-
ist party’s program, or, in the case
of a union, his opposition to a
militant progressive. policy.

“No matter how finished and
polished a hypocrite he is, ‘how
skilful an actor and liar, the inner
rottenness—moral and _ political—
seeps through. And vigilance will
detect. it.

“A second factor that makes the
government’s stoolpigeon business
difficult is the healthy hatred of
the average worker for a_ stool-
pigeon, and the reluctance of any
decent person to play the role of
informer, :

“All this, of course, does not
mean that stoolpigeons are not a)
menace. They are. But they’re a
menace that can be coped with—
providing there is vigilance.”

“llegal” and is threatening to cri —

bad workers and farmers in fa‘
of their separate demands tec
makes it difficult for the authc
ties to crush either, as they wo
like to do.

Dockers.
refuse arms —

Shipment of arms and reinfor
ments to French colonial forces
Indo-China, which include Germ
legionnaires recruited from ij
former Nazi armies and Morrocc
troops from French North Afri
has again been delayed by a str —
of seamen and longshoremen ©
Marseilles, the second in rec
months. :

Maritime workers, strik
against the “dirty war”, as Frer
workers call the military campa
to crush the independent Viet |
mese republic headed by Ho C
Minh, recently held up depart
of the liner Pasteur carrying 1
tary supplies to Indo-China. \

Despite arrest of six strikers
police and provocative demai
made by French right-wing ne
papers that the government “
force the law’, the strikers h
firm and drew out other Marsei
unions in a sympathy strike. —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 27, 1950—PAGE