UNIONISTS EXECUTED

" SHANGHAI.
Chiang Kai-shek’s troops: in
Shanghai, desperate at their en-

circlement _ by Communist-led
armies launched an  unpre-
Cedented reign of terror

against the people of China’s

gest city. More than 20 citi-
zens, including trade unionists
Who asked for higher wages to
Preserve them from starvation
during the siege, were publicly

Ot at street corners earlier
|_this month (see pictures above).

Chiang troops staged
terror in Shanghai

The garrison commander has
warned the police force that he
will execute the parents, wives
and children of any policeman
found to have contact with the
Communists. Following a rumor

that people in one Shanghai
suburb shot flares into the air
for the guidance of the Libera-
tion troops, Kuomintang auth-
orities announced that “all
males between 15 and 60” in the

suburb would be killed “unless
they find and surrender the cul-
prits.”

Lauds USSR

on ‘colossal’
new housing

By PHYLLIS ROSNER
LONDON.

Progress in Soviet living stand-
ards and the desire for peace he
found everywhere were the chief
impressions brought back from
Moscow by Henry Levitt, treasur-’
er of the 650,000-strong London
Trades Council, who has just re-
turned here after being a guest at
the 10th Soviet Trade Union Con-
gress.

Levitt, who last visited Moscow
in 1939, told Allied Labor News
that the amount of new housing
was “colossal.’” The appearance
of the Soviet capital has also been
changed by modern cars filling the
streets and people crowding shops
which sell all sorts of consumer
goods. ““The women are very
smartly dressed,”” Levitt said, “and
the men are wearing well-cut suits.”

As evidence of the Soviet desire
for peace, Levitt cited the number
of peace slogans in the 5-hour May
Day parade through the city. Even
more striking proof, he said, was
the work under way on a 25-year
plan for the reconstruction of Mos-
cow, something no nation foresee-
ing war would undertake.

e

Salsberg scores
Indian arrests

TORONTO

J. B. Salsberg, MPP (LPP To-
ronto-St. Andrew) :this week wrote
the Canadian High Commissioner
for India protesting arrest. of S.
S. Mirajkar, vice-president of the
All-India Trade Union Congress
by the Nehru government.

Pointing out that Mirajkar was
one of the staunchest fighters for
the independence of India, Sals-
berg called for his immediate re-
lease.

Last week Nehru’s government
arrested the general secretary of
the All-India Trade Union Con-
gress, M. Gandhi, for helping to
organize demonstrations in sup-
port of 200 labor prisoners now on
a hunger strike in Bombay jails.

Total number of political and
labor prisoners held without trial
in India now exceeds 25,000.

Signs pact

Hard - rock miners in the
United States and Canada have
signed a “pact of friendship and
mutual interest” with union mine
and metal workers of Mexico.
President John Clark (above) of
the International Union of Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers and
four other union officers signed
the statement while visiting in
Mexico this month.

Nenni forces
win congress

FLORENCE.
The Italian Socialist party con-
gress here has ended with the vic-
tory of the left wing under Pietro
Nenni—which stands for coopera-
tion with the Communsts against
Premier Alcide de Gasperi’s gov-
ernment, the Marshall plan and
the Atlantic pact.
~The congress repudiated a de-
mand from -right-wing Socialist
parties in other countries that it
stop joint action with the Com-
munists in politics and union af-

fairs. “We will not permit traitors
to sdécialism tod pass judgment on

our activities; we consider cooper-
ation with the Communists a ne-
cessity for effective struggle by
the Italian workers,” it stated in
a formal reply.

In the congress vote, the left
wing alone got 51.8 percent of the

svote, with another 40 percent go-

ing to the center group which sup-
ported it against the right on the
main propositions debated. Right-
wingers mustered less than 10 per-
cent of the total.

Parley told
feeling strong
against U.S.

UCHAREST.

Concern over the growing anti-
American feeling throughout Eur-
ope and the need for recruiting
more American agents and inform-
ers, were the main subjects under
discussion in a secret conference of
the United States Information
Service (USIS) European chiefs
which took place at Rome in
March, the Bucharest paper Uni-
versal reveals. The conference was
convened by Allen Dulles, war-
time chief of the American intelli-
gence center in Switzerland and
brother of John Foster Dulles.

Plans outlined were: agents
must collect information concerning
left-wing parties, trade unions, pro-
Soviet politicians, and anti-Amer-
ican feeling.. They must also work
toward splitting democratic parties
and mass organizations and try to
manufacture compromising material
against the pro-Soviet organiza-
tions.
ais European chiefs report-
ed:

In Rumania the American read-
ing room in Bucharest is used to
attract dissatisfied elements, ob-
serve them and eventually recruit
them as agents. One of the loyalty
tests used for prospects is attend-
ance at secret U.S. film shows.

In Yugoslavia the population is
indifferent to American propagan-
da, although circulation of reac-
tionary U.S. material is officially
permitted. The U.S. exhibition at
Belgrade was a complete failure
and no agents can be recruited
among the Yugoslav people, the
Belgrade bureau chief reported.

1 in 8 unemployed |

BRUSSELS

One out of every eight insured
workers is now out of a job in
Belgium, with almost 200,000 of the
country’s 1,995,000 -workers totally
idle and another 80,000 classified
as partially unemployed, accord-
ing to official figures.

Only five percent of Belgium’s
workers were unemployed at the
Same time last year, and only
seven percent in the spring of 1947.

‘Settlement possible at anv time,’ admits Dulles

US used Berlin crisis for propaganda purposes

Nowe SRAEL EPSTEIN
crisig’ that the 11-month Berlin
end, - and airlift have come to an
quest, are entitled to ask several
Sa: Stions, Was it all really neces-
aa Did it in fact involve “Soviet
eon” necessitating western
Teal talk? If not, what were the
RipputPoses of the “crisis”? |
Initi “g how did the crisis arise?
and. Soviet restrictions on over-
the transport between Berlin and
follo estern zones of Germany
insi idee U.S., British and French
a Stence that their new West Ger-
n currency be used in the capi-
Which lies in the middle of the
Viet zone.
ae London Times wrote on
bahay. 1948: “The Russians were
their to take protective action if
furthes ee matks were not to be
discard inflated by imports of old
f eres. _marks from the west.
if the Positions had been reversed,
‘to 2s Russians had been the first
Sonn the currency of their
Would the western authorities
© act have had in an emergency
av Ct essentially as the Russians
te acte ”
that ae means anything, it means
on b he Soviet action was brought
not . estern pressure and would
fens ave been taken except as de-
© against that pressure became

Needed,

The next decision was whether
the West would abandon its econ-
omic pressure or back it up. It
backed it up with the now famous
airlift and its own restrictions
against Russian, traffic. Both sides
were bolstering their positions.

Almost a year after the London
Times, the New York Herald Trib-
une editorialized blandly that the
final agreement to lift all barriers
was due to “patience and firmness
on both sides.” These words were
written on May 5, 1949. :

Tf it was right that the Soviet
side did no more than, exercise the
expected “patience and firmness
in defense of its interests, what
shall we think of the scare head-
lines in the press in the interven-
i ar?
pp they be regarded as any-
thing more than an attempt to

cheat the people in a ie
concerning their very lives?

x * *

do we know the thing real-
fe pcan serious, not only in
headlines, and really threatened
the world with war? Again we
have the evidence of conservative
writers who themselves Leta
frightened of the witches’ brew be-
ing concocted by powerful men in
Washington.

Walter Lippman, in the New

York Herald Tribune of August
2, 1948, charged flatly that a plan
was afoot to present an ultimatum
to the Russians over the Berlin
blockade and to follow it with war
if necessary. Only one. thing pre-
vented this ultimatum—the unwill-
ingness of other Europeans to
fight. “We were not able to deliver
an ultimatum about Berlin because
western Europe is in no condition
to face a war,” Lippmann wrote.

What about the Russians? Did
they get around to spoiling for a
fight too? David Lawrence wrote:
in the New York Sun last August
4: “Again and again the Russians
have indicated a desire to talk
with western governments. Again
and again the democracies have in-
dicated that there was little to
talk about.”

In the meantime the Berlin
crisis continued. It was used to
rush the German people into ap-
proving the creation of a separate
western Germany run by ex-Nazis
and to prepare the way for the At-
lantic pact. ’

John Foster Dulles. long chief
U.S. delegate to the United Nations,
spoke to the National Press Club
in Washington, not for publication,
on January 10, 1949. He said there
could be “a settlement of Berlin at
any time on the basis of a Soviet
currency for Berlin and the right

to bring in food, raw materials
and fuel to the western sectors.”
This settlement, minus the cur-
rency provision, has been made
— but four months later. Why
was it not made before? “The
present situation,” Dulles said in
January, “is to our advantage for
propaganda purposes.”

The big issues of Germany, and
of peace, remain to be negotiated.
There is enough evidence to war-
rant the public in being extremely
alert for further tricks and fake
“crises,” created to deceive them
into accepting situations they
would not tolerate with clear vis-
ion. d

CANADIAN YUGOSLAYS PROTEST

legation in Ottawa.

life may be in danger.

Vukelic be released.

~ Vukelic jailed by Tito.

A delegation of Yugoslay Canadians visited the Yugoslav
minister, Mato Yaksic, this week to protest imprisonment in
Yugoslavia of Branko Vukelic, former counselor at the Yugoslav

Yugoslay Canadians are greatly disturbed by the arrest of
Vukelic, whom they know is a great patriot with a distinguished
record in the liberation struggle of his country.

Vukelic was arrested last September and has been héld in
solitary confinement without trial. His friends fear that. his
The delegation told the minister that
such political persecution is unjustified and demanded that

The delegation represented Yugoslav communities in Toronto,
Hamilton, Welland, Port Colborne, Thorold, Chatham and Wind-
sor, and was led by Milos Grubich, supreme president of the
Council of Canadian South Slavs, and a Canadian war veteran.

—OTTAWA

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 27, 1949 — PAGE 3