Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 40, 4 October 1948, p. 2.
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The Communist League of China, Chinese section of the Fourth International, recently held a 12-day convention attended by delegates from all parts of China.
The problems involved in the building of a revolutionary proletarian party were the main question considered by the delegates. Lively discussion occurred over the proposed program, party constitution and the documents: The Organizational Principles and Methods of Building a Proletarian Party and Theses on the Labor Movement of Post-War China. The main political report as well as a document entitled Marxism versus Petty Bourgeois Revisionism were unanimously adopted.
The Convention chose a new name for the organization. “The Revolutionary Communist Party of China.”
The capitalist press has given little publicity to a war in the back yard of the United States that has taken at least 1,000 lives in the past 40 days. This is the war conducted by Wall Street’s puppet government of the Philippine Islands against the 100,000 Hukbalahaps who resisted the Japanese imperialist forces during World War II and who are now resisting the domination of American imperialism.
Recently, the leader of this movement, Luis Taruc, accepted an amnesty proposal from the government for the movement. The rank and file Hukbalahaps, however, did not approve of this surrender, since the terms of the amnesty required them to give up their arms.
Bitter experience with the quislings maintained in office first by the Japanese conquerors and later by the Americans had taught them to regard such a requirement with deep misgivings.
Taruc thereupon returned to the farmlands of Luzon where the movement is centered.
The Manila Government responded with a full scale assault. “The war continues,” reports Ford Wilkins, correspondent of The N.Y. Times, “behind a screen of bullets and shellfire, crippling fear and official reticence.”
The government forces, he says, “announce no objectives, reveal no casualties, make no promises and do not announce tactics or battle plans. They trust nobody. Publicity is the last thing they want.”
A Sept 27 United Press dispatch reveals the uprising against the Nationalist government of the Indonesian Republic “to be much more widespread than the Republican Government had admitted.”
Described as “Communist,” the rebellion originally was reported to be an isolated “coup d’etat” in the city of Madiun. Now at least three other important towns are known to be involved.
“Fighting is under way now for the strategic city of Magelan, previously in Republican hands.” declares the dispatch, “which indicated either a Government defeat there or a Communist seizure that had not been announced until today.”
The tight censorship makes it impossible to draw definitive conclusions concerning this uprising or its course of development. But its general direction is clearly towards a fundamental social transformation. Its driving force obviously stems from profound dissatisfaction among the people with the Nationalist officials who gave up militant struggle against the Dutch imperialists.
According to the Associated Press, the radio at Madiun controlled by Muso, said to be a “Moscow-trained Communist heading the rebellion,” has announced “Marxist policy” is being carried out in that territory and land has been seized “for redistribution to the population.”
It was not reported whether this affected the holdings of such American corporations as General Motors, Goodyear Tire and Rubber and Standard Oil.
De Gaulle’s drive for dictatorial power in France has already resulted in bloodshed. Violence flared in Grenoble when armed de Gaullist “guards” attacked Workers protesting the fascist-minded general’s demand to rule the country. A worker alleged to be a Communist was shot through the heart. One de Gaullist was killed.
Since this incident on Sept. 18, similar clashes involving thousands of demonstrators have occurred in other important cities including Paris and Le Havre. Hundreds have been injured. Besides his own “guard” formations, which imitate Hitler’s shock troops, de Gaulle relies on police clubs to get away with his provocative rallies.
Leading sections of the capitalist class back General de Gaulle just as the capitalists of Italy, Germany and Spain backed Mussolini, Hitler and Franco.
A period of crucial struggle, now lies before the French workers. They have repeatedly shown their readiness for decisive struggle against de Gaulle, but the Stalinists and Social Democrats are continuing to do everything possible to evade the showdown fight which de Gaulle is preparing to force upon the working class.
Last updated on: 29 March 2023