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From The Militant, Vol. IX No. 23, 9 June 1945, p. 6.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
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A reader of The Militant has sent us a letter which shows the extent to which many American workers, unthinkingly, accept the poison propaganda of the Wall Street plutocratic press directed against the Japanese nation. We print the letter, together with our own comments, in order to bring to the light of day the real truth about the horrors of the Pacific war and to place the responsibility for these horrors where it belongs – upon the capitalist ruling classes in both Japan and America. |
Editor:
Having read over two copies of The Militant, I find that most of the articles are very interesting, with the exception of one which was written in favor of the Japanese. I can see nothing about them that could classify them as human beings. The information on which I base my view is the eye-witness accounts of a friend of mine who served on one of the Pacific isles. As it stands, they are nothing but inhuman rats.
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R.F. Magnuson |
1. The Militant does not defend the Japanese nation as a whole. It defends the interests of the Japanese workers and peasants, in and out of uniform, just as it defends the interests of American workers and farmers, whether in or out of uniform. It opposes the Japanese lords and capitalists and militarists, just as it opposes the capitalist ruling classes of America, Britain, Germany and every other country.
2. The impressions of individual soldiers in the Pacific must be received with the greatest caution. As soon as American boys enter military training, they are subjected to “indoctrination” by officers drawn from the ruling class of America. These officers teach them to hate and despise the Japanese by harping on their color, their physical appearance and their national customs. While the peaceful American worker or farmer is converted step by step into an aggressive killer, the man he is destined to kill is pictured to him as an “inhuman rat.” Thus long before he ever meets Japanese soldiers, the American soldier has been mentally conditioned to loath and detest his “enemy.”
3. When the American soldier finally encounters Japanese soldiers, he sees that they are indeed of different color and physical appearance, that they speak a strange language and observe habits and customs different from those back home. Is it odd that the rest of the indoctrination course should likewise seem true and that the American soldier really thinks he is up against a nation of cruel savages ?
4. The Japanese soldier has been similarly indoctrinated against American soldiers. He has been trained to believe that the white Americans with their odd customs, odd language and odd physical appearance are “inhuman rats” who do not take prisoners. Consequently he fights, when outnumbered or surrounded, with the bitter fury of hopelessness and despair. That is why the war in the Pacific has become so ferocious.
5. But when has war ever been anything but “inhuman?” Are the methods of slaughter practised by American or British capitalism more “gentlemanly” than those of the Japanese? Is it humane to burn Japanese soldiers to a crisp with flamethrowers, to wipe out hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians with fire bombs – and cruel for a Japanese to set a booby-trap or behead an American soldier ? Also, let us not forget that it was western capital ism which taught modern warfare to the Japanese ruling class and set the example of bloody imperialist conquest.
6. When we Trotskyists see or read about the atrocities of war, we do not condemn the nation to which the perpetrators belong. Nor do we become enraged at the mass of soldiers of that nation. War itself is the supreme crime from which all atrocities flow. War is the product of capitalism. The real criminals in each country are the ruling capitalists, a tiny minority of the population which sets nation against nation in a mad scramble for markets and profits. The soldiers in each camp are trained and commanded to kill. They are the instruments but not the real authors of war’s barbarism.
7. The truth which the hired propagandists of capitalism try to hide is that the Japanese masses, workers and poor farmers, were forced into this war very much against their will, just like the American workers and poor farmers. Japanese prisons are crowded with political prisoners, men and women who protested against the policies of their ruling class. The Japanese people are NOT barbarous savages. They are by nature just as peaceable, just as kindly, just as fun-loving as any other nation.
8. Barbarism and cruelty are spreading over the entire earth, not because some nations are “inhuman rats” while others are civilized human beings, but because nations are pitted against one another in bloody combat by the rulers of the decayed capitalist system. All peoples want peace. But unless the victims of war, the toiling people of every country, put an end to this decayed system, there will be more terrible wars, ferocious, cruel, devastating. Mankind will descend into another Dark Age.
9. By promoting race hatred, the capitalist rulers keep the working people of different lands divided and hostile to one another. In that way the capitalists can continue to rule the world and plunge humanity into horrible wars. That is why it is necessary to expose the lies of race hatred, so that workers in every land may unite against capitalism and struggle together for a better socialist world. That is why The Militant defends the terribly slandered workers and poor farmers of Japan.
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