Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs: Grace Carlson
Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 42, 18 October 1948, pp. 1 & 2.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The capitalist rulers of America are broadening their drive to strengthen and bolster up the forces of fascism and world reaction.
First came the brazen reduction of the sentence of Ilse Koch, the “Beast of Buchenwald,” together with the commutation of the sentences of other leading Nazis.
Now on the very heels of this scandal, comes the move to include Franco in the ‘democratic’ camp.
Everyone knows that Franco conspired against the legally constituted government of Spain in 1936 and with the armed aid of Hitler and Mussolini, overthrew the Spanish government by force and violence in one of the bloodiest civil wars of modern times.
Everyone knows that this newest hero of the Democratic and Republican bi-partisan coalition, is not only a Spanish fascist. He served the Nazi cause faithfully during World War II and sent his Blue Division to fight side by side with' the Nazi armies against the Allies. It is also public knowledge that the prisons and concentration camps where thousands of members of the Spanish labor movement are held to this day are just as vile and horrible as those maintained by Franco’s former friends, Hitler and Mussolini.
But what difference do these unpleasant details make to the bi-partisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans? Franco is against “communism,” isn’t he? He’s against Russia, isn’t he? That makes him a blood brother of the Wall Street gang who are lining up every dictatorial cutthroat, every fascist criminal, every despot and authoritarian butcher to fight for “democracy” in the Third World War against “totalitarianism.”
The conspiracy of the Wall Street gang to rehabilitate Franco, bring him into the United Nations, and serid him American arms and dollars, has been carefully engineered and plotted ste]5 by step.
First, Senator Chan Gurney, Republican head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, went to Madrid with a group of high-ranking Brass Hats to discuss “communism” and World War III with the fascist dictator. Elated over the “moral courage” of Franco’s fascist legions which “both the Generalissimo and myself would be delighted to see reinstated throughout Europe,” Gurney called for a full military alliance with Franco.
Then James A. Farley carried the ball for the Democrats. A few days after Gurney, he too shook hands with the executioner of tens of thousands of Spanish trade unionists. “We had a fresh interchange of views and ideas,” said Farley, “and I can truthfully say we were in general accord on our observations.”
Farley likewise called for a full military alliance with Franco and freely admitted that it was designed for “trouble” with Russia.
In accordance with the carefully drawn time table, these declarations of friendship were followed up by Secretary of State Marshall. Marshall approached Bevin of Britain and Schumann of France on revising the United Nations policy toward Spanish, fascism. Such revision would permit Washington to pour American dollars and arms into fascist Spain without the embarrassment of violating UN resolutions.
The campaign to enlist Spanish fascism in Wall Street’s war camp throws a pitiless light on what these war preparations really mean. The inclusion of Franco bares the real aims of American imperialism, its real program, and the kind of world it aims at building. Big Business envisions an earth made safe for tyranny and despotism, where dictators ruling in the interests of a privileged few will sit enthroned over the slaves of a new dark ages.
These ominous moves clearly portend the clearing of the decks for action. They reveal with what speed World War III is approaching, if these war-makers have their way.
So it is not surprising that! Winston Churchill, who went to Truman’s home state of Missouri in 1946 to make the first an-nouncement to a stunned world of the “get tough” policy with Russia, should now herald the “remorselessly approaching third world war.”
This watch dog of the British Empire hails the “rearming” of the U.S. “on a large scale,” condemns the “trials of former Nazis,” urges “our American friends to let bygones be bygones” so far as Nazism is concerned, tells his friends of the bi-partisan coalition not “to destroy the stocks of atomic bombs which they have accumulated” and then shouts at the top of his lungs for an early war: “We ought to bring matters to a head and make a final settlement,”
Let no one imagine that the American ruling class will promote dictatorship and fascism abroad without touching democracy here at home. Just as the new Congress will be asked to convert the Marshall Plan into a plan for the full scale armament of Western Europe, so it will be asked to enact anti-labor legislation even more savage than the Taft-Hartley law. Foreign policy and domestic policy are intimately bound together. The same Big Business circles anxious to strengthen fascism in Spain, Germany and France will just as readily nourish fascism here in America.
The question of war or peace is the most crucial question in the 1948 election campaign. A vote for the bi-partisan bloc of Democrats and Republicans can only hasten World War III. A vote for Wallace and his “peace” program is a vote thrown away for Wallace has already promised to support the war if and when it breaks out.
You cannot fight War or secure enduring peace by permitting the capitalist class the real rulers and masters of America – to remain at the helm of government and in control of the country’s destiny. War can be prevented only by taking power out of the hands of the war-makers. Any program that promises to bring peace – as does that of Wallace – without kicking out the war-makers is either conscious deception or muddle-headed ignorance.
The platform of the Socialist Workers Party calls on the people to take the war-making powers out of the hands of Congress. Let the people vote through nation-wide referendum on the question of war or peace!
Withdraw all troops from foreign soil! For the complete independence of the colonial peoples! No confidence whatever in the United Nations, dominated by despots of every variety and designed to spread the illusion that peace is possible under capitalism! Full solidarity with the revolutionary struggles of workers and farmers in all lands – those dominated by American imperialism as well as those dominated by reactionary Stalinism! For the Socialist United States of the World!
YOU ARE VOTING FOR THIS GENUINE SOCIALIST ANTI-WAR PROGRAM WHEN YOU VOTE FOR DOBBS AND CARLSON ON NOV. 2.
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