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From Labor Action, Vol. 6 No. 15, 12 April 1942, pp. 1 & 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Every single item of Nazi-fascist propaganda is anti-labor. For a worker to fall for it is to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
Let us start with anti-Semitism. Hitler’s false and filthy racial issue has been taken over, lock, stock and barrel, by his American brothers of Social Justice. Every worker must be wise to the trickiness of anti-Jewish propaganda and know exactly how the Nazis hope to dupe him thereby. Here is a brief explanation: When conditions become very bad and suffering is widespread, the masses are ready to do something about it. The natural thing to do is to take power into their own hands and organize society for their own benefit. This is exactly what their exploiters do NOT want. So the Nazis carefully cultivate a scapegoat. They try to make the people believe that not the guilty capitalist system, but the Jews are responsible for the misery of the masses.
The pogroms against the Jews allow some people an outlet for pent-up steam. Then the real business of the Nazis – carefully planned and attended to by the top brains of Nazism – is undertaken: LABOR’S ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP ARE DESTROYED.
This is what happened in Germany. Obviously the true function of anti-Semitism is to cover up the conspiracy against labor.
Coughlin and the other fountain-heads of Jew hatred are looking ahead to the period of post-war collapse. They repeat and keep repeating the lie that the Jewish bankers are responsible for the war, They also spread the falsehood that Roosevelt, his Administration and everyone connected with it is tainted by Jewishness.
These statements are pure fiction. Not Jewish bankers but ALL bankers are responsible for the war. The capitalist system of competitive imperialism has brought on the war. Furthermore, any capitalist administration – with or without Jewish connections – would do just what the Roosevelt Administration is doing, namely, prosecute the war in the interests of American imperialism.
Aside from the above fundamental facts, it so happens – as has time and again been proved by figures – that the really big and controlling fortunes of the country are not owned by Jews. America’s “Sixty Families” are not Jewish. Those capitalists who happen to be Jews are as like capitalists who happen to be Gentiles as peas in a pod. Also it so happens that the Roosevelt Ad-minisration is not Jewish. There is but a mere sprinkling of Jews in and around the present government. But what difference does it make whether a politician in a capitalist government is Jew or Gentile? Both are controlled by the same capitalist code.
Truth, however, is the least concern of Coughlin, Pelley, Kullgren, Christians, Smith, Kissinger and the other would-be founders of fascism in America. They want the people to turn their anger against the Jewish population, the overwhelming majority of whom are workers, small storekeepers and small professional people struggling to earn a living. Thus the real culprits, America’s “Sixty Families,” will remain in power – protected by the ruthless dictatorship of the Nazis. The masses, fed up with war, are supposed to change the “Jewish” Roosevelt Administration for the “Christian” Coughlinites – instead of for their own working class government.
A worker has but to look at the world today to realize the fraud of anti-Semitism. Hitler annihilated the Jews, who, he says, are the cause of wars and similar evils. But what a shambles the “pure Aryan” imperialists of Germany have made of Europe! And how about the war the Japanese militarists have waged for years against China and now throughout the East? Are there “Jewish” bankers in Tokyo – but with slanting eyes and yellow skin – who are responsible for the imperialist aspirations of Japan? Plainly anti-Semitism is a frame-up.
Who stands to gain by hatred of the Jews?
Who gained in Germany? Obviously the junkers and big industrialists – and Hitler. While the Nazis were staging their orgy of pogroms, union headquarters were also destroyed, union printing presses were confiscated, union leaders were murdered and jailed, militant workers were sent to concentration camps.
In a word, the only real weapon against exploitation, slavery and Nazi barbarism – LABOR’S MIGHT – was broken UNDER COVER OF ANTI-SEMITISM. Will the American workers let that happen here?
Basing itself upon the people’s natural opposition to war, the Nazi-fascists of America try to ingratiate themselves with the masses by being very much anti-war and anti-administration – very much indeed.
Thus in an issue of Social Justice (January 12) is found deceptive matter like the following:
“Let it be bluntly stated that besides fighting for liberty, our American boys will be expected to regain the Malayan Peninsula not for the people of Malaya or Great Britain, but for Sir John Hay and his legalized gangsters who own or control the Malayan Peninsula and the rubber racket throughout the world.”
This sounds like the real McCoy, doesn’t it? But —
What about the following treacherous Nazi tripe found in another issue of Social Justice (January 5):
“Any honest person will concede that Hitler and Hitlerism were protests against the old order dominated by Britain and the United States; were spearheads of a ‘new order’ to overthrow imperialism.”
Thus in the eyes of Social Justice, British and American imperialism are very bad, but German imperialism is a shining “new order.” And Japanese imperialism has the endorsement of God himself, according to Coughlin’s mouthpiece. To quote again from it:
“Japan is almost barren of natural resources. Her people are prolific. Is there not another law, mightier than the ‘Atlantic Charter,’ which permits a people to expand to unused territories? Is it not true that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof?”
This is typical of the double-talk of the Coughlinites and their ilk. When the imperialists of the small island of Great Britain moved into Malaya, they became legalized gangsters – as indeed they did. But when the imperialists of the small island of Japan take possession, they are only innocently expanding to “unused territories” – as indeed they definitely are not. For what has suddenly become of the poor Malayans for whom Social Justice was shedding crocodile tears in the first quotation above?
To the inhabitants of the subjugated countries, an iron heel on the neck hurts just as much whether the foot above it belongs to an Englishman or a German, to an American or a Japanese.
Any anti-war propaganda that doesn’t take this position is a fake. Any anti-war attitude that doesn’t come out squarely for the end of imperialism throughout the world, but whitewashes Nazi imperialism and calls it a “new order” – is dishonest and a fake. The would-be founders of fascism in this country are not opposed to war. They are merely taking sides in the war. They are helping the Nazis to win!
But from the viewpoint of the worker, the winners of the war must be the subjugated peoples and working classes of all the fighting nations – so that there can be no other war in the future. When the working peoples of the world establish themselves as the rulers of the world, there will be no more wars. That is the side of the war the workers must be on. Any anti-war propaganda that doesn’t say this – no matter how true is sounds in spots – is counterfeit.
So far two “strong” points of the American Nazi-fascists’ propaganda have been exposed. Their anti-Semitism conceals a vicious program to destroy organized labor. Their antiwar propaganda is really support of the Nazis in the war. The next article in this series will deal with the Nazi attempt to arouse their followers in this country to murder and pillage, also their pretended opposition to the “bankers and princes of privilege.”
The reason they speak so big against war is because they hope to win the support of the people that way for their reactionary program.
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Last updated: 8 September 2014