WITH THE SECOND WORLD WAR COMING TO ITS CONCLUSION IT NATURALLY LEFT AN UNDIGNIFIED POLITICAL SCRAMBLE IN ITS WAKE. ~ Rob Ray ~ As summer arrived in June 1945 both the USSR and the Allies, now let off the hook for their wartime alliance, began the long process of competitive propagandising that came to be known as the Cold War. For much of the British left, still tied to the Communist Party of Great Britain and its Soviet inclinations (a situation that would last until Hungary 1956) this meant all effort would need to go to the cause of promoting the new Utopia. This was, of course, largely a fabrication. As we now know in great detail, Stalin’s projection of a happy society, especially in the rebuilding of a shattered Germany, was covering for the imposition of a brutal police state. Freedom Press was quick off the mark in critiquing Russia from the left. In the early June 1945 issue of War Commentary it ran a trenchatn piece accurately pinpointing the nature of the propaganda front being pushed, warning that tales of good works would not be as they seemed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STALIN’S ‘LEFT’ TURN: ANOTHER POLITICAL TRICK It seems clear today, with the defeat of the German army and the unconditional surrender of the Reich, that none of the major problems of European politics has been solved by the victorious powers. The inevitable contradictions which have been foreseen during the war by a revolutionary minority cannot remain hidden any longer from the public by official and unanimous declarations or promises of a wonderful peaceful world.  Only a few days after the final act of the European war, when the VE-Day celebrations were still going on, when the flags of the United Nations were still displayed in all the public places of Great Britain, France and the USA., the reactionary press of America started to call a war with Soviet Russia inevitable, pointing out that Europe cannot be reconstructed so long as it is dominated by the evil power of Russian Imperialism, At the same lime the Soviet papers started a campaign, which still continues, to prove that the Western Allies are collaborating with the big shots of the Nazi regime and to point out that the liquidation of the German Army must be parallel with the extermination of the last survivors of the Nazi regime.  Behind these accusations by the Soviet press and radio lies something quite different. Stalin has once more surprised the world with one of those somersaults of policy which are possible only if you have absolutely no public opinion to reckon with, if all liberty of thought and of expression have been carefully suppressed beforehand.  The trend of the Soviet foreign policy appears now to be concentrating on one major objective: the neutralisation of Continental Europe. It has always been clear to the Russians that to dominate Europe they must dominate Germany, exactly as it is necessary for Germany to dominate Russia in order to keep its position in Europe and the world.  In other words, Stalin would like a friendly Germany, while the western powers are not interested for the time being in the friendship of the German people, and seem to have in mind to exploit themselves the industrial power of the Reich rather than to build up a new German economy.  The British, Americans and French have decided to bring “order” into defeated Germany, even by means of “collaboration” with the most reactionary German elements. The Russians are able to establish order by themselves, for the GPU [secret police, succeeded by the NKVD – ed] can take care of any internal opposition. There need not to be collaboration. Indeed, the fear of Russia still prevailing among many Germans, particularly the bourgeoisie, makes collaboration with reactionary elements difficult for the present. Stalin knows this, and that is why he decided to enter Germany as a “liberator*’, while Churchill and Roosevelt spoke of “conquering”. It is true that the Russian policy during the war was ostensibly one of conquest and of domination. But, now the war is over, Stalin starts to try to win over the German people, to convince them of the necessity of co-operation with “mighty Russia”. This is the scheme.  First, conditions of life must be improved. The food rations in Russian-occupied Germany are increased (at least temporarily). The reconstruction work is done with the greatest possible speed. The Berlin underground is running. The shops are opening. Cinemas are featuring Russian pictures. The orchestras are playing once more — Tchaikovsky has replaced Wagner. At the same time the radio stations are again on the air. The propaganda from the Berlin stations starts to “prove” that the Russians have only the best intentions towards the German people, and announcers with German accents ask the listeners to thank the Red Army for liberation from the Nazi yoke. Here is a typical item:  “One Miss Ursel Friedman says: ‘Now we know what lies the Goebbels propaganda told about the Red Army. Nfot only shall we not starve, but the working man gets more than under the Nazis. All this is a revelation to us. We are simply amazed. We shall want to work in any case. It is now up to us to organise the distribution of work swiftly and efficiently. We all see rolling past us the Red Army lorries carrying food to the German population. Altogether a new life is beginning. We have started on the way towards a better world. Even theatres have reopened. Things are looking brighter and they will look brighter still’.” (Berlin Radio, 18/5/45).  At the same time the new German municipal administration of Berlin takes over. General Barjanin, Soviet Commander of Berlin, pointed out during the opening session of the council that “Marshal Stalin has long ago ordered the preparation of food for German civilians.” It seems that Stalin took this measure at the same time as his spokesman Ehrenburg spoke of the awful “Fritz”, the Hun who will have to pay for the Nazi crimes.  So far everything seems clear. The Russian government wants a “friendly” Germany. So it shows the “humanitarian” and “liberal” aspect of the Soviet regime. M Mikoyan, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR., ie. deputy to Stalin himself, recently made a tour to study the food situation in occupied Germany, especially in Berlin and Dresden. On his return to Moscow he gave an interview to Pravda. Here is what the “communist” Mikoyan had to say:  “The seriousness of the German food situation is mainly due to the German government’s mistaken policy in agricultural production and distribution. According to the German law the peasants had to deliver all their produce to the State except for a certain quantity they could keep for their own use. They could not sell any grain, fats, meat or potatoes on the free market or through trade organisations. This naturally weakened the stimulus towards increasing production. To enable Germany to feed her own towns, the peasants must be allowed to sell in the free market after fulfilling the compulsory deliveries to administrative organs. Trade in any articles of mass consumption was previously forbidden in Germany and the population had to be content with the very few wares they were given on ration cards. To improve the population’s supplies the Soviet Command has allowed free trade in Berlin. This will be another way to raise the standard of living of the urban population.” It will also be another way to return to the most classic system of capitalism. A few years ago M Mikoyan would have been shot as a traitor to the “progressive” Soviet regime of trade control and of suppression of the “kulak” or enriched peasant.  The Russian policy in Germany, the policy of “friendship” with the German people is only one of the features of the scheme set up by Stalin to form the European bloc to protect the Soviet Union. What Stalin is doing now is a “cordon sanitaire In reverse.” This cordon sanitaire must of course include countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Yugoslavia, not to mention Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. It is in connection with the formation of this bloc of Central and East European countries that there appears the “new” formula of Soviet policy. In fact it is not new at all, as we shall see in a moment.  In his order of the day, announcing the capitulation of the German armies, Stalin spoke of the “historic struggle of the Slav peoples”. A few days later, 19/5/45, one of the Stalinist agents, M. Zdenek Nejedly, Education Minister of Czechoslovakia, emphasised the meaning of this historic sentence. He said in his first speech upon his return to Prague: “I return from Moscow as Minister of Education, firmly convinced that the destiny of the nation, liberty and civilisation have been defended by the Red Army … The most important fact for us is that, in the future Europe, the leading role will belong to the Slav nations. The Slav idea, vague in times of Kolkar, has to-day become a reality. The Slav nations, centred around the great Russian nation, represent a force which no European coalition can oppose.”  As I said, the idea is not new. Replace, for instance, the word “Slav” by the word “Germanic” and see if it does not remind you of something …  So today, in the month of the “most crushing victory in human history”, power blocs are already forming. I have attempted to analyse the trend of the Soviet foreign policy as it appears now. Of course, the British and the Americans are preparing to counter these moves. They have their own interests and their own plans. It is perhaps too early to speak of the results which the logical development of the situation may bring. There is not always much logic in traditional politics. But the movements which can overthrow regimes, can also upset foreign policies.  ~ DIMITRI TVERDOV -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pic: Brandenburg Gate, 1945, from the German Federal Archive The post Radical Reprint: Stalin’s ‘left’ turn appeared first on Freedom News.

THE BEGINNING OF 1945 WAS A TURBULENT TIME FOR FREEDOM PRESS, ALONG WITH ANARCHISM IN BRITAIN AND WESTERN EUROPE ~ Rob Ray ~ While the Germans were mounting their last, doomed final offensive, the outcome of World War II was already no longer in doubt. The fascists had been routed in the East, invaded in the West, and to the South, Rome had fallen. It was time for what remained of the movement to consider its options. The signs were bleak. On the one hand, the war had largely sidelined the anarchists, as it had the peace and socialist movements, buried beneath the urgent necessities of global conflict. Its bombs and production quotas. The movement had lost some people to the war itself, some to the greater lure of the Communist Party. Even worse and unreported (for obvious reasons) in its major paper War Commentary was a rift in the movement that opened during 1944. As of January this had led to the splitting of the Freedom Group from the larger Anarchist Federation (not the same as the modern group).  The subject of today’s reprint is not on that topic specifically, but research by the Kate Sharpley Library is worth reading on how the crisis played out, leading to a group centred around Vernon Richards and Marie Louise Berneri taking full control. So by January, 80 years ago, the Freedom Group and its small band of anti-war activists were struggling on a number of levels, having worked throughout the war to bring out the paper while barely being tolerated by a security service, which had arrested the occasional contributor such as John Hewetson (in 1942, for draft dodging) and banned the Communist Party-aligned Daily Worker from 1941-42.  As of late 1944, however, even the limited tolerance of “more trouble to repress than to ignore” ran out. This change was linked particularly to the State’s own shift in priorities, away from total war to how on Earth it could reintegrate nearly 3 million armed and trained working class soldiers into a shattered capitalist economy with flattened housing and few prospects. Where War Commentary’s insinuations that perhaps more suitable targets than foreign fighters existed could be brushed aside in the fight against fascism, there might be rather more concerning implications for such language reaching the masses in years to come. On December 12th this rising concern led to a series of raids, including on the Freedom Press premises, then at Belsize Road, and at the homes of two comrades looking for incriminating materials. These were far from the only attempts to gather information on or repress the anarchists at the time, with Albert Meltzer recounting the story of Fay Stewart’s home being raided in an attempt to get the subscriber list for radical newsletter Workers in Uniform, and John Olday being arrested first for identity theft, then for desertion. Unlike the monthly Freedom papers of 1914, War Commentary had in large part kept up a hectic pace producing two papers a week with a volunteer staff, so it had more space and could react more quickly to events. Here I reprint the first of two articles in the January 13th and 27th issues. This would mark the beginning of a famous legal showdown known today as the War Commentary Trials, of which more will be written later in the year. POLICE STILL HOLDING FREEDOM PRESS FILES! Though four weeks have passed since the Freedom Press offices were raided, none of the goods seized have at the time of writing been returned by Scotland Yard. In fact, so far, not even an inventory of the items seized has been sent to our solicitors. We mention this not so much to explain any delays and errors in dispatching War Commentary and our publications to readers who sent orders at the time of the raid, but to show how it is possible under the pretext of obtaining information for one suspected offence to deal a blow which has no relation to the suspected offence and which can cause considerable inconvenience to the persons concerned.  Paragraph 2 of Defence Regulation 88A (the regulation under which the search warrants were issued) states that “A person authorised by such warrant … may seize any article found in the premises … which he has reasonable ground for believing to be evidence of the commission of any such offence. … Now the suspected offence is covered by Defence Regulation 39A the gist of which is that no person shall endeavour to seduce from their duties persons in His Majesty’s service, etc. … The method used by Inspector Whitehead and his men to find the evidence was to empty the contents from the different letter trays straight into sacks, seize invoices and account books which dealt entirely with transactions with bookshops and bundle them into sacks as well, seize the office typewriter and boxes containing stencils of addresses, letter books and other material without which it is virtually impossible to run a concern like Freedom Press.  During the search at the homes of two comrades professional notes which had not the remotest connection with politics and accounts from business firms for-goods supplied, as well as the account books and publishers invoices for Freedom Bookshop Bristol (2025 note, the Bristol bookshop, pictured above, ran for a time from premises at 132 Cheltenham Rd) were removed, such seizure presumably being classified as “reasonable ground for believing it to be evidence”!  It could be argued that it would have taken more than five hours to sort out all the material on the spot, but the fact remains that over four weeks have passed and the material seized is still in the hands of Scotland Yard. By retaining these documents they are making it extremely difficult for Freedom Press to carry on its “lawful business”. Many subscribers will be without their copies of War Commentary; we have no means of sending out renewal notices. We are also in the unenviable position of not being able to send out accounts for money owing to Freedom Press which now runs into several hundred pounds sterling, nor have we details of payments made and to be made for goods received thereby jeopardising our credit with suppliers. What means are there for redress? Our solicitors have written two letters to the Commissioner of Police explaining the position outlined above. As we expected, they have obtained no satisfaction; only a vague promise of an inventory of the material seized.  ***  Meanwhile the note which appeared in the last issue of War Commentary on the raid and of our having to move from Belsize Road has resulted in a very large number of letters from readers expressing their solidarity with us in this difficult period and their whole-hearted support for the work Freedom Press has been doing during these past years (see also Letters column on page 4). These expressions of solidarity give us that added amount of determination required to carry on when so many obstacles are being put in our way. To our readers in the Services who have been subjected to the indignities of being searched and their reading matter confiscated (2024 note: these included a teenaged Colin Ward) we have little to say. Their letters to us, in which the outstanding feature is their determination to maintain their opinions in spite of threats and searches, show a spirit which is a source of inspiration and of hope for the future. And they can be sure that Freedom Press will not waver in its fight for the rights of Free Expression in the cause of that future society we all desire in which man will be really Free. The post Radical Reprint: Freedom struggles against government raids appeared first on Freedom News.