ie ader its command the ~ d reinforced divisions the London Times to trength those now fac- ed armies in Italy. ssed, the Partisans at NMground. Their command- @ Josip Broz, since ap- (ihe rank of marshal by uy established Yugoslav i Sovernment issued an wie day. @)ment has come when f@ength must be devoted wile. It should be shown n that the Yugoslav armies are invin- '* We defend our coun- Mere fight for establish- free Yugoslavia,” the eed. “@ Broz called upon his Wifighters “to destroy l\lways lines and factor- ss for the enemy. Cut ‘i supply lines and make movements impossible.” week the force of the “| like others before it, apitself. In three sectors, “, eastern Bosnia and =: Partisans, with Allied = the air, had inflicted wats upon the Germans wives passed over to the artisan troops were ad- Dn Zagreb, the Croatian were fighting the Ger- standstill everywhere. In d November alone the mere estimated to have men, including 16,000 aa; .1,000 prisoners. (| importance to the ions’ cause was Allied secognition of the Parti- weresenting the liberation ‘en Yugoslavia. m@ foreign Secretary An- “en's revelation to the #3Commons that Britain ™ military mission in the # Marshal Broz’ armies if oring, representatives of Wal Army of Liberation @with high British and sites army officers in . # is recognition is as yet 70 the military sphere conclusion is full_dip- lomatic recognition of the Provi- sional government headed by Dr. Ivan Ribar, established early in December at a conference of 140 delegates from ‘the liberated areas. The claim of the reactionary Yugoslav. government-in-exile to recognition rested largely upon the supposition that General Draja Mikhailovitech, its war minister, Was leading organised mi fitary Op- position, to the Nazis within Yugo- Slavia. : : To bolster this supposition that Mikhailoviteh had popular support the government-in-exile spread its false propaganda, claimng for Mik- hailoyiteh victories actually won by the Partisans and denouncing the Partisans as “communists” and “ill- armed bands” incapable of offer- ing real resistance to the Nazis. When it became obvious that Broz’ Partisans and not Mikhailovitch’s Chetniks were waging the strug- gle to free their country the goy- ernment-in-exile resorted to ‘the pretense that Mikhailovitch was conserving his strength to aid the Allied armies when they invaded the country. And as the Partisans grew in military strength and poli- tical influence, basing their strug- gle upon establishment of a free Yugoslavja with equality of na- tionalities, Mikhailovitch and his adherents, striving only to apply the concept of the “Great Serbia” represented by the government-in- exile and reestablish the Yugoslav- ia of pre-war years with all its inequalities, moved closer to the Nazis and their Yugoslavia quis- ling, collaborating with them in their attacks upon the Partisans. The outcome was formation of the Yugoslay provisional govern- ment, which is now asking the United Nations for full diplomatic recognition. King Peter’s denuncia- tion of the new government as a “movement of terroristic violence” cannot conceal the fact that the new government has the support of the Yugoslay people precisely because it is a people’s’ govern- ment. It reveals only the bank- ruptey of the government-in-exile at Cairo. ‘ilovitch’s Orders t Soviet trial of war sis this week directed | the fact that the first ir criminals in Europe ): October in the liberat- ®i Slovenia before a tri- osed of two judges rep- M@rvhat is now the Yugo- j@ ional government, Dr. issnik and Dr. Theodore and three officers of ay National Army of were 19 men charged nery and collaboration anemy. Some of them rents of General Draja | ‘eh, minister of war in lay government-in-exile, [2 who had been collaborating with Italian fascists in Slovenia against the National Army of Liberation. @ne of them, named Serneiz, when questioned by the tribunal as to whether he had heard BBC broadeasts urging all Yugoslavs to unite against the Nazis, replied: “<1 listened to the London radio, but | knew that it was British- controlled, while we had instruc- tions from Mikhailovitch to col- laborate with the Italians against the communists, who are our main enemies.” Seventeen of the men were con- demned to death and two to im- prisonment. = i Britain Should Resign MLE resignation of Col. i S. Amery, Secretary of lmndia, “as the first step mplete revision of the @yernments Indian pol- Wunanimously demanded by the general council Tansport and General argest union in Britain Mand a quarter million ‘on is profoundly shock- revelations of the ter- me which, despite all has been allowed to #he people of Bengal,’ | resolved. “The present affairs constitutes the mination of British rule Bad is doing untold dam- m2 cause of the United The TGWU vote, regarded as particularly significant since Ern- est Bevin, former secretary of the union, is minister of labor in the Churchill cabinet, follows similar actions by labor and cooperative groups up and down the country. The India Relief - Committee, meeting in London last week, Jaunched a nationwide campaign for immediate relief measures for India. The committee demanded that the government send more food, clothing and medical sup- plies to India, and permit Indian People’s Food Committees to carry out equitable price eontrol and rationing. ‘Trade union of- ficials throughout Britain have agreed to cooperate with local India Relief Committees. finance capitalists, Inside Japan By ISRAEL EPSTEIN ie this exclusive article, Israel Epstein, Chungking lived in China for 15 years, gives the first report fo reach in Japan. Epstein obtained his information ganized by Japanese war prisoners in China correspondent for Allied Labor News who has the outside world of wartime strikes from the manuscript minutes of labor study groups or- under the auspices of the Japanese Anti-War League. CHUNGKING. HE world does not know that important strikes of Japanese workers in Kobe, the big industrial city, broke out in April 1941, seven months before Pearl Harbor, and rapidly embraced more than 100,000 workers in the Kawasaki shipya dustries. rds and other Mitsubishi in- Although Japan was then not at war with Britain and the United States; strict internal censorship kept western newspapermen and officials from learning the full extent of the great strikes of 1941. These Strikes, which included the mili- tary industries, began with eco- nomic demands but quickly ac- quired a political, anti-war char- acter. Compilation of the reports of many eye witnesses and par- ticipants by the discussion group organized among Japanese war prisoners in China revealed these strikes as the last great struggle of Japanese labor before Pearl Harbor. This struggle was so important that there was reason to believe that it modified the whole course of Japan’s strategy. Knowledge of it also makes it clear that Japanese labor, al- though exploited and regimented almost beyond endurance, and despite the continued influence of chauvinist delusions, has by no means lost the will and ability. to struggle against its oppressors. It shows that against the back- ground of the ever closer alliance between the Tokyo war lords and so long con- sidered “liberal” by the western world, the Japanese’ workers alone can be the basis of a demo- cratic movement of all sections of Nippon society — peasants, white collar workers, small trad- ers and minor industrialists to whom the war brings only ruin, slavery and death. The development of Japanese working class dissatisfaction has been directly related to the pro- gress of Tokyo’s imperialist ag- gression. By 1939, the mobiliza- tion of industry had advanced so far that high wages were no longer necessary to raise output and attract labor. The workers found that imperialist adventures really meant merciless oppres- sion at home. The fall of Han- kow, in 1938, did not bring the end of the war in China—which the militarists had so enthusi- astically predicted. The govern- ment itself began to talk of a long war. The workers, realizing that they had been deceived, be- gan to strike. TN the meantime, the easy suc- cesses of German fascism in Europe in 1939 and 1940 caused the Japanese militarists fever- ishly to prepare for a blitzkrieg of their own. The opportunity for this blitzkrieg was to be the planned German attack on the Soviet Union, which Tokyo knew was coming. The first objective of the blitzkrieg was the Soviet Far East. Japan hoped that in a war with Russia she would secure a not too unfriendly neutrality on the part of Britain and the U.S. and that, after the Soviet Far East had been reduced, she could turn against these countries as she finally did at Pearl Harbor— but with the difference that her continental rear would be se- cure. . f The new slogan of the militar- ists was: “Solution of the Sino- Japanese conflict on an interna- tional scale.” The realities be- hind the slogan were troop con- centrations in “Manchuquo” and the further tightening of screws at home. It was in April, 1941, at the height of these preparations, that the wave of strikes in Japanese War industry began to rise. The first great strike was at Kobe and embraced more than 100,000 workers—a large part of the fac- tory workers of the city. It in- cluded all the men in the great Kawasaki dockyard and the Kobe factories of the Mitsubishi trust. Hi direct-cause of the Kobe strike was dissatisfaction with food rations. Under the new system brought into force that year, each worker was en- titled to 2.7 go of rice (normal peace time consumption was four go for men-and three for wo- men.) But because of shortages the amount actually given the workers was about 15 percent less. At the same time the working day had been increased from between 10 to 12 to 16 hours. A subsidiary question was that of compulsory night shifts, of which each worker had to do two every week. Representatives from various plants met secretly and decided to launch a movement under three slogans: “Shorten working hours and raise wages,’ “Give us 2.1.80 of rice as you promised,” and, “A volunatary night shift.” The first step was to present these demands to the factory owners. After they were refused, the workers started a form of sitdown strike. They continued to come to the factories, but they stopped the machines and did nothing. Groups marched around the factory grounds shouting, “Why should we be such fools as to work?” Almost from the beginning anti-war slogans were also heard. At first the police tried to take the usual measures. But since all the big factories in Kobe were inyolved in the movement,. these did not suffice. When the deadlock had- con- tinued for five days and the own- ers did not show any signs of willingness to negotiate, another slogan appeared: “The plant ad- ministrations have no sincerity— break the machines.” Systematic sabotage began and more than 100 lathes were smashed in the Kawasaki dockyards alone. There are no figures for the total dam- age done throughout Kobe, but it is known to have been consid- erable. HILE news of the strike was strictly suppressed, the pap- ers not being allowed to publish a word and the police making arrests of people who were even heard talking about it, there was plenty of discussion in govern- ment circles. At a secret session of the cab- inet, reports were presented to the effect that “the strike has now become very bad in nature.” People living in Kobe and Osaka began to say that if the move- ment continued Koke industry would be permanently damaged, Most of all the government was afraid the strike would spread to other buildings. As a result, soldiers were ord- ered into the industrial districts and there were clashes between them and the workers. The strike was smashed. In the following week the police arrested and questioned 20,000 workers. All were asked to identify the ring leaders. All said they did not know them. After a thorough comb-out, four men accused of fomenting the strike were shot. It is significant of the broad nature of the movement that three of these four were foremen and the other was a factory efficial with a good salary. Twenty-four of the more active workers were sentenced to trans- portation from the country and never heard of again. ~ This was a new punishment in Japan and it is supposed that they were taken to “Manchuquo” for labor on secret military con- struction and possibly killed. Japanese workers now in China say that when the Japanese mili- tarists build their secret defenses they do not use common work- ers but prison labor so that ordinary people cannot know about it. In the captured Chinese prov- ineces kidnapped Chinese workers are used. They are strictly guard- ed, moved from site to site for labor of the same nature and then often killed. (The Japan- ese anti-fascist writer Wataru Kaji, who works among Japanese prisoners, told me that he had met a Korean who had been used as a foreman for such work and had escaped. The Korean said he personally had witnessed the slaughter of secret defense workers.) This was the story of the Kobe strike of April, 1941. Participants say that the strike ‘failed not enly because of its brutal sup- pression, but also because there was not sufficient contact hbe- tween workers in the different plants. But although the Kobe strike was crushed, the move- ment continued. The chief fear of the authorities—that the strike would spread to other sections of Japanese war industry—became a reality a few months later, in August, when a strike involving 20,000 workers, including aircraft workers employed in production of the famous Zero, broke out at Nagoya. (A second article will appear in our next issue.) :