CORRUPTING THE ARMY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19311, 24 October 1924, Page 13

CORRUPTING THE ARMY.

COMMUNIST CALL TO MUTINY. Tho Under-Secretary of the Home Office, Mr Rhys Davies, stated in reply to questions in the House concerning an “ Open Letter” to soldiers in the Workers’ Weekly of July 25, that '“the Home Secretary is considering whether any action is called for in this matter.” While Mr Henderson is “considering the matter” the Communists (says the Morning Post) are developing their plans to undermine the discipline of the forces. The latest action of the Communist Party is, following the methods adopted by the French Communists, to issue with tho Workers’ Weekly a “Special Service Supplement” addressed to “The Forces.” The first issue of this supplement is published in a recent number of the Workers’ Weekly. The character of the contents of the supplement is indicated by the large headlines in which the forces are addressed in the following terms: — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen! Will You Kill Your Mates? Remember—You Are Workers! The Bosses axe Your Enemies. Don’t Shoot Strikers 1 They are workers like you. They are fighting for a decent living for themselves and their women and kids. If the profiteering capitalists, through their agents—ycur officers —tell you to murder British worker®— Don’t Shoot. Among other articles for the services is one specially for sailors. It is headed: “Form Your Own Committees,” and contains the following passages: “ Your follow workers have their trade unions, trade councils, and workshop committees. “Are you allowed to form committees? “You, Sailors in the Navy, you have Welfare Committees. What can they do? “The Admiralty know that if you get together to discuss things their rule would be broken. Why is this? “Is if not because they known very well that they want you to use. you against your fellow-workers, whether it be during a strike, to blackleg and shoot them down, or during a war to increase the profits of the capitalists? “Don’t do it. Get together and discuss your grievances. Got together and tell your comrades what you are there for. Form your own committees in your depots and on your ships in the barrack rooms, and at aerodromes.” This Bolshevist attempt to subvert the fighting forces is directed from Moscow. On July 18 a special number of the Internationa) Press Correspondence was issued containing a long manifesto from the Communist International “For the Tenth Anniversary of the Imperialist War.” This manifesto was signed by. among others, Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Stalin. It contains the latest instructions from Moscow on Red Propaganda in tho Army, and is the basis of the appeals to tho forces issued by the British Communists. Tho following excerpts from this document will prove that our Bolshevists are merely obeying the orders of their masters in Moscow: “It is necessary (the manifesto states) that tho youth enter the capitalist armies with an ipward determination to direct their arms, not against their brother-proletarians, but against their class enemy, the hour gooise Wo must maintain a close connection with the barracks. We must see that the word of truth reaches every soldier. We must unite the class conscious soldiers into small groups. . . “We must direct attention to the military factories. In each of these there must be a strong militant nucleus, which will be capable at tho decisive moment of carrying with them all the working masses. The bourgeoise fear neither pacifist preaching nor the Social Democrats’ tlireat of a general strike. But tho bourgeoise tremble with hatred and fear at the news of tho formation of each little illegal nucleus on the railroads, in the military factories, and especially in the Army and the Fleet. “The bourgeoise know that a small but strong nucleus in each regiment may play a decisive roio at the decisive moment. This is the reason that every capitalist Government, whatever its democratic guise, persecutes mercilessly all real revolutionary work, and this is the reason that it is tho duty of every revolutionist to increase his efforts in this direction tenfold. “Only that party which from day to <iav carries on nr. unremitting struggle against T he bourgeoise; that party which rallies the workers to the struggle; which has learned to hate the domination of capital; which infects the masses with this hatred: which rrepared the necessary forces and means for the eornhnt ; which establishes bases of surnort for the revolution in the I barracks —only such .1 party can really fight ; ■'gainst war The Uomnvnist Party of ; every country may be .such a directing | force.” j