The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-10-24
BY AMY scHEcHTER

II lie the significance of the Riffian
war and the Syrian campaign against
the Druses as typical attempts on the
part of French and Spanish imperial
ism to dominate and exploit colonial
peoples, but the implications of the
war in relation to the workers and
peasants of the attacking countries
have not been fully brought home to
us. The fact is that the international
nightmare of "the next war" has al
ready become hideous reality for the
French proletariat, they are already
RELIEVING those days that we have al
lowed to become Blurred to merci-
full dimness in our minds because it
is intolerable to remember them.
Looking through the columns Of the
French Communist press we see the
spectacle of the world war being re-
enaeted-the colossal tragedy and stu
pidity of workers and peasants killing
and being killed for the furtherance of
their masters imperialist aims to
their own deeper enslavement; savage
repression at home, graft and incom-
petence and brutality at the front
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in
it's wartime nakedness.
DUT between the way in which the
- French worker faced the situation
in 1914-1S, and the way in which he
is facing it today, lies an immense
and vital difference difference in
which is summed up the progress of
the workers movement since the esta-
blishment Of the Third International.
In 1914-1S the French worker went
into the war dupe to the patriotism
the zeal for LA Gloire" that his mas
ters, with the able assistance of his
socialist betrayers, had used all the
forces of press and propaganda to
instill init him; or at best, in dumb,
vague protest against the forces that
were engulfng him. Out of the ira
vail of months and years upon the
field of battle were born in him the
beginnings OF revolutionary outlook
and of Observation-Disclosures instinct
i've, cropping and unformulated. In
Under Fire, Henry Barbusse, the Com |
munist leader of the French organiza-
ton of war veterans, has unforget- |
tably portrayed these birth-pangs of |
on the battle fields |
of the world war. Today the French |
worker no longer faces war as an in |
dividual, doomed to the ignomy and |
loneliness OF inarticulate and disre- |
garded suffering. He faces it as |
member, more or less conscious, of a |
class, with his own class parliament |
airy representatives, his own class |
press, his own class party and view
point and slogans.
In the chamber of deputies Doriot |
and the other members of the Com |
munist parliamentary fraction have
revealed the war game move by move,
shown up the offensive against the |
Riffs as a Banque de France adven- |
ture, interpreted la Gloire'' in terms !
Of cold cash. Now that Painleve re-
fuses, because he is afraid, to re-
convene parliament, the Communist |
press goes on with the fight against |
the campaign of French Imperialism,
carrying on, in addition, an unremit-
ting struggle against the persecution |
of militant workers at home, and the |
abominable treatment of the soldiers |
at the front.
The anti-war propaganda of the
Communist press is strengthened by |
what constitutes perhaps one of the |
most significant signs of the orienta- |
ton of the French proletariat in this
next war: the letters from soldier
correspondents, who are the worker |
and peasant correspondents transfer
red from field and factory to the bat
tie line. Nearly every issue of |
rHumanite carries one or more of |
these letters-conscious, definite in |
viewpoint the expression not of men |
who have been disillusioned, like |
much of the correspondence publish
ed after the world war, but of men
who have had no illusions from the