The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-03-13
Long Live the independence OF
IndO-China

A GREAT revolutionary wave is sweeping
IA across the countries of the Pacific, where
hundreds of millions of human beings are in
revolt against the intolerabe exploitation and
oppression of which they have for centuries
been the victims.
In China the workers and peasants
the eve of fresh advance for the final over
throw of foreign imperialism and its allies,
the feudal elements and the national bourg-
eoise. In India the toiling masses are en-
gagged in revolutionary struggle for the over
throw of British imperialist exploitation and
feudal despotism and for the attainment of
full national and social liberty. In Korea
groaning under the iron heel of Japanese i'm.
perialism the workers, peasants, the youth, the
poorer intelligentsia conducting an heroic
struggle for freedom Notwithstanding torture
and persecution. In Indonesia Dutch imperial
ism is putting down with ruthless brutality the
revolutionary organizations that are leading the
masses in the fight for national liberty In
the Philippines the movement for emancipation
from the yoke of American imperialism is be-
coming increasingly revolutionary. And now
from Indo-China comes the news of revolts of
the Indo- Chinese troops supported by revolu-
tionary peasant organizations in Yen Bay and
Huang Hoa, giving evidence of the growing
united front of workers, peasants and soldiers
in the struggle against their French exploiters.
This military revolt is but one of the signals
of the coming storm in Indo-C China. The wide
spread movement of national liberation is the
natural result of the social, economic and po-
litical conditions that have prevailed in Indo-
China canaan. Cambodia, Cochinchina, Ton
king and Laos) during the last century, but
more particularly since the French imperalists
b,,,.@ Gov, ,oI ,oI
by brute force some fifty years ago. The sit
uation that has thus been created under French
exploitation is intolerable. The peasants are
maintained in an indescribabe state of pauper-
ism. Thew are undernourished The rice pro-
duction of the country, which is the chief
source of living of more than three-quarters
of the population, is quite inadequate to meet
their needs. And even of this inadequate pro-
duction the greater part is exported by the COM
mercial companies while the people starve. The
direct taxation by the imperialist government
and the exactions imposed upon the peasantry
by the feuda landlords the planters, the mis-
sionaries and by government officials have re-
duced the peasants actually to the position of
serfs
The workers of Indo-China live and work
under appalling conditions. They have to slave
from IL to ID hours dav with hardly any in
terval. and it is officially admitted that the
mortality an. ing them is from 40 to so per
cent. Under these terrible conditions 10 to 30
per cent of the workers run away yearly from
their places of employment and subjected
to inhuman corporal punishment when recap
tured. Forced labor is recruited for the mines
and plantations in Jndo-China and in the South
Sea Islands, and the men thus forced are torn
away from their wives and children. If they
resist they are belabored with iron-loaded canes
until they bleed to unconsciousness. Women
and children under IL years of age work under
the same terrible conditions in the coal mines
and rubber plantations. And the whole exist
ing system of labor contracts and labor in.
spection is nothing but a cunning form of
slavery organized for the benefit of the ex-
ploiters.
There is no freedom Of speech, Of the press
or of assembly. The schools are totally mad
equate in number and quality, and illiteracy is
deliberately maintained as an institution. The
workers have no right to organize themselves