The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-04-20
BY ROMAN ROLAND

( BY ROMAN ROLAND
THE world today presents the spec
l. tacle of an inferno. The man who
detaches himself from the narrow
circle of the privileged nations and
within these nations from the classes,
and within these classes from the
privileged castles, sooner or later dis
covers that every civilization in which
he rejoices and Of which he is proud
rests upon the atrocious, degrading
and murderous exploitation Of nine
tenths of the peoples Of the earth.
When this revelation has pene-
trated his being, the JOY of living
dies within him till the moment
when he resolves to do battle to de-
stroy this canker, even though In the
combat himself must be destroyed. e,
This terror which now weighs on
every part of the earth delivered over
to capitalist exploitation, has as
sumed gigantic proportions in the
great territories of India and Of the
Far East, where 1t sucks the blood Of
millions of human beings. 1t is in
herent in fatal character Of the crime
/ blldb U1lG DlOUOSuShcIS Ch1ll1Ob 4C4CcoS
their victims without perishing.
| England has subsisted for g. GEN.
fury upon the body of India, bIed
white; her prosperity already totter-
ing, would collapse in the very hour
that her prey should escape her.
The corpulent ease of Holland
rests in the same way upon the
! substance of the Dutch Indies
which nourisheS her.
France has made of her Empire of
| Tndo-China not only a source Of
/ super profits, but a bastion of war
which her proconsuls Of armed fl
nance, like those Of ancient Rome,
Of the Republic Of publicans, have
made their base of operations FOR the
Forthcoming struggle in the Pacific,
now preparing, and for the partition
! of China, -.
GO long as the oppressed reacted
~ against the oppressors only by in
termissent and piecemesl spasr1s Of
revolts, coercion prevailed against
them swiftly and noiselessly.
All is changed since, in these lat
ter years, the working masses and
the peasants have realized the need
to organize themselves in a fighting
revolutionary bloc, resolved to trans
form the social system A new era
has opened in the revolt of the op-
pressed world.
In British India it dates back
hardly more than five years to the
Bombay textile strike of 1923, and to
the formation of the Girni Hangar
| Union.
Repression followed, immediate and
implacable.
In British India the judicial ma
chinery endeayors solemnly to falsify
| legality, instead of strangling it, as
in Indo- China, behind closed doors.
1t has brought TO an end, by the
scandalous judgment at Mee1ut, a
| monstrous trial For four years,
from June, 1929, to January, 1893,
this process dragged itself out, under
mountain of paper, comprising
more than 1900 documents and tens
| OF thousands Of printed pages.
The sentences are of such revolt
ing injustice that even the liberal
opinion of moderate English people
has been dismayed and is endeavor-
ing to utter some tin1id protests.
/ But IL is necessary to arouse the
opinion of the world; for this trial
/ IL not merely the trial of 81 con-
4 detnned persons: it rs the trial Of
the system Of Government which
has passed Judgment upon them.
/ AS one of the condemned, r. s.
Nimbkar, general secretary of the ALL
India Workers and Peasants Party,
has clearly established, English lib
eralism Is not only powerless to re-
pair the verdict, it Is even incapable
of conceiving either the illegal pro-
ceedings which have become current
or the exceptional laws which the
imperialist terrorism of Great Bri-
tain applies to one-seventh of the
people of it's Empire, to one-sixth of
the population of the world.
The Labor Government which
knowingly made use of these meth
DDS, or at least permitted them TO
continue under its auspices, became
itself the prosecutor of this trial. 1t
thereby trampled under foot all the
! dOSGIluen Vi AilOu4c-SldSs olDCI dlloiIis
of which the Labor Party was the
outcome.
More serious still II deliberately
specialized on the passiYity of the
1 workers movement in England and
Willingly pandered to this passiyity,
making of it an accomplish, in order
! TO exterminate the movement Of the
Indian workers who form six-tenths
Of the British Empire.
Such is the scheme Of which the
workers movement in England and in
Europe n1xas. stesnss itseM y4ze