Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-18

and omnipotent' elite Of boil
sheyism,
After my return from Muir
mansk. / became a member of
the inner circle guiding the
Maritime Section of the Com
intern. Early in September,
1881, / received an order TO
report TO Dimitrov in Berlin.
A girl courier of the West
ern Secretariat at once led
me 10 an obscure coffee house
in the Moabit district. After
some time Dimitrov. Woll-
weber, several other Germans.
and a Russian whom had not
met before, arrived.
They came one by one,
Dimitrov first sending his
secretary ahead to investigate
if any unwanted outsiders
were around. This confer
ence laid down a plan of
action for a strike based on
tactics new in the history of
industrial warfare.
The Comintern planned
major blow against German
shipping. On October /, all
German merchant ships were
TO be stopped. not only in
Germany, but in all foreign
ports and on the high seas as
well.
The pretext for this strike
was a scheduled wage cut for
seamen; the object was TO
paralyze Germans foreign
trade with one stupendous
blow. Already action COM
mittees had been created in
all important harbors.
A force of 16 agents was
detailed to lead the planned
coup. Wireless messages were
to be sent to all ships at sea
which had radio operators
pathizing with COM
munism. The initial blow was
TO be struck against German
vessels in Soviet harbors, as
a signal for German crews all
over the world to follow suit.
WORLDWIDE MOVE
Wollweber and Albert Wal
ter were put in charge of the
campaign in Germany. l was
assigned to lead the action in
the harbors of the Scan
dinavian countries and the
Soviet Union. Others were
dispatched to direct the assault
against German shipping in
Holland, Belgium, France.
England and the United
States.
A young American. Marcel
Laroque, active in the Mari
time Section of the Com
munist Party of the United
States, was made director of
operations in Antwerp.
We disposed our forces ac-
cording to plan. The chiefs
of the Communist units on all
outgoing ships received their
secret instructions.
Two days after the Berlin
conference, l was on my way
to Leningrad, stopping off en-
route in Copenhagen, Gothen-
burg and Stockholm. / crossed
by boat from Stockholm to
Turku, and reached Leningrad
by train along the south coast
of Finland.
A special mandate from the
Western Secretariat put all
functionaries of the Lenin-
grad international Club at my
disposal. I dispatched the
head of the German Section
in Leningrad, Fritz Richter, to
Odessa. to take care of Ger
man ships in the Black Sea
ports. I remained in Lenin-
grad. establishing headquar-
tiers in the vicinity of the port.
QUIET ON PUBLICITY
Our preparations were car
ried out with a minimum of
publicity. Quarters for strik-
ing seamen were arranged for.
A squad of young women from
the foreign language schools
was made responsible for the
entertainment of strikers to
keep them away from their
ships and the waterfront.
A detachment of German
speaking GPU agents with
marine experience was put at
my disposal. They were dis
guised to play the role of
striking sailors, and assigned
TO prevent any German ship
from boiling in the night after
it had entered the harbor.
The Soviet longshoremen
were to declare a sympathy
strike and refuse to work tied
up German vessels. Already
Sovtorgf1ot had chartered suf-
ficient additional British and
Scandinavian tonnage to avoid
a stoppage of Soviet export
normlly carried in German
bottoms.
At dawn October /, the call
for strike and mutiny was
broadcast. Three German
steamers were in the port of
Leningrad. Committees in
European harbors reported
chat Ok Ntknr rAv.xx,o- cL,De