Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-25

Through the night shouts
leaped from ship TO ship:
Don't forget tomorrow
morntng!
ENGLISH SAILORS STRIKE
Tomorrow morning" came.
First 10 strike were the
sailors aboard the Rodney.
Their cheers rolled over the
roadstead. Two hours later
all crews OF the Home Fleet
were on strike. The sword
and shield of the British En-
pire was paralyzed. =.
After SO hours the adj
miralty capitulated before the
mutineers. The affair was
hushed up. Neither trials
nor convictions followe d.
Twenty-four ringleaders were
merely discharged from naval
service-"for subversive con-
duct"-and given free railway
tickets home.
In the subsequent dis
cussions of the lessons OF the
Invergordon mutiny at the
Hamburg Congress, --ene-ef
the Russian emisSarieS OBJ
served that such a naval
strike transformed the Brit
ish Lion into a harmless pussy
cat"
The latter phrase was
snapped up and information
ally popularized by the Ameri-
can delegate. Mike Appelman,
in a book, SIS. Utah" which
in thinly disguised fiction form
outlined the technique of or
ganizing strikes and mutiny
on the high seas, and which
was published by the sub
salaries of the Comintern in
Russia, Germany, the Scandi-
navian countries and in
America.
The Invergordon mutiny
created in the minds of many
uninitiated Bolsheviks an
unwarranted optimism re-
garding the possibility of
"capsizing" the British En-
pire. However, my misad-
ventures in England in the
course of my next assignment,
confirmed the opinion of our
leaders that, in spite OF the
spirit of Invergordon." our
forces were far from whiting
down the claws of the British
Lion.
I was summoned to Berlin
after the international Sea-
mems Congress had closed
and the last of the delegates
had received the funds for
their h pm ward passage.
Georgi Dimitrovs welcome
was exceptionally friendly.
Dear comrade," he told
me, 1--WE are sending you TO
England. You will find
delicate situation there. Our
British movement Is q pain.
It will not grow, neither will
it die. Harry Pollitt and his
crowd are as snobbish and as
incapable of revolutionary
mass work as they are Eng
lish."
For five long hours I re-
ceived detailed instructions
pertaining TO my mission.
They included an overhauling
of the financial management
of the London Daily Worker
and the Communist shipping
paper, the Seafarer, as well
as a tour of British ports, a
reorganization of the Com
munist trade union opposition,
known as the Minority Move
ment," of the East Indian
Seaman's Union. the head
quarters of which was in
London, and the West Indian
Society an international
Negro organization conferred
in Cardiff, Wales.
BIGGEST JOB
It was by far the most i'm
portant job l had ever been
assigned TO tackle. 1 spent
two more days in going over
the British correspondence
files of the western secretariat
of the Comintern. l found
that the reports sent in by
the British central committee
were a mixture of diplomacy,
self-righteousness and claims
TO successes which had not
been attained.
Every letter ended with a
shrill request for money. The
British Party had almost no
income of its own. Perhaps
five per cent of its recorded
members paid dues. Every
phase of party activity was
dependent on subsidies from
Moscow.
Incidentally. it may be
noted that the British files of
the western Secretariat were
not kept at the main offices
which were housed at the
Fuehrer Verlag. The records
pertaining TO each individual
nation were kept in different
private apartments Of trusted
party members.
This decentralization of
documentary material made il
impossible for the police TO
seize in one raid the bulk of
confidential Comintern rec