Montana labor news., 1945-09-27
ONE WORLD and
LABOR

China's Guerrilla Workers

China's Guerrilla Workers
The heroic story of how industrial
workers helped set up and maintain re-
sistance bases behind Japanese lines in
north, central and south China is told
in report just prepared by the FEEDER
alton Of Trade Unions OF the China
Liberated Areas, the labor organization
which grew to amazing strength in the
space OF few years
Shen Chien-tu, Allied Labor News
correspondent gi the higblights Of
the report in a dispatch from Yenan,
capital OF guerrilla China
1t reveals that a total of $4,000 work
ers entered the Communicated 8th
Route Army in north China in l938-39
alone More than 10000 workers of the
famous Kailan mines, formerly a Sino-
British concern, formed a guerrilla de-
tachment after a revolt in which they
captured the mines for some days and
subsequently became the first regular
column to invade Manchuria.
In central China, the New 4th Army
has one brigade composed of workers
from four industrial cities in which
every man and every officer from the
commander down is a unionist Work
ers form half the enlisted personnel OF
this army south fthe Yangtze and
fully 500 Of its strength in the Shang
hai-Nanking area Gen. Wang Chen,
commanding all resistance troops in
Human, is a former locomotive fireman.
Outside OF these regular formations,
miners, railWaymen and other workers
in previously occupied territories or
ganized themselves into no less than
20 guerrilla detachments of from 200
to 1000 men each and 20 others Of 100
men or less.
These workers not only fought the
Japanese but produced an ever-increas-
ing flow OF arms, ammunition, cloth
ing, medicine and food to keep the
guerill bases alive in the face of a
double economic blockade by the Japa-
nese on one side and Chang Kai-shek' S
troops on the other.
During the war output of industry in
the guerrilla regions increased many
times, while the efficiency of individual
plants in the last two years rose from
30 per cent to l2O per cent.
u
Freedom Parade
Half million people marched
through the streets of Buenos Aires,
Argentine capital, Sept l9 to demon
strate against the fascist Farrell -Peron
regime.
1t was the largest mass rally the
country has ever seen but the govern
ment, caught in the trap Of its own
democratic promises, was powerless to
stop the demonstration. Col. Juan d.
Peron, Argentine dictator, tried to head
it off by warning that there might be
fighting. His threats were ignored by
the people, who called their parade the
March of the Constitution and Freedom.
All political parties participated with
out exception.
Nigerian Strike
Some of the banners carried by the
crowd read Yesterdays Nazis Cannot
Be Today's Democrats; The People
Demand the Reign of the Constitution
Are colonial workers expected to
starve quietly when their wages remain
frozen at miserably low levels while
living costs aim for the skyi That was
the basic issue in the strike which
swept Nigeria beginning June q, de-
veloping into one of the longest and
most widespread strikes of organized
African workers yet to occur.
According to British officials the
strike ended August but a cable TO
the Council on African Affairs dated
August 20 from Lagos said the strike
was still unsettled and the workers had
received no satisfaction on their de-
mands for wage increases.