October 1, 1929.
THE MILITANT Page PALESTINE Pogrom or Revolution?
ago.
Pogrom or national revolution? The answer to this By MAX SHACHTMAN Not every movement led by spokesmen of an oppressed question, arising out of the recent events in Palestine, nationality is a revolutionary movement. It is a lahas brought confusion and sharp dissension into the mentable fact that at the present time the Arab movelabor and Communist movement in this and other The reactionary Arab lenders have diverted the nament is directed by unconcealed reactionaries, with no countries. An understanding of the present situation tionalist movement of the mases into Pan Islamic and substantial Left wing or revolutionary force to chalis prerequisite for an answer.
anti Semitic channels and out of its natural current lenge their leadership, outside of the Communist Party The artificially established country known today as against British imperialism. Is not this clear from all of Palestine which has virtually no influence upon Palestine has been inhabited by Arabs for more than the recent events and which these same reactionaries that has happened? Here is an interview (New York helped to drive into illegality and imprisonment. The twelve centuries. While under the domination of Turkey, the liberation of the country (together with other Times, September 7, 1929) with Auni Abd el Hadi Sij, Arab leaders have curbed the genuine movement of Arabian territory) was promised by British emissaries secretary of the Arab Executive, secretary to Feisal the masses, they have stunted its growth and prevented to the Emir of Mecca, Hussein, as soon as Turkey en of Iraq at Versailles and co signer of the treaty: the development of its natural course of struggle, they have repeatedly misled and devitalized it.
tered the world war on the side of the Central powers.
THE ARAB CONGRESS In November 1915, the English pledged the Arabs title They are still the only spokesmen of the movement, to their lands, retaining reservations on French claims At our congress today we solemnly declared that we to Syria. Hussein, relying upon the support of Briwould not budge from our conviction that Palestine and they speak for reactionary aims. They fight for tain, beran his noted revolt in May 1916, and Britain must again form a part of the Arab Empire of our an Arab Empire. They have compromised with imdreams. The Arab leader went on to say that the perialism and are willing to do it again. They are signed the Sykes Picot agreement on May 16, 1917 which agreed to support an eventual Arab national Arab Executive gave orders to the Arab population against all Jews as Jews. They set up the reactionary demand for the restriction of the Jewish immigration state in interior of Syria. Hussein son, the not to shoot at British troops even when these troops, Emir Feisal, sweeping through Transjordania into Syblinded by London orders, were shooting at them. In into Palestine.
ria, took Damascus, and made it the capital of the the last outbreaks the Arabs shot at Jews only; those They do not even pretend to a program one tenth as Arab state.
Englishmen reported killed, he said, were the victims of advanced as that of the Kuo Min Tang three years The end of the World War saw the betrayal of the stray bullets. We are by no means anti British. They promise the peasant no land and the promises made by England to the Arabs and dissolved (My emphasis. worker no social improvement. They are vehment their Pan Islamic dreams in the brutal realities of Furthermore, the Executive Committee of the Arab enemies not only of Bolshevism, but of the mildest imperialist striving for power. Through the secret National Congress, in a message to the League of Na kind of labor movement. In this respect, they far treaties, France was given Syria north of Palestine; tions, asked it to see that a parliamentary government. excel their Zionist competitors.
and after driving Feisal out of Damascus occupied the representative of the Arabian majority, was installed But all of this means to the Stalinist high priests whole country. England got the oil regions of Mosul in the Holy Land. Between these gentlemen and of the Third Period. They have their idiotic and and Palestine.
their Zionist contemporaries there is about the same empty formula, and feel compelled to make every difference as between the Polish nobility and the favor event, occurring anywhere in the world, fit into the PALESTINE AND THE EMPIRE currying Jews under czarism.
cherished blueprint. The confused and misdirected acWith Cyprus and Egypt, Palestine forms the trianThe cause of the street struggles is therefore not tion of the Arabs is therefore touched with the magic gclar protective collar of the jugular vein of British to be found in the dispute over the socalled Wailing wand of the Third Period. and presto! it has beimperialism: the Suez Canai, the great route to India Wall. Rather the latter is only a religious cloak for come a national revolutionary uprising against bariand China, the other end of the long Mediterranean deep going social conflict. Only the passionately blind tish imperialism. And endless as the Arabian deserts gap guarded on the Atlantic by Gibraltar. Moreover, or the wilfully deceptive fail to acknowledge this obare the theses written to prove this contention. But Palestine is of additional strategic importance for Eng vious fact now. Have not even the National Council who is leading this movement along national revoland. The pipe line for Mosul oil will terminate at of Palestine Jews, and Chief Rabbinate and the pious lutionary lines? We are not told, because discretion the seaport of Haifa, and with it the railroad to Meso Agudheh Israel admitted, in their memorandum to the is the better part of the New Line. Were an answer potannia; Britain imperial airways, of the commercial British High Commissioner, that the Wailing Wall is given, it would have to be: the Grand Mufti, the rabid and military variety, have an important post in Palesonly incidental to the main struggle?
Pan Islamists, the Effendis, the feudal lords are the tire, over which lies the land route India. To retain as yet unchallenged leaders of the movement that has a stranglehold on Palestine by throttling any Arabian Is the Arab attack upon the Jews a pogrom? That the action of the Arabs had anti Semitic features is been generated.
movement for independence has become a cardinal quite clear, and is implicity admitted even by the ComBut, you say, thereby the contention falls to the section in the British imperialist code.
munist Party Thesis (Daily Worker, September 3, ground? Yes, that is precisely why we have the asLargely to this end, as well as for the purpose of dis 1929) when it says that the action of the Arabs tounding picture of three theses of the Political comtracting the sympathy of the Jews from the impending transformed itself rapidly (but from what? mittee and its Agit Prop department (August 30th, Bolshevik revolution, Lord Balfour issued his notorious into a national revolutionary uprising. That it was September 3rd, and September 7th issues of Daily declaration on November 2, 1917, which proclaimed not a pogrom on the Jews, however, is eloquently eviWorker) that do not say a word about these reso England intention to assure Jewry a national home denced by the fairly reliable figures of the Literary Ditionary leaders of the Arab masses, much less com land. that is, by their domination of the Zionist move gest, which reports that the first two weeks of the updemn them. The September 3rd thesis has slogans ment, to inject into Palestine a solid base for British heaval brought the following fatalities: Moslems at its conclusion, without a single one of them in imperialist support, and a source of friction with the killed, 870; Christians, 4; Jews, 175. That the main re plying the need of struggle against these elements who Arabs, a bulwark against the nationalist wave. The sponsibility lies up British imperialism and its Zionwill never lead a national revolutionary movement or reactionary Utopian character of Zionism lent itself ist salesmen, and only in an entirely secondary sense allow one to develop. The September 7th thesis says: splendidly to this design. Misled by the glowing prom upon the Arabs, is attested by no less an unbiased We must point out the distinction between the Jewish ises of the Zionist leaders, thousands of Jewish workers authority than the editor of the American Hebrew: bourgeoisie and the exploited and misled Jewish workwere brought to Palestine to serve as the instruments The arrogance of the socalled Zionist revolutionists ing masses in Palestine. Excellent! But why is there of British imperialism against the Arab natives and the is doubtless a causative factor behind the unhappy Mosnot a whisper about the distinction between the reactionary aims of well fed Jewish magnates in es lem outbreaks against the Jews. The bravado with Arab fellahin and their oppressive Effendis and Mukhtablishing a state in Palestine dominated by the Jewswhich they claim Jewish Palestine against the Arabs, tars? Are we perhaps to understand that the Grand who to this day form only about one seventh of the the aggressive zeal with which they demand an exMufti has become the leader of Arabian Bloc of population and serving the cause of the Union Jack. clusive Jewish nationhood Palestine, inflamFour Classes as was Chiang Kai Shek before him?
The expropriation of the Arabian peasants began on matory political harangues with which they demon Has the green banner of Islam replaced the blue of the a big scale. Their land was bought by Zionist specu strate their foolhardy assertiveness are in no little Kuo Min Tang? Are we to witness another period of lators at incredibly low prices, usually paid to the measure to blame for the ill will and recurrent clashes exaggeration of the essence of the movement, of rich Sheiks and Effendis, leaving the Arab fellahin between Moslem and Jew in the Holy Land. No, praises sung to the national revolutionary anti imwithout any source of livelihood. Together with thou it is not a pogrom. It is an uprising of the down trod perialist bourgeoisie until they again decimate a whole sands of Jewish workers, the Arabs were transformed den Arabian masses, seeking expression for their hageneration of workers and peasants?
into objects of almost limitless exploitation as agricult tred of the British oppressor, but still strangled and Behind all the revolutoinary blabber of the Stalural workers and proletarians in the incipient industry retarded by their corrupt feudal and bourgeois leaders, inists on the Palestine uprising is concealed an abysof the country.
sold out at every opportunity, and often dragged off mally opportunist appraisal of the movement and its into reactionary by paths.
leaders.
THE NATIONALIST MISLEADERS THE FREIHEIT ZIG ZAG The natural growth of Arab resentment against BriTHE ROLE OF THE FORWARD tish imperialism and its Zionist trail blazers, express It is, therefore, the lowest kind of reactionary nationDoes this mean that we have the same viewpoint as that of the Freiheit before it was condemned by the ing itself in a movement for national liberation by the alism, jingoist incitement of backward sentiment, and contemptible insult to an inferior race. when the Party Political Bureau? By no means.
unshackling of England fetters, was checked, perThe view verted and emasculated by the Arabian feudal land socialist Forward writes in its leading editorial point of the Freiheit was quite indistinguishable from lords, the religious caste and the budding bourgeoisie. August 31, 1929. The main motive (so. of the that of a Reformed rabbi with leanings towards the labor movement.
From the Grand Mufti to the lower caste Sheiks. The Arabian attacks bear all the pogromists, the force that drove them to their bloody there is hardly one of the leaders of the Arabian na work, was Gold and women. In the Jewish houses Protest against the British government which persigns of the czarist pogroms, it said (August 26. tionalist movement who has not at one time or another you will find hordes of gold and lovely women. That been bought, or who could not be bought to serve Bri was the cry, that was the fire that excited the blood mits the pogroms upon innocent people. Ah, coldhearted MacDonald, why don you send some wartish or French imperialism. And outside of this re of the mob and drove it to carry out its diabolical actionary element, dominated largely by religious and work. The Southern Bourbon reaction always uses ships and troops to shoot down these confounded Arab Pan Islamic notions, there is no substantial anti im precisely the same reasoning when it proceeds to pogromists. perialist movement except the Communist Party of lynch Negroes. And every worker to whom the cause What happened was that when the incurable MenPalestine. Today there is not even as advanced moveof Labor is dear, will condemnunmeasuredly the shevik Olgin, and the Zionist trained Epstein, were ment in Palestine as was represented in China by the scandalous lynching campaign of the Forward and its scratched by a struggle, their thin coat Bolshevik Kuo Min Tang.
Zionist allies against the Communist Party, and its veneer was scraped off to reveal the Bundist underJewish Organ, the Freiheit, in particular. The daily neath. The fact that the Olgins and Epsteins (there It is this element that is today leading the Arabian incitement of the Forward and the Jewish Day, aided, are many of them, all specialists in slaughtering Trotnationalist movement, particularly in Palestine, and much to the detriment of the interests and aspirations as in Chicago, by the American Legion, has resulted skyists, by the way) covered their scratches inside of in hooligan attacks upon the Freiheit office in Chicago, an hour with some more varnish as soon as they found of the Arab peasant. It wants the establishment of an Arab State in Palestine, if not throughout all the inintimidating newsstand dealers from selling the pathey were ordered to by the Political Comittee, Arabic countries proper an Arab State in agreement pers, pressing advertisers to withdraw their contracts, changes nothing about them. It merely made avem with the British, if necessary. and even under their and breaking up Communist street meetings. These throw away the speeches prepared for the Plaza Lal benevolent protectorate. Thence arises their sharp anare the same despicable methods used by Burleson and meeting, and rewrite them, using the same facts, bet tagonism to the Zionists and their servile attitude toPalmer against the socialist and the labor press duradding on new slogans furnished them by the wards the British master.
ing and after the war, and they have nothing in com Prop department. But you will never make a dik mon with the working class. We protested against purse out sow ear, or a Bolshevik out of Olgin.
Therein lie the causes of the present struggle. To these actions when Stalinists sought to break up our jockey for a better position in Palestine, to advance Opposition meetings and tear up our press. We will British imperialism, with the help of God and comtheir desires for greater power, the Arab and Zionist fight with the party against the present methods of rade MacDonald and Webb. not to speak of the bourgeoisie continue to set their respective peoples the yellow Forward.
anointed Zionists will suppress the present uprising, into conflict with each other. The Arab worker and but since its causes remain, the situation will continue peasant is depicted to the Jew as the source of all his THE ARAB LEADERS to cast up new and greater insurrections. But the difficulties. The Jew is pointed out to the Arab as the Now, is the Arab uprising a national revolutionary Arabian masses will win their liberation only under the source of all evil.
movement, as the official Party press declares? No. banner of Bolshevism.