‘The fight against Nazi Germany continues; it’s the hardest of all, but it is not the only one. It is not enough to reconquer that semblance of freedom with which the France of 1939 had to be content. Unlike the old France, the new France must not be under the thumb of the financial powers…’
France Combat Magazine, Paris Insurrection (August 22nd-25th, 1944)
Although the conscripted British Army of WWII fought the forces of International Fascism across the globe, prior to WWII and immediately following this conflict, the British Army was ruthlessly used by the ruling British bourgeoisie to spread and maintain English imperialist power. It is ironic to think that the returning British working class conscripts of WWII during 1945, voted overwhelmingly for a Labour Party that offered Soviet-style and far-reaching changes to UK society with a radical re-distribution of wealth through the development of a comprehensive Welfare State and National Health Service (NHS). All these things were part of the daily life in the Soviet Union. Although Churchill did not hold official office between 1945-1950, nevertheless, he and President Truman worked together on the international stage to create a US-European anti-Soviet alliance (which would culminate in the modern anti-Russia European Union), and even force a ‘Socialist’ Labour Party to continue to deploy the British Army in Greece, in its Chuchillian attack upon the Greek Communist Party (an ally of the UK during WWII). Whilst the British Labour Party was busy building Socialism in the UK, the British Army was fighting and killing Greek Communists who were striving to achieve exactly the same transformation of their society. This is how Churchill and the British Labour Party repaid the Greek Communists who had fought so bravely against the Nazi German occupation of their island during WWII. The British Labour Party followed up this ‘Schizophrenic’ attitude toward World Communism by aggressively deploying the British Army in Malaya (now Malaysia), to prevent the Malayan people freeing their country from British imperialist domination, and instigating a Chinese Communist regime. The photograph above records a British Royal Marine holding-up the severed heads of two Chinese Communists he had just killed in the Malayan jungle. Declassified UK government papers from the time (1952) acknowledge this act as a ‘war crime’.
As a major player in the victory over Nazi Germany (and a longtime ally of the Soviet Union), Britain emerged a powerful political entity before the US realised the true extent of its developing power in Europe. Whilst the US was powerless to prevent the democratic changes voted-in by the British working class in the UK, the US realised quickly that it could affect the reconstruction of Europe, and through the use of economic and military threats, guide that reconstruction toward a rightwing, anti-Soviet, free market economics that mimicked the everyday functionality of the United States. Britain was temporarily lost to the Socialism of the Labour Party, but in France, De Gaulle was a trusted anti-Communist, and it was here that the US was going to first flex its political muscle. The French people – including the Communist and non-Communist Resistance, all wanted a new France free of the control of the financiers that had been the case in 1939. De Gaulle, following the instructions of Churchill and Truman was to perform an astonishing turnaround in France, completely ignoring the majority popular opinion, and re-building France entirely as a Bourgeois State controlled by the bankers. De Gaulle carried-out this sleight of hand slowly but surely, and then had all history (and opinion) to the contrary either eradicated or firmly hidden from the public gaze. This was the blue-print of the US Cold War plan which not only altered Soviet history (turning it into an ‘evil empire’), but even the history of European countries that had been sympathetic toward Socialism, and at least tolerant toward the USSR, if not entirely supportive. A non-aggressive Soviet Union was falsely depicted as a rabid dictatorship just itching to unleash its military might upon Western Europe, whilst the moderately Socialist countries of Western Europe were re-invented to be rightwing banking utopias for the megarich and havens for anti-Socialist workers who ‘just wanted to get on in life’. However, resistance to this project did exist and has been recorded despite being well-hidden from the prying eyes of future generations. the French Combat magazine stated on October 1st, 1944 the following clarification:
‘We want a liberal policy and a collectivist economy. Without such an economy which will deprive the financial powers of their privileges, and give these privileges to labour, political freedom can only be a delusion.’
As De Gaulle altered his rhetoric and changed the French political landscape from ‘Revolution’ to ‘renovation’, the scripts he was being fed by Churchill and Truman were causing immense concern amongst the French workers and the intellectuals. Everyone knew the immense price in death and destruction the USSR had paid for its victory over Nazi Germany, and the fact that much of the concerted Resistance to German Nazism across Europe had been Communist-led. At this time, Communism and Communists were broadly respected, even by those who disagreed with Marxist-Leninism, but Churchill and Truman wanted this attitude of respect replaced with a general fear and hatred of Communism (and the Soviet Union). This about-face (as a manipulation of public opinion), required a demonization of Soviet history and Soviet Communism, and the development of a witch-hunt type mentality. Taking a page out of medieval Europe, the USSR was now ‘evil’, whilst capitalism was depicted as ‘god’. The only avenue of ‘Socialism’ the workers were allowed was the pseudo-Socialism concocted by the now dead Trotsky, but people in France understood exactly what was going on:
‘We still believe in the truth of the resolution, passed by the Combat Congress at Algiers last March – that “Anti-Communism is the beginning of dictatorship”. While disagreeing with the Communists on many points, we firmly reject political anti-Communism, with all its unavowed aims… And while we agree with the Communists on their collectivism, their social programme, their ideal of economic justice, and their disgust with a moneyed society, we thoroughly disagree with their “political realism,”.’
France-Combat Magazine, October 7th, 1944
Reference:
Alexander WerthL France-1940-1955, Robert Hale, (1956), Pages 228-229
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 