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Trotsky-Problems of Russia's Policy With Respect to China and Japan

Problems of Russia's Policy With Respect to China and Japan

PROBLEMS OF OUR POLICY WITH RESPECT TO CHINA AND JAPAN

March 25, 1926
1. In the case of China we must take into consideration factors which fall into three categories: (a) China's internal forces; (b) the militarist organizations which, while expressing China's internal forces in one or another form, are to a great extent dependent upon foreign governments; (c) foreign imperialist forces on the one hand, and the forces of the USSR and the proletarian revolutionary movement on the other.
All of the difficulty in finding an orientation flows from the interrelation of factors in these three categories from which everything derives its internal logic and tempo of development. Of course, in the development of a newly awakened country with a population of 400 million, domestic factors are, in the last analysis, decisive. We must base our fundamental orientation on the development of these internal forces, i.e., chiefly on drawing the peasantry into the revolution and ensuring that proletarian organizations are in the leadership. Our decisive advantage is that we have the opportunity to conduct in China a policy of great historic scope.
While doing this it goes without saying that we cannot ignore the struggle of the militarist groups with all its episodic ups and downs, but we must not allow these episodes to draw us away from our fundamental political line.

I. The International Orientation of the Chinese Revolution and the USSR

1.There is no information which would make us think that there will be a pause, however temporary, in the development of the internal forces of the Chinese revolution. On the contrary, we have every reason to believe that in the period ahead the movement of the broad popular masses-of workers and peasants-will be developed and consolidated. We, for our part, must do everything possible to give this movement its maximum scope. But the international situation has become far more difficult in light of Europe's well recognized stabilization, the Locarno Pact, and particularly given the way the imperialists have posed the China problem in its full scope. Under these circumstances China's leading revolutionary forces, and even more, the Soviet government must do everything possible to impede the formation of a united imperialist front against China. At the present moment Japan could become extremely dangerous to the Chinese revolution in view of both its geographic position and its vital economic and military interests in Manchuria. The Chinese revolutionary movement has approached that stage when the question of its relations with Japan takes on the greatest importance. It is necessary to try to gain a respite, and this means in fact to "postpone" the question of the political fate of Manchuria, i.e., to actually be reconciled to the fact that southern Manchuria will remain in Japanese hands in the period ahead.
2. This political orientation, which in no case means, of course, a cessation of the general political struggle against Japanese imperialism, must be submitted in its entirety for the approval of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang. It is necessary however to consider in advance how difficult it will be for the revolutionary elements and broad public opinion in China to accept this orientation in view of the intense hostility toward Japan. Nevertheless, this orientation is dictated by the internal needs of the Chinese revolution which, until there is a new revolutionary wave in Europe and Asia, will not be able to withstand a combined onslaught from the imperialists. The interests of the Chinese revolution fully coincide in this case, as in others, with the interests of the Soviet Union, which needs an extended respite just as much as the Chinese revolutionary movement needs to gain time.
3. From what has been said it is clear that the orientation toward intensifying the contradictions between the imperialist powers in the Far East and above all the orientation toward coming to a certain understanding with Japan must be carefully prepared with respect to the general attitude of China's revolutionary forces so that this policy will not be incorrectly interpreted by ill-informed elements as a sacrifice of China's interests, for purposes of a settlement in Soviet-Japanese political relations.
4. To properly orient Chinese public opinion it is particularly important to recognize the need to strengthen revolutionary and anti-imperialist influence on the Chinese press, not only by creating new organs but by influencing those already in existence.
5. In the event that Manchurian autonomy is established, which is what Japan is trying to bring about, we should get Chang Tso-lin to give up his campaign into the South and generally to stop meddling in the internal affairs of the rest of China. Under no circumstances, of course, can we take the initiative or even indirect responsibility in this matter, but a clear understanding of the implication of Manchurian autonomy under the present conditions in itself dictates the necessary line of conduct for the leading circles of the Chinese revolutionary movement on the one hand, and for us on the other.
6. In view of the general political plan outlined above, it is now more important for us than ever before to eliminate all unnecessary, incidental, and secondary issues that disturb Chinese public opinion. There is absolutely no doubt that in the actions of the various departmental representatives there were inadmissible great-power mannerisms compromising the Soviet administration and creating an impression of Soviet imperialism.
It is necessary to impress upon the corresponding agencies and persons the vital importance for us of such a policy and of even such an external form of the policy in relation to China so that any trace of suspicion of great-power intentions will be eliminated. This line-based on the closest attention to China's rights, emphasizing its sovereignty, etc.-must be carried out on every level. In every individual instance of a violation of this policy, no matter how slight, the culprits should be punished and this fact brought to the attention of Chinese public opinion.
7. We must in various ways openly declare: Our policy is based fully on sympathy with the struggle of the Chinese popular masses for a single independent government and for democracy. We reject, however, the idea of any kind of military intervention whatever on our part. The Chinese problem can and must be solved by the Chinese people themselves. Until the realization of a unified China, the Soviet government endeavors to establish and maintain loyal relations with all of the governments existing in China, central as well as provincial.
8. In Manchuria our diplomatic work must be wholly and completely transferred from Harbin to Mukden.
9. We should negotiate with Chang Tso-lin on the following basis: It is clear to us that under the existing circumstances the Manchurian government must maintain good, stable relations within. We will not encroach upon these relations. But at the same time it is to the Manchurian government's advantage to maintain stable and peaceful relations with us, thereby guaranteeing itself a certain independence in relation to Tokyo.
During the negotiations we must point out to Chang that certain Japanese circles are ready to have him replaced with another buffer general, but that we see no reason for him to be placed with another person while normal relations exist.
10. Working out a strictly businesslike administrative structure for the CER [Chinese Eastern Railroad] is the basic element in negotiations with Manchuria, i.e., an explicit procedure for settling (on an equal footing) all contested or disputed questions; in the event of any complications turning the question over to Mukden.
Simultaneously our railway administrator, the consul in Harbin, and the consul general in Mukden will be instructed that any attempt by the railway authorities to solve problems unilaterally, over the head of the Chinese authorities or-even worse-by means of ultimatums to the latter must be punished without mercy.
11. Following an agreement with Chang Tso-lin and the corresponding recognition of this agreement in Peking, an effort should be made to have a Chinese-Japanese-Soviet railway conference called with the aim of all three powers working out a joint economic and construction plan for the railroad in Manchuria, and an economic agreement concerning Manchuria based on full respect for mutual interests and rights.
12. While strictly keeping the actual apparatus of the CER in the hands of the Soviet government-which in the next period is the only way to protect the railroad from imperialist seizure-it is necessary to immediately adopt broad measures of a cultural- political nature aimed at the Sinification of the railroad. (a) The administration should be bilingual; station signs and instructions posted in the stations and in the cars, etc., should be bilingual. (b) Chinese schools for railroad workers should be established combining technical and political training. (c) At appropriate points along the railroad, cultural-educational institutions should be established for the Chinese workers and the Chinese settlements adjacent to the railroad.
13. It is necessary (for Comrade Serebryakov) to check whether turning the railroad directly over to the People's Commissariat of Communications could be interpreted by the Chinese as a step toward our unilateral seizure of the railroad.
All details of changing the railroad's administrative structure must be carefully thought through and worked out with the appropriate Chinese authorities.
14. We must take advantage of the present moment, while our activity on the railroad is totally unencumbered, to conduct a purge of the CER over a month-long period in accordance with the Politburo's decision . . . transferring the elements of the administration and the workers who are of little use or who have compromised themselves to the railroads of the Soviet Union and replacing them in Manchuria with workers from the central railroads who are thoroughly reliable and politically educated.
15. On the other hand, it is necessary right now to carefully compile (and subsequently examine) all cases of tyranny and violence on the part of Chinese militarists, police, and Russian White Guard elements against Russian workers and employees of the CER, and also all cases of conflict between Russians and Chinese on national-social grounds. It is also necessary to devise the course and means for defending the personal and national dignity of Russian workers so that conflicts on this basis, rather than kindling chauvinist sentiments on both sides, on the contrary, will have a political and educational significance. It is necessary to set up special conciliation commissions or courts of honor attached to the trade unions, with both sides participating on an equal basis, under the actual guidance of serious communists who understand the full importance and acuteness of the national question.
The means for protecting the railroad employees from the tyranny of local Chinese authorities must be worked out in an appropriate agreement (with Mukden and Peking) and furnished with all of the necessary organizational guarantees.
In this regard it is necessary to issue instructions and proclamations in Russian and Chinese and distribute them along the railroad line, posting them in the stations and similar premises as well as in the cars.
16. The staff of the consulate general in Harbin should be reorganized to conform with the policies described above.
17. One of the points of the agreement with Chang Tso-lin (and later on with Japan) should protect People's Revolutionary Mongolia from Chang Tso-lin's encroachments.
18. Instead of immediately starting joint negotiations with Japan, we should concentrate on actually improving relations by carrying out all of the measures outlined above, and by influencing Japanese public opinion accordingly; and the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs shall be instructed to work out systematic measures in keeping with this approach. Without deciding beforehand the form of a possible tripartite agreement (USSR, Japan, China) the ground should be prepared politically and diplomatically in such a way that it will be impossible for the Chinese to interpret any concessions China may find itself temporarily forced to make to Japan as a division of spheres of influence with our participation. Chinese public opinion, especially in left-wing circles, should be made well aware that the only Chinese concessions to Japanese imperialism that we are prepared to tolerate are those necessary for the popular revolutionary movement in China itself in order to defend itself against a united imperialist offensive. With this perspective the possible joint negotiations should have as their aim, at the cost of some concessions, driving a wedge between Japan and Britain
19. In case it turns out that the people's armies have to surrender ground to Wu for a long period, it may prove expedient to try to reach an agreement with the latter in order to weaken his dependence on Britain while at the same time carrying out an ongoing struggle against Britain, the main and implacable foe of Chinese independence.
20. With regard to the people's armies it is necessary to conduct comprehensive political, educational, and organizational work (in the Kuomintang and Communist Party) in order to convert them into an effective stronghold of the popular revolutionary movement, independent of personal influence.
21. Canton: During a period of slow development of the revolutionary movement in China, Canton has to be considered as not just a temporary revolutionary beachhead, but also an enormous country with a population of 37 million. It needs a correct and stable economic and political administration. The Canton government should concentrate all its efforts on strengthening the republic internally by means of agrarian, financial, administrative, and political reforms; by drawing the broad popular masses into the political life of the South Chinese Republic, and by strengthening the latter's internal defensive capacity.
The Canton government should in the present period emphatically reject any idea of an aggressive military campaign and, in general, any activity that would push the imperialists onto the path of military intervention.
Note: Inquire of Comrade Rakovsky whether there is some chance for the Canton government to arrange either officially or unofficially some kind of modus vivendi with France, and if it would not be expedient to send a representative of the Canton government to Paris with the aim of sounding out the French government along this line.
22. In view of the fact that in a whole number of resolutions that have been adopted there are components that urge the leadership of the Kuomintang to assume a cautious and yielding stance on questions raised and meticulously outlined here, in order to avoid any kind of political deviation whatever from the general line, it is necessary to thoroughly explain that such concessions as are made necessary by circumstances must in no way reduce the revolutionary scope of the movement or curtail the broadest agitation either in China or beyond its borders for purposes of assisting the revolutionary movements of the neighboring oppressed colonial countries, etc., etc.
23. In view of the fact that the Chinese reactionaries, at the instigation of the imperialists, have demanded that Comrade Karakhan be recalled, we must recognize the necessity for organizing a very energetic political campaign in China (and as much as possible in other countries, above all in Britain and Japan) against this outrageous demand, explaining the meaning and content of the liberation policy Comrade Karakhan has been pursuing as a representative of the Soviet Union.

II. Railroad Problems in Manchuria

1. It would be advisable to postpone the Manchurian railroad conference until attitudes toward the CER have improved.
2. On railroad construction the CER should make preliminary arrangements with Mukden, keeping in mind that the USSR cannot proceed independently with railroad construction in Manchuria.
3. For the purpose of expanding CER railroad construction, expenditures on CER improvements should be cut back so that all available resources can be diverted toward construction.
4. The plan advanced by the People's Commissariat of Communications for CER construction should be adopted.
5. For the construction of the individual spur tracks it would be advisable to form joint-stock companies that can attract local Chinese capital, with the Chinese taking the initiative wherever possible.
6. The CER should not restrict its tasks to laying spur tracks, but should also project the construction of paved roads for automobile transport and the development of shipping.
7. The CER should try with every means available to prevent the Japanese from constructing railroad lines to its north and also toward Hailun and to prevent linking up railroad lines such as the Kirin line with the CER.
8. In order to exert pressure on Japan we should spread information that we are constructing railroads from China across eastern Mongolia.
9. Our aim should be to begin work as soon as possible on a railroad running from Verkhneudinsk to Urga and Kalgan, and from Khabarovsk to Sovetskaya Gavan.
10. The People's Commissariat of Communications should be instructed to ascertain what kind of disagreements between the CER and the Southern Manchurian Railroads on the questions of tariffs, rebates, or cost reductions on poor-quality goods, and freight distribution should be brought up at the conference of the governments.
11. We should reply in the following manner to Dobuchi in connection with Comrade Serebryakov's trip: that the problems facing us will be ascertained on the spot since Serebryakov will personally visit Tokyo.8 After that our side will make concrete proposals aimed at settling disputed questions and eliminating friction on the basis of principles of mutual respect for the interests of all three parties concerned.

I2. On Japanese Immigration
When resolving the question of Japanese immigration to the Soviet Far East we must take into account the intense interest the Japanese public is showing in this matter. However, in view of the danger of Japanese colonization in the Far East, every step we take will have to be cautious and gradual. It is premature at this time to fix the number of Japanese immigrants who are to be allowed into the USSR, but, in any case, Japanese immigration should not be large. It should be strictly regulated and should result in the breaking up of Japanese-controlled resources by means of a special agency set up for that purpose. The Japanese colonists should be settled in a checkerboard fashion, being alternated with a reinforcement of colonization from central Russia. The land that is parceled out should be acceptable to the Japanese peasants and should be suited to the peculiarities of Japanese agriculture. There are areas of land suitable for the Japanese colonists in the vicinity of Khabarovsk and further south, but not in the Siberian interior. We must not allow Korean immigration into these regions under the pretense that it is Japanese. The question of Korean immigration must be examined separately. The Koreans can be granted land that is considerably farther into the depths of Siberia.

Engels on China and Immigration

Engels to Nikolai Danielson

In St Petersburg

Marx and Engels Correspondence;

September 22, 1892


So far, then, we agree upon this one point, that Russia, in 1892, could not exist as a purely agricultural country, that her agricultural population must be complemented by industrial production.

Now I maintain, that industrial production nowadays means grande industrie, steam, electricity, self-acting mules, powerlooms, finally machines that produce machinery. From the day Russia introduced railways, the introduction of these modern means of production was a foregone conclusion. You must be able to repair your own locomotives, waggons, railways, and that can only be done cheaply if you are able to construct those things at home, that you intend to repair. From the moment warfare became a branch of the grande industrie (ironclad ships, rifled artillery, quickfiring and repeating cannons, repeating rifles, steel covered bullets, smokeless powder, etc.), la grande industrie, without which all these things cannot be made, became a political necessity. All these things cannot be had without a highly developed metal manufacture. And that manufacture cannot be had without a corresponding development in all other branches of manufacture, especially textile.

I quite agree with you in fixing the beginning of the new industrial era of your country about 1861. It was the hopeless struggle of a nation with primitive forms of production, against nations with modern production, which characterised the American War. The Russian people understood this perfectly; hence their transition to modern forms, a transition rendered irrevocable by the emancipation act of 1861.

This necessity of the transition from the primitive methods of production that prevailed in 1854, to the modern methods that are now beginning to prevail – this necessity once conceded, it becomes a secondary question whether the hothouse process of fostering the industrial revolution by protective and prohibitive duties was advantageous or even necessary, or otherwise.

This industrial hothouse atmosphere renders the process acute, which otherwise might have retained a more chronic form. It crams into twenty years a development which otherwise might have taken sixty or more years. But it does not affect the nature of the process itself, which, as you say, dates from 1861.

One thing is certain: if Russia really required, and was determined to have, a grande industrie of her own, she could not have it at all except under some degree of protection, and this you admit. From this point of view, too, then, the question of protection is one of degree only, not of principle; the principle was unavoidable.

Another thing is certain: if Russia required after the Crimean War a grande industrie of her own, she could have it in one form only: the capitalistic form. And along with that form, she was obliged to take over all the consequences which accompany capitalistic grande industrie in all other countries.

Now I cannot see that the results of the industrial revolution which is taking place in Russia under our eyes, are in any way different from what they are, or have been, in England, Germany, America. In America the conditions of agriculture and landed property are different, and this does make some difference.

You complain of the slow increase of hands employed in textile industry, when compared with the increase of quantity of product. The same is taking place everywhere else. Otherwise, whence our redundant “industrial reserve”? (Capital, C. 23, Sect. 3 and 4.) [Kerr edition, Vol. I, Chap. 25.]

You prove the gradual replacing of men’s work by that of women and children – Capital, C. 13 (Sect. gal. [Ibid, Chap. 15.])

You complain that the machine-made goods supersede the products of domestic industry and thus destroy a supplementary production, without which the peasant cannot live. But we have here an absolutely necessary consequence of capitalistic grande industrie: the creation of the home market (Capital, C. 24, Sect. 5), which has taken place in Germany during my lifetime and under my eyes. Even what you say, that the introduction of cotton goods destroys not only the domestic spinning and weaving of the peasants, but also their flax culture, has been seen in Germany between 1820 and now. And as far as this side of the question: the destruction of home industry and the branches of agriculture subservient to it – as far as this is concerned, the real question for you seems to me this: that the Russians had to decide whether their own grande industrie was to destroy their domestic manufacture, or whether the import of English goods was to accomplish this. With protection, the Russians effected it, without protection, the English. That seems to me perfectly evident.

Your calculation that the sum of the textile products of grande industrie and of domestic industry does not increase, but remains the same and even diminishes, is not only quite correct, but would not be correct if it came to another result. So long as Russian manufacture is confined to the home market, its product can only cover home consumption. And that can only slowly increase, and, as it seems to me, ought even to decrease under present Russian conditions.

For it is one of the necessary corollaries of grande industrie that it destroys its own home market by the very process by which it creates it. It creates it by destroying the basis of the domestic industry of the peasantry. But without domestic industry the peasantry cannot live. They are ruined as peasants; their purchasing power is reduced to a minimum; and until they, as proletarians, have settled down into new conditions of existence, they will furnish a very poor market for the newly-arisen factories.

Capitalist production being a transitory economical phase, is full of internal contradictions which develop and become evident in proportion as it develops. This tendency to destroy its own market at the same time it creates it, is one of them. Another one is the insoluble situation to which it leads, and which is developed sooner in a country without a foreign market, like Russia, than in countries which are more or less capable of competing on the open world market. This situation without an apparent issue finds its issue, for the latter countries, in commercial revulsions, in the forcible opening of new markets. But even then the cul-de-sac stares one in the face. Look at England. The last new market which could bring on a temporary revival of prosperity by its being thrown open to English commerce is China. Therefore English capital insists upon constructing Chinese railways. But Chinese railways mean the destruction of the whole basis of Chinese small agriculture and domestic industry, and as there will not even be the counterpoise of a Chinese grande industrie, hundreds of millions of people will be placed in the impossibility of living. The consequence will be a wholesale emigration such as the world has not yet seen, a flooding of America, Asia and Europe by the hated Chinaman, a competition for work with the American, Australian and European workman on the basis of the Chinese standard of life, the lowest of all – and if the system of production has not been changed in Europe before that time, it will have to be changed then.

Capitalistic production works its own ruin, and you may be sure it will do so in Russia too. It may, and if it lasts long enough, it will surely produce a fundamental agrarian revolution – I mean a revolution in the condition of landed property, which will ruin both the pomeshchik and the muzhik [the landlord and the peasant], and replace them by a new class of large landed proprietors drawn from the kulaki [kulaks] of the villages and the bourgeois speculators of the towns. At all events, I am sure the conservative people who have introduced capitalism into Russia will be one day terribly astonished at the consequences of their own doings.

THIRD ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN'S
ASSOCIATION†331

THE DUTIES IMPOSED UPON THE GENERAL COUNCIL
BY THE FIRST ANNUAL CONGRESS†a

The Congress passed a resolution appointing the London delegates to wait upon the Swiss, the French, and the British postal authorities to bring the question of international penny postage — of cheap postage — under their notice.†332

The Swiss postmaster agreed to all the deputation urged, but observed that the French Government stepped [in their] way.

In France the delegates could get no audience, and the British Government only consented to receive a written statement which has been sent.

The other duties imposed upon the General Council by the first annual Congress were: 1. The publication, in several languages, of the transactions of the Congress, including the letters and memoirs addressed to that Congress. 2. To publish periodical or occasional reports in different languages, embracing everything that might be of interest to the Association. 3. To give information of the supply and demand for labour in different localities. 4. An account of co-operative societies. 5. Of the condition of the working class in every country. The Council was also charged with causing a statistical inquiry to be instituted, which was to contain special and detailed information about every branch of industry, in which wages labour is employed, in the most civilised countries of Europe.

To enable the Council to fulfil these various duties, the Congress voted a contribution of threepence per member to the Executive, and a salary of £2 a week to the General Secretary, leaving his appointment to the Council.

As soon as the London delegates had returned, and the Council was reorganised, information was received that some of our

Congress documents had been seized on the person of Jules Gottraux by the French police on the frontier.†333
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The General Secretary was instructed to write to the French Minister of the Interior, but not receiving any reply, an application was made to the British Foreign Office. Lord Stanley, with the greatest readiness, instructed Lord Cowley, the British Ambassador at Paris, to intercede; the result was that within a few days our documents were restored, and a parcel of Tribunes du Peuple, which had evidently been seized from somebody else, superadded.

The Congress documents were then handed over to the Standing Committee, with instructions to prepare the report for publication. As there were no funds to pay the General Secretary this labour devolved upon volunteers, who had to do it in their spare hours, which caused further delay. When all was ready the lowest estimate to have a thousand printed in one language was £40. To comply with the Congress instructions required an immediate outlay of £120; the cash in hand on the 31st of December amounted to 18s. 4d.

The General Secretary was instructed to appeal to the affiliated societies of the British section for their contributions — only the London cigar-makers and the Coventry and Warwickshire ribbon-weavers responded immediately. The board of management of the latter association, with a highly commendable zeal to fulfil its obligation — having no funds in hand and many members out of work — forthwith raised a levy to the required amount from the members in work.

The Council then availed itself of an offer made by Citizen J. Collet, the proprietor and editor of the International Courier, to publish the report in French and English in weekly parts in the columns of his journal. He also agreed to stereotype the whole at his own expense with the view of publishing it in pamphlet form, and to let the Council share in the profits, if any, the Council undertaking no responsibility whatever in case of loss.

But hardly was this highly advantageous arrangement completed when, on account of not having complied with some legal intricacy, of which the government had previously taken no notice, Citizen Collet had to suspend the publication of his journal for several weeks, and it was not till March that the publication of the Congress report could be regularly proceeded with.†a


The numbers of the International Courier containing the report have been sent gratis to the branches. A German version could, for want of a similar opportunity, not be published.

When the publication was completed it was again want of funds that prevented, and still prevents, the publication in pamphlet form.

To make matters worse the French police seized a parcel of rules and cards of membership, purposely issued for the French section, the printing of which cost £4, which was borrowed money.†334 Besides this dead loss, there was the further injury of curtailing the contributions, which in France depend principally upon the scale of individual membership. Beyond all this, there were the old liabilities which were acknowledged as the debt of the Association by the Congress, but no special provision made for their liquidation. They have greatly hampered our action, and continue to be a source of trouble.

Under these circumstances it was utterly impossible to publish either periodical or occasional reports; nor have our correspondents taken the trouble to send us any special information with a view to such publication. The question of entering upon the statistical inquiry had to be abandoned for the present year. To be of any use at all it cannot be limited to the trades at present comprised within the circle of our affiliated societies. Such an inquiry, to answer its purpose, must include every trade, every country, and every locality. This involves not only a large expenditure for printing, stationery, and postage, but also an amount of labour in the shape of correspondence, compiling, and arranging the scattered and specific statements into a comprehensive and comprehensible whole, [so] that the possibility of having it done by volunteers in their leisure hours is altogether out of the question.

INTERFERENCE IN TRADES' DISPUTES†a

One of the best means of demonstrating the beneficent influence of international combination is the assistance rendered by the International Working Men's Association in the daily occurring trades' disputes. It used to be a standard threat with


British capitalists, not only in London, but also in the provinces, when their workmen would not tamely submit to their arbitrary dictation, that they would supplant them by an importation of foreigners. The possibility of such importations taking place was in most cases sufficient to deter the British workmen from insisting on their demands. The action taken by the Council has had the effect of putting a stop to these threats being made publicly. Where anything of the kind is contemplated it has to be done in secret, and the slightest information obtained by the workmen suffices to frustrate the plans of the capitalists. As a rule, when a strike or a lock-out occurs concerning any of the affiliated trades, the Continental correspondents are at once instructed to warn the workmen in their respective localities not to enter into any engagements with the agents of the capitalists of the place where the dispute is. However, this action is not confined to affiliated trades. The same action is taken on behalf of other trades upon application being received. This generally leads to the affiliation of the trades that invoke our aid.

Now and then it happens that the capitalists succeed in getting a few stragglers, but they generally repudiate their engagements upon being informed of the reason why they were engaged.

During the London basket-makers' dispute last winter information was received that six Belgians were at work under the railway arches in Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey. They were as strictly guarded against coming in contact with the outside public as a kidnapped girl in a nunnery. By some stratagem a Flemish member of the Council succeeded in obtaining an interview, and upon being informed of the nature of their engagement the men struck work and returned home. Just as they were about to embark a steamer arrived with a fresh supply. The new arrivals were at once communicated with; they too repudiated their engagements, and returned home, promising that they would exert themselves to prevent any further supplies, which they accomplished.†335

In consequence of the appeals made by deputations from the Council to various British societies, the Paris bronze-workers received very considerable pecuniary support during their lockout, and the London tailors on strike have in turn received support from Continental associations through the intercession of the Council.†336 The good offices of the Council were also employed on behalf of the excavators, the wire-workers, the block-cutters, the hairdressers, and others.

Marx on having Chinese wages in Europe

"Labour is one-third cheaper in France than in England; for their poor work hard, and fare hard, as to their food and clothing. Their chief diet is bread, fruit, herbs, roots, and dried fish; for they very seldom eat flesh; and when wheat is dear, they eat very little bread." [39]

 "To which may be added," our essayist goes on, "that their drink is either water or other small liquors, so that they spend very little money.... These things are very difficult to be brought about; but they are not impracticable, since they have been effected both in France and in Holland." [40] (Capital I, chap. 24) And the footnote amplifies: [40] Today, thanks to the competition on the world-market, established since then, we have advanced much further. "

If China," says Mr. Stapleton, M.P., to his constituents, "should become a great manufacturing country, I do not see how the manufacturing population of Europe could sustain the contest without descending to the level of their competitors." (Times, Sept. 3, 1873, p. 8.)

 The wished-for goal of English capital is no longer Continental wages but Chinese.

ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL - ON CHINA

ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN

London, 18 March 1886
Dear Bebel,


If China is opened up, not only will overproduction risk losing its
last safety-valve, but emigration from China will assume such massive
proportions that this alone will suffice to revolutionise conditions
of production throughout America, Australia and India, even to the
extent of affecting Europe — if it lasts itself till then.

Marx on Germans in the USA

I went on board a big frigate the deck of which was full of emigrants who stood watching the “yawl” being hauled up. A yawl here is any boat which has a keel and is therefore suitable for service at sea. The people were still cheerful; they had not yet trodden the last clod of their native soil. But I have seen how deeply it affects them when they really leave German soil forever, when the ship, with all its passengers on board, slowly moves from the quay into the roadstead and thence sails into the open sea. They are almost all true German faces, without falseness, with strong arms, and you need only be among them for a moment and see the cordiality with which they greet each other to realise that it is certainly not the worst elements who leave their Fatherland to settle in the land of dollars and virgin forests. The saying: stay at home and feed yourself honestly†a seems to be made for the Germans, but this is not so; people who want to feed themselves honestly go, very often at least, to America. And it is by no means always lack of food, much less greed, which drives these people into distant lands; it is the German peasant's uncertain position between serfdom and independence, it is the inherited bondage and the rules and regulations of the patrimonial courts†91 which make his food taste sour and disturb his sleep until he decides to leave his Fatherland.
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The people going over on this ship were Saxons. We went below to take a look at the inside of the ship. The saloon was most elegantly and comfortably appointed; a little square room, everything elegant, mahogany inlaid with gold, as in an aristocratic drawing-room. In front of the saloon were the berths for the passengers in small, nice little cabins; from an open door by the side we got a whiff of ham from the larder. We had to go on deck again to reach the steerage by another companion-way: “But it's terrible down there,”†b all my companions quoted when we got back. Down there lay the dregs who had not enough money to spend ninety talers on the cabin class fare, the people to whom nobody raises a hat, whose manners some here call common, others uneducated, a plebs which owns nothing, but which is the best any king can have in his realm and which alone upholds the German principle, particularly in America. It is the Germans in

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the cities who have taught the Americans their deplorable contempt for our nation. The German merchant makes it a point of honour to discard his Germanness and become a complete Yankee ape. This hybrid creature is happy if the German in him is no longer noticed, he speaks English even to his compatriots, and when he returns to Germany he acts the Yankee more than ever. English is often heard in the streets of Bremen, but it would be a great mistake to take every English speaker for a Britisher or a Yankee. The latter always speak German when they come to Germany in order to learn our difficult language; but these English speakers are invariably Germans who have been to America. It is the German peasant alone, perhaps also the craftsman in the coastal towns, who adheres with iron firmness to his national customs and language, who, separated from the Yankees by the virgin forests, the Allegheny mountains and the great rivers, is building a new, free Germany in the middle of the United States; in Kentucky, Ohio and in Western Pennsylvania only the towns are English, while everybody in the countryside speaks German. And in his new Fatherland the German has learnt new virtues without losing the old ones. The German corporative spirit has developed into one of political, free association; it presses the government daily to introduce German as the language of the courts in the German counties,†a it creates German newspapers one after another, which are all devoted to the calm, level-headed endeavour to develop existing elements of freedom, and, as the best proof of its strength, it has caused the “Native Americans”†b party to be founded which has spread through all the states and aims to hinder immigration and to make it difficult for the immigrant to acquire citizenship.†


[Morgenblatt für gebildete Leser No. 200, August 21, 1841]