COMMUNIST INFLUENCE.
FROM A POLITICAL OBSERVER.
The Communist International is at the back of the illegal organisation which has caused the builders’ strike at Wembley. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, at whose disposal the available information has been placed, may dislike the idea of having the prospects of the impending Anglo-soviet conference dimmed by the disclosure of a subversive propaganda which comes from the Third International in Moscow, but there is no reason why the public should not be told the true state of affairs.
The builders who are striking at Wembley imagine that they are carrying out a clever raid on capital. In reality they are but foolish tools in the hands of an alien organisation, whose object is to detach the workers from their leaders and to disrupt the Labour party. Anyone who has made a study of the activities of the Third International in Moscow will recognise the Wembley builders’ strike for what it is – a typical Communist move to carry away the workers in a wild scramble to secure material advantages, despite all accepted contracts, and to shoulder out the old leaders by outbidding them. The ultimate object is to place the conflict on a definite class basis and to make compromise impossible by provoking bad blood and violence.
There are professional trouble-makers who are well furnished with funds, and obey orders from a directing centre. If the Government wished, there would be no trouble in locating this centre, but this would imply the necessity of definitely proclaiming the activities of certain political groups as illegal, and of disclosing all that is known of their connection with the international Communist movement. The Red Labour Union International, for one, would have to be asked to explain its dependence on Moscow.
The trade unions in the United States have had a wide experience of Communist methods, and they are now engaged in a grim fight against Bolshevik intruders, who are doing their utmost to “burst the Labour movement from within” by obtaining control of labour organisations and possession of the minds of the workers. It seems as if Labour in this country may be destined to pass through a similar experience. This, perhaps, because Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and his colleagues, although they possess more than ample evidence of the sinister plans of British extremists who are working under the orders of the rulers of the Third International, hang back and hesitate to take such action as would keep their party together, but would separate them from some of their old comrades.
The trouble at Wembley was not started by the Communist agitators, but they fastened upon it as a suitable occasion to show their chiefs in Moscow that they are worthy of the subsidies asked for and received. The Third International has been demanding energetic action from its agents and dependents abroad. Zinovieff and his colleagues on the Executive Committee consider that no mercy should be shown to the pseudo-socialist Government of Mr. Macdonald, which only serves to protect the bourgeoisie against the attack of full-blooded Communism.
The Russian Communists have a way of proclaiming all evidence against them as forgeries – even photographed copies of their own newspapers; but there is too much of this evidence to make this defence acceptable. The disclosures before the Committee of the American Senate, presided over by Senator Borah, are of a conclusive character, and all students of Bolshevism should read the remarkable report of the evidence, which has been officially issued in Washington. It shows how a group of five men, called the Political Bureau, dominate the Soviet Government, the Third International, and the whole movement of Bolshevism in the world.