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workers over the heads of the "leaders", for only in this way will the opposition be able to expose the treacherous role which the fakers are carrying on, especially since the crisis which is forcing them to come out with more and more "left" phrases in order to cover up their deception.

The opposition must pay special attention to the organization of the agricultural labourers and the unorganized workers in the basic industries (oil and asphalt), as well as transportation.

Committees of action must also be set up among the agricultural workers of all the sugar and cocoa plantations, as has been successfully done on the Felicity Estate, (where, it may be noted, 2000 labourers armed with cutlasses, agricultural forks, hoes and other implements marched on Port-of-Spain, the capital of the Island, July last, and demanded that the plantation owners and the Government withdraw the wage cut - from 1 shilling to 9 pence - and abolish the increased hours of labour).

Despite all the attempts of the labour fakers and the petty bourgeois nationalist leaders, such as the Hon. Serran Teelucksingh, "labour" representative of the Legislative Council of Trinidad to persuade the workers to turn over the leadership of the struggle into their hands and return to the estate, the strike committee bluntly refused to permit the men to go back to work until all of their demands had been granted.

Since this armed demonstration, the Trinidad Press reports that there is considerable unrest on all the large plantations, where the workers, inspired by the militancy of the labourers of the Felicity Estate are also setting up committees of action to put forward their grievances and lead them in the struggle.

The International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers should render all aid and assistance possible to the struggling West Indian workers, and to support the economic and political demands of the toiling population of the West Indies in their fight against the imperialists and the native capitalist exploiters.

APPEAL TO THE BLACK SOLDIERS OF FRANCE

Black soldiers of the imperialist rulers of France, we send you a warning and an appeal. A new war is very near. It is being prepared by the rulers of France who have conscripted you into their armies, the armies with which they have conquered and oppressed the peoples of East, North Africa and Black Africa. They will demand that you fight for the "mother" country as they demanded before.

They will tell you that you must fight for Liberty, for Equality, for Fraternity. But there is no liberty, no equality, no fraternity. In the last great war you were placed in the first line trenches, to lead the charge against the enemies' fortification. They said this was an "honour" bestowed upon you for your bravery and daring. You paid for this honour upon their altar of imperialism with tens of thousands of lives. They promised you great rewards. They have squeezed billions of profits out of the exploitation and oppression of millions of colonial peoples, out of your brothers and sisters of Black Africa. And what has been your reward?

Even today in the armies of France you are paid a lower wage than the white soldiers. You are dragged away from your homelands to serve in the armies of the rulers of France oppressing other colonial peoples as your brothers and sisters of Black Africa are oppressed. Conditions everywhere in the cities of France, in the villages in the barracks are intolerable for you. But this is not at all, what of your mother country Black Africa? She groans under the iron heel of the oppressor, and for you the oppressor is also the ruler of France, the one who commands you to fight, the one who promises to oppressed and exploited workers regardless to race means nothing.

After the last world war of the rulers of France and of England redivided African colonies among themselves. Today those colonies are in desperate straits.

Black soldiers of French Equatorial Africa, in 1910 your country had a population of 7,500,000 and in 1924 a population of 2,500,000. Where have those 5,000,000 gone? Dead! They died from famine, from disease, from forced labor, from slavery, the results of their exploitation and oppression by the rulers of France. In 1928 17,000 Negros ware worked to death, in the construction of the French railroad from the Congo to the sea.

Black soldiers of France, your brothers and sisters in 1924 revolted under the terrible exploitation of the French masters who had robbed them of their lands and were taxing them to death. The revolt was drowned in blood. This even while you were serving in the armies of the French imperialists. Again in 1928 they revolted. Driven to the point of desperation by the unbearable by the unbearable oppression of the French overlords which had grown steadily worse, sevently thousand of them were killed as the armed forces of the imperialists of France put down this uprising in blood. Thousands of more who fled to the Belgian Congo died of famine there. These are the fruits of your victory of 1914-1919, Black soldiers of France.

In 1910 the Cameroons had a population of 8 million and in 1928 of only 2 million. Where have those 6 million black toiling masses gone? The way of the dead in French Equatorial Africa, the way of the decimated black masses of the Belgian and French Congo, of Dahomey and Senegal, of the Sudan and East Africa. Under the iron heel of the ruthless masters of French and English imperialism these toiling black masses - your brothers and sisters have been done to death. These are for Black Africa the fruits of the victory you had gained for that so-called mother country and its imperialist rulers.

Black soldiers of France, the workers of Soviet Russia gained a great victory in 1917. They too in 1914 were called to war by the rulers of their country who are friends of the rulers of France. But in 1917 they revolted against the terror, the exploitation and oppression of those rulers. The worker and peasant soldiers of Russia killed their officers. They overthrew the whole system of Tsarism, ruling princes and capitalists and took the government of their country into their own hands. Since 1917 they have governed themselves. They have freed the small nationalities which were oppressed under the rule of the "Friends of imperialist France". The workers and peasants of these freed republics are now building their own industry and culture together with the aid of the freed Russian workers and peasants.

Black soldiers of France, the position of the workers and peasants who now govern their own Russian Socialist, Republics was in 1917 little better than the position of the ruthlessly oppressed black masses of Africa today. They stand now freed men and women, the rulers and builders of their own country. The position of the black masses of Africa remains worse than that of slaves. In Soviet Russia the peasants are freed from the centuries of ignorance, of superstitution