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within the past 12 months successfully withstood three major attacks at the hands of Kuomintang China, of the Chinese landowners, bankers and merchants. The Kuomintang militarists were armed and egged on by the imperialist governments of the United States, France, Japan, and England. Kuomintang China is today shaken to its depths by the rising mass anger against the Japanese seizure of Manchuria, and the failure of the Kuomintang leaders to resist that seizure. Demonstrations of angry workers, students and peasants are occurring throughout the breadth of Kuomintang China. The wrath of the masses is directed against the Kuomintang leaders as well as against the imperialists. On December 9th, workers and students in the city of Shanghai stormed the Kuomintang headquarters, disarmed army officers of the Nanking government of the Kuomintang, Nanking soldiers ordered to fire on the demonstrators, refused and fraternised with the workers and students.

In Germany and Poland, the masses are admittedly on the brink of a revolution against the capitalist dictatorship and for the establishment of a Soviet Germany. In Africa, in India, the colonial revolt is sweeping on. The Belgian imperialists were recently forced to reinforce their army of occupation in the Congo State with 4500 additional troops, in the attempt to suppress a serious uprising of the Congo masses.

The world economic crisis of capitalism and the efforts of the capitalists to solve the crisis at the expense of the home workers and colonial masses have tremendously accelerated the revolutionary movement in the imperialist home countries and in the colonies. Even noted British bourgeois economists like Sir George Paish, predict a general smash-up of capitalism within a short time.

How does the struggle between capitalism and communism affect the Negro masses, oppressed today throughout the capitalist world?

The World Crisis of Capitalism.

In the world struggle between capitalism and communism, the pendulum is definitely swung in favor of communism within the past three years.

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[[caption]] Negro workers in the U. S. A. They do the hardest work for the smallest wages [[/caption]]

Four years ago, the capitalists and their prostitute writers were gaily ridiculing the Soviet Five Year Plan for the building up of socialist industry and the collectivisation of agriculture. Today, the capitalists and their agents are shrieking in wild alarm at what they call the "red trade menace". Four years ago, capitalism, in a period of temporary stabilization, was ridiculing the prospect of the world proletarian revolution for the overthrow of capitalism and imperialist oppression. Today, the imperialist murderers of Negro and white workers are trembling before the world-wide revolutionary upsurge of the working-class and the colonial masses.

What has happened the last three years to cause the significant changes in the world situation and the resultant alarm of the imperialists? These are: the tremendous success of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and on the other the terrific world economic crisis which is gripping at the vitals of the entire capitalist system. Arising out of these two factors, and at the same time further affecting these factors, is the tremendous revolutionary upsurge of the working class in the imperialist countries and of the toiling masses in the colonial countries.

At precisely this time, when capitalist industry is almost at a standstill, with most of the factories closed down or on part time, with over 40,000,000 unemployed workers in the capitalist countries (12,000,000 in the United States alone), and other millions on part time, with wages being slashed right and left, the workers of the Soviet Union are proving that the working-class, led by its revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party, can build up a successful socialist industry, can abolish unemployment, can raise the standard of living of the masses. Giant factories are roaring into action in the Soviet Union. Agriculture is being rapidly collectivised. Ten million peasant families are now living on the collective farms. The standard of living of the entire Soviet peasantry has been raised at a time when the farmers and poor farmers of the capitalist countries have been ruined as a result of the bankers, landowners and speculators.

The world economic crisis of capitalism is now about to enter its fourth year. There is no sign of a let-up in the crisis. On the contrary, it is constantly sharpening at a terrific rate. The world capitalist system is shaken to its very foundations. The gold standard has already collapsed in over 34 capitalist countries, including Germany, Japan and most of the British Empire. Inflation of the currency is proceeding at a rapid rate, further adding to the robbery and mass misery of the working-class. Banks are crashing throughout the capitalist world. In the United States, alone, 2,342 had failed up to October last according to the report of J. W. Pole, Controller of the Currency. William Philip Sims, foreign editor of the United Press, says:

"An entire world, more than half of which is in, or bordering on revolution or war, the rest being in a state of nervous uncertainty of what may happen."

The attempts of the capitalists to get out of the crisis at the expense of the toiling masses, and especially at the expense of the Negro and colonial masses, are serving to bring new sections of the working-class into the struggle against imperialism. In China, there is a tremendous upsurge of the masses, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Central Soviet government of China, against the imperialists and the Kuomintang tools. In India, the masses are fighting British imperialism. In Africa, the masses are entering the anti-imperialist struggle, Germany is on the verge of the proletarian revolution.
(To be continued.)