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Core Argument¶
This chapter excoriates the continuity of imperialist violence in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, arguing that the defeat of German fascism has not altered the fundamental character of British, Dutch, and French colonialism. The core narrative thrust is that a full-scale war of colonial repression is being waged in Indonesia and Indochina, employing the same brutal methods the Allies had just condemned in Nazi-occupied Europe. The author marshals specific evidence from the News Chronicle of 14 December, detailing the strafing of native positions by Spitfires in Indochina and the systematic destruction of villages in Java. The report notes that after the murder of a British major and a Red Cross worker near Padang in Sumatra, reprisals included arrests, shootings of those who ‘attempted to escape’, and the burning of Tabang village. Another Java village of 1,000 timber houses was wiped out using petrol. The author draws a direct parallel between these actions and Nazi atrocities, citing the formula ‘shot while attempting to escape’ and the razing of Lidice.
The chapter’s polemical force is directed squarely at the illusions fostered by Stalinists and Labour leaders, who promised that the destruction of German fascism would usher in a world of peace, freedom, and fraternal cooperation under the ‘great democracies’. The author denounces the hypocrisy of trade union leaders who organised a fund in memory of Lidice while remaining silent about what are termed ‘British Lidices’. The full shame, the chapter insists, lies in the fact that a British Labour government is responsible for this bloody war of intervention, with Dutch and French socialists and Stalinists supporting their imperialist masters. The theoretical context is a Leninist understanding of imperialism as an unchanging system of exploitation and repression, regardless of the nominal political colour of the metropolitan government. The chapter concludes with a call to action: trade union branches, local Labour Parties, and Co-ops must organise a ‘Hands Off Java’ campaign to force the withdrawal of troops and allow the colonial peoples to decide their own fate without external interference.