Source:
The Militant, Vol. 13 No. 8, 21 February 1949, p. 3.
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When the peoples of Indonesia and Indo-China struck out on the road to independence at the close of World War II, they expected sympathetic understanding and aid from the United States in their struggle. Weren’t the thirteen American colonies the first in modern times to a-chieve their freedom from imperialist rule?
The Indonesians and Indo-Chinese reminded America of its heroic past. They recalled how the founding fathers had been led to battle by George Washington in defense of the inherent right of the people to overthrow an unjust and oppressive government.
But the pleas of the Indonesians and Indo-Chinese for help against the tyrannical rule of foreign despots were not heeded. America&rsquo:s rulers today are the spiritual descendants of the Tories who upheld foreign tyranny. They hold ritual services in honor of George Washington, while they violate all the democratic principles for which the first American Revolution was fought.
Those colonial freedom-fighters of our time who think they might receive assistance from capitalist America in view of its own revolutionary past are quickly disillusioned. Today the rulers of America seek to estalish a colonial empire of their own. They project conquest of the entire world, even at the cost of atomic war.
In Washington’s time, America was the inspiration of the oppressed masses throughout the world. The democratic ideals of the American Revolution were not new or peculiar to the western shores of the Atlantic. They were imported from Europe. They had been worked out long before by revolutionary-minded European thinkers. America’s contribution was a practical demonstration of how to put these views into practice.
Derided as “crack-brained, abused as “subversives,” the tiny groupings of revolutionaries scattered along the seaboard fought their way to leadership of the American people and eventual success against the British Empire, at that time the mightiest power in the world.
Washington’s perseverance against stiff odds expressed on the military field the iron resolution and determination of political leaders such as Sam Adams and the ranks of the rebels headed by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. Through eight bitter years in their struggle against the “legally-constituted” government, these fighters bucked discouragement and apathy and proved the . power of stout-heartedness in a just cause. They showed that revolutions can be won.
The success of the American Revolution gave heart and confidence to resisters against oppression in other lands, playing no little role in the great French Revolution that broke out a few years later. And for decades afterward, the American victory inspired peoples throughout Latin America seeking freedom from the empire of Spain. As these countries won independence they found.protection under the shield of America from the imperialist designs of the European powers.
All this has been changed. America herself has become an imperialist power and the shield over Latin America has been changed to a yoke. No power is so hated by the poor people south of the Rio Grande today as Yankee imperialism.
No longer does the American government offer aid and comfort to colonial rebellions anywhere on earth. American capitalism stands on the side of the colonial despots. At this very moment Truman’s administration continues to send dollars, goods and arms to imperialist France and the Netherlands enabling these powers to wage wars of colonial conquest in Indo-China and Indonesia.
In Washington’s time, not even Bourbon France followed such a reactionary policy. France helped the American revolutionaries. Had France followed a course like that of Truman today, then it would have helped George III put down the “subversive” movement in the thirteen colonies and the American Revolution might have been drowned in blood.
In the resplendent afterglow of 1776, the victims of persecution and bigotry in other lands turned to America as a haven and these refugees were welcomed.
That has been changed. Today the victims of barbarism abroad are barred entry by cruel immigration laws. These laws hit hardest at those most in need of refuge, for the age-old right of asylum is denied refugees whose views do not conform to the reactionary specifications of the two parties holding government power.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer a symbol of America, welcoming the oppressed of the world. That figure, expressive of the democratic ideals that gave intellectual fire to the first American revolution, has been replaced by the sinister symbol of the atom bomb, threatening death to tens of millions and the destruction of civilization.
In the eyes of working people in other lands, America is no longer the home of freedom and the champion of independence; it is the home of Wall Street and the main powerhouse of reaction, the prop and support of puppet kings and foul dictators like King Paul of Greece and Chiang Kai-shek.
The profiteering capitalists and their political stooges have succeeded in monopolizing the government so that it no longer genuinely represents the people. America needs to be cleansed. A new generation shaped in the revolutionary tradition of Sam Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine, Patrick Henry and George Washington and expressing the needs and desires of the American masses is needed to lead the revolutionary struggle against the Tories of our time and to guide America into the full democracy of socialism.
Last updated on: 29 February 2024