Exiled from the Dutch colony after his imprisonment led to demonstrations in the Caribbean country in which several were killed, Anton De Kom was an independence fighter and journalist who describes Suriname in the hardscrabble years of the Great Depression. While in the Netherlands, De Kom would join the anti-Nazi Dutch resistance with the Communist Party of Holland. Arrested in 1944, he died on April 24, 1945 in the Neuengamme concentration camp just five days before its liberation.

‘Starvation, Misery and terror in Dutch Guyana’ by Anton De Kom from Negro Worker. Vol. 4 No. 2. June, 1934.

What has Dutch Imperialism achieved in Dutch Guiana in the centuries of so-called culture and civilization? The answer: The mass of natives of Dutch Guiana in the towns and on the plantations; the Asiatic workers who come to the colony as contract labourers from British India and Indonesia, are subjected to the most miserable condition of hunger and starvation. The immigrant workers come under a contract of what is nothing but five years slave-labour. And the compensation? They are paid the princely wage of F. 1.80 for male and F. 1.20 for female workers per week (F. stands for guilders and has a par value of 2 1⁄2 to the dollar. Ed.) That is for those fortunate enough to have a job.

The effects of the crisis has been the throwing out of thousands of coloured workers into the streets to starve. Arrested as vagrants and for petty crimes as a result of starvation, they are forced as prisoners to build roads and keep the streets in repair. In this way does the colonial ruling class get public works done free of charge and keep the starving workers out of employment. There you are, another phase of the modern slavery to which the working class is subjected.

Thousands of unemployed, tramp the streets from early morning until late at night, vainly in search of work that is not to be found. Poverty and misery reigns everywhere. Hundreds of families, fathers and mothers with their children are out everywhere seeking in vain for a morsel of bread. It is hardly possible to describe the terrible state of absolute poverty and want.

Disease and death as a result of undernourishment particularly among children, are taking a heavy toll among the working population. The mortality rate among infants has jumped tremendously. Out of every thousand deaths seventy are from tuberculosis. More than two thousand new victims yearly from framboesia tropica. And malaria is steadily on the increase.

The housing conditions of the native toilers in Dutch Guiana is in a most deplorable state. They are not houses, but decayed wooden hovels. In very many cases one room must serve as shelter for a family of seven persons. The roofs are generally of zinc. By day the temperature is that of a hot oven. At night it is cold and damp. Such are the conditions under which the native toilers out of whose labour is extracted huge super-profits by the Dutch Imperialists, compelled to live.

The children born prior to 1863 were slaves. And today? Now they are “free.” They are no longer slaves, for slavery is no they are “free.” They are no longer slaves, for slavery is no Guiana is “free.” Free, without clothing. Free, but in rags. Just a “n***r.”

We remember the 16 million florins, Holland gave the white slave barons as indemnity for the emancipated slaves. These millions were given to the Bakras (whites) as a reward for the inhuman deeds they committed against the Negro slaves–our forefathers. But to the slaves and today to the “free” Negroes not a penny. Their only reward today is unemployment, misery and starvation.

Only through organization and struggle can the workers of Dutch Guiana succeed in bettering their living conditions and effectively fight against the exploitation and slavery imposed upon them by the Dutch colonial rulers.

Only through solidarity and joint struggle between the workers of the capitalist countries and the colonial toilers can an effective blow be dealt to the common enemy–Imperialism.

Workers, organize and fight against exploitation, unemployment and starvation! Close ranks in struggle for the emancipation of the colonial toilers! Demand the independence of Dutch Guiana!

The above described conditions of hunger and poverty in Dutch Guiana gave rise to great unemployed demonstrations and strikes about a year ago. The reply of the colonial parasites to this mass protest against unemployment was the killing and wounding of a number of defenceless workers. Capitalist terror then came into full swing, making illegal workers organizations, prohibiting meetings and making press criticism of the Imperialist robbers a crime. The writer of this article, a native of Dutch Guiana, who took a leading part in the struggles and demonstrations of the workers was arrested, deported to Holland and forbidden to return to the colony. Ed.

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First called The International Negro Workers’ Review and published in 1928, it was renamed The Negro Worker in 1931. Sponsored by the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW), a part of the Red International of Labor Unions and of the Communist International, its first editor was American Communist James W. Ford and included writers from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and South America. Later, Trinidadian George Padmore was editor until his expulsion from the Party in 1934. The Negro Worker ceased publication in 1938. The journal is an important record of Black and Pan-African thought and debate from the 1930s. American writers Claude McKay, Harry Haywood, Langston Hughes, and others contributed.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/negro-worker/files/1934-v4n2-jun.pdf