Berger on Keir Starmer’s predecessor and, though a more left-wing Labor Leader than Starmer’s post-reformism, his spiritual twin of moral bankruptcy and sycophancy, Ramsay MacDonald’s response to 1929’s uprising in then British-controlled Palestine.

‘The Palestine Programme of the British Social Imperialists‘ by Joseph Berger from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 10 No. 41. September 4, 1930.

The revolt of the Arab masses in Palestine formed the bloody overture to the MacDonald era. Since then this government of imperialist lackeys has performed a good deal of hangmen’s work in India, China, Egypt and Arabia. At the same time various spokesmen of the social imperialists are continually maintaining that the “repressive measures” which MacDonald, Wedgwood Benn, Henderson and Lord Passfield are carrying out on behalf of the City of London are only of a temporary character; their object is, it is claimed, to give the Labour government the possibility of preparing in the meantime progressive and liberal solutions of the complicated colonial problem. Once order has been restored, the Labour government will find answers to all questions–for the Indian, the Chinese, Egyptian etc., which will be marked by a progressive, liberal spirit.

Something of this spirit is to be seen in the declaration of the Labour government on Palestine. His Majesty’s Socialist Ministers have spent over a year in preparing the Palestine declaration, and the line indicated in it will be probably the same for the coming solutions of the Indian, Egyptian and other colonial questions.

What is the programme of Labour imperialism for Palestine? It is a programme of the most brutal and reactionary colonial oppression! A programme the essential content of which is the cynical enumeration of the military battalions, aeroplane squadrons and armoured cars which are now to remain permanently in Palestine. To this there is added the assurance that the expenditure on the police, prisons and spies (up to now comprising a third of the budget) is not to be in any way decreased but where possible to be increased. Finally, there is the threat that every incitement to revolt or disaffection will be ruthlessly punished and that the powers of the administration are to be extended still further.

That is the gist of the British government declaration. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that this bellicose language of the peace-loving labour people is a sign of the strength of their regime. On the contrary, the programme-declaration, with its attempts to threaten and intimidate, expresses the trembling fear of Labour imperialism of the colonial masses. Behind the blustering fighting phrases there concealed the uncertainty of the Labour government, their desperate attempt to draw over to their side the most reactionary and backward sections of the native population, feudal landlords and the commercial bourgeoisie, as a bulwark against the revolutionary movement of the masses. This is what also lies behind the ridiculous proposal of a “legislative” assembly in Palestine, which shall consist of 11 appointed and 12 elected members. As the population of Palestine has already rejected by an organised boycott the “favour” of such a puppet council, the Labour government has already arranged that in the event of the population refusing to elect any representatives, then they are to be appointed! For the aim is and remains a government of the strong hand; and it is hoped by the masses, it will be possible to get some of the Arab leaders to co-operate in the Legislative Assembly.

The Labour Government is going a step further: it knows that Zionist policy formed an integral part of the imperialist rule in Palestine. Imperialism is linked up with the Balfour Declaration and with the mandate resting on the basis of the “Zionist National Home”. The Labour government is therefore maintaining the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate. But as the Arab masses, and behind them the 300,000,000 Mohammedans, will never voluntarily submit to the Zionist policy, the Labour government intends to deceive them by means of a hypocritical trick: Zionist immigration is to cease and the Zionist purchases of land are to be reduced to a minimum. Just imagine, Lord Passfield as defender of Islam and the Fellahin! It has been suddenly discovered that 29.4 per cent, i.e. nearly a third of all the Arab peasants of Palestine, are without land. When the Communists maintained that, they were flung into prison as inciters and agitators. But now the Labour government has suddenly become aware of the existence of the starving unemployed Aarab masses. How far the hypocrisy of the Labour government goes is also to be seen from the fact that whilst the official declarations bemoan the fate of the Fellahin, British troops are at the same time driving the poor Fellahin and Bedouins from Wadi-Havaras and forcibly suppressing every agrarian movement.

Not a single Arab worker will be deceived by those parts of the Labour Declaration which speak of defending the Fellahin from Zionism. It is clear to every working inhabitant of Palestine that Zionism is only upheld by imperialism and that it must be crushed together with the imperialists.

Nevertheless, the British Declaration has at the same time called forth a pitiable whine from the Zionist bourgeoisie and the Jewish petty bourgeoisie which follow it. It has even come to the resignation of Dr. Weizmann, who was for many years president of the Zionist organisation, Lord Melchett, the plutocrat leader of the Jewish Agency, and of Felix Warburg, as a protest against this declaration. The Zionists and Jewish multi-millionaires who, as Warburg painfully admits, have already invested several million dollars in the “Land of Promise”, are trembling on account of their beloved capital. If MacDonald’s declaration means a retreat before the Arab attack, who can say whether tomorrow the dollars will be sufficiently protected, apart from the fact that it will be rather difficult now to dangle before the Jewish petty bourgeoisie the bunch of carrots of a Jewish kingdom under the protection of George V.

Therefore, protests, resignations, reproaches against the British Government, all of which of course have nothing to do with an anti-imperialist movement for freedom but are dictated by the interests of the moneyed Jews. Nevertheless, the protests bear an interesting character: Many Zionist leaders are now demanding an open orientation of Zionism to American imperialism, a transference of the Zionist organisation to America. Thus here also there is reflected the growing Anglo-American antagonism.

The great outcry raised by the Zionist leaders will not find an echo among all the Jewish workers. Many of them, especially in Palestine, will now realise in the light of the social-imperialist declaration how contrary the alliance with the Zionist bourgeoisie and with British imperialism is to their class interests; they will refuse to be used any longer as imperialist instruments and will join the steadily growing movement for freedom of the Arab working masses and stand by them in their fight for their social and national emancipation. The Zionist papers themselves are writing that the working Jewish youth have now only two alternatives: either unrestrained nationalism, i.e. fascism and nationalist adventure, or Communism, i.e. to join the social and national emancipation movement of the Arab masses. It will be the task of the C.P. of Palestine to influence the Jewish workers in the sense of the anti-imperialist and genuine international fight.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly. A major contributor to the Communist press in the U.S., Inprecorr is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

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