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Over 150 years ago Ireland lost a staggering 13% of
its population to death by disease and starvation. How could it be that Britain, which
was still the richest and most powerful country in the world, could not prevent
this horrific death toll? The answer is simple ‑ the British ruling-classes did
not want to minimize the death toll, on the contrary, they welcomed it!
Could the Communist party of India have made a decisive difference in the independence movement? Here Jamil shows they were above all the prisoners of the policies imposed by Stalin, which were normally reformist, indeed counter-revolutionary. But occasionally Stalin lurched into an ultra-left phase as in 1947-48, called the 'Zhdanov offensive.' In lurching from right to left, a drunk will at one point be found upright. That is the significance of the correct perception of what was happening in India by the Moscow commentators Dyakov and Zhukov.
The threatened invasion of India by Japanese imperialism in 1942
brought the question of India front and centre before the British
working class. Rather than arm the Indian people and risk India falling
into the hands of the Indians, the British imperialists would have
prefered it to fall, temporarily, into the hands of the Japanese.
After World War II the British imperialists were in a hurry to leave
India. The Partition of British India in 1947, which created the two
independent states of India and Pakistan, was followed by one of the
cruellest and bloodiest migrations and ethnic cleansings in history.
How the West Was Stolen, by Hopalong Harry Whittaker, is a rip-roaring
polemic from an old gunslinger and former UCATT shop steward now living
south of the river, but hailing originally from Glasagae way. We hope
readers enjoy the gallop as he ranges from historical polemic to cinephile
opinionation.
In order to understand the partition of the
sub-continent and the terrible conditions it had to face it is necessary to
identify the role of imperialism in India and cover certain historical ground. In the year of the 60th anniversary of India's
independence here is first of a series of articles marking this event.
