Post WW2 Communist Party “In Defence If Peace The Case Against Rearming Nazis”

For sale is a Post WW2 The British Communist Party 1954 Publication Titled “In Defence If Peace, The Case Against Rearming The Nazis” By Harry Pollitt. 

In Defence of Peace: The Case Against Rearming the Nazis is a 1954 pamphlet by Harry Pollitt, a prominent figure in the British Communist Party, arguing against the rearmament of West Germany within the framework of the European Defence Community. The publication, issued by the Communist Party, reflects their stance against allowing a resurgent German military power, which they saw as a threat to peace and an unacceptable escalation of Cold War tensions. 

The introduction states:

“IN DEFENCE OF PEACE

The Case Against Rearming the Nazis

BY HARRY POLLITT

The Parliamentary Labour Party, by the narrow majority of two, decided to support the rearming of Western Germany in the so-called "European Defence Community". The Labour Lords had to be brought into the meeting-which is not the normal practice to get even this narrow majority.

The Labour Party Executive, also against a substantial minority including trade union representatives, adopted a similar policy on April 28.

Now the Labour Party Executive has issued a pamphlet with the misleading title In Defence of Europe, which it deceptively calls "Labour's view" on the rearming of Germany.

The arguments put forward in this pamphlet are not Labour's view. They are the view of the right-wing leaders of the Labour Party- which in turn is the view of Churchill and Eden, of Eisenhower and Dulles.

The real "Labour view" is the determined opposition to the rearming of Western Germany under Nazi generals and with Nazi aggressive aims, which has been adopted by overwhelming majorities at so many recent conferences of the Labour movement.

It is necessary to recall some of these decisions, remembering that they are decisions of elected delegates representing millions of work- ing people, as against the decisions (against substantial minorities) of the members of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Labour Party Executive.

There is the decision against German rearmament of the Co-opera- tive Union Congress, representing over 11 million members; the similar decisions of National Conferences of Trade Unions represen- ting well over 2 million members, and including the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (U.S.D.A.W.), in which only two out of over 850 delegates supported the right-wing policy; the Associa- tion of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen; the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers; the United Society of Boilermakers; the Tobacco Workers' Union; the Amalgamated Engineering Union; Association of Scientific Workers; National Union of Agricultural Workers; National Union of Vehicle Builders; National Union of Sheet Metal Workers; Plumbing Trades Union; Society of Litho Artists: Chemical Workers' Union and the Scottish Trades Union Congress. As for the Divisional Labour Parties, the widespread opposition to the Labour Executive's policy on this question is well known; and recent evidence of this was given at the Conference in London on German rearmament, organised by the London Co-operative Society and the Union of Democratic Control, and attended by delegates of thirty-five Labour Parties besides delegates from Co-operative bodies and trade unions. Therefore it should be clear from the start that this pamphlet issued by the Labour Party Executive is not Labour's view, but the view of a group of right-wing leaders.

Why is it it that there is this opposition to the rearming of Germany ? It is because the British people, like the peoples of so many other countries in Europe, have had bitter experience of two world wars started up by the militarists of Germany, acting on behalf of the expansionist aims of the great German trusts, and carrying out aggres- sive wars with a brutality and ruthlessness that reached its full expression under Hitler and the Nazis.

The opposition to rearming Germany is not due to any hatred of the German people, or any desire to treat them as outcasts, but to recognition of the fact that the same great German trusts, and their instruments the militarists and Nazis, will again have it in their power to plunge the world into a third world war-a hydrogen bomb war of total destruction-once they are allowed to rearm.

The Labour Party Executive does not face up to this, which is the principal issue in the minds of the organised workers and the British people generally.

Now let us examine the argument for rearming the Nazis as they present it.”

This makes an interesting read. 

This will be sent via Royal Mail tracked 24 and dispatched within two working days.