The Lessons of Korea

[p014] THE LESSONS OF KOREA Has not Korea confirmed these contentions? The Korean War is two years old—and not over yet. The Movement has a right to expect its leaders to review the record of British participation in this inexcusable war and draw the correct lessons from it. They do nothing of the sort. Two years ago the Labour Party in office backed up U.S. intervention in Korea and sent British troops to fight alongside the American. Protests from the genuine Social- ists among the left-wing went unheeded, and every effort was made to justify the official course of action. When the Chinese entered the war to protect their frontiers from. MacArthur’s advance, the Labour Government agreed to brand China as “‘an aggressor’ in the United Nations. Not until Truman hinted at dropping atom bombs did Mr. Attlee hurry to Washington to try and restrain the Penta- gon. oo. From the first, the British people displayed little enthu- siasm for the Korean adventure. Their opposition has” mounted every month since. We have reached the point of revulsion with the massacre of the Koje Island prisoners, _ and are extremely apprehensive about the risks of world — i]

[p015] war involved in the latest bombings of the Yalu River power stations. Labour may not be in office at the moment. But the least its representatives should do is speak out clearly and sharply against the whole dirty business in Korea. But what do we find in the N.E.C. statement? It says, “The Labour Party is convinced that Britain and the other nations which support United Nations action in Korea and elsewhere, must have sufficient military strength to enable them to fulfil their international obligations under the United Nations.’’ Labour’s representatives should not have agreed to participation in the Korean War in the first place. The ‘fulfilment of these international obligations” have meant the leveling of Korea, support of Syngman Rhee who can no longer count on the support of his own former followers, hostility toward the New China, and indirect complicity in the attempts to bring Chiang kai-Shek back from Formosa through U.S. bayonets. We maintain that the obligations of the Labour Party to its own members and to the Chinese and Korean workers who are fighting for the same things as we want or have, must take precedence over any obligations to the United Nations which is no more than a convenient cover for American aggression. It does not appear that the authors of the N.E.C. docu- ment have learned anything from the Korean experience. But the Movement has learned just what is involved in being hitched to the war-chariot of Washington. It has also learned to admire the magnificent battle put up by the fighters for freedom in China and Korea. And we want an immediate end to the war in Korea and the British troops there brought home without delay. Even if an armistice is concluded, the lesson of Korea — must not be forgotten. For is not another Korea being — prepared in Europe by the division of Germany and the arming of a new Wehrmacht? British Labour cannot afford to fall twice into the same trap. 12