Howard Zinn
A People’s War?
Lecture Notes
Britain and the U.S. were both imperialist powers.
The
American
Communist
Party
made fun of
Anglo-
American
Imperialist
history.
How could
the British
and
Americans
be credible
as liberators
when they
controlled
so many?
When
Germany
invaded
Soviet
Russia,
the Communists
supported
the war effort
It became
a “peoples
war” against
Fascism.
W. W. II was
a popular
war.
A very large
majority of
Americans
supported
this war
against an
unspeakable
evil.
Would allied
victory be a
blow to
racism,
imperialism
and
militarism in
the world?
Would
postwar
America
exemplify the
values for
which the war had been
fought?
The U.S. has
a violent
history in
which it
instigated a
war with
Mexico and
took half of
that country.
The U.S. pretended to
to help Cuba
win freedom
from Spain,
then planted
itself in Cuba
with rights of
intervention.
The U.S.
had seized
Hawaii,
Puerto Rico,
Guam and
fought a
brutal war to subjugate the
Filipinos.
It had
“opened”
Japan to it’s
trade with
gunboats
and threats.
The U.S. had,
along with
other nations, sent
troops to
China and
kept them there for over
thirty years.
The U.S.
meddled in
the affairs of
Columbia,
creating
Panama so
a canal
could be
built.
The U.S.
intervened in
the affairs of
Latin
American
countries
whenever it
saw fit.
The finances
of many
Latin
American
countries
were in some
way directed
by the
United States
In 1918, an
American
force of 7000
landed at
Vladivostok.
It was an
allied
intervention
in Russia.
5000 more
troops
landed
at Archangel,
another
Russian port,
and stayed
for almost
a year.
If the U.S.
entered
World War II
to defend the
principle of
non-
intervention,
it didn’t have
credibility.
In the 1930s
& 40s blacks,
looking at
their situation
in the U.S.
might think it
was like that
of German
Jews.
The U.S. was
hesitant to
criticize
Hitler’s anti-
semitic
policies.
The U.S.
allowed oil
companies to
sell oil to
Italy after the
invasion of
Ethiopia in
1935.
The U.S.
refused to aid an elected
Spanish
government
in 1936,
allowing the
Fascists to win in Spain.
Roosevelt’s
top priority
was not
the rights of
minorities,
but
protecting U.S. national
power.
Hitler’s
bloodless
conquests
and his
attack on
Poland didn’t
bring the U.S.
into the war.
The horrible
atrocities
committed by the Japanese
at Nanking
didn’t bring
the U.S. into
the war.
A Japanese
attack on a
link in the
American
Pacific
Empire
caused the
United States
to go to war.
Japan
threatened
potential U.S.
markets in
China.
Japan moved
toward the
tin, rubber,
and oil of
Southeast
Asia; the U.S.
became
alarmed.
The U.S. placed a total
embargo on
scrap iron
and oil sales
to Japan in
the summer
of 1941.
The U.S.
government
knew that it
was risking
war with this
embargo.
Japan needed these
materials.
One judge at
the Tokyo
War Crimes
trial argued
that the U.S. provoked war
with Japan
and expected Japan to act.
In August
1941,
Roosevelt and Churchill
issued the
Atlantic
Charter.
The Charter
was celebrated as
declaring the
right of
nations to
self-
determination
The U.S. was
insincere
in making
these claims.
For example,
France was promised she
could retain
Indochina.
When the war
was over, the
United States
wanted
France to
control Indo-
china, not the
indiginous
people.
In the
headlines
were the major battles
of the war,
but the U.S.
was thinking
about other
issues.
American
diplomats and businessmen
did all they
could to
make U.S.
economic
power
dominant.
The U.S.
gave Lend-Lease aid to Saudi Arabia
because the
Saudis had
oil, the most
important of
commodities.
This served
the economic
interests of
U.S. by
creating a
shield for the oil companies
which wanted
Saudi oil.
Roosevelt told Saudi leader
Ibn Saud that
the U.S. would not change its
Palestine
policy without
consulting
the Arabs.
The
International
Monetary Fund
was set up
so that voting power would be
commeasurate
with money
contributed.
The
United States
had every
intention to
use its
economic
muscle to its
own
advantage.
The U.S.
gave
financial
assistance to
other
countries
only when its
interests were served.
The United
Nations was
created to
prevent
future wars
and was
dominated by
the Western
democracies.
Arthur
Vandenburg,
a Republican
Senator, was
delighted by
the way in
which the
U.N. Charter
was written.
Helping
European Jews was not
a major
concern for
Roosevelt’s
administration
Anti-Semitism
in FDR’s
state
department
became an
“obstacle to
action.”
“The United States armed
forces were
segregated
by race.”
Blacks
received
second class
treatment.
The war
against
fascism did
nothing to
change the
subordinate
role of
women.
Women
worked in the
defense
industry, but
on The War
Manpower
Commission,
no women
made policy.
Japanese
Americans
were put into
concentration
camps with no regard for
their
constitutional
rights.
“Not until after the war
did the story
of the
Japanese
Americans
begin to be
known to the
general public”
Was the forced
evacuation of
Japanese-
Americans
one to be
expected by
a nation with
a long racist
history?
“...business
profits
rocketed
skyward...”
during the
war and this
frustrated
many
workers.
Wages for
workers were
frozen and
there were
many strikes
during the
war.
“...there were
fourteen
thousand
strikes,
involving
6,770,000
workers,...”
during World
War Two.
The U.S. had
more strikes
during W.W.II
than it had in
“...any
comparable
period in
American
history...”
In Lowell MA.
only 5% of
female
textile
workers had
nursery
schools to
care for
their kids.
The
rest “...had to
make their
own
arrangements”.
“Out of 10
million drafted
for the armed
forces during
World War II,
only 43,000
refused to
fight.”
Approximately
six thousand
of these men
went to prison.
“Of every six
men in federal
prison, one was there as a
C.O.”
(conscientious
objector)
Officers and
enlisted men
were treated
differently in
the U.S. Army,
with special
privileges
given
to the officers.
These
included:
shorter lines at the base movie
theaters and
better food.
Was this
appropriate in an army fighting
for democracy?
“There seemed
to be
widespread
indifference,
even hostility,
on the part of
the Negro
community to
the war...”
One black
student said:
“The Red Cross
refuses our
blood. Employers and
labor unions
shut us out.
Lynchings
continue.”
“But there was
no organized
Negro
opposition to
the war. In fact,
there was little
organized
opposition
from any
source.”
“Only one
organized
socialist group
opposed the war
unequivocally.
This was the
Socialist
Workers
Party.”
18 members
of the
Socialist
Workers
Party were
convicted in
Minneapolis
in 1943.
“They were
sentenced to
prison terms,
and the
Supreme
Court
refused to
review their
case.”
Roosevelt
initially
condemned
fascist
bombings as
“inhuman
barbarism...”
Later, the
British and
Americans
began “...the
saturation
bombing of
German
cities...”
“The climax of
this terror
bombing was
the bombing
of Dresden...”
“More than
100,000 died in
Dresden.”
“...one
nighttime fire-bombing
of Tokyo
took 80,000
lives.”
On August 6,
1945,
Hiroshima
was struck
with the atomic bomb.
Approximately
100,000 were
killed that day,
but “...tens of
thousands
more (were)
slowly dying
from radiation
poisoning.”
“The justification for
these atrocities
was that this
would end the
war quickly,
making
unecessary an
invasion of
Japan.”
It was
estimated
that the U.S.
could have
lost up to
one million
soldiers had
Japan been
invaded.
“These estimates of
invasion
losses were
not realistic,
and seem to
have been
pulled out of
the air...”
“Japan, by
August 1945,
was in
desperate
shape and
ready to
surrender.”
The Japanese
would have
been willing to
surrender
prior to the
atomic bomb
being
dropped.
But “...one condition to the surrender,
that the
Emperor, a
holy figure to
the Japanese,
remain in
place-”
Needed to be
honored.
If the U.S.
would have
honored this
condition,
“...the
Japanese
would have
agreed to stop the war.”
The Secretary
of the Navy
described the
Secretary of
State, James
Byrnes,
in the
following
way:
(he is) “most
anxious to
get the
Japanese
affair over
with before the Russians
got in.”
The war
ended quickly after
the atomic bombs were
dropped.
V-J day was
August, 15
1945.
V-E Day had
been
celebrated
on May, 8
1945.
Germany was
“...crushed
primarily by the armies of
the Soviet Union on the
Eastern
Front...”
“The Fascist powers were
destroyed.
But what
about
fascism- as
idea, as
reality?”
“were its
essential
elements-
militarism,
racism,
imperialism-
now gone?
“Or were
they
absorbed
into the
already
poisoned
bones of the
victors?”
“...under the
cover of
“socialism”
on one side,
and “democracy”
on the other,
(the U.S. and
U.S.S.R. tried)
to carve out
their own
empires of
influence.”
The U.S. and
the U.S.S.R.
went on to “...control the
destinies of more countries
than Hitler,
Mussolini
and Japan...”
They used
methods
“crude in the
Soviet Union,
sophisticated
in the United
States- to
make their
rule secure.”
Corporate
profits “...rose from
$6.4 billion
in 1940 to
$10.8 billion
in 1944.”
After the war,
the United
States
“worked to
create an
atmosphere
of crisis and
cold war.”
“...the Soviet
Union (was
presented) as
not just a
rival but an
immediate
threat.”
“Revolutionary
movements
in Europe
and Asia
were described to the American
public as
examples of
Soviet
expansion-
ism...”
In 1947, two
years after
the war, the
Truman
Doctrine
was issued.
In it,
Harry Truman
said:
America will
help “free
peoples who
are resisting
attempted
subjugation...”
At the request
of Great
Britain, the
United States
supplied aid to
crush a “left-
wing guerrilla
movement” in
Greece.