I am grateful to today's edition of Heather Cox Richardson's 'Letter from an American' for pointing my attention at en extraordinary publication from the US Army in Match 1945. It looked like this:
That is some introduction.
What followed were five pages of discussion on the dangers of fascism, intended to inform US troops on the attitudes that they might meet in Germany, which they were close to part-occupying by then.
Some of the highlights are:
And this:
Then they moved on:
The next section was:
There are reams of thought that flow from that - and the current oppression of wages in the UK.
The paper moved on to:
This is particularly telling:
I have included most of the next section, it resonates so much:
And so the paper moved to its conclusion:
In support, the paper says:
I stress, this is a slightly edited version of the paper.
But what it says is one very clear thing.
Unless we are 'woke' we cannot beat fascism.
And 'anti-wokeism' is fascism.
The US Army did not use that term in 1945, but they might as well have done.
We should use it now.
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What a truly remarkable document.
Thanks for sharing it.
The consequences of that last line are chilling.
Fascism is thriving in the UK we are told.
So the United States of America is justified in intervention here, anywhere in fact, possibly militarily.
Thank goodness for the Prime Directive
The problem with seeing ‘anti-wokeism’ as fascism is that it ignores what ‘woke’ has become – a term whose meaning has been changed over time, by those whose politics is more about individual identity than social reality.
Umut Özkirimli’s book Cancelled: the Left way back from woke (2023) has not received the attention it deserves. Perhaps because so much of the left has got so caught up with identity politics?
I don’t think the term woke is about identity politics
It is about justice
Jut found a full and easier to read version of it (downloadable) here…
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Army_Talk_Orientation_Fact_Sheet/Number_64
Thanks
Wow!
Richard, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.
This declaration from almost 75 yrs ago allies, of course, with Tim Snyder’s sentiments.
Equally powerful is what it says about the principles of those in the upper echelons of
the US War Department by whom this document must had approval at a very high level.
It is, of course, that same contemporary mindset (Especially in the US) that strove to
go on and create – however pragmatically imperfect – the United Nations, and shortly
thereafter the Universal Declaration of Human Right [To understand what a deliberative
triumph of diverse synthesis that really was read Mary Glendon’s A World Made New].
This post will be shared. And thanks for your site.
What I find fascinating is how ‘switched on’ for want of a better word the US & other militaries can be when it comes to environmental, social and economic issues.
Studying their published works can be very interesting
It was a liberal moment in American history. Sadly it was followed only a few years later by McCarthyism and some Economics professors who tried to teach Keynes were hounded out of their jobs.
Curtis le May , Chief of the USAF in the early 1960s, actually proposed a nuclear strike on the USSR while the US had the lead in the number of Intercontinental missiles. He had a lot of support from the Joint Chiefs. But McNamara and Kennedy refused. Le May criticised JFK for his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He then retired and was to be the Vice-Presidential Candidate for the Racist George Wallace.
Those days perhaps, colour our impression of American generals. I would contend that the US military today is different. After Trump lost the election, he mooted the idea of attacking Iran. The Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, went to far as to visit the top officers responsible for nuclear weapons and look each of them in the eye and tell them that there would be no use of nuclear weapons with out his say-so. He phoned the Head of the Pacific Fleet which was about to go on exercise and asked him to cancel it as they had information that the Chinese were seeing threats. Milley could not order him to do so but the Admiral agreed. Milley then phoned the head of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and told him they were not planning any attack. (In Bob Woodward’s book Peril) It seems that -in many cases- the military are more responsible than many of the American politicians.
While there is much to deplore about American politics and foreign policy, there are still people of integrity there.
Just to note that this document was produced at a time when Jim Crow laws were in full force in the south of the US.
The US armed forces themselves were formally segregated until Executive Order 9981 in July 1948, and that took some years – and the manpower requirements of the Korean War – to be reflected in practice. Even today, very few of the chiefs of the branches of the US armed forces have been non-white (three I think, including Colin Powell, who was joint chief but never led the US army). And only one has been a woman.
I made that comment domestically this morning
That there is hypocrisy in this document is clear
yes there was hypocrisy but we need some context here.
in 1938 the US army was 150,000-200,000 sources vary. By 1945 it had eight million men. So 2-3% were peacetime professionals. Non core military jobs in research, logistics, intelligence and legal services were often given to men with peacetime experience. I would assume that the detailed orders for occupation and public relations were done by war time recruited men. Many of them were well educated and liberal.
Within a year or so, most had been de-mobilised and the long term professionals took charge. A disproportionate number of the officer corps came from the South with Conservative attitudes. It is still the case. Thus we saw a retreat from the attitudes expressed in this paper and change such as de-segregation, was enforced by the politicians. They were able to do so because of public support but the Cold War attitudes grew from 1949.
Thanks
It almost goes without saying that, in the US, the Republicans are already a very long way down the path. If this 78 year old US Army fact sheet was marginally edited and published as an Op-Ed by a left-leaning media source, you can imagine it being decried as propaganda/lies/etc by the MAGA crowd and the mainstream politicians who inevitably cleave to them.
And where the Republicans lead, the Tories happily follow…
I consider it a matter of national shame that many of our fellow citizens would have been thought to be fifth columnists during WWII for the views they express today.
The American Army advice about fascism in 1945 was certainly an excellent and clear guidance for defending democracy and human rights. Unfortunately since then, US foreign policy and military interventions have not always upheld the 1945 advice. For example: Vietnam War, interference and propping up fascist or dictatorial governmemts in Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, Brazil. Chile, Phillipines, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and many more countries in Latin America and Asia over the last 75 years.
The Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America points to the Constitution of the United States and its laws as the basis for its democracy. You need to start by reading the Constitution first to get some idea of the quality of that democracy. There are many books analysing how good that Constitution is especially given the economic interests and moral beliefs of the Founding Fathers who drew it up:-
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
Danielle S. Ellen a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy at Harvard University argues the American Declaration of Independence was as much about the importance of political equality as it was about individual liberty. If so this undoubtedly would influence the drawing up of the American Constitution.
“Our Declaration – A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality”
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Declaration-Reading-Independence-Equality/dp/1631490443/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SORQGP5LC3Q1&keywords=Our+Declaration%3A+A+Reading+of+the+Declaration+of+Independence+in+Defense+of+Equality&qid=1685451258&sprefix=our+declaration+a+reading+of+the+declaration+of+independence+in+defense+of+equality%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-1
A “potentate” is a monarch or ruler, especially an autocratic one. Clearly the American colonisers came to regard the British establishment in the 18th century as a bunch of fascists! Are they now trying for a comeback in the UK? Is drawing up a Constitution a way of stopping the UK breaking up because of this comeback? If so why are none of the main political parties apart from the SNP talking about the need for one?
This line stands out – “If fascism came to America, it would be a program of “Americanism”.”
I think we have been seeing rapid growth in the equivalent “UK-ism” from the two main UK parties, and in much of the media. Perhaps the Tory party started it, and Keir Starmer’s triangulation forces him to follow suit, as has been the case in other areas. It goes alongside the claim that we need to regain the UK’s place in the world, meaning that we should foist our ‘principles’ on others. Some of the energy behind this presumably comes from post-Brexit jingoism, but I think it’s more than that.
In the aftermath of the Queen’s funeral and the King’s coronation, the BBC are playing what I’d call a ‘political advertorial’ between programmes on their TV channels. The message seems to be that the various snippets they play, including a couple from the coronation, should make us come together. They make me want to switch off.
Agreed
After 1945 the American big corporations set about erasing the advances made during the presidency of FDR. Those who had encouraged him to implement the New Deal and assisted him in doing so were changed from heroes to villains . Those in the American Socialist parties, the Communists, Trades Unions were subjected to a viscous campaign just like the one set out in the articles shown here. Celebrities who had supported the vast improvement in the lives of working people were vilified. Progressive politicians were treated the same. Some were imprisoned, some were were ruined, some committed suicide. The blueprint for their ruination is set out in the description of how fascism triumphs. American GIs were provided with new homes. Except black GIs. Since 1945 the US has invaded countless countries ,overthrowing democratically government who were pursuing progressive policies such as Guatemala or Iran. Extreme Right dictatorships were put in power and supported. A military base was constructed in the Azores . The US promised the Portuguese dictator Salazar full support if he gave permission. The US encouraged Salazar to hang on to his colonies . Once again offering support. The record of American foreign policy since 1945 is disgusting. Whole countries have been destroyed. After the first Gulf War the whole country was left in the same condition as it was in 1920. This is how Mandela described the USA “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world it s the USA. They don’ care about human beings”.
What an amazing historical artifact. I feel vindicated by it for sure, and people like Hannah Arendt and Tim Snyder have very little if anything at all to quarrel about.
The thing is, they wrote this, then some arse of a politician in the states decided that it was the communists that were the new evil and all of this was forgotten about and woe be to us all, who have been sleep-walking back into fascism ever since.
The important point human beings need to recognise is that it’s not just “stability is destabilising” (Minsky) as far as economies are concerning there is always a tendency in any human society to “walk back to fascism” because there’s always some human beings who want to free-ride off the efforts of others. This is found in all primates, see the anthropologist Christopher Boehm’s book “Hierarchy in the Forest” where he makes the very salient point that the many always have to hold the few with special skills or attributes in check. This is why the failure to understand there always has to be a public-private partnership in human societies causes so much trouble.