Peekskill : USA

I N T R O D U C T I O N Indian Edition PERHAPS no single event in the postwar anti-fascist struggle has had the same impact and importance as the incident of Peekskill. Here the whole struggle in America was crystallized in the actions of a few days. In that brief time, the fascist forces rallied to their plans all the rotten and lumpen elements they could command. In the same time, the working class rallied and organized itself to halt fascism, to defend the Negro people and to join with the Negro people in common defence. The fact that this was done in terms of a cultural event built around one man who stood for the peace movement in America and for progressive culture in America, deepened the whole significance of the action. We learned a great deal through Peekskill. We learned that the face of fascism is the same in every land. We learned that the Negro people and the working class, firm and united, can defeat and smash the forces of fascism. And we learned, above all, that no artist today can create honestly or function wholly, apart from the people's movement. Unquestionably, this story has great significance for the millions of Indian people. There is in progressive circles in America a deep and underlying feeling for the Indian people, an affection for the mighty strength and enduring patience of this great section of mankind. We look toward the Indian people as a bulwark of the future. We need to bring ourselves closer to them, to understand them more fully, and we need to bring to them a fuller and deeper understanding of the forces at work in our own land. So we give you here a story of the other America – not the America of Truman and Acheson, but the America of the people, the workers, the Negro people, the great mass of minorities who make up the population of the United States. Paul Robeson Howard Fast