Open
World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
January 9, 1946: "We Want to Go Home!"
[Note: Following are edited excerpts from the presentation by Daniel
Gluckstein, international coordinator of the ILC, to the evening rally
held at the USLAW National Assembly for Peace in Chicago on October 24,
2003.]
The date was January 9, 1946. Marching down the Champs Elysées Avenue in
Paris, more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers shouted out the same slogan: "We
Want to Go Home!" Eight months earlier, World War II had ended.
All these young men had accepted going to war in Europe because they
thought that fighting against Nazism, for democracy and freedom, was the
right thing to do. Thousands upon thousands of these GIs had lost their
lives on the Normandy beaches or in the deep forests of the Ardennes, near
the Belgian border.
But now the war was over. "Why should we stay in France? We have
nothing more to do here," explained the soldiers.
At that very moment, all around the world, U.S. GIs were organizing to
demand their immediate demobilization and their return to the United
States. The largest protest actions were in Manila, Guam, Okinawa,
Calcutta, Honolulu -- even Shanghai.
In Paris, four days after the demonstration on the Champs Elysées, 500
soldiers gathered on the Trocadéro Square. They elected a "GI's
Liberation Committee" to push for their immediate demobilization.
They adopted a "Drafted Soldier's Charter" in which they stated
that even when wearing a uniform, a U.S. citizen has the right to
criticize the government, and to ask for the election of low-level
officers and the abolition of the officers' privileges.
Similar committees were elected in Frankfurt and London. In Frankfurt,
where the General Headquarters of the U.S. Armed Forces in Europe was
based, 50 U.S. soldiers met and organized a delegation from their
committee to present their demands to their superiors.
The U.S. Administration expressed its concern. Stars and Stripes,
the newspaper published by the U.S. Army, described this "Bring Us
Home Now!" movement as "unique in the military history of the
United States." U.S. General McNamey issued a memorandum threatening
the soldiers involved in this movement and forbidding any of their
meetings and demonstrations. He claimed this could negatively impact the
"image and prestige of the occupation forces."
But the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, General
Eisenhower, was more prudent. He asked all unit commanders to prepare
immediatly the return to U.S. soil of all the men whose "presence
overseas is not indispensable."
The GIs also appealed to the U.S. Congress, requesting Congressional
hearings. A deep crisis opposed some sectors of the U.S. Army hierarchy,
who wanted to keep most of the soldiers stationed in Europe and the
Pacific, against the U.S. Administration, which had become more and more
worried about the protest movements of the GIs.
President Truman, compelled to give an official explanation, had to
recognize that the official promises to bring home all U.S. troops had not
been respected. He tried to justify this stance by referring to a
so-called "critical need of overseas troops to save the peace."
The U.S. Congress was compelled to send a Congressional fact-finding
delegation to meet with, and listen to, the demands of the U.S. soldiers.
One French newspaper quoted one U.S. soldier as telling the delegation:
"George Washington said that every American is first of all a
citizen, and only after that is he a soldier."
Soon after, by the end of January, the U.S. Navy received orders to affect
ships to the return of all U.S. soldiers. Tens of thousands of GIs around
the world finally were able to go home. The attempt to organize the
permanent occupation of Europe, and more specifically of France, had
failed.
It is during this same period that the French workers mobilized and won
their most important gains: social security, healthcare, the binding
obligation for the bosses to respect the collective-bargaining agreements
with the unions, the creation of huge public services, and the
nationalization of major industries, such as Renault. The list goes on.
All these gains were won between 1945 and 1950. Undoubtedly, these gains
-- won through militant class struggle mobilizations -- were aided by the
fact that the mobilizations of the U.S. soldiers to go back home, aided by
their families in the United States, had been successful.
The mobilization of the French working class for their demands and the
mobilization of the American youth in uniform for their return home --
these were two mobilizations merging into a single one: for democracy.