Sam Wiseman. The Zero Hour! Free India! Open a Second Front. [Indian Independence poster, Buffalo NY, 1942].
Western New York District Communist Party: 75 ½ W. Chippewa Street — Room 12. Printed by the Allied Printing Trades Union Label Council. Buffalo. 1942.
Broadsheet, 12” x 9”. Text printed at recto only, on wood-pulp paper. Pencil inscription reading “Buffalo” and inkstamp reading “Aug. 1942,” both at lower margin. CONDITION: Good, original green color of paper faded along margins, 2” tear at upper margin of sheet not obscuring text, .5” tear at lower margin, minimal chipping to extremities.
An earnest propagandistic flier issued by a New York Communist, demanding that the United States and Allied Powers open a second front against the Axis to aid in the liberation of India.
This handbill, issued in the summer after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, announces that “IT IS FIVE MINUTES TO TWELVE. THE ZERO HOUR IS HERE…WE CAN LOSE THIS WAR UNLESS THE CORRECT ROAD TO VICTORY IS FOLLOWED AT ONCE.” The allegedly “correct road” was to open a second front and launch an assault on Hitler and the Japanese’s forces from India. This, the author claims, would have been more humane and militarily sensible than the British empire’s arrest of the leaders of the Indian National Congress and violent suppression of protests in support of the Quit India Movement of 1942. The author further claims that “the majority of the Indian people do not follow Gandhi’s ‘neutrality’ policy. They know the main enemy is the Axis,” though the truth of this is rather wobbly, seeing as there was a faction of Indian nationalists who sided with the Japanese that same year. In any case, the authors point out that the continued suppression of the subcontinent’s people and their demands for freedom have raised suspicion among “the Chinese…theBurmese…the Malayans,” and they allege, “in our own country [where] the Negro people, suffering from discrimination…look with mistrust on the promises that this war is a war for liberty and freedom.” The sheet concludes by urging readers to “write President Roosevelt your support to his agreement of a second front. Write him to intervene on behalf of Indian Independence to keep India in the War against the Axis.”
Sam Wiseman was a New York labor activist and prominent Communist during the mid 30s through the 40s. He contributed to a number of periodicals, most frequently the Party Organizer, and seems to have been agitating for the unemployed and working classes in the Buffalo area.
OCLC locates no holdings of this broadside, nor any by this publisher. We locate one publication by Wiseman, Proceedings, 10th convention: New York Communist Party, New York State, May 20–23, 1938, in OCLC.
Western New York District Communist Party: 75 ½ W. Chippewa Street — Room 12. Printed by the Allied Printing Trades Union Label Council. Buffalo. 1942.
Broadsheet, 12” x 9”. Text printed at recto only, on wood-pulp paper. Pencil inscription reading “Buffalo” and inkstamp reading “Aug. 1942,” both at lower margin. CONDITION: Good, original green color of paper faded along margins, 2” tear at upper margin of sheet not obscuring text, .5” tear at lower margin, minimal chipping to extremities.
An earnest propagandistic flier issued by a New York Communist, demanding that the United States and Allied Powers open a second front against the Axis to aid in the liberation of India.
This handbill, issued in the summer after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, announces that “IT IS FIVE MINUTES TO TWELVE. THE ZERO HOUR IS HERE…WE CAN LOSE THIS WAR UNLESS THE CORRECT ROAD TO VICTORY IS FOLLOWED AT ONCE.” The allegedly “correct road” was to open a second front and launch an assault on Hitler and the Japanese’s forces from India. This, the author claims, would have been more humane and militarily sensible than the British empire’s arrest of the leaders of the Indian National Congress and violent suppression of protests in support of the Quit India Movement of 1942. The author further claims that “the majority of the Indian people do not follow Gandhi’s ‘neutrality’ policy. They know the main enemy is the Axis,” though the truth of this is rather wobbly, seeing as there was a faction of Indian nationalists who sided with the Japanese that same year. In any case, the authors point out that the continued suppression of the subcontinent’s people and their demands for freedom have raised suspicion among “the Chinese…theBurmese…the Malayans,” and they allege, “in our own country [where] the Negro people, suffering from discrimination…look with mistrust on the promises that this war is a war for liberty and freedom.” The sheet concludes by urging readers to “write President Roosevelt your support to his agreement of a second front. Write him to intervene on behalf of Indian Independence to keep India in the War against the Axis.”
Sam Wiseman was a New York labor activist and prominent Communist during the mid 30s through the 40s. He contributed to a number of periodicals, most frequently the Party Organizer, and seems to have been agitating for the unemployed and working classes in the Buffalo area.
OCLC locates no holdings of this broadside, nor any by this publisher. We locate one publication by Wiseman, Proceedings, 10th convention: New York Communist Party, New York State, May 20–23, 1938, in OCLC.