By JOHN WEIR
tibune Moscow Correspondent
MOSCOW — As this is written
Scow, and indeed the whole
Soviet Union is decked with ban-
Mrs and posters as the people
Prepare to mark the 62nd: An-
liversary of the Great October
| Socialist Revolution which estab-
ed the first socialist state and
Opened a new chapter in the his-
_lory of the world.
| Soviet people have ample
“alise for celebration. Despite
. °pposition and stumbling blocks,
| ee is advancing. The
ALT-II treaty, signed by
. eed and Carter is waiting
5 y for U.S. ratification. Leonid
e's announcement of the
¥ viet decision to withdraw sub-
| Gol troops and tanks from the
| “€tman Democratic Republic is
oe approval in ever-wider
ee Mational circles.and pressure
the U.S. to give up its plan to
| td some 600 new nuclear
es in wi i
growing. estern Europe is
ale, tat is not to say that the strug-
8 for lasting peace and disar-
_Mament is over, as opposition is
its and is using every trick in
. arsenal to halt the onward
| ay of history. But the balance
fo Power is now on the side of the
_Jlcés of peace, needing only un-
| action to win.
Appeal for Peace, issued

JOHN WEIR

by Lenin’s historic decree in 1917
is on the threshold of realization.

Sixty-two years ago one coun-
try took the road to socialism.
Today 10 countries of Europe,
Asia and America form the social-
ist community of states with
many others opting for the social-
ist way of life.

When the workers of Russia
took power in 1917 they inherited
a backward economy. For several
years more they were compelled
to fight for the very life of the
revolution against domestic
enemies and 14 foreign armies of
intervention. Only 50 years ago,
with the first five-year plan, were
the Soviet people able to engage
in the full-scale building of a
socialist society. Then came the
terrible devastation of the Hitler
invasion.

Today the Soviet Union is a
land of real and mature socialism
already leading the world in many
branches of production. The
targets set in the current five-year
plan are being overfulfilled, many
enterprises are meeting their
schedules this November 7th and
many more have decided to fulfill
their undertakings by Lenin’s
112th Birthday April 22 instead of
the end of next year.

Despite adverse weather, the
harvest is fine with the Kazakh
Republic, which includes the vir-
gin lands, selling the government
20,500,000 tons of grain. The out-
put.of cotton, rice and other pro-
duce is well ahead of planned to-
tals. The price paid by the state to
collective farms for meat has been
raised without any increase to
consumers. Wages of workers,
teachers and hospital personnel
have been given a boost. By New
Year’s day 18 million Soviet
workers will have had wage in-
creases this year.

The number of Lada auto-
mobiles produced since the Tog-
liatti plant was built 10 years ago
has passed the five million mark.

The country, where before the

In addition to providing its people with the necessary social, educational and cultural services the socialist

system in the USSR has emerged as a leading economic power. It is the leading producer of steel in the world.

revolution 75% of the population
was illiterate, is the first in the
world to introduce universal sec-
ondary school education. The
Baikal-Amur railway is being
built ahead of schedule; Soviet
cosmonauts have been joined by
those of other socialist countries
in space travel and a permanent
space lab has been established
with two Soviet spacemen spend-
ing more. than half a year out
among the stars. ;

The northwest passage which
was the dream of explorers for
centuries is now open and, with
the help of atomic ice breakers,
Soviet ships are sailing from
Murmansk tothe Bering strait,
and Muscovites have travelled to
the north pole on skis.

These are only samplings of the
things the Soviet people are
celebrating on this November
7th.

Their victories are contribu-
tions to peace and social progress
for all humanity and Canadians
will join in the celebration know-
ing that, in the inspired words of
the Canadian poet Joe Wallace,
they ‘‘broke the spears of all the
tsars upon their breasts that we

may pass’’.

The modern working class

se

| ee Weapons with which the
| ground w° felled feudalism to the

hd are now tured against the bour-

| Boisie itself,

bgt xe only has the bourgeoisie
| itself. p> We@POns that bring death to
If; it has called into existence the men
to wield those weapons — the
Working class — the proleta-
(Communist Manifesto, 1848).

- Who are
| Mode
| tians,""

The
ae

5 cok

Nationay” Vulage market-place into great
8. It international market-
.Y * * Caused the conversion of the
 tiong) MORey-lender into massive na-
financiny «_mternational banks and
-individy institutions. It converted the
Y-owned capitalist enterprises no longer can come”

Pani Monopolies, trusts and holding bring ‘‘death”’ to capitali
Mltin.c) Which, in turn spawned the

Nal and

Dace

and
financial
Into p;
3 Slant

Buy onal corporations.

| Conver St importantl¥, capitalism
Ted the craftsmen of feudal soci-

Y into

throne :, P!OPertyless wage workers
UBh its Tuthless appropriation of the
Production into the hands of the

i
Means of

€apons”’ used by capitalism to
peudalism down were capitalist

Market ty production and the capitalist
_ Worksh Capitalism converted the little
| hops

class of laborers who,

namely, at a pro’

‘*weapons”’

antagonisms bot

gression as the gro

burgeoning capitalist class. Capitalism
turned the former free producers into a
in the words of
Marx: ‘“‘live only as long as they can find
work, and who find work only so long as
their labor increases cape:

* *

Thus, this new class of laborers must
sell its collective and individual labor ina
market-place, subject to the same law as
every other commodity on the market,
fit to the capitalist =e
And moreover, they must in return buy
the necessities of life, (in order that they
may sell their labor on the morrow) to the
very same class of capitalists.

Th these ways capitalism created the
— monopolization of the
means of production and exploitation
with all its resultant contradictions and
tled up in a system 2s

can contain them — that wi
: sm itself. In this
way also, capitalism created the force
that will wield those weapons — the

modern working class: ‘
oe

The class of wage workers conn
-. ioe and consciousness in equal pro-
sa wth of the capitalist

ical interests.

*

system. Capitalism not only gave birth to
the class of wage workers, it ushered in
the conversion of the feudal handicraft
guilds into local and regional associa-
tions of workmen for collective struggle
against the capitalist factory owners.
Then into trade unions and, in our times,
into mighty armies of workers organized
into national and international economic
and political organizations in defence of
their commonly-held economic and polit-

Thus began the workers’ struggle for
emancipation from capitalist exploi-
tation. The working class became a class
in itself. However, the real emancipation
of the workers (as a class) lies-in passing
over from being a class in itself, to being a

- class for itself. This is truly the beginning
of class consciousness. Such conscious-
ness lies in the realization that in addition
to the struggle on the economic front
against individual owners or com-
binations of owners of industry, it is
necessary to wage political struggle
against the entire system of capitalism.
That is: political struggle for fundamen-
tal social and economic change.

*

Marx and Engels, the fathers of

scientific socialism, were the first of the
world’s great thinkers to draw the cor-
rect scientific conclusions from the fact
of class struggle: (a) having its source in
the exploitation of man by man and class
by class; (b) and, by this very fact, being
the motor of an exploiting society; (c) the
establishment of working-class power as
the logical outcome of the class struggle
under capitalism.

In our times, when capitalism is in its
monopoly and final stage, this means ac-
ceptance of the necessity of replacing the
rule of monopoly capitalism (which in
reality is the dictatorship of the giant
corporations and of monopoly as a
whole) with the democratic power of the
working-class and democratic masses,
united in a mighty democratic anti-
monopoly coalition.

* * *

This will be a democracy of a new
type. A democracy with a new content.
In essence it will be a people’s democ-
racy directed to contain, and then end,
the power of the dominant monopoly
section of the class of capitalists — the
present ruling section of that class. It will
be democracy that opens the door to
socialist democracy — the democracy of
the overwhelming majority.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 16, 1979 — Page 7

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