WILLIAM KASHTAN’S LABOR COMMENT

Next federal election offers
labor its great opportunity —

ITH election talk so much
W in the air these days and a
federal election definitely due
some time in 1957, it seems time-
ly for the trade union move-
ment to consider what it might
do to influence the situation in
its favor. Labor is definitely
in a position to do so, particu-
iarly since the merger, which
brought one million workers
into one trade union centre.

I don’t think I am off the
mark in saying that large num-
bers of workers expect their
new found unity to strengthen
their bargaining position in ne-
gotiations with employers, as
well as their political role and
influence in the nation and in
parliament.

Imagine how much stronger
labor would be, if there were a
1sbor-farmer bloc of 60 to 65
elected to parliament in the
1957 election !

It might well constitute the
balance of power able to force
whatever government was elect-
ed, to implement the kind of
legislative program organized
labor has been fighting for all
through the years.

How different the issue of a
publicly -o wned all - Canadian
pipeline might be if there were
such a large group in the pre-
sent House’ of Commons !

Such a labor-farmer bloc, in
which the CCF would naturally
be the decisive group, could be
elected in 1957. But it would
require all-out mobilization of
the labor movement now to
ensure it and the unity of all
thsoe who see its need.

3 x 5s

The Canadian Labor Congress
at its founding convention for-
mulated a position on political
education and action which

could perhaps bring about such
a desirable result.

True, it did not go as far as
those advocating genuine ‘inde-
pendent labor political action
would have liked, but it did
adopt a position which could
serve as a basis for forms of
political action. I refer to the
proposal to establish political
education committees.

These political education com-
mittees wherever they exist, can
play exceptionally important
roles in the coming federal elec-
tion campaign and in municipal
and provincial elections as well.
In embryo they constitute the
type of election machinery which
is evolving within the trade
union movement.

- Progressive trade unionists

should ‘actively support their
formation as quickly as possible
and be alert to any tendency by

some trade union leaders to
prevent their development.

Both the PECs and PACs

“Well, I do hope for their sake
that the Russians have better
luck with their collective leader-
ship than the Tories have.”

could play ‘an important role
in placing labor’s legislative pro-
gram before the Canadian pub-
lic and rallying support for it.

These eombittees could also
be the means for mobolizing the
one and a quarter million or-
ganized workers and their fam-
ilies not only to get out and
vote but above all to vote for
those labor men and women
who will be candidates in the
federal election, and other elec-
tion campaigns.

Such committees could -also
study and develop programs
leading to the active involve-

ment of the women and youth.

in support of labor’s candidates,
coordinate their activities with
that of the farm movements with
benefit to both.

Activities such as these could
ensure that instead of being on
the side lines, and by default
helping elect spokesmen of big
business, the full strength of
organized labor could be thrown
into the election battle with re-
sults which are bound to be
beneficial to the labor and farm
reovements. :

% % %

The 1957 federal election will
be one of the most decisive
ever held, with its outcome of
great consequence both for the
future of our country and the
labor movement.

Bearing this in mind it might
be well worthwhile for the
Canadian Labor Congress to
consider calling a nation-wide
conference sometime this fall,
of all political education and
action committees, with a view
to rallying all the strength labor
is capable of, to determine the
outcome of the election in a di-
rection favorable to the labor
and farm movement.

MITRI SHEPILOV, whose
D appointment as Soviet
foreign minister Was an-
nounced on June 1 simul-
taneously with the announce-
ment of V. M. Molotov’s res-
ignation, is 51, one of the
younger men in the Soviet
leadership.

He comes to the foreign

ministry after making his
mark in a number of impor-
tant spheres of activity. In
1952 he became editor of
Pravda, an office he will con-
tinue to hold.
, Born the son of a turner,
he graduated from Moscow
University in 1926, and was
appointed public prosecutor
in the Supreme Court of the
Yakut Autonomous Soviet
Republic in Siberia. He join-
ed the Communist party the
same year.

From 1928 to 1929 he was
assistant regional public pros-
ecutor in Siberia, later trans-
fering to the Peoples’ Com-
missariat of Workers’ and
Peasants’ Control.

From 1931 to 1933 Shepilov
studied at the Agrarian In-
stitute of Red Professors, at
the same time being a scien-
tific editor of the agricultur-
al section of the Soviet En-
eyclopedia and a teacher of
political economy at the So-
viet Agricultural Academy.

Soviets’ new foreign minister

In 1933, when political de-
partments were created in
machine. tractor stations, he
was directed to the Chulim-
sky district of Western Sib-
eria, where he worked until
1935 as the head of the politi-
cal department of a state
farm.

From 1935 to 1937 he work-
ed on the staff of the central
committee of the Commun-
ist party as deputy chief of
the agricultural science sec-

’ ed on the editorial staff of

DMITRI SHEPILOV

war he volunteered for the

heading the political depart-

tion, also teaching political
economy at the Agrarian In-
stitute of Red Professors.
From 1937 to 1941 he head-
ed the agricultural section of
the Academy of Sciences. He
continued to teach and be-
came a professor of economics

in 1938.
At the very outbreak of

front and was on continuous
active service, eventually

ment of an entire army.

- He took part in the defense
of Moscow, the battle of Stal-
ingrad, the crossing of the
River Dnieper, and many
other operations.

He holds 20 civil and mili-
tary awards, including the
Order of Lenin, and the Ord-
er of Kutuzov. >

From 1946 to 1947 he work-

Pravda, which is the central
organ of the Soviet Commun-.
ist party, returning to the
staff of the central commit-
tee of the Communist party
from 1947 to 1952.

He represents Krasnodar in
the Supreme Soviet. He was
first elected to the central
committee at the Communist
party’s 19th Congress, be-
coming an alternate member
of the presidium after the
20th Congress.

GR MN EM AEE ASE MAGA WOR ET

as.

*

The Icelandic publication Pjodviljinn, carried this cartoon

after the Icelandic parliament had adopted a resolution calling
on the United States to withdraw its armed forces from the island

republic.

FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES

'

Khrushchev’'s speech!

‘not the last word’

said last week that Soviet
Communist leader Nikita
Khrushchev’s report on Stalin
ta a closed session of the 20th
Soviet Communist party con-
gress last February is “part of
an effort — not at all complet-
ed — to correct what was a
monstrous perversion of social-
ist principles under Stalin’s
brutal rule.”

The paper charged that the
U.S. State Department released
the document now ‘because
they’re worried that the cold
war is dying an ignominous
death. There’s a crisis of for-
eign ‘policy because of the state
department’s sorry efforts to
niaintain the cold war.

“The state department is dead
wrong when it suggests that
the evils of the Stalin era are
inherent in socialism. The fact
is that the development of those
evils created a peril for social-
ism.”

Concerning the report and the
progress of change in Soviet

shies New York Daily Worker

. policy, the editorial declared:

+ Dissatisfaction with “the
way Khrushchev’s speech was
made public . . . they (Soviet
leaders) made a mistake and

should have published the speech
immediately and made it avail-
able throughout the world.”

+ Criticism of Krushchev’s
“silence” on crimes “committed
against Jewish culture and Jew-
ish cultural leaders. To date
this series of outrages has not
been publicized in the socialist
countries except in the columns
of a Jewish-language paper in
Warsaw.” :

+ “We do not consider the
speech to be the last word on
just how Stalin’s terror control
came into existence and main-
tained itself for 20 years and of
the role of the other Commun-
ist leaders.”

The paper cited its own
“blind and uncritical attitude

. in the past years to the re-
pressions in the Soviet Union,”
which did “grave damage to our
goal of promoting a socialist
movement in this country.”

The editorial concluded with
an appeal for “an all-out effort
and cooperation of all socialist-
minded forces” in the United
States, in order to bring about _
a new mass party of socialism
here ,“without unnecessary de-
lay, and as quickly as circum-
stances will permit.”

L'Humanite raps Borba, -
charges interference

OMPLAINTS of Yugoslav in-
terference in the internal

affairs of the French Commu-.

nist party are made in a state-
ment published last week by
PHumanite, French Communist
daily.

The paper criticises the at-
titude of Borba, Yugoslav Com-
munist newspaper, saying:

“We consider inadmissible the
interference of Borba in the

‘internal affairs of the French

Communist party, and in par-
icular its open attacks against
the policy, direction and secre-

tary-general (Maurice Thorez)
of our party.”

L’Humanite refers. to the
right of Communist parties to
criticise each other, but stresses
the principle of non-interfer-
ence in the internal affairs of
brother parties.

It says that Borba has made

unjustified comments on the.

draft statement of policy put
forward by the central commit-
tee of the French Communist

party for discussion at the party’s
14th national congress next
month.

It reprints an article from
Borba attacking the speech
made by Thorez to the central
committee on May 10, present-
ing the draft statement. The
statement, it points out, was not
of that of Thorez alone, but of
the whole central committee.

Borba maintained that the
French statement about the
Cominform’s rupture with Yugo-
slavia was inadequate and it
went on to say that Thorez’s
speech showed “that there are
people who simply do not un-
derstand the character of the
present events.” It added:

“Tt is difficult to believe that
incapable of understanding the
events of 1948, Thorez can now
understand the problems facing
the working class and the French
Communist party today.”

“The events of 1948” referred
to are the break between the
Yugoslay Communist party and
other member parties of the
Cominform in that year.

June 15, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4