ikked Mittee No resigned were Gui arg n ts provincial leader, a Arnold, Norman Neren- i Pierre Gelinas, Harry i Mand Ken Perry. Four be 1, SIX were members of ¥ PP national committee. a discussing the resig- sa the LPP national ex- ae Committee issued this et Press’ statement: tye € LPP national execu- Ponmittee regrets to an- “a fe that six leading mem- th pt the Quebec provincial ete have tendered their _puations from the party. ‘neat; National executive is & th Ing to them to reconsid- tay, st Positions and with- « €lr resignations. i oy anada-wide discussion Mganiontt Progress in all the this ations of our party. In Dart Iscussion all; aspects of tty Ife, party policy and Bing tees are being re- Whate are convinced _ that, lon, mer differences of opin- lign, —Pelled their resigna- by mut €y can be resolved Work a participation in the Able eet is necessary to en- Mey got. Party to meet the Stagntitions with which it ite Quebec committee also i * Statement urging the Tetyp Mbers who resigned to ang 4 to party membership” bilities “Ste their responsi- tetate: The committee “re- the te all members of t Y enjoy full freedom Seen, ss whatever views Dest ey them to be in the NOD test of the Canadian he Neetin B.C.-Yukon committee, Mons 8 last Saturday, unani- WDportin eorsed a resolution ty « x e's appeal to the six tq , Nsider their positions linn thdraw their resigna- Ih a uh Memorandum to all LPP Mating Ae. LPP national ex- Bethe Said, in part: Won gPYESS claims that the Deo se tthe resignation was Sy rate alleged anti-Semit- he os he Soviet Union; but Be ee! information we ‘de, dBres €velations at the 20th & Sof the Communist Ix resign. rom The Labor-Progressive party's national executive has x leading members of the LPP in Quebec, who shed from the party October 15, to “‘reconsider their Mitions and withdraw their resignations. The six members of the Quebec provincial com- Reeutiva® the LPP national’ We * LPP TORONTO Party of the Soviet Union of the terrible violations of social- ist democracy together with new, thought-provoking theories and proposals made by the Congress, have made it absolutely essential that we re-examine every facet of our organization, our work and our policies... .- “The process of re-evalua- tion is not an easy one, it meets obstacles of hesitations, resistance of old ideas and concepts, rigidity, formalism and, often, defeatism. It ad- vances, nevertheless, and we are more than ever confident that the end result will great- ly strengthen our party and the whole working class move- ment in Canada. : “phe national executive ac- knowledges frankly that it must accept the very sharp criticism, expressed by many comrades, including the six who have resigned, in not hav- ing yet given a strong enough lead to this discussion. It has itself tended to resist new ideas-and methods of work.... “Despite all our weaknesses, the resignation of the six deep- ly devoted comrades in Mon- treal —_ men who have given many years to the working class struggle in Canada — 1S surely not justified. “On the contrary: every party member, every leader, should feel not only the right but the duty to participate to pring about all the changes that are necessary.” : Gui Caron’s letter explain- ing the reasons for his resig- nation, dated October 19 and addressed to ‘the national committee, Quebec provincial committee and members of the LPP,” was released for publi- cation this week by the EPP national executive. ead —— | 101 TntiDnlwT n— 1 Wi ice —'| * These six Canadian businessmen are part of a larger delegation of 53 top Canadian and American business leaders now touring the Soviet Union. From left, they are: Harold W. Rea, president, Canadian: Oil, Toronto; Dr. A. D. T. Purdy, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Toronto Western Hospital; Ronald McEachern, editor and manager of the Financial Post, Toronto; Roy G. Peers, president, Roy Peers Company, Montreal; Peter Daigle, vice-president, Daigle and Paul, Montreal; P. N. Thomson, vice-president, Nesbitt Thomson, Montreal. Caron tells in detail how he came to join the Communist party in 1938, inspired by the idea of the transformation of society, the winning of social- ism in Canada. In the Soviet Union he thought he saw the “fullest flowering of this dream” and consequently de- fended passionately every ac- tion of the Soviet government. “At the end of April, Tim Buck’ gave the national ex- ecutive a full report of the contents of Krushchev’s re- port,” he writes. ‘I was sick- ened by the ghoulish tale of mass arrests in the middle of the night, of barbaric torture, of false confessions extracted for the purpose of incriminat- ing other innocent people, of executions without trial, of repression against the fami- lies of accused people, of a terror directed not against the enemies of socialism but against its finest flower, its leading and most courageous political and cultural figures. “T felt that I shared in the responsibility for those hide- ous crimes, because I had con- tributed, even though unknow- ingly, to covering them up. I said that in the national ex- ecutive, although comrade Buck and. others declared that it was ridiculous, and sheer idealism, to suggest that we Claim discrimination Members of the independent Tunnel and Rock Workers Union of Canada, who voted to return to work last week, are claiming that some mem- bers have been prevented irom doing so by International Hod Carriers, their former parent organization. Acting business agent Len Raynsford said that abou* 75 men have been “victimized by the international, and pre- vented from going back to their jobs on the ground that theit cases are being “raview- ed” by the Hod Carriers. Hod Carriers’ officials is- sued a denial, but adinitted that charges might be laid against “a handful of ringlead- ers” at some later date. They claimed that men are being put back on all jobs as fast as possible. Tunnel and Rock Workers president Art Andres and scc- retary Bill Hunchuk are now serving four-month jail sen- tences for contempt of a court injunction banning picketing in the strike. shared in the responsibility for things we did not even know about.” Caron’s first impulse, he says, was to resign at that time, but he decided to remain “in the hope that perhaps we could reconstruct within the party a sound moral and poli- tical basis for the continuation of our activities. “My decision this week to leave the party corresponds with the conviction at which I have at last and with great difficulty arrived: that a sound moral and political basis for the continuation of the strug- gle for socialism in Canada cannot be reconstructed with- in the framework:of the LPP.” Caron said he had felt, to- gether with others, that the first and most decisive need to register an advance along the road to socialism in Can- ada would be “to put an end to the conception of a mono- lithic Communist world move- ment, a conception which in practise meant blind allegiance to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” But, with respect to relations with the CPSU, he wrote, there is strong resistance in the party to any weakening of ties. “Comrade Buck declared in the national executive that he considered himself and our committee, to be part of the wor!d leadership of the Com- munist movement. I challeng- ed that conception, but the national executive supported the viewpoint of Comrade Buck.” Caron went on to review other national executive dis- cussions and registered his dissatisfaction with an atti- tude which, he said, denied members the right to raise certain questions for discus- sion. “The resistance to.change is very deep in the party,’ he continued. ‘We have discus- sions concerning the cuit of the individual in the Soviet Union and in other countries, but have not faced up to the problem of the cult of the na- tional leader in our own party. “Along with other comrades, I had hoped that Tim (Buck) would come to realize that there is no.conspiracy in the party, but profound question- ing of where we are going and why and how. “T had hoped he and other members of the national ex- ecutive would come to reccg- nize that people who have giv- en half their lives to a cause do have the right to-stop at some point and ask, ‘Where are we at?’ and ‘Where are we going?’ This has not happen- ed. “T had hoped that the ma- jority of the national executive would at some point surmount the six-month stalemate be- tween those who wish to ques- tion and those who don’t, and go over to the actual, critical, fundamental re-examination of ourselves, our past and future. That has not occurred.” Dealing with “the ever- diminishing” moral and politi- cal stature of the LPP, Caron said: “We are isolated because our party has become identi- fied in the minds of the vast majority of Canadians as an alien party, as a party that defends the interests of the Soviet Union in the first place, that subordinates every other consideration to that aim.” Caron concluded by saying he entered the party in the search for truth, in the searen “for rational understanding of the world, its past, present and future.” He now feels. that he needs to seriously re- examine that truth, to separ- ate what is valid from what, is not valid. “T want to assure the mem- bers of the party that I feel no bitterness toward anyone. The years I have spent in the party have been rich and re- warding, despite much that was stagnant and fruitless. I am confident that we will, all of us, in our various ways, continue to serve to the best of our ability the cause of human progress and better- ment.” OCTOBER 26, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 9 ey