Government cover-up of grain transportation and export mess A report prepared for the Dominion Marine Association and released in Thunder Bay last May 26 is a very modest analysis _ or projection of the role to be ex- pected of Thunder Bay and the Seaway in relation to grain export trade volumes through this port up to the early 1990s. Since any evaluation of the report has to be viewed as primarily one of self- interest for the recipients, the Dominion Marine Association, whose vessels carry all of the grain carried by Canadian regis- tered ships in the Great Lakes- Seaway System, the report, how- ever, does add a_ significant weight to the growing concern in this community for maintaining a competitive economic feasibility for increasing export volumes in the grain industry through Thun- der Bay. By seeing the possibility of extending the open seaway toa minimum of 11 months in the year, the report becomes very positive for us. These are the comments of Thunder Bay resident Walter Ro- gers, which were first published in HELP BAN THIS MONSTER! sticky-back labels 244x4% 5 cents ea. (min. 16) plus 20¢ mail-bandling = $1.00, red on white from Co-op Book Store 302 Notre Dame Ave., Wpg. Cassidy’s bogey Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World When Ontario New Democratic : The People’s Forum in the local press. The writer goes on to say: Yet there are danger signs on the horizon not fully dealt with, that can lead ‘to a serious decline in this industry here, unless con- tinued awarness prompts a no- slack policy on our part for recog- nition of the great asset to the community created by the con- struction of the great inland sea- way and harbor facility we have here. Because ships are lying at an- chor unable to be loaded with grain upon arrival both here and on the West Coast, there has been a host of reports and statements, speeches and press releases that seem to be little more than a generalized cover-up for the mess obtaining in the transportation and export fields. Contradictory Figures . The public is expected to have an unqualified right to correct in- formation on major economic matters in the democratic process if exercising an informed judg- ment is to be continued. A classi- cal example of what we are get- ting is to be found in the informa- tion provided to Robert Andras by the Canadian Wheat Board of- ficials, when Mr. Andras on the open line dealt with the bottle- neck problems of a grain shortage here. He told us the Wheat Board in- formed him by telephone that only 8,000 grain cars were availa- ble'to move grain and that more cars were needed quickly to re- place obsolete cars removed from service. But ina public statement, only 30 days earlier, the Wheat Board stated 13,600 cars were in service and that the number would drop to 8,000 in a little over a year from then. They also added that by 1981 the number of cars in service would drop to 6,000! This raises two serious matters. One, a discrepancy in information to the public on a matter of a difference of 5,600 cars in service in a period of one month is an intolerable public-be-damned attitude! Two, it raises again the need to rationalize the 200-million-bushel expansion program slated for the Vancouver port facilities, when the chaotic conditions engulfing the transportation and export sys- tems are absolutely without the benefit of. policies or solutions at this moment. Sources of Funds — The Emmett Hall commission recognized a restraining influence on the well-being of those sys- tems, systematically engineered by the policies of the CPR in not replacing rolling stock for servic- ing the Canadian grain transporta- tion system. The CPR is trans- porting grain at the Crowsnest rates schedule, which they argue loses millions for them. The Hall commission recommended a fed- eral subsidy on the railroads while maintaining the Crowsnest-rates. We can’t say we are being black- mailed, but if Mr. Andras was correct in saying ‘‘it all boils down to money”: and he is not able to find the $800-million needed to build new grain cars, then the CPR certainly has Canada in one of the worst binds yet. So Thunder Bay faces a drastic rail delivery drop coupled with doubling the Vancouver handling facilities. This does not augur well. for us. The president of the treas- ury board knows of hundreds of millions gone abroad in so-called aid programs. The CBC report on it questions the value of the pro- gram. The Davis government subsidizes the Hawker-Siddeley plant here to produce rolling stock for Mexico. Two sources of funds that could be well employed pro- ducing rolling stock for Canada. Four billion dollars each and every year for stepped-up arma- ments production absolutely down the drain since the prime minister does not agree with the exaggerations of anti-Soviet hys- teria. Really, our priorities are badly mixed up, but somehow we must never become yielding in our defence of this community g§ terminal system and a rightful * 1 NAACP CALLS FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA PORTLAND, Ore. — The National Association for the Advance: ment of Colored People has called for a wide range of sanctions against South Africa, changing its long-standing policy which previously stated that the best interests of South Africa’s Blacks could be served by foreign investment. At its annual convention here the NAACP demanded withdrawal of U.S. investments, boycotts by investors of banks operating in South Africa, an arms embargo and a boycott of South Africa from international sporting events. SOCIALIST VIETNAM JOINS COMECON BUCHAREST — At its meeting here last week the 10-membef council of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) unanimously voted to accept the Socialist Republic-of Vietnam as 4 member of the socialist economic organization. The Council als0 | | | approved long-term cooperation plans concerning power, fuel, raW | materials, agriculture and heavy industrial development. ANALYSIS OF ABORTIVE COUP IN ADEN . ADEN, People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen — The abortive coup here June 26 was analyzed last week in a statement by the United Political Organization National Front (UPONF). Abdel Fattah Ismail, UPONF general secretary, said ex-President Salem Rubeyyi Ali, wh0 was executed, prepared his attempted coup gradually, while taking a0 extreme “‘leftist’’ stand. Ismail said: ‘‘He also wanted to draw oul Yemeni people into one more civil war and to present our state to world public opinion as a terroristic one, which disregards international principles, views and laws.”’ CHILE JUNTA FREES KILLERS OF GEN. SCHNEIDER SANTIAGO — Twenty-one persons convicted of the murder of | | Chilean Army, General Rene Schneider have been freed by a Chilean | court. General Schneider was assassinated in 1970 in a CIA-planned effort to provoke seizure of power by the military to prevent Salvador / Allende from taking office. The 21 were freed under a so-called “am nesty’’ declared by Pinochet April 18. : ios share of the export business from tion. Three million American young people under 25 can not find any joD the agrarian sector. in the United States, 40% of the country’s Black youth are without work. brief examination of the transition t0 socialism in the USSR is not the refuta- “Jobs for Youth” Is the main slogan of this Washington demonstra: — Party leader Mike Cassidy addressed a meeting on May 19 advertised in ‘‘De- fence of Soviet Political Prisoners’’ he defended -his anti-Soviet bias with the false charge that the Soviet Union was not a socialist country, but a country of state capitalism. Such a statement is nothing but ar- rant nonsense on Mr. Cassidy’s part. For he is supposed to know something about economics. And, if he knows anything at all about economics, he should know the difference between socialism and capitalism. He should know also that capitalism in any form is non-existent in the Soviet Union. * * > Mr. Cassidy’s remarks at the anti- Soviet rally he addressed were directed toward his fellow NDPers, i.e., ““democratic socialists’? and other well-meaning but unscientific ‘‘social- ists’’, as a sort of bogey to ensnare them into a capitalist trap. The Ontario NDP leader uncovered no secret with his de- claration about state capitalism. The renegade from socialism, Trotsky, made the same charge years before. The first act of.a successful socialist revolution is to entrench political and state power in the hands of the working class. This is the key to building social- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—July 14, 1978—Page 6 ism. The period between the assump- tion of political power to the building of a socialist society is a period of transi- tion. That period can be either of a long duration or short depending on the dif- ficulties faced. But the change does not come overnight. The transition in the Soviet Union was most difficult for it was the pioneer socialist state. And it took place in a war-devastated country. * * * State capitalism-served the world’s first socialist state in the transition from capitalism to socialism. Transition, as applied to the economy, means taking into account the precise nature of the social-economic forms existing in the country which has set a course of build- ing socialism. Such stock-taking is vital for success. And, it is important to note that the inventory will not be strictly identical from country to country. For instance, following upon the vic- tory of the socialist revolution in Rus- sia, that cquntry was a land of small- peasant, self-sufficing economy. The preponderant element was small com- modity production. The second most preponderant element was private capitalism. If socialism was to be built in that country, millions upon millions of independent peasants, small com- modity producers had to be won to the side of socialism. If they were not won then capitalism would be the winner. The lines were drawn around the ques- tion ‘‘who will win?’’ And state capitalism served as one of the ele- ments to win the day for socialism. * * * The New Economic Policy (NEP) formulated by Leninandthe Communist Party served as an economic transition through 1921-1925. It was quite successful, and prepared the grounds for the Policy for Socialist Industrializa- tion (1926-1929) which, in,turn, laid the - foundation for the completion of the transition to a socialist society during the. years 1933-1937. NEP certainly contained elements of state capitalism such as free trade, mainly on local economic turnover, and concessions leased by the state to capi- talist firms for a fixed amount. In both instances profits were made by traders and capitalists. But NEP served as that all important link between the workers and the peasants, without which social- ism could not have been built. *x* * * The most important aspect of this tion of the fallacious allegation of the Ontario NDP leader that there is n° socialism in the Soviet Union but only — state capitalism. Rather, it is to demon strate that all countries taking the socialist path must, inevitably, pass through a period of transition. The most crucial aspect of the transi- tion is not the particular form it takes, but who holds the political and state power during that period. For instanc¢ state capitalism in Russia, when it was in the hands of Russian and foreig® capitalists did not serve the interests 0 the working people of that country. But when state and political power pass into the hands of the working class; state capitalism served the interests of socialism and of the Russian working people. * * * Herein lies a most important lesso® for Canadian workers who have yet t0 make their socialist revolution. Canad@ will have to go through a transition from capitalism to socialism. And in doing so, the working class must be prepared to use every road toward this end, I? order that all working Canadians may march together against a common f0¢ — — state-monopoly capitalism.