he world-famous Russian Composer Igor Stravinsky is ting his homeland for the first “€ in 52 years. He is shown Teceiving a welcoming hug 1 Soviet composer Yuri Sha- He Said in a recent interview favda that he found Moscow Tevelation” on his return » “While living far from my and I heard much about the great progress of the USSR. “For me the first evidence of this progress was the remark- able TU-104 plane which carried us on its powerful wings. It seemed to be the symbol of the new Russia.” Stravinsky said that he found Moscow and its inhabitants full of optimism and energy, with the city and the people animated and in constant movement. nat “In this wonderful atmos- phere,”’ he said, “I feel young, although this is not so easy when one is 80.” Stravinsky concluded the in- terview by declaring: “‘The act- ivity of the Soviet government, aimed at the preservation of peace, is close and understand- able to the common people of America, who want to live in peace and friendship with the Soviet people.’ é Anns Risler, who died in Ber- N last month, at the age cf yn, one of the great figures Son Century music. 8 of the Rice-barge Haul- In Praise of Learning,” “and Demand,” “In © of Dialectics’” — these are (Of the titles from the 500 a Composed. And here is BaF Aching Milt the roads, the walls, the towers: the world is of our Making, t of it can we call ours?’ R Cae easy i tat’ Hisler had a life full of With many ups and Ta @ brilliant career at the ;.. Music Conservatoire he "scripted into the Austrian Wing the First World aa followed a period of study ch "old Schoenberg, after tan € found his way into the Working class movement any in the early 1920’s. WORTH READING = ite BUA of Soviet Anti- _™, by Herbert Aptheker. ut Ne) ah has been a concentrated | , >. Via the radio, television ie iticians to portray the em» lon as a land and a ent : 5 a drenched in anti Soviet Union is one of the ns on earth which not 8alizes anti-semitism, but _.. Of racism, and conducts Campaign against ersonified by E From then on until the day of his death he fought in the fore- front. of human progress, for peace and socialism, against war and exploitation. HANNS EISLER His weapons in the fight were his musical compositions. They range from simple unison songs with easy piano or accordion accompaniments to elaborate cantatas and “‘The German Sym- phony,” a work for soloists, chorus and orchestra. These works deal with every aspect of capitalism and Ahe struggle for peace and socialism from the 1920’s onward. You could learn much _ history and economics from studying their words. * * * The advent of Hitler forced him to leave Germany. He lived in Czechoslovakia, Moscow, Lon- don, Denmark, New York and finally Hollywood. In 1948 he faced the danger of deportation from the U.S. to a camp in West Germany. This disaster was aver ted largely by the protest actions of friends from all over the world. He composed scores of songs to the works of progressive poets —so many, in fact, that he is credited with giving new mean- ing to the term ‘“‘people’s mus- ic.’”’ Many of them were to the words of Bertolt Brecht. (“Song of the United Front,’ etc.) Brecht said of him: “The atti- tude of (his) songs is revolution- ary in the highest sense. This music develops in both hearers and performers the powerful im- pulses of a historic period in which productivity of all kinds is the source of all pleasure and morality. “It arouses new tenderness and strength, endurance and flexibil- ity) impatience and prudence, demands for progress and the power of self-sacrifice.”’ * * * For the last 12 years HBisler: lived in East Berlin. He wrote the National Hymn of the Ger- man Democratic Republic, music to many great films, and a new repertoire of songs and instru- mental works. ; MUSIC - His last years were made happy by opportunities for teach- ing and for creative work and in his personal life by a happy mar- riage. His death came peacefully, but it has removed from our midst a great creator of revolu- tionary working class songs. The American poet Walter ‘Lowenfels, Charlie Chaplin, Al- berto Cavalcanti, Louis Daquin, Alan Bush from London, the Dutch writer Theun de Vries, Tikhon Khrenikov and Joris Ivens are just a few of his many friends who sent messages of mourning. After an official burial cere- mony his ceffin was laid to rest _ beside those of his friends and life-long collaborators Bertolt Brecht and Johannes R. Becher. _ Alta. Worth seeing.. Ikiru (To Live), currenfly at Vancouvers Studio Theatre, ‘is one of the great film masterworks. With the highest level of techni- cal virtuosity from one end to the other of its 140 minutes, with a compassionate and penetrating insight into human behaviour on many levels, Ikiru is at once a profound social document and a profoundly moving work of art. It is directed (and written with collaborators) by Akira Kuro- sawa, one of Japan’s (and the world’s) greatest film artists. He will be remembered here for his Seven Samurai, Lower Depths, Hidden Fortress, Thoren of Blood, and Yojimbo in this year’s Van- couver Film Festival. Ikiru is the’ greatest of them all. ; * * * The story is simplicity itself. Petty bureaucrat Kanji Watan- abe, played by Takashi Shimura in his greatest role (he will be remembered in various roles, in- cluding the chief samurai in Seven Samurai), suddenly learns he has only six months to live. This shocks him into re-assessing life and death and his own wasted quarter of a century as a dessi- cated civil servant. ‘I cannot die,” he says, ‘“‘when I don’t even know how to live!”’ He clutches at straws like a drowning man — looks to his son, who fails him out of selfishness; tries dissipation; turns in a fatherly way to a. young clerk who also fails him but at the same time provides the hint by which he solves his problem. This is to push a neighborhood playground through the hindrances of bureau- cracy, thus doing one thing to justify and give some meaning to the fact that he has lived. The reactions, both before and after achievement of his dream (and his death), of bureaucrats, fellow employees, his son, the neighbor- hood mothers; provide profound comment on the theme — with broad social comments and im- plications that need hardly be spelled out. FILMS Ikiru has many bold and effec- tive touches like the scene fol- lowing’ Watanabe’s _ realization that he is going to die. He walks down a busy street totally lost and the sound track reflects this with total silence. This suddenly changes to a roar of noise when he comes to himself in the middle of traffic. Or the desperately heart-rending effect of Watan- abe’s silent, twisted smile whe. the young clerk says reassuring- ly, “You really do love your son.”’ One could go on and on prais- ing this film. The chief thing is tc go and sce it—and to see it soon because in our commercial society, unhappily, films of this stature rarely get the long runs ‘they deserve. N.E. STORY OPEN FORUM Some Facts E. H. Tudor, Morningside, writes: The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost more than 300,- 000 lives. Every year the Death toll mounts by more than a hundred blast victims who die in hospital. In 20 to 25 years, given general and complete disarm- ament, the world’s _ total wealth could be more than doubled. A fifth of what is being spent on war preparations would suffice to build 96. mammoth steel projects like the Bhilai plant in India (out- put 2,500,000 tons a year) or 17 giant dams like the Ash- wan in the United Arab Re- public. With the money spent for war purposes in the last 10 years, housing shortages in all countries could be completely eliminated. Annual military spending could pay for more than 10,000,000 houses, 50,- 000 schools and 10,000 hospi- tals. The world has spent $240 Dillion on arms since Krush- -chev’s disarmament speech— $80 for each person on this planet, some of whom work for $40 a year. Doukhobor Opinion .A. Ribin and N, Plotnikove, write: The Pacific Tribune, issue of Sept. 14, carried an editorial headed “Call off the march’’, which deals with the current march of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors. This editorial no doubt expresses the opinions of the editors and the paper itself. “The fact that it was re- printed on the pages of most progressive working people’s paper astonishes us and we cannot see how it succeeded Oct, 12, 1962—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9 in making its way through its pages. “This march seems to be not to your liking as we understand it, by saying “turn back” Wat you mean is “quit your foolishness and go back to your charred homes and be good Canadian citizens. “Well, Mr. Editor, to give up a true faith is not so easy, at least for Russian people . . because the Russian people are not so easy to put into captivity.” (Editor’s Note): Under date of Sept. 21 the ‘PT’ received a lengthy letter from Messrs. A. Ribin and N. Plotnikov, protest- ing our editorial of Sept. 14 “Call Off The March’’. We regret that due to lack of space we are unable to publish the letter in full. The above however, are its most pertinent extracts. In our editorial we neither asked or suggested that the Douk- hobor or any other peoples “give up their faith”, nor did we sug- gest that as a bitterly persecuted minority, the Doukhobor people cease to struggle for those demo- cratic religious, and civil rights which are the right of every Can- adian. Our editorial was prompted by one basic concern; to warn against further provocations and possible brutalities resulting from the Bonner-RCMP “road block” against the Doukhobor marchers, and more particularly for the safety of their aged and children. From the'r !stter (in full) it is clear Messrs. Ribin and Plotni- kov read a lot of things into our editorial which wasn’t there. A new building material has been evolved in. the Sov- iet Union for use in the Arctic region: extremely ‘light blocks of aluminum and foam plastics.