Review

Comment

TOM McEWEN, Editor — HAL GRIFFIN, Associate Editor — RITA WHYTE, Business Manager.

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Tom
McEwen

URING my recent trip to the Soviet
Union I crossed several frontiers;
England, Sweden, Finland, and the
USSR. At every point of crossing I was
met with the utmost courtesy and friend-
ship. Nowhere did I run into the mythi-
eal “Iron Curtain.” It was only when I
returned to my own country that I learn-
ed of its exact location.
After more than three months (and
six days of mountainous North Atlantic

seas) away from home, the coastline of |

Nova Scotia looked very good to me.
Here was home, I thought as I remem-
bered the months spent in Cape Breton
many years ago building a miners’ fight-
ing union.
At Halifax all passengers are herded
(that is the correct term) into a large en-
closed “bull pen.” Seats are provided
where the new arrivals and the seasoned
Canadians may gaze upon a huge bill-
board reading “Welcome To Canada” in
six languages, with the English version
in extra large type. Or for other diver-
sion (while they patiently wait) they can
pass the time watching a horde of of-
ficials putting on a good show at being
officially busy.

After a time an immigration official

finally got around to examining my Can-
adian passport. Everything was in or-
der — but noting a couple of pages of
Soviet visa entries, the official murmur-
ed something about it being “all Greek”
to him as he brought the official stamp
down with a vigorous thump.

These formalities over, next came the
Customs’ examination. That was when
they wheeled in the “Iron Curtain” with
its odoriferous and degrading drapery.
Unlike other passengers disembarking
in Canada, I was selected for a special

brand of treatment; a brand especially —

designed to create the atmosphere that
I was a suspected criminal.
Unlike the worldly possessions of
other travellers, my baggage had been
' stealthily removed from the common
pile and conveyed to a “special” Customs’
office. There, Surrounded by a bevy of
uniformed Customs’ officials and a couple
of typical “specials,” the contents of my
suitcases were turned inside out. Aside
from my personal clothing and effects,
the bulk of my “purchases” while abroad
had been a limited assortment of chil-
dren’s toys to give as Christmas pres-
ents.

a shaking, squeezing, and going-over by
these “specials” as would make any rud-
dy-faced Santa Claus blush with shame.
However, having come from behind the
Halifax “Iron Curtain,” that appeared to
‘be sufficient to presume that in each
little Katushka doll or stuffed Georgian
donkey was concealed a Soviet document
calling for the overthrow of “peace, or-
der and good government” in Canada.
Hence, in the possession of a Canadian
strongly opposed to giving away Canada
to the Yankee «war monopolists, lock,
stock and barrel, such toys are held to
be highly suspect. ;
Without mincing words, it must be said
that the treatment meted out to certain
’ Canadians returning from abroad is not

only insulting and degrading to the per-.

sons involved, but in the larger sense a
disgrace to Canada. There is no place
in this country with its glorious tradi-

tions of struggle for democratic freedom ~

for the erection of Hitlerite “Iron: Cur-
tains” and Gestapo-type examinations,
carried out behind the pretense of “law
enforcement.”

In short, it is time this imported “Iron

Curtain” and its McCarthyite ideology

‘was removed from Canadian frontiers—
as it has been from the borders of all
other enlightened nations.

SARA RAISE SSE SER EE MASAI SEAL

Believe it or not, those toys got such™

-. Peace on

throughout the world, from
the peoples everywhere, rises
the ageless cry, “Peace on
Earth, Goodwill toward Men.”

Sa

It is heard even from the lips
of these who utter it only to
conceal their conspiracies to
plungé the world into the hor-
rors of atomic war. For over
this Christmas, which. could be
bright with the perspective of

peace, these men have cast the
pall of German rearmament.

*

None -can repeat those glori-
ous words, “Peace on Earth,
Goodwill toward Men,” and
permit themselves to forget
this menace to their wellbeing
and happiness. .The memory
of Canada’s dead in two world

while new threats to the peace
for which they fought and died
are created out of the Nazi war
machine they vanquished.

*

There is not a Canadian who
will not, at this Christmas time,

rifices, to see that others share
a little of his own happiness.
Ts it not fitting that every one
of us should firmly resolve that
the German armies shall never

Pe

AGAIN it is Christmas and’

wars will not allow us to rest

make a greater effort, even sac- _

\

earth...

march again against
peaceful neighbors.

*

So, in extending to our read-
ers and supporters and all peo-
ple of goodwill the season’s
greetings, the editors and staff
of ‘the Pacific Tribune also
pledge themselves to redouble

their efforts in the coming year
to win a lasting peace and to
strive for the utter defeat of
those who, in the name of
peace, would plunge the world
into war.

their

*

“Peace on Earth, Goodwill
toward Men” and the rearmnig
of Nazi murderers are incom-
patible. The. cause of peace
will be advanced by negotia-
tions designed to secure the
peaceful coexistence of ll
states — not by bringing into
being again an army which
twice in our lifetime has over-
run Europe and whose avowed
aim is to do so again!

*

The Canadian people must
not allow it.

To work for the friendship
and peace of all peoples and to
resolutely oppose all those who
would endanger that end —
that is our resolve this Christ-
mas and in the dawning year
1955.

s

AARON NENT RRA NT NSN NN RO BSH HH A OE NOT NOT OS NTNMT ROO

Hal
Griffin

Guest column by RALPH PARKER

MOSCOW

yw do the Soviet people expect of

their writers? One message, sent.

to the recent Soviet Writers Congress

by workers in the great textile city of

Ivanovo, voices a need that has inspired

much of the world’s great literature. And

the heart of the message is this: “Above
all, produce more love stories.”

Commenting on the works of some
Soviet writers, an Ivanovo factory lib-
rarian wrote:

“They don’t know how to show pure
inspiring human love. Love as they show
it is mundane, prosaic and drab.

“Tt is as if they were writing not about
a beautiful human feeling, but about
spare parts for tractors.”

This theme, which was one of the
things most insisted upon in letters
flooding the newspapers on the eve of
the congress, also dominated a letter
from a South Russian farming commun-
ity.

“Love, pure, disinterested love,” they
write, “how much and how well they
used to write about it in the past. Re-
member the sad touching story of Romeo
and Juliet and how well Pushkin wrote
on love?

“We are against sentimental, wishy-
washy love. Real love often has to un-
dergo great tests and pass through ser-
ious conflicts. .

“Our writers avoid showing our private
life or, if they do, they look for false
conflicts. We ask our writers to write
a about the all-conquering power of
ove.”

% °3 %

One Soviet writer Boris Polevoi voiced
the same sentiment, declaring that “some
of our writers have become so prduish
. . . that when their characters do kiss
they do it behind a handkerchief.

“Heroes do kiss, you know. And they
do other things that make them far from
the repulsively charming young men of
some Soviet novels.”

Polevoi made a strong plea for more
fairy tales.

He called fairy tales “the noble, diffi-
cult, but necessary medium,” and said:
“Miracles are not out of date.”

In Soviet children’s literature there
were some handicaps, he said. Publish-
ers were reluctant to put out anything
not completely optimistic.

“We need’ more science fiction, more
adventure stories. The fact that we do
not write about war or crime does not
mean that the field of adventure is clos-
ed to us.”

P. N. Paspelov, presenting the message
of the Communist party’s central commit-
tee to the congress, underlined the role
of Soviet literature in the creation of the
new man engaged in the struggle for
Communism and. declared that never
has literature had so receptive a public
as today.

In a critical passage, the message
complained that there was a tendency
to present Soviet reality in too rosy a
light — although on the other hand,
some writers had gone too far in distort-
ing Soviet life to “the verge of slander-
ing it.”

Attacking cosmopolitanism and jingo

nationalism in literature, the message

said that Soviet writers must learn from
progressive foreign writers.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 24, 1954 — PAGE 5