Pee Ree | Ehrenberg’ new novel LYA_ Ehrenberg’s latest work, The Storm, a Stalin Prize novel, is an integral part of Ehrenberg’s militant public- ist writings in the years of the war, and is, topically, a sequel to The Fall of Paris. Reviewing it in the current issue of Soviet Literature, S0- viet critic M. Kuznetsoy re- marks that one view of war can be seen from the soldiers ‘ talk of Louis St.Laurent, Col, M. J. Coldwell? was signed: today | Stack this against the “peace: George Drew and i t ns day the Ailantic Pac ati re ree eto General Assembly meets i hic as juxtaposition of these two events Is SO grap ; igned to . ; i tentional--designe almost to suggest it was In h of jungle law blazon forth, tha over internat For, propag Pact does nu Nations” is, the triump tis t es war cece: ding, the Atlantic les of the United ional cooperation anda notwithstan llify the princip --Wall Street Journal, April 5, 1949 “ trench. A different picture iS There’s a bust coming EFORE the people of British Columbia go to the polls this coming week they will be well advised to study, not the Coali- tion’s glittering- promises of economic development—hinged largely on a deal which would hand over their natural resources to the American-controlled Aluminum Company of Canada — but the duller figures of export trade which reveals the shape of the _ coming economic crisis. The outline of the crisis is already discernible, but both Co- alition spokesmen and those of their CCF critics who are equally committed to support of the Marshall plan and the Atlantic pact have done their utmost to obscure it during the campaign. British ‘Columbia is dependent on its exports of lumber, fruit, fish, for its economic wellbeing. But the Marshall plan shuts off such exports to a large part of the world, and particularly to the countries of Eastern Europe. The Marshall plan increasingly restricts the British market, hitherto British Columbia’s best market. It offers instead an un- stable American market. And now that American market is losing its capacity to absorb the products British Columbia offers. The question confronting every voter whose livelihood depends on lumbering, fruit farming and fishing is this: How long will my job last, and if it does last what will my earnings be, when there are few or no markets for B.C. products? i It’s the question the Coalition- ists and the right-wing CCF’ers are afraid to answer — because they know the answer is already written in the disastrous Ameri- can designed policies they sup- port. . ry : \ Signs are not lacking that an economic crisis is coming and with it unemployment for thous- ands of men and women in this province. In Toronto, the Bank of Mon- treal’s Business Review, looking over the Canadian scene and finding little change from 1948, makes this significant statement on what it terms the “compara- tive stability” found in Canada as compared to “regressive ten- dencies” in the United States: “Such a divergence of trend has seldom in the past been either wide or lasting and dur- ing and since the war the two economies have steadily become more interlocked. Present dif- ferences therefore raise ques- tions as to the force and likely duration of the elements main- taining Canadian business ac- tivity in the face of declines in the neighboring country.” The Workers’ Educational As- sociation’s issue of Laber News for May 23, heads a four page ar- ticle with “Signs of Depression Multiply in the United States.” The article cites facts and fig- ures from many sources to indi- cate the worsening of the econo- mic situation in the U.S.—grow- ing unemployment, attempts by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board to bolster sales by liberalizing credit regulations; and the “for- eign trade crisis” into which U.S. foreign policy has led the coun- try. The article quotes a warning from the Canadian Exporters Association which told Trade Min- ister C. D. Howe that his talk of “record” exports in 1948 should be qualified by adding that most of it came from Marshal] plan dollars which are due to be cut off for Canadian goods. The WEA News concludes: “Two important conclusions should be drawn from these ten- dencies as far as Canadian labor is concerned. Firstly, there will undoubtedly be pressure by in- dividual companies to cut costs. This means there is a danger of nm HTT DO —LO The London Daily Worker said here editorially, ‘There is every reason for alarm at the sharp fall in Bri April, for if this trend increases, The fall takes place when Britain’s total ex- unemployment. ports plus Marshall payments are fifths of the pre-war imports of ee idea that the American market can help the European The manufacturers out of their difficulties a tish exports in it means a great increase in only able to procure four- food and raw materials. is being exposed by events as a singularly foolish delusion.” . an intensified speed-up campaign, Secondly, the need for increases in unemployment insurance ben- efits will become quite pro- nounced shortly.” (The Labor-Progressive Party is the only political party cam- paigning in the federal election to have unemployment insurance payments increased by 50 per- cent without any farger deduc- tions being made from the week- ly pay. Tim Buck canvassers have been signing up thousands of signatures to a petition in Trin- ity in this campaign). e In the current issue of the So- viet weekly New Times. an article by A. Manukyan examines “The Economic Situation in the United States.” Manukyan writes: “The post-war economic pat- tern of the U.S.. took shape in a situation marked by the fur- ther sharpening of the general -crisis of capitalism as a result of World War II. The capitalist system as a whole emerged from that war very much weak- er; the antagonism inherent in it became more acute than ever. The powerful economic devel- opment of the Soviet Union brings out in still bolder relief the economic disintegration and decay of capitalism, . . . “Figures for the latter part of 1948 and for the beginning of the present year reveal a drastic deterioration in the economic position of the United States.” Manukyan studies official fig- ures and statements ciosely in his survey. Even tremendous arma- ment spending is not holding up the U.S. economy, he finds, and the crisis being reached in the U.S. is spreading also to all the Marshallized countries. e This is the prospect—and it’s a grim one—that voters. should study before they vote on June 15. If they expect the Coalitionists, or their counterparts in the right wing of the CCF who have no irreconcilable differences with them on the basic policies of the Marshall plan and the Atlantic pact, to change that prospect for the better, they are due for sharp disillusionment. Of one thing the voters can be certain. In two constituencies, the Labor-Progressive party— the only party in this election to place the real issues of thé com- ing crisis before them—is run- ning candidates, Nigel Morgan.in ~ Alberni and Vigla Bianco in Van- couver East. Election of these candidates will give voters as- Surance that their interests, and policies to advance their inter- ests, will be placed before the next ‘egislature and a fighting campaign to realize these policies conducted both within and with- out the legislature. Soviets invite trade —LONDON HE Soviet [Union has made another offer of “unlimited” trade with the Western nations at the Geneva session of the Econ- omic Commission for Europe. The offer was made in a state- ment issued shortly after figures revealed a sharp drop in British export trade for April. Board of Trade figures revealed a drop of over $80,000,000 while imports were higher than in any month since the war. The Soviet spokesman, A. A, Arutunyan, exposed the state- ment of the chief U.S. delegate Averill Harriman, who had said that the East should increase ex- ports of raw materials to the West if ,it wanted to import machinery, Charging Harriman with pass- ing the buck, the Soviet delegate quoted from the Economic Sur- vey of the Commission to prove that in 1948 the West got more goods from the East than it sold in return, He quoted figures which show- ed that in 1948 Hastern European exports to the West amounted to £319,250,000, while West Europe’s exports to the East were only worth £232,500,000. “Who. is selling more?” asked : Arutunyan. “The Bast sells more and is willing to sell more still, while the West sells less—and less willingly. ! “The figures show,” he added, “that the East Sells 37 percent more to the West than the West sells to the Hast. “The fact is that the discrimin- atory trade policy of the United States is the greatest obstacle to East-West trade.” | The author strives to show thé . fortune that have befallen to be had of the field of battle when viewed from the gener- ‘al’s command post which makes it possible to see. the movements of armies and fronts. : Ehrenberg, in his novel, takes us to the infantry units and to the partisan ambuscad@ at the railway bridge but he also raises us to the highest command post of history from where we get an unlimited view of the clashes and strus- gles not only of nations but ilso of different social worlds. significance of these events for the fate of mankind. This i what lends the novel its great breadth, its vast scope. The Storm hegins back be- | fore the war. Ehrenberg takes us through the most important stages of the war, its decisive battles, shows us the life of France, Germany, England, the Soviet Union, Poland, Bul } garia, Yugoslavia. For him the war is primarily a struggle of conflicting ideas, of irrecon- cilable life principles — the struggle for the destinies of mankind. The first part of the novel takes us back to that memor- able spring of 1939. Fascism, enjoying absolute immunity, is | growing more brazen with eV- ery day. Europe is _ living through the disgrace of the Munich betrayal, “There ae | ruins and graves on the other Side of the Pyranees . . . doom- ed Prague is calling to its friends in its agony... guns are being mounted on _ the Rhine.” Paris is trying to for- get itself in gaiety but “be- neath this happy-go-lucky sur- face . . . there is a touch of mournfulness.” Moscow is living a seething: creative life; Soviet people are absorbed by creative Iabor but they, at the same time, 27¢ tensely aware of the oncom- ing storm. Soviet people live with the foreboding of great trials to come. The second part tells of the fall of France. “The county collapsed,” says one of the he- roes of the novel, bitterly: There is a vigorous and co2- vincing description of the treachery and moral decay i fecting France. The poignancy of the pages devoted in the novel to the misery and are country are soul-stirring- The third part shows Hit- ler’s attack on the Soviet Ul ion: the first stages of the Wat | the retreat of the Soviet Army: the battle near .Moscow, the) general test of all the fone of the people which dis Ay the myth of the invincibility | of the Hitler hordes. al: The fourth part centers | around the great battle | at Stalingrad and its 5 se acnce to the whole world. The | partisans in the woods of yet enslaved Bylorussia ‘ the French “maquis,” the prey oners in the concen of camps, all honest people " Europe, see in the conflagre tion of Stalingrad the unfad- Ing symbol of victory over faa cism. vel ‘The last parts of the Mire show the defeat of the bitdarial bs hordes, the taking