Two tracts cast much new light
on Communist Party policies

WO new booklets have

appeared recently, both

published by the Central
Executive Committee of the
Communist Party of Canada,
“Socialism and You” and
“Change and Challenge.” I’ve
read both and I am very pleased
with the presentations in both
of them.

_There are many conflicting
views floating around about
what socialism is and exactly
how to achieve that goal in
Canada. Listening to the policies
of the Communist Party, the
Trotskyist, the Progressive
Workers and the New De-
mocratic Party, one can be-
come very confused. These
organizations have many con-
flicting views, and it becomes
hard to sort out the good from
the bad, if vou are not acquaint-
ed somewhat with the parties
involved. After reading ‘‘Social-
ism and You”—Why you should
join the Communist Party,” I
think the most concrete down to
earth answer on the question of
socialism has been offered.

“Socialism and You,” sets the
record straight on many of the
old questions which are thrown
at the Communist Party by al-
most everyone. One thing that
particularly impressed me was

the broad scope of questions
covered in only 28 pages.

It has been said by some fac-
tions of the left, that the theo-
ries of Marx, Engels and Lenin,
being written so long ago, have
grown outdated. But, the theo-
ries Jaid down by these men
were not those of facts and
figures, but as the book points
out, “They laid down no fixed
ideas, true forever. Rather, they
worked out an approach, a meth-
od for the solution of social
problems. This method has been
constantly developed on the ba-
sis of changing conditions.” This
is a proven theory, the proof—
over one-third of the world, more
than a billion people have used
these theories to bring about
the victory of socialism.

Described in the pamphlet is
a basic setup of the classes in
Canadian society. I felt that this
could have been. a little deeper.
That way a person reading could
find it easier to identify himself,
and this is a very important
thing for each of us to do.

The N.D.P.’s relationship to
the Communist Party is discuss-
ed and it is pointed out where
the two programs are quite simi-
lar, and also where the Commu-
nist position goes much further

Is inhuman

THE INVESTIGATION. A play
by Peter Weiss. English ver-
sion by Jon Swan and Ulu
Grosbard. New York: Athe-
neum. Cloth $5.95, paper
$2.95.

Peter Weiss,
“Marat/Sade,”

the author of
has now done

about as well as.anyone has in ,

the impossible attempt to con-
vey the malignant enormity of
what transpired in the Nazi
concentration camps of World
War II.

To say this is already to
mark “The Investigation” as a
major work of our time.

For his purpose Weiss chose
a@ uniquely modern form—the
documentary. From the massive
transcript of the trial of Ausch-
witz officials and flunkeys at
Frankfurt, West Germany (Dec.
20, 1963 to Aug. 18, 1965) Weiss
selected words actually used by
the participants, arranged them
in poetic form, and structured
the dialogue into scenes.

The result probably reads as
well as it plays, for this is not
a play in the conventional sense.
There is no action, no plot. In
a purely technical sense (and no
other) Weiss has matched Tru-
man Capote’s non-fiction novel
with a non-drama play. Both are
inspired journalism. Both are
meticulous and precise in the
rendition of factual detail.

Thus, from the Weiss work
we learn that Cyklon B, the
chemical agent used in the gas
chambers, arrived at -Auschwitz
in lots of 14 to 20 crates, that
these shipments came at least
once a week prior to 1944 and
several times a week in that
year, that each crate held 30
one-pound cans and each can
was priced at 50 cents, that 16

cans were required to gas 2,000
people in one chamber.

The final words of this scene
are spoken by the judge, who
had jnterrogated a witness about
these fine details. “At 50 cents
a pound,” the judge reckons the
extermination of 2,000 people,
“8 dollars.”

With such technique, struc-
turing each scene with care, pil-
ing detail upon detail, Weiss
recreates the horror that was
Auschwitz, from the arrival plat-
form to the crematoriums. There
is the torture, the hunger, the
medical “experimentation,” the
infinite cruelties. There are the
automatons who do their job,
and the sadists who enjoy it.

The style of it is conveyed

- by a witness, who is asked how
“Jong a cremation took in an

oven chamber, and replies:

Approximately an hour

Then it could take a new
load

In Crematoriums II and III

more than 3,000 people were
cremated

in less than 24 hours

If the ovens were over-

crowded corpses were also

burned in a ditch

that had been dug outside
the building

These ditches were

about 1000 feet long

and 20 feet deep

At each end were drainage
trenches

for the fat

The fat was ladled up in

in cans and poured over the

cropses to make them burn

faster

In the summer of 1944

when the cremations reached
their peak

up to 20,009 people

to a stronger position on impor-
tant issues.

The communist policy of
peaceful transition is well taken.
While the communists are ac-
cused of being advocates of
violent methods, it is pointed
out that “Violence against the
people is the hallmark of Capi-
talism, and its extreme form—
fascism—is loathed and opposed
by all. Communists.”

The most enlightening point,
which is made throughout the
pamphlet is the fact that, while
having solidarity with the best
interests of the people of all
nations, the policies of the Com-
munist Party of Canada are
distinctly Canadian, made for
Canada, by Canadians.

The second pamphlet by Rae

Murphy is “Canada’s Trade
Union Movement—Change and
Challenge.” It consists mairly
of a breakdown of the situation
facing unionists and unorganiz-
ed workers in Canada at the
present time and where we can
go and why.

A brief outline of events of
the past few years serves to
bring us up to the present situ-
ation. We can look over some
of the developments of the last
few years and see why we are
facing the problems of today and

how we can relate the answers

‘to the questions.

Murphy delves into structural
changes, the struggle for policy,
Canadian autonomy, French Ca-
nada and the C.N.T.U., unity of
the trade union movement and
the organization of the unorga-
nized. :

The differences between: a
rational and irrational approach
to autonomy will mean the dif-
ference between the basic aim
of unity and irrational nation-
alism. :

Our policies towards the
C.N.T.U. can mean the difference
between a further serious split
in the union movement in Cana-
da or finding a way to unity
where the trade union centres
can live and grow together.

In advancing the- viewpoints

in the book, the “Communist
Party is motivated by the need
to strengthen the Canadian trade
union movement so it can be a
more effective weapon in the
hands of the working class.”
Both pamphlets, I found, were
easy to read and understand and
covered a broad area, in which
people could identify themselves.
Both are good reading and throw
much new light on the Commu-
nist Party and its policies.
—D. Hammond.

y universal?

were destroyed
daily... <5

lt is the cumulative impact
of such clincal detail, set down
dispassionately, that makes it
all credible, that finally involves
the imagination. Without the
effort of imagination, the ordi-
nary human defense mechanisms
shield emotion from the pain
that is indispensable for even
a beginning comprehension of
Auschwitz.

His concern with such com-
prehension is underlined by
Weiss in the fina] curtain lines
of one of the accused:

Today

when our nation has worked

its way up

after a devastating war

to a leading position in the

world

we ought to concern our-

selves with otherthings
than blames and reproaches
ihat ‘should be thought of

as long since atoned for

All right, so Weiss cries out,
No! we must not forget. But
what precisely must be remem-
bered? Here we get into a fuzzy
existentialist realm. It is illus-
trated by his explanation of why
the word “Jew” does not ap-
pear once in the ‘play, although
Jews were the primary victims
at Auschwitz.

“J do not identify myself any
more with the Jews than I do
with the people of Vietnam or
the blacks in South Africa,” he
wrote (N.Y. Times, Oct. 2, 1966),
and later on he added, “given
a different deal, the Jews...
could have been the extermina-
tors.”

This is a variation on the old
theme of the universelty of

human guilt. We are all sinners.
We are given meticulous physi-

_ cal details about the dimensions

of the gas chambers, the che-
mical agent used, the volume,
the price, the crating. But the
relevant sociological, political,
ideological details are not there.

Presumably, to have: specified
that the inhumanity of Ausch-
witz occurred at a_ particular
time and in particular circum-
stances, that particular catego-
ries of people were the victims,
and particular categories of
other people, employing particu-
lar ideological rationales, were
the aggressors, would have
weakened, in Weiss’ opinion, his
moral injunction that it is the
jndividual’s responsibility to re-
sist inhumanity in general.

But inhumanity does not ap-
pear “in general,” it takes on
specific forms, shaped by speci-
fic social circumstances and re-
lationships, and it must be re-
sisted in these forms.

At this moment, for example,
it does no good to inveigh
against the inhumanity of war
in general, if one does not re-
sist the specific, barbarous war
against the Vietnamese people.
And it certainly does no good
to say that in hypothetical, but
non-existent circumstances the
roles of Americans and Viet-
namese could have been_revers-
ed. :

Such a rationale for a higher
morality in the abstract (judge
not so that ye may not be judg-
ed) can become a rationale for
evading the moral struggle,
which might seem primitive in
the infinity of human time, but
is none the Jess real for our
time.

—Al Ricl.mond

TV
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February 24, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE~