Page Four Be C.2 W20 RERE RS 3 NEWS BC WorKERS NEWS Published Weekly by THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Vancouver, B.C 7 — Subscription Rates —— One Year — $1.80 alt Year 1.00 Three Months_$ -50 Single Gopy —— -05 4 Make All Checks Payable to the B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Ghairman of the Editorial Board —- Send All Montes and Letters Per- taining to Advertising and Circulation to the Business Manager. ORGANIZED LABOR IN DANGER! The chief purpose of the organization of the Vigilante gangs calling themselves mem- bers and officers of a “Citizens’ League” was pointed out in our issue of a week ago. Later developments have furnished proof of the correctness of our contention. The notice given on Tuesday to the Long- -shoremen’s Union by the Shipping Federa- tion repudiating their agreement with the Union and declaring that henceforth they would employ non-union labor had long been planned. The organizing of the Vigilantes was a part of the union-smashing program of the Federation, whose purpose is first to smash the Longshoremen’s Union, and then to follow up with a concerted drive against all unions. The method of the Federation, in league with other employers, is borrowed from Fas- cism. They begin by an attack against the vanguard organization of the workers, the Communist Party, because in such an attack they can be sure of the support of reactionary trades union bureaucrats, the Telfords and other Communist-hating fry. From attacks upon the Communists they proceed to attack the militant unions, thence to ALL labor or- ganizations however moderate and “Sane.” The reformists of Germany thought to save their mass base by joining with the F'as- cists in prosecuting Communism and shoot- ing down Communists. But when Hitler, with the assistance of the Social-Democrats, got the upper hand he wiped out the Social- Democratic party and the conservative un- ions, because any labor organization might repudiate its reactionary and opportunist leadership and conduct a militant class struggle. The workers of Vancouver must learn from history and realize the danger confrenting the entire working class in the attack against the Longshoremen’s Union. Although not an affiliate of either the All-Canadian Con- gress of Labor or of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (AFL), the members of unions affiliated with these bodies should spring to the defense of the embattled water- front workers who are fighting for the right of all workers to organize into trades unions in defense of their standards of living. For the unions of the ACCL or the AFL io regard the present struggle on the water- front with indifference, or worse still, to wel- come it in the hope that destruction of the independent Longshoremen’s Union would clear the field for them, would be a graye mistake, for a defeat, for the Longshoremen would mean the elimination of any form of trade union organization for a generation or more. ~ By their declared determination to make Vancouver a non-union port, and their hiring of scabs, the Shipping Federation has thrown down a challenge to Unionism and collective bargaining which must be taken up by every union regardless of affiliation. The whole of the organized labor move- ment in Vancouver, and beyond the confines of Vancouver, should rally te the support of the waterfront workers in this struggle. A conference should be called without delay of all unions in the city, Independent, WUL, ACCL and AFL for the purpose of mobiliz- ing and organizing this support and working oe a definite plan of united action to that end. COMBAT GANGSTERISM The ‘Citizens’ League” is polluting the air with anti-working class propaganda and spending thousands of dollars in large ad- vertisements in the capitalist press in gen- erating public hysteria in preparation for a mighty effort on the part of the employing class to smash all vestige of working class organization in British Columbia and in Van- couver in particular. It was such a bunch of hoodlums that, in Stratford, kidnapped the Union organizer, Minster. And it was a similar gang that kid- napped and hanged the Union organizer, Frank Little, in Butte, Montana. These Vigi- lante gangs are extra-legal and enjoy im- munity from the law. Their methods are those' of the gangster; and force, brutality and lawless terror are the means they em- ploy. Not one of them has ever been pun- ished for his crimes. The Longshoremen have stated that if there is any violence it will be started by the Shipping Federation. But placing the responsibility on them is not enough; the workers must be in a position to repel and smash such hoodlumism when it first raises its hideous head. The workers who are confronted with this menace must be aware of the danger, and especially now that the bosses, through the Shipping Federation, have declared war on trades unionism. The workers of Vancouver put fear into the hearts of similar gangs duving the labor disputes in 1919, and labor must prepare to meet similar attacks now. Working class organizations must organize and prepare Workers’ Defense Corps to deal with these fascist gangs so that when they try to get tough, ten eyes Tor one eye and ten teeth for one tooth will be exacted. € THE MARCH TO OTTAWA The “March to Ottawa” of the Slave Camp workers is causing more than a flutter among the smug members of the federal gov- ernment and the cheap politicians of the pro- yincial governments of the provinces through which the marchers will pass. Already Andy Davidson, “labor” mayor of Calgary, has wired the chief of the RCMP, the secret po- lice of Ganada, to use force to guard the frontier between British Columbia and Al- berta and prevent the marchers entering his domain. Passing the buck and giving excuses for starving unemployed workers have their dis- advantages. McGeer and Pattullo have been Swearing that the Camp Strikers are almost exclusively “furriners” from Alberta and other Far Eastern provinces. Thus their march Hast makes unnecessary their depor- tation, and they do not look kindly upon their return. So it may be necessary for Davidson to appeal to the League of Nations, where he would not be without considerable support, since he could count on assistance from Ar- thur Henderson, Jimmy Simpson, and per- haps Paddy Draper or Percy Bengough, to say nothing of Mussolini. Even Hitler may be back by the time the appeal is considered. So long as the battleground of the Slave Camp struggle was three thousand miles away, Bennett could take a detached view of the conflict. But now that it is to be brought to his own dunghill he is beginning to fume—and to have the weapons of the State polished. Latest advices give the information that the marchers from B.C. as they pass through the provinces, are to be joined by far greater numbers than was at first expected. This is as it should be, and every effort of the or- ganized labor moyement should be directed toward swelling the ranks to the point of emptying the Slave Camps throughout the entire country. Let Bennett and Company know once and for all that the workers of Canada will not stand for forced labor or‘a Slay eCamp exist- ence, but insist upon work at a decent wage, pending the giving of which adequate unem- ployment insurance be paid as called for in the Workers’ Insurance Bill. : DEFENDING BENNETT’S SWINDLE The Trades and Labor Council (AFL) of Vancouver and District, through its secre- tary Bengough, by means of radio talks and through the columns of its official organ, the “Labor Statesman,” is vociferously defend- ing Bennett’s fake unemployment insurance bill, which was enacted for the purpose or heading off the growing demand for non- zontributory unemployment insurance as set forth in the Workers’ Insurance Bill. Bennett’s bill is as good as law, so why the campaign by the reactionary bureaucrats? It is to sabotage the agitation and propa- ganda for non-contributory unemployment insurance, to defend the support given Ben- nett by the labor members in the House of Gommons, and to defend the Bennett regime against the attacks being made upon it by the workers. The arguments of the bureaucrats consist of insinuation and innuendo against the mili- tant working class organizations which de- mand non-contributory insurance. Its meth- od is that of the “Commonwealth” and Dr. Telford, with variations ‘Where is the money coming from to pay for the propa- ganda ?’’: “collusion with Big Business,” ete. The T.& I. Council tries to make out that Big Business is opposed to the Bennett insurance scheme, and that Bennett and the govern- ment are the champions of the workers. This is wholly untrue; Bennett and his government ARE the government of Big Business, of finance capital; and the Ben- nett insurance swindle was put through by the financial oligarchy despite the feeble protest of a few financial Bourbons, which protest counted for little when Big Business gave the orders and the labor members fell we line with its chief representative, Ben- nett. The bewhiskered claim, worn scraggly by MacInnis, Woodsworth, Simpson and Com- pany, that it is a “step in the right direc- tion,” is trotted out. It is not a step in the direction of amelioration of the hardships suffered by the workers as a result of the decay of capitalism, but a step in the direc- tion of Fascism and one which makes for a worsening of the conditions under which the workers exist. The demand for non-contributory insur- ance, for the Workers’ Insurance Bill, should be pushed with redoubled vigor. GERRY UND GOTT Wherever you find a hater of labor, a dem- agogzue, a mountebank, a potential fascist, or a composite of all four, you will find an egotist who is always proclaiming his part- nership with God. The Kaiser with his “Ich und Gott’’; the atheist Mussolini with his re-creation of a deity—in the fascist image, of course; Hitler with his new “Nordic” God, are familiar to all. Not to be outdone by those whose careers he seeks to emulate and from whom he draws his inspiration, Vancouver’s own Mayor, too, constantly has the deity on his forked tongue. He may sometimes have to establish con- nections with Him through the medium of Andy Roddan, or by means of “sharing con- fessions” in an Oxford Group, but none but a man So close to the throne of grace as to be a real partner of the Occupant could ever re- ceive the special divine dispensation to pack the bible in one hand and the Riot Act in the other. The you two against enough. The great and fundamental differ— ence which separates the official C.C.F. programme from that of the GPs is - this: The C.C.F. believes that capital- ism can be done away with by con- stitutional methods, i-e., parliament. The G.P. knows that capitalism can never be smashed except by the working classes organized and led by a highly disciplined and thor- oughly militant fighting force. In support of their contention, the C.G.F. points out that Canadians are accustomed to “British Democ- racy’() and that methods of force are therefore repulsive to them. “You cannot foist Russian methods on us’ is the cry. ““¥You will lose public Support if you do; you will frightel the people away.’ As an examplé. the poor Showing of the United Mront in the last election is held up. At first the C.C.F. case looks more than plausible. But let us ex- amine it. In our examination, we must agree on one thing: PACTS must always be given more weight than THEORIES; what a man DOES is infinitely more important than what he SAYS. Having agreed on this, we proceed: Point number one: We cannot jsolate Canada. Canada is just as much an integral part of the sys- tem of world-wide capitalism’ as is Wrance or the U.S.A. FPurthermore, the capitalist system in Canada bears BNACTLY the same funda- mental characteristics as the cap- italist system in any of these other countries. There is hunger, exploi- tation, unemployment and miusery, accompanied by threats of war and fascism, in EVERY SINGLE CAP- ITALIST COUNTRY ON BARTH. Of this fact there can be doubt. Revolutionaries and Reformists Wow since capitalism throughout the world exhibits the same funda- mental signs, and since these signs are of the utmost menace to the peace and security of vast masses of people, what has happened? These people who are crushed down have begun to fight against the system and have organized in various ways. This orfanization work is not recent. It has gone on for at Jeast a century. @C.F. comrade who wrote weeks ago put his the TWnited Front fairly UNITED FRONT OPEN FORUM And as a matter of historical fact, it can be shown that throushouet this jast century the anti-capitalists have been divided nto two main camps: Revolutionary Marxians whose tac- tics and methods brought victory to Russia under the leadership of the ereat Lenin; and Social Democrats, whose methods are directly respon- sible for Fascism in Italy, Germany and Austria today. Qur C.C.F. friend will doubt this. He will say, “Qh no, the Bolsheviks were so militant that they forced Fascism onto Germany.” Again, aS a matter of historical fact, this is quite inaccurate, and for full refutation of such a concept, I would refer him to “Fascism and Social Revolution” by R. Palme Dutt. Canada is no Exception But aside from the question of what caused Fascism in Germany (a matter which cannot be entered into here), we DO know this: that Canada exhibits the same two camps of anti-capitalists as we obseryed in Burope. On the one hand stands the C.G.F., the Canadian counterpart of the Buropean Social Democratic parties. On the other hand stands the Communist Party, Section of the Communist International. One adyo- eates peaceful transition to Social- ism. The other says, “No, although we don’t like the idea of civil war, our understandings of the historical Situation, of which Canada is an integral part, forbids our telling the workers that they can gain their goal through hallot boxes. We can and will not mislead the working elass. For although the Canadian situation differs, in ways, from the situation in any other country, yet the SAME FUNDAMENTAL SITU- ATION EXISTS THROUGHT THE CAPITALIST WORLD AND MUST BE MET, FUNDAMENTALLY, BY THE SAME METHODS.” Of course the ©-P. does not gain mass support overnight. Socialism will never come overnight. It is eradual. BUT WHAT MUST COME OVERNIGHT IS THE ACTUAL TRANSFER OF POWER FROM THE HANDS OF THE CAPITAL- TSTS TO THE HANDS OF THE WORKERS. For how in the name of reason ean the exploiters be expected to renounce forever their priceless right to exploit if the only thing COR THE UNITED FRONT!—E.LL. that menaces them is a ballot box? Is a man holding a Royal Flush