Page Four B= C2 WEG) REE RIS = Neb Was B.C Workers NEWS Published Weekly by x THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASS’N Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Vancouver, B.C. 7 — Subscription Rates — One Year ___$1-80 Half year — 1.00 Three Months__$ -50 Single Copy ——— -05 Make All Checks Payable to the B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Editorial Board — Send All Monies and Letters Per- taining to Advertising and Circulation to the Business : Manager. Vancouver, B.C., August 16, 1935 THE CUMBERLAND LOCK-OUT. The miners of Cumberland have gone back to work pending the outcome of the applica- tion for a Board of Conciliation. They have defeated the introduction of the infamous contract system, for the moment. The attack upon the miners who are organ- ized into a militant union, one of the strong- est in the province, is a part of a deliberate plan to paralyze the workers by the destruc- tion of their unions. This is the aim of the Shipping Federation, and the lock-out of the longshoremen was well planned in advance, with assurances that the armed forces of the state and public funds would be at their dis- posal for strikebreaking. : The Cumberland miners would be unwise indeed if they thought for the danger has passed. They have seen the merit of organization and the value of quick mobilization and militant struggle against the offensive of the company. All the nefarious and insidious schemes of an exploiting class will be_used to divide their ranks in order to weaken their resist- ance and to smash their union. This must be guarded against and provocateurs and dis- rupters exposed. Now more than ever, there should be a strengthening of the union, stiffening up and better functioning of their commit- tees will enable them successfully to meet the next blows of the bosses. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT Just because Bennett and the rest of the finance capitalist crowd were unable to get public support worked up before the election for a national government, is no reason to think that they have abandoned the plan. To force a national government at this stage would be too raw, and they count on man- oeuvering it after the election. This will be much easier if King fails to get a substantial majority, and the launching of the Stevens party was to create a more propituous situ- ation. The Province newspaper has not given up printing editorials and cartoons advocating the formation of a national government ‘in the interest of the nation.”” And with charac- teristic hypocrisy it represents such a gang- ing up as “pooling the best brains of the country’ to solve the worsening depression. The urgency of the desire for a national gov- ernment compels the promoters to admit that they have no other solution for unemploy- ment, while elsewhere in their Press they ballyhoo about returning prosperity. What a national government would mean would be that the most unscrupulous poli- ticians would pool their low cunning to intro- duce more fascist measures and suppress the people even more brutally than did the Ben- mett government. The public trough looks inviting to an office-hungry bourgeois oppo- sition, and at times they criticize and ob- struct the government; for thieves some- times quarrel. What a national government is capable of doing was shown during the war, under the administration of the “Union” government, when both parties joined in the most disgraceful orgy of graft, corruption and plunder ever witnessed in Canada since the days of the notorious political buccaneer, Sir John A. MacDonald. And the present na- tional government of hunger, wage cuts and war preparation in Great Britain is another malodorous example. Recently there pussyfooted into Vancouver a representative of St. James Street, Mont- real, one Kelley. With an election in the off- ing, he was too shrewd to toot the national government horn too loudly. But he gum- shoed around, building up an organization to a moment that. work up propaganda for and to set up a Na- tional government, after the elections. With the elections safely over, there is no guarantee that King, Stevens or Bennett would be averse to joining hands in a des- perate effort to save capitalism. And al- though Woodsworth supported the worst Bennett legislation in the House of Commons, the rank and file members of the C.C.F. would make it difficult for him to emulate that other “Socialist,” Rasmay MacDonald, and join a national government. : The persistence with which the finance capitalists carry on their campaign for such a government is one of the evidences of the process of faszization that is going on within the worn-thin shell of capitalist democracy. Such a menace can be met only as all fascist tendencies are being met, and that is by the forging of a People’s Front against all fascist manifestations, outside as well as inside par- liament. The election of a substantial group of loyal working class representatives to Parliament will prove a powerful deterrent to the work- ing out of the scheme for a national govern- ment by virtue of its position to expose all such advances toward fascism and by rally- ing the people to united struggle against it. TERROR AGAINST FARMERS. Armed provincial police guard all bridges leading from Sea and Lulu Islands, with re- inforcements arriving daily. The Italians are not coming, nor the Japs, and neither is Uncle Sam’s army invading British Columbia. : The police are there to see to it that poor farmers cannot sell more potatoes than the law permits. So the spuds rot on the ground while poverty-stricken unemployed workers and their families, and those on a starvation wage, do without them because they cannot pay the monopoly prices maintained by the dictatorial B. C. Vegetable Board. : The farmers succumbed to the demagogy of the government, believing that through government “regulation” they would get a better price. They are finding now that it is monopoly prices the Board is after, while the farmer is skinned through commission charges, tags supplied by the Board, and other racketeering devices. The poor farmers must learn to detect fascist demagogy and distrust and oppose all laws and Boards enacted and set up by governments until they have a government of their own, a Soviet government. Until that time they should organize, make common cause with the workers, and fight against capitalist government restric- tions, regulation and fake paternalism. And in this fight they must not allow their ranks to be divided by anti-Oriental prejudice so dilligently built up by semi-fascist “‘White B. GC. Leagues” and other chauvinistic or- ganizations. The white farmers must join with the Oriental farmers in brotherly strug- gle against the common enemy of all pro- ducers, the monopoly capitalists and their governments. SNOWDEN’S FEARS The worries of British imperialist robbers of workers at home and of their hundreds of millions of colonial slaves in the colonies over the proposed conquest and rape of BHthiopia by Italian imperialism was voiced openly and cynically by their faithful lackey, Viscount Snowden, who for his treason to the working class was given a place in the higher cate- gory of British parasites. Snowden, social-democrat and one of the higher leaders of the British Labor Party, fears the collapse of capitalism, and British capitalism in particular. It is not in defense of a colonial country that he speaks, but to voice fear that the war against Abyssinia may unite the colored races throughout the vast colonial world and endanger the British exploitation of colonial peoples, upon which the British Eimpire rests. The black, brown and yellow races are deeply stirred over Mussolini’s preparations for the conquest of Ethiopia. Every worker and all opposed to imperialism should sup- port the colored races in their efforts to throw off the hated foreign imperialistic yoke. The sympathy of all who are opposed to imperialistic aggression and oppression will support the efforts of the African people to defeat Mussolini, not only in Abyssinia but also in Italy. ACTIONS OF LEADERS AGAINST for Bennett’s vicious attack upon the workers in the name of “em- ployment insurance,” the CCF. leaders found themselves under tre- mendous pressure from the mem- _DESIRES OF C.C.F. MEMBERS By STEWART SMITH. (ooking back over the past year it is clear that an outstanding fea- fure of the unemployed struggles became the joint action between the Communist and C.C.@. workers. This found its highest expression in Regina and Niagara Falls, where the local Communist and C.C.F. or- eanizations signed joint agreements en the fight for the demands of the unemployed workers. Im the united front conferences for the struggle for genuine unem- ployment insurance last December and January, hundreds of C.-C... or- ganizations participated and thou- sands of C.C.F. members took up active work, several clus sending members to the Ottawa confer- ence, where they personally pressed upon the C.C.. leaders to join in fhe united struggle for this most important demand of the working class. The issue quickly came to a head. The C.C.F. leadership were con- fronted with two possible courses. One: the of supporting Bennett's Bill, which course Insurance ‘placed a $20,000,000 annual tax on wages and excluded all unemployed workers from benefits, a measure which was in no sense designed to bring any benefit to the working class, but to place a tax on the wages of employed workers at a time when the bourgeoisie consid- ered that unemployment would not increase in order to raise funds for unemployed relief for the future. To adopt this course was precise- ly what Bennett needed in order to put over his measure and prevent a strong mass movement from aris- ing against it. The other course open to the C.C. F. leaders was to enter the united struggle for genuine insurance and against the menacing attack of Ben- nett’s measure. Such a course with the strong movement already in existence would have produced great results and undoubtedly could have forced the government to reconsider the whole question. The €.C€F. leaders adopted the first course and split the fight at a decisive moment. In adopting the course of voting bership. A “stratezy’’ was devised to “solve” the situation. While voting and speaking for Bennett’s measure as “better than nothings,” they issue a special statement for “‘non-contri- butory unemployment insurance to be financed by the national credit.” The C.C.F. leaders troduce the Workers’ liament. Their whole course of ac- tion was worked out to split the struggle, to help over Bennett's bill and to lull to passivity the stirring of the masses towards active mass Strugele. refused to in- Bill into par- In this line, the leadership of the A.C.C.L. and A.F.of L. joined with enthusiasm. This is the line for the future as well, as seen from the election manifesto issued by Woodsworth recently. The C:C.F. leaders have carried through the same policy on all the issues of the struggle against the Bennett Government and its new attacks upon the masses under the disguise of “reforms.” Their mani- festo holds out the same line for the future. Ethiopian Who Will Fight = | snec8 ee Se Italian Imperialism ! ousted him, fought the police, burn- = Condensation of an article ap- pearing in New Masses by Bruce Minton. Mussolini has had over twelve years in which to prove that the political and economic theories of Bascism can be successful. Today, Italy is on the brink of war. The standard of living is lower than that of any other European country. In- tense misery, with the prospect of starvation at home or military ser- vice in the hot desert wastes of Abyssinia is the only future that the average Italian subject can an- ticipate under what Mussolini is fond of termins “the regime of the Blackshirts.” Since 1929 food prices have risen in Italy by 300 per cent, while wages have dropped at least 60 per cent. Between 1927 and 1929 wages fell 20 per cent, while wages were on the upgrade or at least station- ary in other imperialist countries. At this time, when a general wage | eut was instituted, Mussolini told the Senate: “Fortunately the Italian people are not yet accustomed to eat several times a day. Its stan- dard of living is so low that it feels — 9? searcity and suffering less: Sixty Per Cent Reduction. What does this mean to the work- ers and peasants? Naturally, in in- dustry, wages suffer first in time of erises. These reductions have amounted approximately 60 per cent jn the last seven years. At the close of last year Mussolini again forced the scale down by approximately 16 per cent. In Northern Italy (higher scale than in the south) the average worker receives, when employed, 14 lire a day (about $1.15). But prices are out of all proportion. Tf he wants a pair of shoes he must pay 40 to 50 lire at Jeast. A suit of clothes sells for 250 to 300 lire. Bread, the fundamental item in his diet, costs him 1.50 lire-a kilo, spa- ghetti 2.50 lire a kilo. Wot only are his wages of 14 lire insufficient to provide necessities for his family, but the worker does not receive all the 14 lire. Before he leaves the factory with his pay en- yvelope, he has to slip in to it for numerous levies. ' or example, if he belongs to the Fascist Union he must pay dues of 20 lire a year. Even if he is not a member he must eontribute -half this amount to the support of the union. Then he is forced to buw unemployment insur- ance to the tune of 2.50 lire a week; and winter relief which runs from 1 to 1.50 lire a week. In addition to these taxes he is compelled to contribute to the following funds: Post-war benefits, old age insur- anee, contributions to the “war loan,” and miscellaneous demands which a hard pressed government is always shunting on to the workers. Two Million Unemployed. There are nearly two million un- employed in Italy. In the cities re- lief provided—to those lucky enough to have a poverty book. Of course. men who lack the proper spirit of fascist “ceo-operation,’’ men with rejatives still working or with a family on a farm to which they can return, or who have been sus- pected of not supporting the fascist regime of slow starvation with un- is relaxed enthusiasm, do not receive poverty books. For the few who manage to get hold of them can get relief of a kind, they are entitled to eat soup once or twice a day— that is all. No clothes, no rent. The Situation is desperate. “A letter tells that women bring their children to police stations. “You feed them,” they say. “Otherwise, we will kill them. ‘There is no other way.” Live In Caves. Increasing numbers of farmers lose their land to the banks and corporations. No place remains for them: their labor power is not need- ed to cultivate [the soil. They re- treat to the hills, or live in caves or cellars, eking out an existence The Crisis In Italy far worse than an animal’s — by Stealing, raiding warehouses, living off friends or relatives who still have something to share. But the militancy of the workers and peasants is increasing. Wor ex- ample, in every small town out of ene hundred fascists as many as seventy-five are members of the Younes Communist League. Strikes and demonstrations have been held by the hundreds all over Italy in the last year. Middle-class shop- keepers, who have been forced out tola Peigna just peasants, angered by the Podesta. corresponding to our Mayor, but appointed, not elected, to office), = ed the town hall, s wires, and ernment, for several days. fascism must masses, who must fight the war, do not want to join the army. Sinia is far away- of soldiers sick with malaria have ditions in the army camps, tales of man is allowed only one litre a day cut the telesraph set up their own sov- which resisted the militia Soldiers Have to Buy Water. | 1 to add still another be war. But the Abys- Already shiploads returned to Italy with tales of con- the scarcity of water, how each for drinking, one litre for washing, and any further ration of water must be bought out of the low pay. The food is bad, and there is no proper housing facilities for the troops. Daily Desertion By Soldiers. Dissatisfaction with the war is not slow to express itself. Soldiers daily desert and slip over the Austrian border. In Naples, recruits dove into thé harbor from transports. Many have taken the 500 lire bounty of- fered as an inducement for overseas service and then rum ayway. As Mussolini's drive for war ac- eelerates, mass resistance Srows. The Communist Party has giyen the slogan, “Disrupt the military forces,” and this directive is taking hold and gaining popular support. Govern- ment war demonstrations are being openly defied. At Bari and Tarento, two large industrial cities, aerial manoeuvres over the city were Sstop- ped when tens of thousands of work— ers jammed the streets demanding bread, work and the eessation of war preparations. Strike Against War. Caltanisetta, in Sicily, was the scene of a general strike of the populace and soldiers at the time of the mobilization of the class of 1911. Messina, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Trieste, Turin—throughout all Italy the war has met with protests, re- fusals of men to go to War, mass demonstrations when troops entrain. In Naples, five hundred “~olunteers * left the barracks. Im Pistoia, fascist militia beat their officers. Mussolini plans a war with Abys- sinia, a war of conquest for new ter— ritory. The peasants, promised land in Africa, remember those who set- tiled in former years in the hot, dry deserts of Liberia, and on the dry Aegean Islands; most have long since returned to their native villages, worn out, defeated by terrible of business, rally with the workers. As yet the peasants are confused— poverty. Dimitroff Reichstag Fire MHero Speaks Before World Communist Meet EMPHASIZES NEED FOR UNITY MOSCOW, U-S.S-R., Aug. 4. World Congress of the Communist International was stirred Saturday by a report delivered by George Di- mitroff, Reichstag fire trial hero on “The Offensive of Fascism and the Struggle for Unity of the Work- jing Class.” Long before the opening of the morning session every delegate was in the Hall of Columns eagerly await- ing Dimitroff's report, the second big point on the Congress’ agenda. The outstanding points in Dimi- troff’s speech were: The Communist Parties are not only ready to join in united front struggles against the fascist offen- sive, but they are willing as well to participate in non-Communist but anti-fascist governments, drawing 2 sharp distinction between Social- Democratic participation in coalition governments aiming to bolster capi- talism on the one hand, and united front governments for the purpose of blocking fascism on the other. Dimitroff pointed out that the at- titude of the Communist Parties to- ward participating in such sgovern- ments was on the same principle as those which govern united fronts. Dimitroff criticized the jeering at- titude of the national nihilists and pointed out that the Communists are the genuine guardians of national liberties, independence and culture. We stated the absolute confidence and ability of the working class to defeat fascism with proper tactics. Dimitroff defined fascism as the dictatorship of the monopolies and trusts, ete., not as the rule of the petty -bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat, and he explained how fascism ‘utilizes the revolutionary traditions and militancy of the work- jing class and peasantry, and traf- fics in the distress of the petty-bour- geoisic with the Social-Democracy, makin= possible the advent of fas- cism. He presented and answered a va- riety of arguments of Social-Demo- eratic leaders against the united front. The most reactionary type of fas- eism is the German type. German fascism plays the role of the gen- darme of the international counter— revolution, of the chief instigator of imperialist war, and of the originat- or of a crusade against the Soviet Union. Fascism is not a regime stand- in gabove the classes of the prole- tariat and the bourgeoisie, nor is it the rule of the petty-bourgeoisie or the lumpen proletariat, as many Fascism And Defines Tasks To Combat It nalyses. Social-Democrats maintain. Was- cism is the open terrorist dictator- ship of the most reactionary, chau- vinist and imperialist elements of finance capital. According to particular conditions or the country concerned, fascist dic- tatorship assumes various forms. Where it has no broad mass basis, fascism gerants to other bourveois: parties and the Social-Democracy a certain legality. Where a near out- break of revolution is to be feared, there is unrestrained political mon- opoly domination. Whoever does not struggle in the transitionary stage against the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie cannot prevent the victory of fascism. Social-Democracty bears a great historical responsibility for the fact that in Germany and in other coun- tries the proletariat was not pre- pared for resistance. The souree of the mass influence of fascism is in its unrestrained demagogy, even in its use of revolutionary traditions. Tf the Austrian and German prole- tariat, starting with 1918, had pur- sued the road of the Russian Bolshe- viks, there would be no fascism to- day in Europe, but the working ¢lass would long aso have been master of the situation. The German working class could haye frustrated the vic- tory of fascism by setting up an anti-fascist proletarian united front, by forcing the Social-Democratic leaders to cease their campaign against the Communists and by ac- ceptine the repeated proposals of the Communist Party for unity. A further cause of the victory of fascism was the isolation of the pro- letariat from its natural allies. Fas- ecism succeeded in bringing the great masses of the peasantry into its fol- lowing and penetrated the ranks of the youth, while Social-Democracy through its policies repelled the peas- antry from the proletariat and the masses of the youth from revolution. “To accept the defense of the country in a war of Imperialism is to declare the war a “‘jJust’ war in the interest of the proletariat: a fraudulent declaration. Invasion is always possible in any war. But it would simply be stupid not to justify defense of the country by a suppressed and subject people in their war against imperialist powers, or by a victorious prole- tariat in its war against the bourgeoisie of a capitalist country. It would be absolutely wrong, theoretrically, to forget that every war is the continuation of the im- perialistic policy originating and developing under the conditions of the epoch of Imperialism. But this same epoch must necessarily pro- duce the policy of fighting against national suppression and the struggle of the proletariat against has onee more given to a long-sy fering world his opinion of Ka Marx. This philistine pris, expos for the ignoramus that he is by Sp all the radical organizations, worth preventing him from remat | ing in any length of time. be the big toad in the puddle | each case his ego made him qui This sf Suburbia has worked himself in: the belief that his through qualified him to criticize Marx. 7 SHORT JABS | By OP Bill ES 3 The supreme snob, H. G. Well 7 “the srand tour] 4 ira) in, has made And now, burden to the desperate plight of | the Fabians to the Social Der the masses, Mussolini prepares for eratic Federation, his WNietsche 34 war in Africa. The last resort of estimate of his own intell i organization for Since he could n: AS chief hocus-pocus man j/ rapid DrogTre these organizations he the twisted mind of the supe de patriot, Wells, whe gave up his §— cialism to help Old Hengland y the war, Marx was a stuffy, eg} centred and malicious theorist wil |i 4 snobbish hatred of the bourgeois |} that amounted to a mania, 4 4 founder of a pretentious philosop} — that panders to the cheapest aj i basest of human impulses, philosophy in no sense curative { creative. 0 Wells’ imagination is the mo pronounced of his literary tools; os i writings, when not urging his ai low-countrymen “to see it through Jj (the war) are mostly pipedreams i ey euised in what Benjamin Disras 4} called ‘a diarrhoea of words,” dh: orced from the monotonous facts} everyday drab existence as men aij women experience it. Mars theories are malicious certainly—j 4} the bourgeoisie of whom Wells the mouthpiece because they lead the abolition of robbery, class pF ileze and class rule; for the work they are beneficient theories cause their acceptance by the mi means the inauguration of a social order without class di tions, exploitation or the miusen that flow from them. To assertu Marxism is neither curative or cre tive in the face of the world situs tion today, when hundreds of mi lions, who have never heard of H) Wells, are basing their econo osophy, proves that Wells suftg either from intellectual myopia @ ossification of the cortex. Marx. his fellow-worker, Engels, the ij” tieth anniversary of whose deal was commemorated last week, @ the founders of the reyolutionay socialist movement; they blazed revolutionary path along which i world’s workers are marching ~ victory. Marx, rather than beimg egoist, diffused himself entirely § the working class and when = ezomaniac Wells slanders Marx” this way it is probably due to fe sonal jealousy—a jackal barking a lion. ¥ 1 = = * “Bolshevism fights for a on and to this theory it sacrifices Te. lions of human beings and incaley able cultural and traditional valuds) So spoke Hitler in his last Reidh stag speech. This does not, how ever, prevent the Nazis from mu dering the flower of the Germs people and making bonfires of th works of the most brilliant minds) the 19th and 20th centuries. 7B whole world of science, art and] erature is drawn upon to raise a cultural level of the workers in a Soviet Union, If a black or yell man can teach anything to the & iet worker he is welcomed with one arms. In Hitler Germany the op) Site is the case. Strong condemnl tion has just been expressed by Hitler lieutenant, a regional edu tional officer of the German Colot Society, of lectures which have be siven in Silesian schools “py nesre and natives’ during the last = months. ‘It is impossible for U5” allow negroes to appear as teache and lecturers before the Germ youth and nation,” he scream There it is; the chauyinistic hyp risy of Hitler on the one side the humanist open-mindedness Bolshevism on the other. Take yo choice! ’ a * = * A copy of the Manchurian Da Wews just to hand explains one the reasons why the Japanese w perialists are so anxious to bri civilization to the Manchurt peasants. A rich gold vein, es mated at 5 million yen in value h just been discovered and will worked by the Japanese North Ma churian Gold Mining Co. The # ritory involved is 150 miles lo and 25 miles wide. Boring machi made in Japan and costing 400;! yen have been imported. The sa type of machine of American ma costs 1,200,000 yen. The operat will be supported by the Kwantt Army (Japanese), the Manchul eovernment and the Oriental Dey opment Co. of Tokyo. Other ite tell of rich coal beds being disc ered in Hsingan, extensive and good quality that can be wor with steam shovels, and of jJead be mined in Chuvash with smelt to be opened later. Here is a 2 ket for Japanese factory produ and hordes of Manchurian peasa who can be exploited to the be This is the whole philosophy of : perialism, Japanese or any ot kind. = * * * A capitalist solution for the employed problem is at last in Si A Hollywood doctor has discove a way of freezing live anim keeping them on ice and thay them out at will. When the schi gets properly organized, instead living on a measly relief dole, worker for whom no work can found will be placed in the ice with his wife and family and st there till he is needed. This save the nerves of the good cap ists from becoming frayed by sight of ragged and hungry up ployed demonstrators and aiso down the cost of police adminis the bourgeoisie.” —LENIN. tion. Wont Gerry be pleased!