Page Six PEOPLE’S The Peoples Advocate Published Weekly by the PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN. Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. Telephene: Trinity 2019 Half Year ...------ $1.00 Single Copy .------- -05 Make All Checks Payable to: The People’s Advocate. Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Hditorial Board. Send all Monies and Letters Pertain- Ing to Advertising and Circulation to Business Mgr. One Year .....----- $1.88 Three Months ..... 50 ance to the Spain will Vancouver, B.C., Friday, July 2, 1937 Pettipiece Apes McGeer 4 |e enemies of labor in Vancouver have been enjoying the differences of opinion and policy in the CCF group of three elder- men. It is regrettable that there is not upani- on behalf of the due to the anti- mity of purpose and action poor. That there is not is working-class attitude and actions of man Pettipiece, who, men Hurry and Gutteridge. Wis arrowant attitude towar I stence upon the work test, his con- ents, his msi on questions affecting - people on retiet, as well as on other questions, lines up with the reactionary aldermen and mayor and against his CGF colleagues, Alder- d relief recipi- potential Alder- by the Sun, however. longer Franc Spain, but F from Rome and Berlin. was this assistance which caused the prolonga- tion of the war and the appalling loss of life. patient at th people of Sp long period of hypocritical pretense, comings out in the open. The people of Vancouver will not be misled They are overwhelmingly « in sympathy with the Spanish people in their struggle against the fascist invaders. And the ADVOCATE July 2, 1937 Spanish traitors until if was no 6 who was conducting the war in ascist and Nazi generals directed. The Sun knows that it The Sun knows, too, that giving the fascist powers a free hand openly to pour more men, tanks, bombing planes prolong the war and cause more shedding of blood and more massacres Oo women and children, for the people of Spain are not going to give up the strugglé for the freedom which is dearer than life itself. Beneath the democratic mask which the Sun swears most of the time there is the face of the Canadian fascist. moved aside last Tuesday and the people were given a briet elimpse of another friend of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini, another enemy of the people of Spain—and ot Canada. Hitler and Mussolini, the Sum is becoming im- e sustained resistance of the heroic ain and, like them, is now, atter a and munitions into The mask was Like temptuous reference to workers on relief who add to the miserable relief pittance by a few odd jobs as “chiselers,” his responsibility for having 160 of these men cut off relief altogether —+hese and inany more actions place him in the same camp as Miller, Pattullo, and other baby starvers. One of his latest exhibitions was his insolent defense of aldermen wasting the taxpayers: money on junkets which he calls ‘goodwill’ tours, “friendly gestures” to another city, and “maintaining Leighborly contacts” with other Ganadian and United States cities. Pettipiece was the city council’s “ambassador of goodwill” to the Portland Rose Festival, and in addition to receiving $10 a day while away he had the eall to present a bill for $25 for car expenses. When his CCF colleagues complained of such expenditures when starving citizens and undernourished children are told that the city has no money for more relief, Pettipiece informed the council that he blew im more money on the trip than he received from the city, and cited his paying $8 a day for a hotel room, more than he allows a family for food and shelter for a week. And if they try to get more he calls them chiselers. The junketines of Vancouver aldermen are as notorious as those of the Pattullo govern- ment. And the Vancouver aldermen are just as cynical and brazen about it. The sending of each other on these fake tours of goodwill is a racket, a way of having a good time at the taxpayers’ expense. Aldermen Hurry and Gut- teridge are to be commended for their stand against the raids on the civic treasury by the 1937 McGeers, and the CCF should bring Pet- tipiece to heel or repudiate him. The Sun Unmasked WN an editorial in its issue of last Tuesday the Vancouver Sun welcomes the pouring of further German and Italian troops into Spain to continue the perpetration of the horrors that have shocked and sickened the whole world. Because the struggle in Spain has dragged on for many weary and bloody months the Sun says: ... when Italy and Germany come out and declare frankly that they propose to end the intolerable tension and aid the rebels to win, millions of neutrals will heave a sigh of relief and call down blessings on their heads.” “Blessings on the heads” of the murderers o£ tens of thousands of helpless women, children and old people! Blessings on the heads of ageressors against a democratic government and a peaceful people! What savage shameless- ness! “Neutrals will heave a sigh of réliet !” He who says he is a neutral on the matter ot the attack acainst democracy in Spain and for. the possession of its minerals and other wealth ‘5 of the same character as one who would be neutral while looking on at the fiend raping and then strangling to death three children in Cali- fornia a few days ago. But the attitude of neutrality is a lie behind which lies sympathy with and assistance to the fascist beasts who are murdering the Spanish people. That is the sort of neutrality that the pro-fascist Baldwin - Chamberlain government practised. Without the assistance of the British government with its infamously deceptive non-intervention” the Spanish people would long ago have driven Franco and his Moorish mereenaries and German and Italian troops into the sea, and Spain would today be rid of the fascists. The Sun knows that behind the scenes Hitler and Mussolini were encouraged to give assist- Sun would not have shown the cloyen hoot of fascism were it not motivated by a desire to hamper the efforts of Friends of the Mackenzie- Papineau Battalion to raise money to send two ambulances to the brave Canadian defenders of democracy who are in Spain, giving their jives that fascism shall not pass. But the money is pouring jn, and will con- tinue to pour im, despite the baring of fascist teeth and snarling of the Sun. And its reaction- ary proprietors and the hirelings who write their Hitler-inspired editorials for them wall have more cause for gnashing of teeth when they learn that the people of this province may bring enduring glory to it by sending an ambu- Jance from British Columbia in addition to the iwo that will be sent from Canada as a whole. Out in the Open LOSELY following the shametul speech of capitulation to the fascist imtervention- alists by Prime Minister Chamberlain, Musso- lini and Hitler abandoned all pretenses and stated openly ihat they were out for a fascist victory in Spain. With brutal frankness Hitler stated that Germany needed the rich minerals of Spain and could get them only if Franco is victorious, 3nd Mussolini stated that he would send more reintorcements to Spain. Using as a pretext an alleged attempt by loy- alists to damage the German warship Leipzig— which was not injured in the least—Hitler sent a powerful naval fleet into Spanish waters. This latest blackmail was referred to by Chamberlain as showing “reasonableness” on the part of Hitler. The revolt and intervention in Spain was planned in Rome and Berlin with Spanish gen- erals and capitalists such as Juan March, mouths before it broke out. When on July 18, 1936, hostilities began, German and Italian troops, officers, planes, tanks and munitions were already in Spain. And from that day to this, fascist intervention has gone on at an ever accelerating pace. The fake non-intervention committee, al- legedly set up to confine the war to Spain and prevent foreign assistance reaching either side in the struggle, was for the purpose of keeping aid from reaching the legitimate government and to allow munitions and men to be sent to the rebels. Nhe chief criminal im this scheme was the British government which forced the hand of the weak and vacillating Blum and Delbos by threatening that no help could be ex- pected from Britain if France were attacked unless they agreed to ‘nm bn-intervention.” Taking advantage of the opposition of the ereat majority of the people to another world war, the Baldwin government, and later the Chamberlain government, covered their assist- ance to Franco, Hitler and Mussolini with the plea that the nop-intervention agreement was to prevent the war in Spain from spreading. Even if there was such a desire, constant re treat before fascist ageression in the hope that the fascist wolves can thus be appeased is not the way to preserve the peace of the world. All that happens is that the fascists become more insolent, more bold, and resort more and more to provocation and blackmail. The course followed by Germany and Italy, with the connivance and secret support of im- perialist Britain, leads straight to world war; a strong stand by the demoeratic nations on the basis of collective security against the aggressor fascist powers would have stopped Hitler and Mussolini dead in their bloody tracks within two months after the revolt and armed jnvasron pegan, and would have brought about the early defeat of Franco and his handful of traitors who would be powerless were it not for foreign fascist assistance. DOMINION DAY 1937 De DAY! And in Spain hundreds of young Canadians, at the front and in training behind the lines at Albacete, must have been thinking of home, the while they upheld Canada’s finest traditions in the front line of world democracy in Spain. Cana- dians may well be proud of them. Fired by the traditions bound up with the name of their battalion, these Canadians from factory, boys who are confronted daily with the ruthlessness of Fascism takes on a special significance, = and all celebrations are tempered with the haunting fear that the By folks at home are yet asleep to the incipient Fascism in their Wm. midst. Purvis Regina’s Dominion Day, 1935, is responsible for Many of the e host of friends of Spain and the Mackenzie - Papineau battalion there. Use of section 98 of the Criminal Gode at that time and ILP Defends Trotskyist Counter-Revolution N view of the fact that The Federationist, B has reprinted a pro-Pranco article from the pro-Lrotskytst ILP, which defends the treason of a section of a British By R. PALME DUTT local Trotskyist influenced organ of the CGE, New Leader, organ of the British contingent with the Loyalist forces in Spain that deserted the front and went to Barcelona to join in the insurrection against the Loyalist Catalan government, the following article by Rh. Palme Dutt is of especial interest. —Hditors. HE bloody lesson of Bar- celona needs to be learnt by the entire international working-class. For Barcelona has laid bare what Trotskyism means in action. At Barcelona, Trotskyism advanced from words, fromits constant incitement and provocation, attacks on unity and the People’s Front and slan- der on Communism and the 5So- viet Union, to their logical sequel in action. And its action was to raise fratricidal war within the popular forces, while the Fascist enemy was delivering his attack without. By this action, Trotskyism Was revealed to every serious worker and anti-Fascist as the armed ally of Fascism. The lesson of the Moscow trials was taught anew in a Western Huropean context. * Most serious of all is this les- son for us in Britain. For with shame it must be confessed that a section of the British working: class, even though a small one, represented by the Independent Labor Party, was involved in the eriminal armed attempt against the Spanish People’s Front. The IiP contingent of yvolun- teers to Spain, aceording to the report of MeNair in the New Leader, travelled from the front to Barcelona, arrived in Barce- Jona on May 3, the day of the rising “just as it started,” and served under the POUM in this armed rising against the Spanish People’s Front and its constituted authorities—an act of treason which in any war would be punishable by death, but all the more terrible when committed by those who have peen received by the Spanish People’s Front as friends and fellow-fighters. Volunteers whom the Sritish working-class movement had sup- ported and assisted to go to Spain to fight Franco, were thus used to bear arms against the Spanish People’s government, i.e., on the same side as Franco. Not only that, but the “New Leader’ this week comes out with a full and unashamed de- fence and even glorification of the Trotskyist armed coup against the Spanish working- class and the People’s Front— denounced by every working- class organization in Spain, So- cialist, Communist, Anarchist or Syndicalist- This raises an issue of the ut- most gravity for the working-class movement in Britain and for all supporters of unity. The ILP defenders of the POUM claim that it is “not Trotskyist.” This verbal alibi is valueless. Byery argument, every policy, every incitement and provocation of the POUM is drawn from the treasury of Trotskyism. What does this shame-faced attempt to deny the name matter, if the reality is the same? The IP claims that the POUM was not responsible for the putsch, put only supported it after it took place. For this it quotes the offi- cial statement of the POUM: “What our party did was to asso- ciate ourselves with the movement when it took place. were on the street, and our party had to be on the side of the work- ers.” Facts show the opposite. The workers First, the incitement came from. the POUM. It was on May 1 that the POUM called on its followers to “Seize power,’ and its leader Nin declared that “tomorrow may be too late.” It was on May 2 that the POUM organ, “la Batalla,” declared its agreement with the anarchist eroup, “riend of Durruti’? (Gn whose name the rising was con ducted), “We entirely agree with one of the anarchist groups, the Friends of Durruti group. Against the Generalitad of Barcelona we set up the Revolutionary Junta.” And again in the issue of May 2: “An agreement has been con- eluded between our Party, the POUM, and the Anarchists.” The leaflets and posters which appeared in the streets on May 4 and May 5 on behalf of the lead- ers of the putseh, in the name of ¢he Friends of Durruti, were is- sued under the initials of the CNT (syndicalist), the TAFE (anarch- ist) and the POUM. The CNT. and FAB immediately issued a signed statement, dis- claiming them and denouncing them. The POUM was thus laid bare as the force behind the putsch, against not only the Socialists, Communists and Republicans, but equally against the Anarchist and Syndicalist organizations. * Second, for this very reason it was not a question of the POUM coming out “on the side of the workers,” but against the work- ers. Bivery. responsible working-class organization in Barcelona, not only Socialist and Gommunist but equally Syndicalist and Anarchist, including the CNT, the RAT, the Libertarian Youth and Federation of Anarchist Groups, openly de- nounced the putsch, and repudi- ated the manifestos of the POUM, and “Friends of Durrut.” The POUM was only able to play on the support of the most doubt- ful. irresponsible, unorganized ele- ments, especially the gunmen and racketeering elements on the fringes on Anarchism (the same that shot the leader of the UGT, Sese, outside the doors of the An- archo - Syndicalist Amusements Syndicate), in the face of the re- pudiation of the organized work- ing-class. Anarchism, that dangerous weakness of the Spanish working- class, reflecting the backward. stage of development, and which Marx and the First International long ago fought in Spain in the pattles with Bakunin (and with which the POUM seeks to build its alliance against the organized working-class) is mot here the main criminal. In the fires of the struggle against Fascism, the majority of the anarchist workers are learn- ing the lessons of unity and disci- pline. The criminal is Trotskyism. The enemies of the People’s Front in Spain, the agents of Franco, who showed their hand in Barcelona, are now isolated. On every side the demand is sounded for the dissolution of the Trots- kyist POUM. Tt is urgently necessary that the lesson should be learned by mem- bers of the DP or all those who may have given heedless ear to this type of propaganda. ‘ “The anarchist,” wrote Plekha- noy, “when he is not a police spy, is a man who is doomed to realize objectives the opposite of those he wishes to achieve.” The innocent may listen to fiery. denunciations of the People’s Front as an alliance with capital- ism and believe that they are hear- ing Socialist or “Marx’’ propa- ganda. They forget that in these denun- Ciations Fascism is left out of the picture. The representative of Spanish capitalism and landlordism, as well as of foreign imperialist domination, is Franco. Tt is Franco the Spanish masses must defeat. Im order to defeat Franco they must realize unity in a common anti-Fascist front. Whoever seeks to break this front is an ally of Franco. When this disruption reaches armed warfare for the benefit of Franco, its meaning should be plain to all. May the bloody lesson of Barce- lona be learned, before the poison reaches further, that Trotskyism must be wiped out from every cor- ner of the working-class move- ment. mine, mill and camp are knit to- gether in one grim purpose, to block the progress of international Fascism and finally to sweep it out of Spain. Differing in but one respect from the lads who fought in the imperialist war of twenty years ago in HErance—these lads know pre- cisely for what they are fighting. Schooled in the period of decay- WAND STUDIO PHOTO ing capitalism which taught them sharp lessons in the class strug- gle; not from pooks or the class- room but in speed-up on the job, in unions and strikes and political parties, these youns Canadians are tackling the greatest task of the moment, the defeat of Fas- cism. Dominion Day to Canadian the infamous order-in-council of the Bennett cabinet which made it a crime to feed or house the young trekkers, made anti-Fas- cists by the score. Leaders of the trekkers of 1935 who are now in Spain, left a legacy of devotion and unity to be car- ried on by their successors in the fight for a better life. CCF RESPONSIBILITY 1H working class and all other progressive people of British Columbia will watch with keen interest the proceedings of the annual provincial convention of the CCF, which will be held dur- ing this week-end. The course it will take, the pro- gram adopted, the decisions made and the leadership selected will profoundly affect the course of events in the province and be- yond its borders, and will to a considerable degree determine the future and fate of the CCF itself. The provincial elections of a month ago showed that the CCE barely marked time during the last four years; and in viewing the re- sults the CCF leaders make no serious analysis, they refuse to face realities, and try to fool them- selves, or others, into thinking that gains were made—despite the fact that their party has been dis- placed by the revived Tory party as the official opposition and as the party receiving the second largest popular vote, whereas the CCF was in second place in 1933. In trying to explain away the drop from second to third place the of- ficial leadership make much of the Connell split. But the sorry show- ing made by the Constructivists proves that the explanation must be sought elsewhere. Why It Failed. They will be found among other things in the failure of the leader- ship to keep pace with events, their “pure socialist” doctrinairian- ism, the element of “socialism or nothine” in its program, inatten- tion to and lack of interest in the daily problems and ‘needs of the plain people, limiting their e#forts almost parliamen- activity, a stubborn and re- actionary opposition to the united front, truckling: to “respectability” with its accompanying heresy hunting and red baiting, the dis- ruption of its ranks by suspending their ablest, most advanced, most influential and most devoted mem- because of their advocacy of unity in the strugsie against the forces of exploitation and reaction, while harboring the Trotskyist enemies of the workings people and even permitting them to occupy leading positions in the party. The CCic, despite its failure to exclusively to tary bers By Malcolm Bruce UNITY (Continued from Page 4) Mackenzie King is not a Roose- velt, and with all due respects to Brother P. M. Draper, he can never qualify for a John L. Lewis. Our mass-production industries are negligible as compared to the USA. We have no Wagner Act to give legal status to the rights of organized labor. And we have a hybrid conglomeration of “‘Cana- dian” unions that in the main serve aS a deterrent to trade union unity and a weapon in the hands of employers for keeping bona-tide unions out of their enterprises. Some trade unionists argue that if all this is the case, then either the Communist party of the USA or the Gommunist Party of Canada is wrong in its trade union policies as affecting the ClO. Neither party happens to be wrons. Both are eoverned by one major considera- tion. viz.: to maintain the unity of the trade union movement in their respective countries in keep- ing with the existing conditions in those countries. Our job in Canada is to endorse and support the principles of the GIO. To apply them: in our own country as proyided for in the constitution of the Trades and La- bor Congress of Canada, to pro- mote campaigns for the organiza- tion of the unorganized in every non-union and company-unien *in- dustry, to stimulate independent political action of the Congress and its affiliate unions to the end that our economic strensth and unity be utilized to good purpose pol- tically, and to combat any and all moves, irrespective of their Source, that threaten to weaken or split the AF of I in Canada. progress in the last four years, still wields a great influence in BC, but unless it abandons its sec- tarianism and its anti-unity posi- tion it will not be able to retain its following. (That the voters who deserted the Liberal party in the last election went over to the re- actionary Tory party and not to the GCF should give the present CCE leaders furiously to think). Putting forward the claim that the CCE is already the united front of all the forces opposed to capitalist reaction is ridiculous and fools but few. The need of the hour is the unity of all the forces op- posed to reaction, bringing into a people’s front even progressives who are not yet in fayor of social- ism but are willing to join with socialists and all others who want to. fight against the advance of Fascist reaction and for the bet- terment of the conditions of the people now. Must Change Attitude. The attitude of lofty exclusive- ness should be done away with. Non-socialist and even non-work- ing class allies must be sought and secured in the daily struggle for a better life while capitalism remains. And in order to attract and win those elements as allies in the struggle against reaction it js necessary to form a united front of labor which will include all Labor political parties, trade unions and other progressive groups. The anti-unity, pro-rrotskyist policy of the Federationist which has become a hissing and a byword must be completely changed and a definite and uncompromising stand taken in support of the Spanish people and their interna- tional allies in their ereat strugsle for liberty against international Fascist reaction. Tf the CCE measures up to its responsinilities and opportunities, as the Socialist parties of France and Spain have done, it can be of ereat service to the people of BC. But before it can do anything it must take a scalpel and eut out the Trotskyist cancer that is snaw- ing at its vitals, releasing and poisoning its life blood. In doing so it will go far toward the CCF from the bonds that fetter, narrow and restrict it and which, if not removed will condemn it to even ereater sterility and uitimately to extinction, SHORT Alderman Crone in JABS Coo By OL’ BILL Alderman Crone, Deadly whose furniture vans Paralle] are used to transport mounted plug-ugiies to places where they can be most effectively used against the un- employed, has been in God’s coun- try getting some pointers on traf~ fie control. Some of this acquired knowledge he proposes to put in operation here. One of his arguments is, that his schemes will drive the old crates off the streets. This, of course, will make it easier for the Shaughnessy speed-hogs and help swell the cof- fers of the BG Collectrie. No com- pensation is proposed for the owners of these old crocks and their ultimate destination un- doubtedly is the shrapnel factories of Japan, via the Vancouyer junk- yards, Several facts are overlooked by this matter that may be worth touching on. In the first place, the men who drive these old $25 boats are their actual owners; they don’t belong to some finance corporation and the owners pay for the gas they burn. They are more or less of a2 Neces- sity to enable workers to reach the job, by providing transportation service that the moguls of the BC Collectric consistently refuse to render, but for which they collect the toll. They enable workers who are unable to make the higher priced cars, to travel distances in 15 minutes that take two hours oP our modern, up-to-date, Johnny-on~ the-spot, Toonerville street car system. At the same time, in the USSR, the Moscow Soviet is troubled with traffic problems of the same kind as Alderman Crone. They, too, de- cided that the old cars must be cleared off the streets, but they don’t propose to send them to the munition works and teil their owners go suck their thumb. Cars over a certain vintage are to be tured over to their Soviet; their value will be fixed by assessors and their owners will receive @ new car and credited with the price of the one turned in. The old cars are to be shipped to country dis- tricts where the work they are still capable of may be made available. To our City Dosberrys, compari- sons must be odorous! * The Mother of Redeemed By, Parlianrenis, The Kiddies during its 700 years existences, has been the scene of demonstra~ tions of almost all the qualities, emotions and mental gymnastics of which the mind of man is capable. Gourage, compassion, mercy, shame, have been exressed, but in a very minor degree, however, be- ing hidden behind floods of ambt tion, avarice, anger, rage, fear, eruelty, envy, malice, prejudice, hatred, intrigue and the insepar- able twins bullying and toadying. But for a sheer brutal exposition of the rotten side of humanity (fostered by the class character of social life), last Friday’s display of duplicity during the discussion of the Spanish situation, was the worst in all these seven centuries of beating-about-the-bush. The claim of Chamberlain and Eden that their policies (siding with the Fascist murderers), have maintained peace in Europe, is akin to that of the murderer who © gsarrotted his victim “for his own good.” 1 While the brave Spanish people | are being murdered and raped by the wild animals whom the British | ruling class, through their fear of the workers, has let loose on Burope, to contend that they have maintained “peace,” is the crassest kind of hypocricy. It justifies their “illiterate”? victim who shouts from the house-tops: “Don't never put no trust in no politician, nohow?!” Hnough negatives to make a very | positive statement! j It is a pleasure to turn to the > outside where the innocence of childhood has not been contamin? } ated by the lies and eyasions of — political tricksters. To learn that” the kiddies of France, Emeland and 4 Canada are already trying to make” amends for the crimes of their ow) rulers, helps to take the bad taste out of the mouth that goes with the thought of belonging to the” same species as those responsible for the conditions today in Spain. Nothing more clearly proves the inherent goodness of the race, in spite of what political shysters do to make it othemwise, than the pro- posal of Canadian boys and girls to: build a home in Catalonia for the orphaned children of Spain who have been sacrificed on the ploody Nazi cross to satisfy the lust of Hitler and Mussolini for iron, copper and power. T hope every reader of this column will get solid: ly behind our pbairns and help them to make their objective. Tt will be a step in making Spain the tomb of Fascism in spite of Mussolini's boasts. CIO Unions Will Broadcast Daily The United Automobile work: ers’ Union has signed=2 one-yea! contract “with Radio Station ws BK, Detroit, for a proadeast to } called the ‘Voice of Labor.” 2 program will be given each wee! day from 7 to 7-15 p:m., and o! Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10: iN ni baad ese ek deli eb