Page Six

Tel ith (OPIS AL. op IS!

ADVOCATE

July 30, 1937

The People’s Advocate
Published Weekly by the

PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN.
Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC,
Telephone: Trinity 2019

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Vancouver, B.C., Friday, July 30, 1937

Tom Cacic

YOM CACIC, who fought against re-
action and Fascism on two contin-
ents, is dead. He died this week in a
bloody, steel-torn valley near Villanueva
de la Canada where time and time again
the soldiers of the Spanish People’s Army
and the International Brigades hurled
back the pick of Franco’s troops.

Tt was the way he would have wanted
to die, but by his death the Dimitrott
battalion has lost a brilliant officer and the
world an indomitable fighter m the cause
of progress and freedom,

Although he was born in Jugo-Slayia,
Canadians have long looked upon him as
their own, for it was in this country he
worked tirelessly to advance the interests
of the people. A hard rock miner, his
militant trade unionism won him the en-
during respect of British Columbia miin-
ers when he worked in this province.

His work for the people of Canada
ended in 1931 when he was one of the
eight leaders of the Communist party (Ge
which he had been a member since 1926)
arrested and tried under-the infamous
Section 98. He was sentenced to two
years imprisonment and deportation and
the sentence was carried out to the letter
so that, after serving the full term, he was
kept virtually a prisoner until he reached
the Jugo-Slav border.

Tn 1935 he barely escaped from Vienna
with his life, making his escape only two
days before Premier Dolfuss was assas-
sinated and the Fascists launched their
putsch.

He was among the first to volunteer his
services in the fight of the Spanish people
for liberation. While in jail in Canada
he had read all he could on military tac
ties and strategy and later, in the USSR,
he completed his studies at a military
academy.

And now, in 1937, while still im his
early thirties, he has given his life on a
Spanish battlefield tor the things he be-
jieved in.

Some perhaps, will fail to understand,
but the great majority of people wio
realize that the menace of Fascism is
world-wide and must therefore be fought
wherever it organizes against them, will
honor his name. For it is such men as
he who are building today the new world
of tomorrow. The finest of them are in
Spain, facing the darkness while the dawn
strugeles through. And though the dark-
ness must engulf some of them, they have
by their example lit such a light in Eu-
rope as all the might of Fascism can
meyer put out.

Cacie’s life and death should be a spur
to all progressive-minded people to re
double their efforts and sacrifices in the
eause of Spanish liberty!

The Affair of the Missing $1500
Wwe had always thought that, theoretically

speaking, one of the main functions of the
police was to safeguard the money of the tax-
payers, collectively and individually. But
now, it seems, after this affair of the missing
$1500, we have been much too naive.

What Vancouver needs is not so much a
police force to prevent the better-fed citizenry
from seeing the not-so-well fed citizenry s0-
liciting on the streets, but a higher body to lool
after the police; to find things when they lose
them and to keep the fingerprints from getting
mixed up with the footprints.

The whole business sets a dangerous prece
dent. First thing we know, Pattullo will be
going to Ottawa again and will arrive bacl:
fo snform good Liberals that he’s sorry, but
there will be no road work for a while because
he managed to borrow $15,000,000 but lost it
on the train.

How was ihe money lost? Nobody seems
to know. The police can’t find it and the com-
mittee delezated to investigate the matter
eap’t find it either. Our own guess is that
somebody at the police station gave it m ehange
for a Mexican five dollar bill tendered by a
oyest for a night’s lodging. Anyway, our guess
is aS good as yours.

Just to rub it in, we might point out that

trade unionists who, as everyone knows, are
led by “foreien agitators” imported all the
way from Nanaimo, BC, to get their hands on
the workers’ hard-earned wages, would not
tolerate this business for a moment. Their
committee would sift the matter to the bot
tom in no time, exposing the culpable person
or persons. But, of course, everyone knows
that a trade unionist is unfit to run public at
fairs. And in the meantime the trade union-
ists, together with all other taxpayers, oT
ganized and unorganized, must foot the bill.

A True Canadian

At the Orpheum Theatre this coming Sun-
day, August 1, Vancouver citizens will
have the privilege of hearing one of Canada’s
finest sons, Dr. Norman Bethune, repert on
his work as head of the Canadian Blood Trans-
fusion Unit in Republican Spain, work which
has won for him an international reputation.

Here isno Mackenzie King striving to recon-;

cile opposing beliefs in a paradoxical mixture
of idealism and insincerity. Here is no rub-
ber stamp for the alternately hypocritical and
arrogant British national government. Here
is, above all, a man with the courage of his con-
victions, facing up to the world issues between
democracy and Fascism now being fought out
in Spain.

While Canada, officially, falls docilely into
line with the pro-Franco policy of the British
Foreien Office and discriminates against the
democratically-elected Spanish government by
refusing to supply it with arms and MuUnitONS 5
shile it has passed the notorious Foreign En-
listment Act, again following the British lead,
the Canadian people, unofiicially, are straining
every effort to secure victory for the Spanisit
republic.

Tt is such as Dr. Norman Bethune and the
Canadian volunteers of the Mackenzie-Papi-
neau battalion who symbolize the true Ca-
nadian spirit, who are following in the highest
Canadian tradition, and Canada is uighttully
proud of her sons.

But final victory has not yet been achieved.
The people of Vancouver and British Colum-
bia generally must show their appreciation of
Dr. Bethune’s work, their solidarity with the
embattled people of Spain, by giving gener-
ously to the fund of the Canadian medical
unit in order that its humanitarian work may
be carried on and extended.

It’s Up To Mr. King
REMIER MACKENZIE KING can be

forced into an untenable position by the
peace-loving people of Canada whose mobilized
opinion should call upon him to make good
some of his recent lengthy dissertations on
peaceful neighborliness and understanding.

Free from the pressure of hypocritical
statesmen of the British national government
who would cramp the style of any decent lib-
eral, Premier King is jn a strong position to
lend a hand to the hard-pressed Chinese people
who are now being mercilessly attacked by
Japanese imperialism. :

No right-thinking person can fail to realize
that the imperialist leaders and militarists of
Japan are the aggressive force responsible for
the shelling and bombing of Peiping and that
their intent is to take another tremendous slice
of Chinese territory. The Canadian premier
understands this very clearly.

And yet there is a constant stream of war
metal going to Japan. The entire copper out
put of Allenby, BG, is dedicated by contract
io the mangling of the Chinese people. Ca-
nadian mineral properties and tracts of timber
have been bought by Japanese capitalists to
feed the war machine for immediate use
against a traditionally peaceful people.

This can be stopped overnight by the Ca-
nadian government. That it will take this step
for peace of its own yolition is too much to
hope for. But Premier King can be made to
feel that this is the will of the people by use
of those democratic channels through which
changes of policy have been forced on previous
occasions.

Use even of the contemptible precedent ad-
hered to by the Canadian eovernment, that of
refusing to ship arms and munitions to the
harassed democratic government of Spain, can
be tumed to account in the Sino-J apanese
struggle.

Tf the King government can veto arms ship-
ments to the veople’s government of Spain,
then it can tum thumbs down on the export
of war material to Japan.

We Resigned From CCF

Following

IYWAT the real disrupters
of the CCF in British
Golumbia are the reaction- he
ivy, red-baiting leaders is
shown by the volume of pro-
ests against the proceedings
of the last convention and
ihe policies adopted by it.

Below is printed the letter in
which two members of the CCE
ho have long been prominent in
its activities tendered their resig-
nations after they had seen prom-
‘nent members of the CCE at the
onvention spending most of their
‘ime in attacking the Communist
party for its efforts to reach an
agreement with the CCE in a com-
saon fight against capitalism,
syhile little or no time was given
to attacking capitalist parties.

printed

July 9, we both

While

GCF.

that will

of the workers.

years of

correspondence
the provincial secretary, it
asked that the letter given below
in the Federationist:
Secretary-Lreasurer,

CCE (6C Section).

Dear Sir: In reply to yours of
herewith tender
our resignations from the
having no
tion of joining the CP, we find
ourselves more in sympathy with
that organization than with the

We think that any organization
tolerate
ravings of Angus MacInnis against
another working class party is as-
suredly not worthy of the support

Tt is with some regret that we
make this decision after So many
active work, but mere

politics and vote eatching do not
appeal to us and the CCF is ap-
parently becoming overloaded with
opportunists and doctrinaires.
We see no possibility of such a
party achieving the emancipation
of the workers, nor do we think
the best interests of the working
class can be served inside such 2
party.
(Signed)

with
was

CCE.
present inten-
GRACE GLEED.
HARRY GLEED.

Hollyburn, BC.

To this The
plied:

Mrs. Grace Gleed,

Hollyburn, BC.

Dear Mrs. Gleed: I referred your
Jetter to the editorial board of The
Federationist and the unanimous
decision was that the paper should
not print it.

(Signed) DON SMITH, Editor.

Federationist Te-

the ridiculous

Can China Beat Japa

By HARRY GANNES.

AWN China successfully re-
sist Japan should the
latter determine to extend
the present fighting into a
full-fledged war for the sub-
jugation of North China?

Every factor involved
points to “yes” as the an-
swer.

Never before was China
So united. National con-
sciousness in China has been
undergoing a fundamental trans-
formation since the invasion of
Manchuria in 1931. The 450,000,-
000 Ghinese people, regardless of
class division, realize that if the
Japanese military: juggernaut
rides across their country now,
China will be erased from the
world map: -In its place will be a
jigsaw puzzle of colonial frag-
ments,, dominated by Japanese
imperialism, or about to be dis-
membered by the Tokyo imperial-
ists.

Freed of the danger of civil
war, China can now face its
main enemy with a confidence it
never could haye had before.

Politically, China is better able
to repel the invaders than it has
been since 1839, when the Brit-
ish began to blast open China’s
feudal isolation in the Opium
War. :

Politically, Japan is in a severe
erisis. While the Chinese people
are uniting, the Japanese toiling
Imasses are resisting and protest-
ing against the disastrous ad-
venturist war policies of the
Japanese militarist-fascist clique,
which dominates the army and
navy. The military seems to
have the upper hand in the Konoe
Cabinet. The political situation
in Japan and China favors Ghina’s
battle for its integrity.

HAT of the military situation?

Military specialists agree that
from the technical side Japan’s
army is superior to Ghina’s de-
fensive force. But Japan can-
not ever hope to plunge its en-
tire military apparatus against
Worth China.

Japan has an army of 900,000;
and in two years of warfare
could mobilize two million men
and equip them for a war last-

ing at full force not more than
three years. (This is based
the most careful analysis of Jap-
an’s ability to conduct war by
Yohan and Tanin, in their book,
“When Japan Goes to War.)
Now occupying Manchuria, por
tions of Ghahar and Jehol with a
Ghinese population .f some 40,-

000,000 to 50,000,000 hostile to
the invaders, Japan must keep
from 150,000 to 250,000 of its arm-

Chiang Kai-shek
ed effectivees there to “prevent”
the Manchurian inhabitants from

throwing off their burden in the
event of such a wat.

At the same time, the Japan-
ese have strong garrisons on the
Soviet border which they would
never withdraw for a concen-—
trated campaign against China
exclusively.

China, on the other band, can
plunge its entire armed force into
the fight for the defense of its
national integrity. And China's
armies have been developing,
training, unifying for just such
an occasion. China has one of

the world’s greatest military
forces at its disposal—the Red
Army of China. To defend

Ghina’s integrity, the Red Army
alone could offer Chiang Kaisek

Writers Meet In

By TED ALLEN
Federated Press
MADRID:
HEWN the International
Writers’ Congress last
year accepted the invitation
of Spanish writers to hold
the next congress in Spain,
they didn’t know there
would be a war. When after
the reyolt broke out the invitation
was renewed and again accepted,
many ‘people said {the writers
would never be able to meet in
Madrid in July.

But as Malcolm Cowley, an
editor of The New Republic and
one of the American delegates,
told Federated Press the other day:

‘We are here.”

The congress assembled in Ma-
drid after meeting for two days in
Valencia. Seventy writers from 20
countries were present. Names
like Malraux, Nexo, Renn, Kolt-
zov, ‘Tolstoi, Bates, Eihrenbursg,
Moussinac, Spender and Benda tes-
tify to the success of the oecasion.

The highlight of one of the ses-
sions came when, toward the close,
some soldiers marched into _the

Film Is

By JOHN R. CHAPLIN
HOLLYWOOD.

ITH 'the cinema discov-

ering a new film which
is one of the highest artistic
milestones of its develop-
ment, the world-wide move-
ment to defend Spanish de-
mocracy gained new impetus
with the first public showing of
Spanish Earth, produced in Madrid
by famed Duteh Girector Joris
Tvens, with a running comment-
ary by novelist Emest Heming-
Waye

After brief snatches of the film
had been shown at recent Wrt-
ers’ Congress in New York, first
showing of the completed work
was at the White House, for Presi-
dent and Mrs. Rooseevlt and half
a dozen guests. It served as sub-
ject matter for one of Mrs. Roose-

velt’S most interesting newspaper
columns.
Then Hemingway and MIvens

brought the film to Hollywood for
its premiere. It was shown on
three successive days: first, to a
select preview audience at the
swank Hotel Ambassador, includ-
ing the press and 100-odd celebri-
ties who paid $5 each to see it
Press comment was uniformly en-
fhusiastic, with top review stating
that Spanish Earth was considered
by Hollywood's experts as the
ereatest film made since the great
Russian masterpieces of a decade
ago.

Next night it was shown at the
home of the Fredric Marches to
about 20 people, including the
Robert Montgomerys, Ermst Lu-
bitsches and others of the same
group. This private showing net-
ted $14,000, contributed to buy i4

Salamanca cinema, where the con-
gress was being held, and shouted:
“we have taken Brunete?”’

The writers shouted themselves
hoarse with enthusiasm. Many
writers were present in uniform,
on leave from fighting in the gov-
ernment ranks. Stephen Spender,
speaking in the name of the
British delegates, said:

“Flow impossible for us who rep-
resent England here in Madrid,
which is the tomb of Fascism, to
forget our comrades, those writers
and Internationals for whom the
Madrid front is also a tomb—Ralph
Fox, Christopher St. John Spriggs,
John Cornford. They are the na-
tural leaders of our movement to
support Spanish democracy.”

Cowley, speaking to the Fed-
erated Press correspondent after
the session, said: ‘‘The congress is
an expression of solidarity by all
writers to the Spanish sgovern-
ment. We are convinced that the
Spaniards are fighting our fight. I
think it is safe to say that writers
in general feel that unless Franco
is beaten in Spain, similar forces
are likely to win in other coun-
tries. Our congress is 2 manifes-
tation of sympathy and also a

ailed

ambulances for the Spanish loy-
alists.

Next night, the public
premiere took place, playing to a
in Los Angeles’
Auditorium,

at last,

capacity house
huge Philharmonic
twice as many being tumed away
An audience including
Adolphe Menjou, Sylvia Sidney,
Lionel Stander, Nancy Carroll,
Boris Karloff and many more film
people, paid $1000 in admissions
and $2500 more in a collection fol-
lowing a moying address by Ernest
Hemingway. Altogether, the three
showings netted close to $20,000,
with an estimated 10,000 Angelenos
having tried unsuccessfully to see
the film. This vast interest au-
eurs well for the commercial show-
ings which will doubtless follow
shortly.

as got in.

The filny itself is a true master-
piece. It tells, in the simplest and
most effective manner, the tale of
the building.of an irrigation SYS-
tem at the village of Fuenteduena,
25 miles behind the Madrid front,
to multiply tenfold the village’s
wheat crop in order to supply food
for Madrid’s valiant defenders.
The entire project has been real-
jzezd within the year Since the out-
break of hostilities.

Bvery Shot in the film is an ac-
tual scene in loyalist trenches or
behind the lines during the war-
fare: some is gruesome, some beau-
tiful. All the actors are people
simply photographed during their
day's work, of fighting or runnins
the country. During the filming
of the picture, Ivens estimates
that 40 per cent of the actors”
were killed by rebel fire, with no
one knows how many more slaugh-
tered since then.

250,000 of the bravest fighters in
China’s history. The Red Army
is the veteran of ten years of
successful fighting agaimst sSu-
perior forces.

*

Boeke military specialists
= in China have been amazed at
the quick growth of the technique
and fighting capacity of the Chin-
ese army.

The Wanking government for
the first time in Chinese history
could command all armed men
in China. Besides, its fighting
reserves are the largest in the
world. Today, without any spe-
cial war mobilization, China has
the following armed men at its
command, according to 4 survey
by Haldere Hanson, a military
observer:

Number

Armies of men
Central Government

troops (Kiangsu, An-

whei, Chelkiang, Ki-

angsL Fubien, Kywan-

tung, Hunan, Kupeh,

Under Han Fu-chu
(Shantung) .......-- 53,560
Under Sung Cheh-yuan

(Hopei-Chahar) ..... 61,300
WNorthwestern troops
(Shensi-Anbhywei) 119,500
Under Yang Hu-Cheng
(Shensi) ....-....--- 31,000
Mohammedan troops
(Kansu, Ninghsia,
Chingahi) ......-.... 40,000
Red Army .......------ 100,000

(Actually the Red
Army could immedi-
ately put 250,000 men
in the field.)
Liu Hsiang (Szechwan) 131,000

Wunnan .-...-.-.------ 21,900
Li Tsung-jen. (Kywanegsi) 54,000
Totalernes eee ee 1,762,500

The above does not take ac-—
count of the guerilla troops now
fighting the Japanese in Man-
churia, or the veritable millions
of volunteers (students, work-
ers, merchants, collies, peasants,
even big business men and land-

lords) who as Ghinese would
spring to the defense of their
country.

We are witnessing a nation
growing strong, girding itself to
fight to forestall the fate of an
EXthiopia.

Madrid

token of admiration for the wurit-
ers of Spain, nine-tenths of whom
are on the loyalist side and many
of whom have been killed fighting
in the trenches. We hope that out
of this congress a clearer concep-

dion of the writers role in the
world of today will arise.”
Other delegates gave similar

views. In all, there was 2 wonder-
ful enthusiasm on the part of
these writers, who saw a people
fighting for independence in a
manner no noyel or romance has
eyer depicted.

Another highlight of the writers’
meeting took place when after the
jJast course of the congress ban-
quet had been finished, the Pas-
cists obliged by unleashing a ter-
rific shelilne of the city. The writ-
ers got another good taste of war
as, at the same time, a shell hit a
pbuilding in the Puerta del Sol, two
blocks away from the banqueting,
causing it to burst into huge
flames.

The congress over, the dele-
gates will have enough to write
about. Theirs was the opportuni-
ty of being in Madrid during what
most people think are the most de-
cisive moments in the city’s his-
tory.

As Epic

THE WISE

and

THE FOOLISH

‘We denand that we rule the
world. The only instrument with
which one ean conduct foreign
policy is alone and exclusively
the sword.’—Nazi Propaganda
Minister Goebbels.

‘With our constant conces-
sions to Fascist dictators, we
have encouraged them to threat-
en the peace of the world and
the security of France more
openly than ever before.’’—AL-
bert Bayet in L’Qeuvre, Paris.

‘Does it take a foreign agita-
tor to arouse Americans who
struck against having to g0
months without a bath?”—S. K
Davis, editor, Dhe Timber Work-
er, in radio talk on vigilante ter-
ror against Michigan timber
strike.

“Qne test of a country’s de-
mocracy is the independence and
vigor of its trade union move-
ment. Any efforts to employ
Fascist techniques of limiting or
destroying unionism will be bit-
terly opposed by those who re-
alize the great contributions of
erganized labor to American
life’’—Prof. Colston E. Warne,
Amherst College.

“Qnce we get the trades and
labor councils and the unions
politically minded and united in
a labor party we will go places.”
—Ald. Alfred Batters, Fort Wil-
liam, Ont.

hi e SHORT

JABS

CSO®

By
OL’ BILL

Class Hatred 4 question was

= put up to me &
Dies Hard. few days ago re-

garding the smoking out of class
enemies of the workers in the So-
viet Union, Trotskyist and others,
that required an explanation of
the depth to which class-con-
sciousness becomes ingrained in
ruling classes through the enjoy-
ment of privileges denied to other
members of society.

“Why, a was asked, “if condi-
tions are so good in the Soviet
Union are sO many being shot
for trying to upset the govern-
ment?” The answer is very sim-
ple. The capitalist class is not
entirely eliminated; “vestigal re-
mains” of that class still exist in
the Workers’ Republic as the ver—-
mIniform appendix does in the hu-
man body.

The individuals who represent
these vestiges, who long for ‘the
good old days,” as the Israelites
longed for the flesh-pots of
Egypt, are made the means by
which the capitalist class as @
whole work their evil will in the
Soviet Union; the result is “‘Ss0-
cial appendicitis.” Fortunately the
Soviet workers have a good sur-
geon in the Communist party!

When decaying classes are 0B
the losing end of the struggle, the
individual members who are
strongly impregnated with class-
feeling become more inveterate
in their hatred of the social order
that is supplanting them, a hatred
that dies out only with the ex-
tinction of their class.

During the days of War Cum-
munism,) open markets still ob-
tained in Moscow. In these street
markets, stood men and women
who represented the system that
was being crushed to earth, They
offered for sale, sugar or other
commodities, of which they had
most meager quantities. They
were not making a living by the
sale of these goods because RoO-
body bought them; they had other
-ways of living. This peddling was
a gesture to show that they de-
fied the working-class; that they
were not yet dead; that they were
still a factor to be reckoned with
and a Challenge indicating that
they hoped some day to return te
power.

The same attitude was adopted
by other classes that lived by ex-
ploitation. I remember of a Ger-
man baron who visited British
Golumbia once, Although capital-
ism had given to his caste, great-
er power and a wider, fuller life,
he regretted, longed for in fact,

fhe lost rights which his tribe
enjoyed as a feudal aristocracy,
one of which—the right of the
first night—he was particularly
sore at the loss of.

It is the same in the Soviet
Union. Those elements that be-
long with the ‘old order” still
hanker for the “rights” of which
they have been dispossessed; they
still want to lord it over a class
that will keep them in idleness.
It means nothing to them any
more than it did to the German
paron that progressive social
change has increased the well-
being of the whole mass, they
are still capitalists, still class-
conscious and their class desires
come first with them.

* > *

The murder of Pro-
ree fessor Carlo Ros

+ selli, the organizer
of the Garibaldi Battallion’ of the
International Brigade, and his
brother Nello, raises the question
of one of the principal weapons
of Fascism—assassination.

Professor Rosselli was in
France, on leave from the Gari-
baldi Battalion. He took part in
the Brihuega battle in which the
Loyalist forces, led by the brave
liberty-loving Ttalians, inflicted
such a crushing defeat on the
hell’s broth of mongrel, criminal
adventurers in the hire of inter
national Fascism.

The inglorious role in that battle
played by Mussolini’s fascist pri-
gade called for revenge and sincs
it could not be inflicted on the
field of battle it had to be at-
complished by assassination. So
Rosselli was stabbed to death by
five thugs, thought by the Paris
police te be members of the OV.
R.A., the Italian Secret Police.

Assassination is not a new
weapon for Mussolini. When the
Fascists first came to power in
tlaly, the lead in the fight against
them in the Italian Chamber was
taken by the Socialist Matteott.
As every democratic right was
wiped out by the Wascists, Matte-
otis voice became louder till it
was being heard throughout the
world.

To silence that voice became the
first business of the whole fascist
leadership. Matteoti was kid-
napped; taken out into the woods
and stabbed many times with @
file. The outcry that followed
compelled an investigation to be
made that proved Mussolini to
have been personally implicated
in the plan for the murder.

One of the gangsters was &t-
rested, and sentenced to eight
months in prison, which he never
served; but later when he fell foul
of Mussolini and made some iD=
sulting remarks about that
scourge of the Italian people he
got twenty years, which he will
serve. :

The murder of Professor Ros:
selli is another proof of the jengeth
to which the ruling class will g¢
to prevent human progress if i
means any restriction of theil
elass privileges.