Page Two THE PEOQPLE’S ADVOCATE October 28, 1938 Karl Kautsky ( ] By Bill Bennett DMORAe JABS ARL KAUTSKY, doyen and theoretical leader for a gener- A ation of one wing of the world labor movement, the self- Weekly styled Marxist section of the German Social Democratic Party, died in Amsterdam on October 16, at the advanced age of 384. Commentary News of his death left us cold, or rather with the wish that it THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing Association, Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC. Phone Trinity 2019. One: Year =. = $2.00 Three Months Half: Year $1.00 Single Copy -...-- 3 .05 Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate Vancouver, B.C., Friday, October 28, 1938 K Aid For The Municipalities ‘|b financial plight of Surrey Municipal Council, which finds itself $40,000 in debt to the Bank of Montreal, is typical of the majority of British Columbia municipalities. During the past few years the situation has gone steadily from bad to worse. Income from taxes has decreased as farm- ers found no profitable market for their products, while social service costs, which, properly speaking, should not have been borne by the municipalities at all, have increased alarmingly. Both federal and provincial governments have thrust the re- sponsibility they shirked upon the hard-pressed municipalities. The result is evident in the financial plight of many muni- cipalities today. Education and other important social services have suffered as a result. In Surrey, the schools are so overcrowded that children are now housed in hired halls. Essential drainage and dyking projects have suffered. What is to be done? Surrey council has curtailed its road work in order to cut costs. It was either that, or mortgage next year’s taxes by going further in debt to the bank. It is obvious that representations now being made to the provincial government for a new deal must receive serious consideration. The Pattullo government must live up to the demand of its provincial convention and relieve the municipalities of some of their financial burdens. Amend Bili 94 Wa the powerful oil companies are waging an open fight against the provincial government’s decision to en- force lower gas prices, other big business interests in this prov- ince are bringing pressure to bear on the government to defeat proposed progressive measures and prevent repeal of existing reactionary legislation. Chief among measures the people of BC want to see re- pealed is Bill 94, known as the Labor Conciliation and Arbitra- tion Act. This was the mockery of a trade union act the gov- ernment brought in at the last session as the sum total of its efforts on behalf of organized labor. Only the opposition of the entire trade union movement and a revolt in the Liberal caucus prevented passage of the bill as originally drafted in even more vicious form. The Labor Conciliation and Arbitration Act serves the in- terests of the big employers of labor at whose behest it was enacted. Those clauses beneficial to organized labor have been rendered worthless to the trade union movement by the in- terpretation placed upon them by the government. Even Hon. G. S. Pearson, sponsor of the Act, admits a hundred lawyers had occurred forty-five years ago. Heir to the mantle of Engels in in carrying on the revolutionary work of Marx, Kautsky chose to divert the movement from the channel in which it had been guided by these great leaders. After distorting their works he, with the Revisionists, built up a great mass movement which he turned over to the Kaiser’s re- eruiting sergeants in 1914. He sent the German Social Demo- erats to save the Patherland, each “With a copy of the Erfurt Pro- gram in his knapsack,” as Clara Zetikxin said later. Kautsky will be remembered, if he is remembered at all, for the deletion of everything vital in the works of Marx and Fngels. He eoncealed a great part of their writings. He distorted the intro- duction written by Engels ini1894, to Marx’s “Class Struggles in France.” He made Engels appear to be little better than a Fabian socialist philistine, a breed Engels hated like sin. For this repre- hensible piece of work he earned the dying curses of Engels, but he gave to the German Social Democratic Party, a program of “egalism’ which has brought about the Wazi barbarism that Central Hurope welters in today. e TS Kautsky was a conscious betrayer of the revolution may be seen from his works. He led the struggle against Bernstein and Revisionism which would have cut out the revolutionary -phaseology as well as the revolu- tionary content of Marxism. He gained a reputation as a leftist but was really only a centrist, for he kept the revolutionary phrase- ology but excised the revolution- ary content. He came to be lkmown as the greatest Marxian scholar and theoretician of the days before the war. He was the author of the pro- gram of the German Social De- mocratic Party adopted at the Hirfurt Congress, sold in America under the title of “The Class Struggle.’ In his book ‘“‘Commun- ism in Central Purope in the Middle Ages,” he finishes the first chapter with the decisive words, “The dictatorship of the prole- tariat is the only weapon of the working class.” He defended the Russian Revolution of 1905. r) UT when the issues joined closely and the workers took contro] in October, 1917, and set up their own Soviet government, Kautsky denounced both the Rus- Sian Revolution and the dictator-— Ship of the proletariat. When the energies of all revolutionaries were needed to consolidate the Marx’s early estimate of him was proved correct by these later events. In April, 1881, Marx, in a letter to his daughter Jenny, writes of Kautsky: “When this charmer first appeared at my place—T mean littl Kauz—the first question which escaped me was: are you like your mother? Not in the very least, he assured me, and [I silently congratulated his mother. He is a mediocrity, with a small-minded outlook, super—wise (26), very conceited, 1n- dustrious in a certain sort of way; he busies himself a lot witn statistics but does not read any-— thing very clever out of them; belongs by nature to the tribe of the philistines but is otherwise a decent fellow in his own way. T turn him over to friend Engels as much as possible.”’ S A RESULT of his betrayal of Marxism and the revolutionary movement, when Hitler seized power he had to flee from Ger- many where he had been a mem- ber of the Ebert-Scheidemann gov- ernment. He took refuge in Vienna among the socialists of his own brand, the Austro-—Marxists, led by Otto Bauer. Again fascism drove him out and he sought asyium in Prague, his native city. The spread of Nazi domination into Czechoslo- vakia compelled him again to find a safe haven in Amsterdam. And here he died, close upon the heels of that other distorter of revolu- tionary Marxism, Otto Bauer. He built for fascism and it rent him. Hyverythinge he contended for fell about his ears, stage after stage. Wis latter days were a symbol of the fallacy of his poli- ‘ling moralizer than BGC. By Ol’ Bill \ The Cobbler JUdees lke 7 other members To His Last! of the com- munity, are paid for rendering a certain, definite service in return for the money they receive, just like plumbers, garbage-collectors and hang-men. These latter cate- gories, however, generally keep to their own jobs. We seldom hear, for instance, of the plumber offer- ing to tune his client’s piano or the garbageman undertaking to pilot am ocean liner in from Fliat- tery- With judges it is different. They are paid to administer the law, but as often as not they go beyond their province to inflict on their unfortunate victims, who are not permitted to answer them, preju- diced and unwarranted opinions that thave little or no connection with the law in the case under discussion. it would be hard to believe that any spot on this earth was more cursed with this brand of snivel- Drawn largely from backwoods farms, trained in the law, on the sweat of the old man’s brow, as an easier and more dignified way of life than taming the jungie, embarked on the sea of politics, they fail colossally and, to save their par- ties, are honored by “elevation to the bench” to become ornaments of society. . JOIN OL’ BILL’S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE! o: One of these A Decision ‘ornaments’ put Reversed more than ‘his foot in it in the Supreme Court last week Mr. Justice Manson, commenting, in a plea for disso- lution of marriage, said of the young man in the case: “I suppose he never saw the imside of a ehurch in his life. His parents probably ought to be in jail... ~ can’t understand what kind of an environment he had at home. It must have been terrible” Ter- rible! Bolsheviks, perhaps, but undoubtedly an outfit that was undermining the foundations of society! Two days later Mr. Justice Man- son was eating crow in the same court. He continued his moraliz— ing, in part as follows: “Since making that comment, I have rec-— ognized the home from which he came, and fT just wanted to tell —— cannot win. So seandalous are the kangaroo methods of these po- lice courts, whether city, county or provincial, that a London sti- pendiary magistrate, F. O. Lans-— ley, is now advocating the aboli- tion of the name “police courts’’ applied to these “ubiguitous tri- bunals’’ as he calls them. This past week in Vancouver we had a demonstration of the type of justice dispensed by police court magistrates from their sup— ra-human positions. Last week in this column we referred to the death of a little Chinese boy, brought about by starvation im-= posed on him and his family by the city council and the provin- Cial and dominion governments. This week his father was hailed before the beak (go00d name) charged with neglecting the child. A frail little woman attempted to secure some sort of justice for the poor Chinese. She put up a2 good fight trying to convince the callous wretch on the bench that the man’s family were starving and that he had no opportunity to call for medical aid since he had no money to pay a doctor. Only a couple of sentences were allowed ther. “You've had your Say, now sit down,’ she was told by “hizzoner.” What these so- called magistrates lack in sense of justice and knowledge of law is balanced by their ability te browbeat those who dare to op- pose them. Comment from the bench, “I cannot imagine any per- son allowing even a dog to live in such filth.” For a crime of the rulers of society the poor, starv— ing Chinese was sent to prison for three months with hard labor. JOIN OL’ BILL’sS INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE! About the same time . the press carried a Life. story about a ‘charm-— ing, intelligent young woman,’ wife of a banker, who travelled 3500 miles across the continent to meet the Empress of Asia which was bringing her a couple of pooches from Chine, one of which was priced at one dollar. A Dog’s Wow, I like dogs; I like them better than judges. They are more intelligent. They are more human (save the mark). I Know this from personal experience, and I am sure many of my readers do : pee eS 7 woe GEEeae 2 gains of October, he engaged im cies. Those who heeded him, vou it 1s one jel the ioe oes oe ge ken ee eee could interpret it a hundred different ways. a polemic with Lenin on the dic- took him for their leader, are im) Vencouver, 1 beppen © know strate or a Supreme Court judge The government’s reluctance to amend the Act is reflected tatership of the proletariat in Jiving in slavery in the worst the parents, church-going, sweet, in the excuse that the Act has not been in operation long enough to show its effectiveness. This is the voice of big busi- ness speaking, for the big employers of labor have found that the Act is of great assistance to them in their efforts to defeat trade union organization. The Act has been revealed in all its wiciousness in the strike at Blubber Bay. Vancouver Trades and Labor Council has unanimously adopted certain proposed amendments that, if accepted, will eorrect the reactionary Clauses in the Act and render it of value to organized labor. But it is also clear that the big interests will do everything in their power to defeat these amendments and that only united support by all progressive organizations and the trade unions will force the government to take action at this session. The Civic Election ANCOUVER approaches the 1938 civic elections with more than the usual showing of interest. Ordinarily this could be explained by the presence of a con- test for the mayoralty chair this year. A vacancy in the mayor's seat. even though labor may not be directly engaged in the election, usually promises a hotly contested fight. This year, however, interest is developing from several new angles, notably on the issue of electing a majority of progres- sives to the city administration and the resultant effect such a victory would have in making possible civic reform on a broad scale. se need for a clean-up at City Hall is no longer news. It?s apparent among all sections of the small taxpayers and which he was soundly drubbed. Me developed a false concept of imperialism growing gradually into the socialist commonwealth about which he had written in the Erfurt Program. As the hign priest of Gentrism he became the champion of the struggle against Marxism-Leninism. form in which it has ever struck this earth. But those who fol- lowed the revolutionary line of Marx, Engels and Lenin are build- ing a better world and are today theleaders in the fight against the fascism that has been made possible by Kautskys betrayal of Marxism. The Railway Question By Sam Shearer NCE AGAIN railway workers feel the heavy hand of un- certainty, with its threat of loss of employment and short time. After what we all considered a good season, with wheat and other traffic better than in many years, the present “shut- down’ of three weeks came as a rude shock. For many years railway work- ers have been bearing the brunt of the depression. Many do not know what it is to have steady work. As far back as 1933, our committees were fighting to pro- eure more working time for our men. What was the ccmpanies’ excuse then? Traffic conditions, it was said, necessitated either a reduction in staff or a reduction in time. Employees, desiring to aid junior men, took short time, 12 days a month. Yet staifs have been reduced over a period of years by 62,187 employees. In 1929 there were 187,487 men working on the railways of Can- ada. In 1933, as a result of the Duff Commission’s recommenda- that the railways are insolvent and that only through amsaiga— mation can they meet their obli- gations. This is held as a threat of railway work- time they ask for wage and better working con- . But what is the true pic- over the he ers every Interest on CPR bonds amounts to approximately $24,000,000 per annum, and 2 percent on prefer ence stock amounts to $2,745,000. While the present railway com- miitments of the government are stressed by the “amalgamation- ists” as being of an alarming nature and constituting a national: problem, these same people pro- pose a large new railway liability lovable parents, and it is appar— ently just a case where the boy has not been true to the upbring- ing he has had. I know no more wholesome home in which he could have been brought up.” Tt reminds us of the celebrated “Boston Burglar” about whom our Wankee friends used to sing, who was “Raised by honest parents, And raised most tenderly, But became 2 burglar At the age of twenty-three.” Tt is to be ‘hoped that this learned and honored judge will make a personal apology to the parents whom he has insulted and to the boy also who was the victim of his prejudice. If he would pay more attention to the law and less to moralizins, the Appeal Court might not have to reverse so many of his decisions. SOIN OL’ BILZ’S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE! still speaking of judg- 1 A police court is a eourt where the ac- cuser is a policeman. the prosecu— tor is a policeman and the judge policeman. The dice they throw has a Six on all sides so they cannot lose and the victim is a scratching his ear with his hind foot, I may be convinced that Tf am wrongs but not till then. But the system that provides the spectacle of an “intelligent, youns woman” spending the cost of a trip across the American Continent (1 am sure she never travelled in a side-door Pullman) to pick up a couple of dogs, even though they might be possessed ef more intelligence and have more sense of justice than a police eourt cadi, while children and women and men are allowed to die of starvation, is a rotten sys- tem. it is time to apply the axe to it, with all its policemen, magis— trates and judges for they are part of what makes it rotten. JOIN OL’ BILL'S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE! Service With Walking time = trom 45th A Smile. and Prince Albert to 41st and Knight, 12 niin- utes (easy). BG Collective time =or the same journey, Prince Aibert to Fraser, 2 minutes: Wait, 10 minutes. Car to Kingsway, 10 minutes. Wait, 7 minutes. Car to Knight Road, 3 minutes. Wait, 25 minutes. Bus to 41st. 8 minutes. Total, 62 minutes. Try it some time. 3 = i tions, staffs were reduced by for the government, as the fore- business people, in ratepayers Sroups and trade unions, an mergers, pooling and “‘coopera- going indicates. Yhe Country te-behind yous ict - : y “ : i ion” 35 ¢ is Spite It is estimated that the total 2. am : r-prog 7 nerally. It’s apparent even in the tion” to 125,300, and this despi t 2e2 jae Dreet S cae short time and “shut downs.” value of these bonds would be in- ranks of those at present in office who were sponsored by the e creased many million dollars if big business WNon-Partisan League, and who are now searching Wt has been the financial EE ie ee sue frantically for some relatively harmless issue to divert voters’ side of the picture over 4 sid $1,868,000 interest last year minds from their failure to act during the past term. It is no exaggeration to state that working and middle class voters have a real opportunity this year to have their say in the administration of the city’s affairs. But as usual that op- portunity is conditional upon the extent of unity displayed by all sroups desiring a change. Dr. A. F. Barton’s remarks to Wednesday night's nominat- ing convention, in which he warned that the task of defeating the Non-Partisan League candidates was too big a job for any single progressive group, such as the CCF, were no idle statements. The president of the Federated Ratepayers’ As- sociation spoke from considerable Knowledge of the situation in the city, and his appeal for unity and a common platform which all progressives and civic reformers could rally behind set the keynote for the success of the whole campaign. period of years? The railways have always been the “poor re- lation,’ according to the bond holders. And, in this connection, it is interesting to note that 62.99 pereent of the stock is held by persons residents in Great Britain, 17.35 percent in the US and only 12.23 percent in Canada. =o, we the railway workers, are asked to tighten our belts, deprive our families of the rights of decent Canadian citizenship, to feed a eroup of “absentee landlords.” Revenue of the railroads has had its ups and downs, but when earnings were high, the manage- ment did not ask employees to share in the good times. Only when revenues fell was there the ery for reduction in wages. The ery is heard every so often The unions must give the answer. on these “Soo” bonds and $28,000,- 000 interest on two other bond is- sues. e T IS time the railways recapi- talized their railroads, and made some arrangements where- by employees would benefit, in short instead of laying off men let them lay off interest charges. This would be a new and proper departure from the policy now being carried out. We stood together against re- duction of wages. Why don’t we adopt the same policy at this time against violation of the 40-hour week. We are again entering into a period of lay-offs and short time. What is ou rpolicy to be?