Page Four

THE ADVOCATE

September

THE ADVOCATE

(formerly The Peopie’s Advocate)
Published Weekly by the Advocate Publishing As-
sociation, Room 20, 163 West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019.
Editor: Hal Griffin
Three Months -... —$ .60
Single Copy -—-——-$ -05
Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B. C., Friday, September 8, 1939

Destroy N avai
With Help Of
German People

RIME MINISTER CHAMBERLAIN de-
elares that “responsibility of this terrible
eatastrophe lies on the shoulders of one man
-—the German chancellor. He has not hesi-
tated to plunge the world into misery in order
to serve his own senseless ambitions.”

Chamberlain also had his ambitions. Now,
he says, “everything I had worked for, hoped
for, believed in has crashed into ruins.”

The great nations of the world, with the ex-
ception of the United States and the Soviet
Union, are at war.

Whose is the terrible responsibility?

Commenting editorially on ex-president
Hoover's statement “that the situation which
has developed is not the fault of the German
people, but has developed from the actions of
a group which holds the German people in
subjugation,’ the Vancouver Province also
asks this question. It answers it in this
fashion:

“Wir. Hoover is correct only in a very super-
ficial way .. . The German people may regret
the situation which has developed, but they
cannot escape responsibility for it.”

The Province itself is not even superficially
correct. The German people did not want
fascism. Indeed, the great majority of Ger-

mans repudiated it at the polls. When Hitler -

seized power the Nazis were fast losing what
influence they had gained over the people.

Responsibility must lie equally on the Nazis
and those who enabled their hateful- regime
to come to power—on those who financed
the Nazi regime and assisted it to construct
the tremendous military machine now turned
against the democracies; on those who failed
to halt Nazi aggression when it could have
been halted.

Wo longer can we speak of halting fascist
ageression. Today the task before the demo-

eratic peoples of the world is the utter de-
struction of Hitler fascism. Not the overthrow
of Hitler and his immediate co-murderers to

be replaced by others of more ‘moderate’ view,
but the complete annihilation of thessystem
which holds the German people in thrall.

The Province might reflect on the words of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said:

‘We have no feelings of enmity toward the”

German people. Rather, we have a feeling of
sympathy. Their minds have been bemused
by what can only be called unscrupulous
propaganda and we believe that in their hearts
they long for peace as truly as ourselves.”

The Province does no service to democracy
when it falsely represents the character of
Nazism. “The Nazi hand was not heavy at
first and there was a certain spiritual uplift
in the Nazi ideology,” is says. For the work-
ing-class this so-called ‘spiritual uplift’ was
the smashing of their organizations, the mur-
der of their leaders, the abolition of their
every right and liberty.

Despite all the terror, the

conscious section of the German working-

politically

class has not ceased to’ struggle against the

Hitler regime. Today it, and the increasing

number of the German people, are deter-

mined, as the Canadian people are determined,

to achieve the destruction of fascism.

Truth Must Not Be Casualty

HEN President Roosevelt addressed the
American people last Sunday he de-
elared:

“T hope that the people of this country will
discriminate most carefully between news and
rumor. Do not believe, of necessity, every-
thing you hear or read. Check up on it first.”

That is sound advice for Canadians, too.

Tyrants and oppressors fear truth above all.
For listening to a foreign radio station a citi-
zen in Nazi Germany is liable to long impri-
sonment. For talking with fellow citizens
about what he heard the possible punishment
is death. All labor organizations were sup-
pressed within a few months after the Nazis
seized the reins of government. No paper or
pamphlet or radio speech may be made unless
it is concocted and approved by Dr. Goebbels
ministry of propaganda.

In Canada things are different. The Cana-
dian people wish them to remain different.

Truth shall not be the first casualty in this
war—not in Canada.

SO WE AREF AF WAR?

World History Reaches A Turning Point

O WE are at war.

The nervous tension of
the last two weeks reached its
climax when Prime Minister
Chamberlain spoke to the
Empire from his study at 2:15
am on Sunday morning.

“Everything I had worked for,
hoped for, believed in, has crash-

ed into ruins,” he told us-
So we are at war.

VERY thoughful person real-

izes that we are at.a turning
point in world history. As always
at such abrupt turns to many the
road ahead seems dark and haz-
ardous. The old world is break-—
ing under our feet but the new
is not yet eclese enough for us to
step onto it.

Particularly for those who have
lived unconscious of world prob-
lems and relationships there is a
feeling of uncertainty, of having
been launched on a strange, un-—
charted sea, without maps or a
compass, being whipped by the.
winds of passion and rumor, to
unknown shores. Many believe

that mighty world forces, beyond

human control, have been releas-
ed upon humanity in a hurricane
of blind devastation.

Wet there is no heed to feel
helpless. Our fate is always in
our own hands. To consciously
shape the future we must un-
derstand the past and the pres-—-
ent. If we are to make the
world safe from fascism we
must rot go into this war blind-
folded or with one arm tied
behind our backs. We must
know the nature and the meth-
ods of the fascist beast, why
and how it has gotten as far as
it has, what are its weakest
points, the points at which the
heaviest blows should be direct-
ed.

I REMEMBER a public meeting
which IT had addressed in Sep-
tember a year ago at the height of
the Czechoslovak crisis. I ex
plained the attitude of the Com-
munist party, I advocated that
Britain and France should stand
by Czechoslovakia as the Soviet
Union had offered te do, I insist
ed that the Nazi war lords would
retreat before such a united op
position, that even if they were
So Madly desperate as to launch
a war their rapid defeat against
such an alliance was certain,
while = the Munich agreement
would not assure peace but only
delay a war in order to make it
more destructive and more costly
for the Canadian people.

After I had spoken, among the
questions Tf received was one that
struck me forcibly as typical of
the mistaken ideas of many
people at that time. I was asked:

“Ts not Communist opposition
to the Munich agreement due to
your anxiety to defend the Soviet
‘Union rather than to desire to
maintain peace for our own
people?” a

I decided that this question
merited a more extensive reply
and in an article entitled “The
Munich Betrayal” published in
November, 1938, I attempted to
provide for it.

e

T DHIS time I wrote:
“The workers of all coun-
tries have always shown the keen-
est feelings of solidarity with the

~ peoples of the Soviet Union, who

for the first time in history have
succeeded in establishing a social-
ist society. The Soviet Union
proves the possibility of a world

By WILLIAM RIGBY

without exploitation of man by
man, without economic crises or
unemployment or war, a world
without mational oppression, a
world of uninterrupted increase
in the prosperity and well-being
of all the people.

When the country in which this
world was being born was sub-
jected between 1918-21 to attacks
on all sides by imperialist armies
of intervention, mutinies in the
imperialist armies and navies and
ereat strike movements against
the shipment of arms and muni—
tions to these armies of invasion
Played a great part in bringing
the wars of intervention to a
close. That was 20 years ago.”

“Today the situation is entirely
different. The Soviet Union is
well able to defend its frontiers
alone against any and all possibie
eombinations of aggressors. Any
one who doubts this should ask
the generals of Nippon for con-
firmation.”’

“It is not the people of the
Soviet Union who have fallen
under the heel of fascism but
the working people of Austria,
of Czechoslovakia, ef Germany
and italy; and it is the people
of Britain, France and of the
American continent whose Lb-
erties are more immediately
threatened by fascist aggression
than the people of the Soviet
Union.”

“The people of the Soviet Union
have the best possible defense
against fascist plans of conquest.
They have a society in which the
exploiting classes who would de-
stroy their country for the sake
of their class interests have been
eliminated and they have proven
moreover that they Know how to
deal with all who would conspire
to restore capitalism.”’ =

“We on the other hand have our
exploiters and our traitors still
with us and in the places of pow-
er.”

“When the Japanese imperial-—
ists were allowed to take Man-
ehuria, Sir John Simon, who gave
them his blessing at Geneva, un-
doubtedly hoped that they would
then proceed to conquer Siberia.
So Chamberlain hopes that the
Hitler war machine will now turn
towards the Ukraine. But Hitler
is no more obliged to fulfill Cham-
berlain’s hopes than were the Jap-
anese militarists.

“Fascism always looks for.
what it considers easy prey and
the Soviet Union does not fall
into that category.

“Amone the first effects of the
betrayal of Chamberlain and Dal-
adier are the threat of industrial
conscription for the workers in
Fingland and the use of armed
troops to break a workers’ strike
in France.

“Fascist aggression could have
been stopped without war by a
firm stand. Chamberlain’s be-
trayal has strenethened the fasc-
ist aggressors and has increased
booty.

“A united international working
class needs to fight for the estab-
lishment of a firm alliance with
the great Soviet people above all
to protect its own interests and
to prevent the fate of he people
of Czechoslovakia and Austria
becoming the fate of the peoples
of other democratic countries.”

VERYONE knows that the

Chamberlain government did
not sign a pact with the Soviet
Union. After innumerable public
warnings from Soviet sources and
from liberal, labor, communist,
and even conservative public fig-
ures in Great Britain (see for ex-
ample Sir Charles Trevelyan’s

warning on page three of this is—
issue) the Soviet government, find-
ing it impossible to get the Bri-
tish and French governments to
establish a system of collective
security, decided to look after her
own borders first. She therefore
Signed a non-ageression pact with
Germany and just as additional
insurance strengthened the garri-
sens on her western borders.

Former Prime Minister Lloyd
George is reported in the Man-
chester Guardian as saying that
the Chamberlain goyvernment’s
“handling of the Russian situa-
tion was provocative and incred-
ibly foolish.”

So we are at war.

N THE “Federationist” dated
August 31, Herbert Gargrave,
provincial secretary of the CCF,
states that the Communist party
“gives expression to the interna-
tional or foreign policy of Rus-
sia.” How like the viewpoint of
my questioner a year ago during
the Munich crisig- How easy it
would be to score debating points,
to ask whose analysis of the real-
ities of the present situation as it
developed over the last years has
shown most foresight, most real-
istic appraisal! But this is hardly
the time.

For we are at war. And now
more than ever the utmost degree
of co-operation and unity is essen-
tial in the labor movement.

Grave times lie ahead full of
new criseS and sudden develop-
ments, new issues.

[2s impossible immediately to
foresee all the contingencies
that may arise. As this is being
written the Canadian government
has not yet presented to parlia-
ment its proposals.

There are already signs of ris-
ing prices, fears of profiteering
at the expense of the people, hints
of conscription of man-power, Ssi-
multaneous prophecies of increas-
ed unemployment and a tempor-
ary industrial boom, discussion
about whether -there will be an
expeditionary force for service in
europe.

The spirit and instincts of our
people are sound. They hate
fascism, they want to see an end
to its conquests, they have no
hatred for the German people,
they feel that this war might have
been prevented if the British and
French governments had not sac-
rificed Czechoslovakia a year
ago and they justifiably doubt
that blind confidence in Prime
Minister Chamberlain is the best
way of helping to defeat fascism.
They know from the experience
ef 1914-1918 what exactly a great
War means. Most people tend in-
deed to see every new situation in
terms of a past experience and
in assessing the likely effects of
the war on Canada they think
first of those fateful years of Im-
perialist war.

Yet all sense that it is not the
same, that this war will be differ-
ent, that many startling changes
in the character of the war take
place before humanity is at peace
again.

One thing is certain — if out
of the ruins of Chamberlain’s
hopeS and beliefs a new world
that is a better world is to arise,
the working people, the labor and
progréssive movement must build
it.

A united and stronger labor
movement is the first essential
in order to defeat fascism. The
labor movement will be con-
fronted with ever bigger prob-
lems. It needs to be united,
militant and vigilant in meeting
them.

BEHIND FHE SCENES

These news despatches, written before the Nazi invasion of Poland and subsequent out-
break of war, gives a graphic picture of reaction among the German people to signing of the
Soviet-German non-aggression pact.

BERLIN—
HERE is tremendous relief
3 and satisfaction among the

millions of people living in Berlin
over the news of the Soviet-Ger-—
man non-ageression pact. Factory
workers are seizing the opportun—
ity, so long denied them, to speak
quite openly of their sympathy
with the Soviet Union and ap-
proval of its peace policy. The
idea of going to war for Hitler
was so unpopular that the new
situation has been all the more
welcomed.

Anti-fascists have already start-
ed discussions on the flagrant lies
the Nazis have doled out since
they came to power. It is pointed
out that the same Nazis who for
years have spat out venom at the
Soviet Union are now compelled
to make public recognition that it
is the greatest power in Burope
and that it has not the shadow
of a wish to make war on Ger-
many, as Hitler and his press
have been saying for six years.

Cireulatine widely, Rote Fahne,
illegal organ of the Communist
party of Germany, publishes a
long aticle exposing “Hitler’s im-—
perialist aims against Poland”
and stresses the demand for “an-
schluss” with Danzig is nothing
but a pretext and the starting
point fer aggression against Pol-
and. It urges:

“Closest alliance between the
German people and the Polish
people as well as the population
of Danzig for the saving of peace.

Freedom for the Danzig people
by the removal of the Nazi senate
and restoration of democratic
rule in Danziz. Freedom for the
German people through overthrow
of the Hitler dictatorship. Long
live the peace front of the Social-
ist Soviet Republic with all the
people’s of the world! An end to
Hitler’s war drive!”

The workers’ eyes are being
opened to the Nazi swindles prac-
ticed on them, says Rote Fahne,
and continues by enumerating the
swindles: Invasion of Prague in
violation of the Nazi boast of the
right of peoples to self-determina-—
tion; claim that their fight in
Spain and against the democra-
cies was a fight against the Co-
mintern.

VIENNA.

“Tf Witler calls on the ‘nation’
to talke up arms for Greater Ger-
many, we anti-fascists will do it,
but we shall fraternize with ail
those peoples forced into war
through fascism. As friends and
brothers of all our so-called ene-
mies’ we shall destroy fascism in

Burope.” ;
Signed by the “Anti-Pascist
Workers and Peasants of Aus-

tria,” leaflets carrying this fight-

ing call are flooding the towns
and villages of Austria.

“Hitler tyrants have implanted
themselves in our beautiful land,”
they declare, “but they will never
implant themselves on the mind
of the Austrian people.

<"DRey- have taken away the
name of Austria, but they were
not, and never will be, able to stop
an Austria existing for us... All
of us, workers, peasants, intel-
lectuals, know that our fight, our
resistance, sufferings and renun-
ciation will end in vyictory—not
only for our Sstrivings for indepen-
dence, but for the freedom of all
peoples who are enslaved today.

“Friends, it is the duty of all
anti-fascists to make every Aus-
trian aware that Hitler is the
war monger and that phrases
about German ‘vital space’ are
only meant to cover the aims of
German imperialism for -world-
domination, to get the land and
possessions of foreign peoples to
feed the insatiable greed of the
German money magnates.”

The leaflet concludes with a
call to battle: “For freedom, inde—
pendence and the right to selfde—
termination of the Austrian
people!” and adds that “Unity of
workers and peasants will give
us the force to fight and defeat
fascism all along the line.”

SHORT
JABS

by OF Biil

casi: ores

The natural and inevitable
- outcome of the program and
War! policies of Hitler and all his
friends, is here for us to judzp
today—war, devastating and more brutally terrible
than we have ever known it in history =
From the blatherings of Mein Kampf and the
actions and boastings of Hitler and his satellites ang
the encouragement they received from the Fifth
Columnists in the democratic countries, no other
conclusions could be drawn than that war would
break out sooner or later.

The london Times says there is no use indulgins ~
in useless recrimination. There never was, Nor is,

saccade

ae

a time for indulging in useless recrimination, but
if the clever editors of the Times will read through
the pages of the press they hate, the Communist

press, they will find advice and political analysis |

contained therein which would have obviated any ~
need for “useless recrimination,” which, if heeded
would have prevented war and saved Europe, inclua-
ing Germany, from the suffering and misery which ~
is now being visited upon it_ =
Chamberlain in the House of Commons told parlia-
ment that there would be no let-up until everything
that Hitlerism stands for is utterly destroyed. And
in another speech in the same place he. said that
“when this war is Over, a new order will arise in
Europe.” . ;
We must make it our business to see that these
statements are converted into fact. And if fhe
Chamberlain government does not keep these ob-
jectives in view at all times, it must be supplanted
by a government that will destroy everything that

Hitlerism stands for and bring a new order in
Hiurope. ;

The war has moved the police
Whose Ox investigation off the front
Is Gored? page Nothing much has come
of it in any case, but one or two points are interese
ing enough to be noted by the common or garden
variety of Vancouver citizen, like Ol’ Bill and those
who read this column.

Some of these have already been noted here, but
one of the most illuminating is the attitude of pillars
of society like Gen _ Clark to stool-pigeons, eupbe
mistically known as “informers” or “mvestigators,”
when they are working for the other side.

For their own part, these ultra-sood citizens are
quite willing to use these evil-smelling birds to
help them to trap their victims. The stool-pigeon
who lends his evil talents for the smashing of labor
unions and the jailing of working class leaders, is
lauded as a savior of society and suitably rewarded
for his criminal actions.

But when the stool-pigeon is played against theni
@ roar of holy indignation rends the atmosphere.
While we don’t hold with stool-pigeons at any time,
it is good to learn from this police investigation that
the staid and stolid loranorder gang doesn’t like its
own medicine. :

A correspondent writes to fell
Dead Or me that he thinks I am slip-
Alive. ping. FEmclosed in his letter
was a clipping from the Yancouver Province of
Aug. 21. The head read, “Don’t Shoot Buchalter—
He’s Insured for Million.”

The writer of the letter says he expected to see
some reference to this in the Short Jabs. He didn’t

so that is his reason for thinking I am falling down
on the job.

Buchalter, better Known as Louis Lepke, is the
gangster heir to the territories of the infamous
Dutch Schultz. Lepke was gangster King of New
York gangsterdom until a short time before the
above item appeared in the press. But when it was
published he was a fugitive from justice with a
reward of $30,000 for his capture, dead or alive.
This is the occasion of the frantic appeal of the
New York insurance companies, more than half
of whom have a stake in the million-dollar pot fer
which his life is insured. :

Since there is no honor among thieves or gang
sters, Lepke’s underworld competitors were out to
get the 30,000 bones. A bullet placed nicely in the
medulla oblongata, disconnecting the brain from
the spine, would make him easier to handle and the

reward more certain. But it would cost the insur
ance racketeers a million. :

So they are worried. They want the police to
capture Lepke, rather than his gangster friends—
but alive, not dead They still think of their million.

So also we may estimate the social ethical] stan-
dards of the financial wizards of the insurance
Same, to give it a polite name. The wiping out of =
gangster terrorist who has robbed and despoiled the

- people of New York for a decade, must take second

place to their profits.

They would rather that Lepke should live to 2
ripe old age, a criminal parasite sucking the lit@=
blood of the New York people, than that he should
be mowed down now, even by a policeman’s bullet

and an end put to his plundering of the people of
New York.

Their money is their first consideration, not the
welfare of the people of the Empire State.

(Later news item: To save himself from the bul-
lets of his gangster compatriots, Lepke has surren-
dered to the police. There is joy in the offices of the
Big Four and the lesser lights of the insurance
world.) : ae

It is a trenchant commentary
Cultural on our modern civilization
Note. that a radio listener should

switch off Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to listen
to the latest flash from London, Paris, Warsaw, oF
Berlin

The press reported that #
Why The wave of horror spread over
Horror Now? — the world when the news of
the torpedoing of the Athenia without warning was
made known. oF = as

Do these horrified people not know that this is -
only a continuation of the piracy which prevailed.
around the Spanish coast when the brave Spanish
people were engaged in their death-struggle with
fascsim? Do the British pressmen not Know that
nearly 100 British umarmed merchant vessels were
attacked in the Mediterranean and that several hun=
dred British seamen lost their lives through these
piratical attacks and that ships and seamen of other
nationalities suffered the same fate? Do the British
pressmen and politicians ever learn anything from
history? And should they not rather expect piracy
to be the naval tactics of the Nazis at the start of
the war against fascism, in spite of, or rather be
cause of, the lying statements of Hitler? S<

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