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THE ADVOCATE

Wovember 10, 1939

THE ADVOCATE .

(Formerly The People’s Advocate)

Published Weekly by the Advocate Publishing Association, Room 20
163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019

EDITOR - HAL GRIFFIN
Qne Year 32.00 Three Months .._--__—-2 -69
Half Year $1.00 Single Copy Si eS G5

Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advecate

Vancouver, B.C., Friday, November 10, 1939

The Soviet Anniversary

5 ee ee years ago, in November 1917, the world had
entered into the fourth year of the war that was to end
all wars, the war that used to be called the Great War, the war
that historians and sociologists have termed the first im
perialist war.

Twenty-two years ago the second All-Russian Congress of
Soviets meeting in what was then Petrograd, elected a new
government headed by T.enin and amongst its first measures
directed towards establishing a socialist system of society the
Congress adopted also an appeal for peace which it addressed
to all peoples and governments. It appealed for an immediate
armistice to be followed by a conference of all belligerents.
The newly established Soviet government proposed as the most
suitable terms for peace the acceptance by all governments
concerned of the principle that there should be no annexations
of territory by any state, that no indemnities should be de-
manded of any people, that the democratic right of self-de-
fermination should be granted to all nations kept by force
within the boundaries of any empire.

This appeal for peace was ignored by the governments and
hidden from the peoples to whom it was addressed. Yet had
it been heeded the Great War would have ended not in 1918
put in 1917, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been
saved and there would have been signed a democratic peace
treaty.

Who is there now so bold as to declare that the world would
be unhappier, that the Canadian people and other peoples
would be less prosperous today if peace had been signed in
1917, if there had been no Versailles treaty, no reparations, no
¢ransfer of colonies from ‘vanquished’ to ‘victor’ states but
self-determination for all nations, no yeats of undeclared wars
of intervention against the Soviet Union that followed the
armistice of 1918?

Thirteen years ago, in 1926, there was an international dis-
armament conference in Geneva. There the delegates of the
Soviet Union proposed to all governments complete disarma-
ment or at least large-scale partial disarmament. Their pro-
posals were disdainfully rejected by the governments con-
cerned and their significance obscured from the peoples by a
servile press.

Who now will have the audacity to deny that if the pro-
posals of the Soviet Union had been accepted in 1926 our people
and all peoples would be happier, more secure, better off today?
Wow even munition-makers say, publicly at least, that drastic
disarmament is necessary - - - after the present series of wars
is over.

Eight years ago in 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria,
and ever more insistently in later years as cases of imperialist
agsression by other states multiplied, the Soviet Union pro
posed to all governments acceptance of the principles and prac-
4ice of collective security as a means of assuring peace by con-
fronting in advance any state planning war against another by
a combination that would assure the certainty of defeat.

Who can now deny that if the proposals of the Soviet Union
had been accepted, if aggression had not been condoned and
encouraged in Manchuria, Ethiopia, Austria, Spain, China
and Czechoslovakia in the apparent hope that the end product
of the process would be a war against the Soviet Union, the
world, and our own country too, would be a safer and a better
place to live in today?

ro)

IS? on the twenty-second anniversary of the first Soviet
appeal for peace to the governments and peoples of the
world, Premier Molotov in explaining the policy of the Soviet
Union in the present war has declared that “as a neutral
country the Soviet Union is not interested in the spread of
war, will take every measure to render the war less devastat-
ing, to weaken it and to hasten its termination in the interests
of peace.” Yet the same reactionary sources that on the one
hand endeavor to depict the Soviet Union as desirous of pro-
longing the present war to the mutual exhaustion and destruc-
tion of all belligerent countries are on the other hand the most
vociferous in denouncing the Soviet Union’s proposal for an
immediate armistice and a world conference to arrange con-
ditions of peace.

So when the Soviet Union proposed disarmament these
sources declared the Soviets were insincere and only bluffing
ut refused to call the bluff they proposed to believe in.

So when the Soviet Union proposed collective security they
denounced the poliey of the Soviet Union as being motivated
only by her own weakness and a desire to get the protection
of other states against her fears of Germany and Japan.

If the present policy of these spokesmen of imperialism
and reaction is followed, will it not prove equally as disastrous
for the welfare of the world and of our own people as their
past attempts to isolate and ignore the Soviet Union?

An Undemocratic Proposal

qe PEOPLE of British Columbia would be well advised
to follow carefully the revision of the Provincial Elections
Act which Premier Pattullo has announced will be carried out
during this session. Already it is stated that in the new draft
of the Act proposed by the government it is intended to re-
establish the deposit system for candidates, requiring each per-
son who wishes to run for election to possess and deposit sev-
eral hundreds dollars before he can be nominated.

There is no justification for requiring a deposit from eandi-
dates before the people can decide whether or not they wish
to elect them. It is a requirement that makes a mockery of
our democracy, that is on a par with the many other restrictions
that prove the falsity of the endlessly repeated sophistries that
rich and poor alike are equal in our political system.

When the fathers of Confederation were discussing our Con-
stitution it is reputed that Sir J ohn A. Macdonald justified the
advisability of establishing a Senate that would be not elected
by the people but appointed for life by the need of guarding
minority rights, and that he called wpon his listeners to re-
member that “the rich are always a minority.”

So our Senators today are not only in no wise accountable
to the people for their actions, but are required to own several
thousand dollars before they can even be appointed.

Now Premier Fattullo wants to be sure that no poor man,
unable to present a deposit, should even be able to run as a
candidate for the provincial House.

Why does not Premier Paittullo fight for more democracy
im Be?

KINGS PROADCASTS==
A WARNING SIGNAL

By TIM BUCK

ail ees broadcasts delivered by Prime Minister Mackenzie King on Oct. 27 and 31 signalized a
basic and far-reaching change in the declared attitude of his government. They bore witness

to Mr. King’s unqualified championship of imperi

alist policies and his repudiation of the war-

time role of Sir Wilfred Laurier. They also included his first public effort to put forward the

premise upon which he will essa

conjunction with government
measures, the broadcasts revealed,
in blurred outline but with obvi-
ous intent, a declaration of change
of attitude on the part of the King
government and- the broad general
assertions concerning the war
around which he is inviting reac-
tion to unite.

Mr. King did not mention his
new allies; neither did he directly
acknowledge the change of his
own role. But in place of the at-
titude expressed in his oft-repeat-
ed declaration: “Nor are we in-
clined to join in crusades on other
continents,” he asserted his lead-
ership of the “Ready, aye Ready”
camp, in what he described as “a
crusade ... to save our Christian
civilization.”

The new, wartime, political re-
division and changing relationship
of political forces reflected in the
prime minister’s broadcasts are al-
ready far advanced. Such differ-
ences as may have previously ap-
peared between him and Dr.
Manion in parliamentary man-
oeuvres for party advantage are
forgotten in Manion’s efforts to
avoid being left far behind in
demonstration of his will to war.

Sir Edward Beatty, the Bankers’
Association and the upstart Mc-
Cullagh-Wright combination, all
of whom derided King and de
mand a change of fovernment a
few short months ago, have sud-
denly and without changing their
general attitude and class posi-
tion, become vociferous support-
ers of Mr. King.

Surprising as it must have been
to them, his stand on the war is
almost identical with their own.
They doubtiess count upon cutting
several juicy melons, such as rail-
way amalgamations, etc., in the
guise of “measures to win the
war.’ The extent to which Mr.
King encourages such hopes is il-
lustrated by his action in placing
Sir Edward Beatty in charge of
the nation’s transportation.

e@

HE Quebec elections provided

the first test of this new unity

of the imperialists around. King

and the results show that imperial-
ism carried the day.

The pro-fascist, labor-hatine
protege of St. James street, Du-
plessis, called an election on is—
sues which, by their character,
were calculated to rally the great
majority of French-Canadian peo-
ple of Quebec to his support. The
sweeping authority of the War
Measures Act had been utilized by
the King government to prevent
the Quebec government from
floating a provincial loan in
Canada,

Furthermore, the sweeping pro-
visions of the War Measures Act
abolished the provincial autonomy
which has been emphasized so
much in Quebec while the about-
face of the King government on
the question of sending Canadian
troops overseas, combined with
the cry for conscripiton already
rising in jingoistic quarters, gave
ground for the fear that conscrip-
tion might be foisted upon the un-
suspecting people unless some-
thing were done about it.

Duplessis launched his election
campaign with declarations that
it was a fight “in defense of pro-
vincial autonomy” and to prevent
conscription. He had seized upon
the issues best calculated to
arouse the masses of Prench-Ca-
nadians in Quebec.

But the war had reversed the
interests of his erstwhile financial
backers, the trusts and parasitical
finance-capitalist circles of St.
James street. Im times of peace

these interests had demanded and
were willing to pay highly for the
most intransigeant insistence
upon a rigid and reactionary in-
terpretation of “provincial rights”
as part of their new obstruction
of social legislation (such as un-
employment insurance), the St.
Lawrence Waterways, etc. Today,
however, any sort of provincial
rights are anathema to these in=
terests because such rights might
be utilized by the workers and
their democratic allies in the fight
against profiteering, in defense of
civil liberties, and to prevent con-
scription.

@

HUS, the King Liberals, as the

outstanding champions of im-
perialist policy, received the sup-
port of reactionary big eapital. Du-
plessis’ campaign funds were un-
expectedly slim and the Quebec
Conservatives, of whom he had
been the official leader, deserted
him and voted for King Liberals.
The reactionary press, which had
previously supported Duplessis
and opposed the King government,
promptly reversed its position and
denounced and condemned Du-
plessis.

Tt should be said that the Mont-
real Gazette was not really prompt
in making the change but its slow-
ness only emphasized the basic
facts. True to its role as the organ
of the most reactionary, most
firmly entrenched and most im-
personal section of big capital,
the Gazette continued, apparently
oblivious to the cataclysmic
change in political relationships
produced by the war, viciously de-
riding the King government and
urging its defeat right until the
week before voting day.

Then, within 24 hours, some-
thing happened and the Gazette
made a complete volte face and
became an ardent supporter of
Mackenzie King.

@

7S cynical suggestion that the
change coincided closely with
the appointment of Sir Edward
Beatty as Canada’s transportation
tsar notwithstanding, the about
face of the Gazette and the gen-
eral result of the Quebee elections
illustrate, perfectly, the new po-
litical division and re-alignment
that is taking place as a result of
the war. This new re-alignment
must be clearly understood. It
grows out of the attitude of the
various class groups towards the
war and the fact that the war en-
tirely overshadows all other is-
sues.

The attitudes of individuals and
groups towards the war express,
exactly, the relationships of said
individuals and groups towards
the working class and the struggle
for the socialist transformation of
society. In time of war, therefore,
the first need of a class-conscious
worker is to comprehend the re-
lationship between the govern-
ment’s war policy and the class
interests af the workers and farm-
ers and to re-evaluate political
forces accordingly.

It would be as wrong for a Com-
munist to base himself today upon
the slogans and political align-
ments growing out of the situa-
tion existing at the time of the
8th Dominion convention of our
party, as it would be to estimate
Mackenzie King’s present role by
the speech he made to the House
ef Commons in May, 1938.

HAT is the issue that unites

all shades of reaction? Mr.
King did not define Canada’s war
aims. Instead, he added his voice
to the congregation of propagan-

y to play the role that Sir Robert Borden played. Taken in

dists who, blithely ignoring Cham-—
berlain’s dreams of winning Mus
solini, insist that this is a war of
ideologies,

He did not answer the question
raised in a recent editorial of the
Toronto Saturday Night entitled,
What Are We Fighting For? but
there was re-assurance for peo-
ple such as the author of that edi-
torial in the association of Com-
munism with Nazism and its em-
phasis upon the fact that Hitler
was placed in power only because
he posed as the most violent of all
anti-GCommunists and in the dis-
t+ant support given to the idea that
Communism is the real danger.
The following is an example:

“Although the Wazis have 2
single aim—world domination—
the methods being employed to
achieve that end are many... -
To-achieve their ends, they are,
as the pact with Soviet Russia
has shown, even willing to aid
in the spread of Communism.”
In his second broadeast, Mr.

King added an additional hint as
to his sentiments when he remind-
ed his audience that in 1914 both
Tsarist Russia and Japan had been
allies and then added: “Today we
must be prepared at all times to
defend our Western Coast”

The statements quoted above,
and other similar statements in
the two broadcasts coincide ail
too closely with the anti-working
class, anti-Soviet purpose which
is gradually emerging as the leit
motif of reactionary imperialist
finance capital in this war. This
purpoSe is deliberately revealed in
statement after statement. It was
obvious in the completely faise
statement, attributed to Duff
Gooper by the Toronto Daily Star,
that “Nazism is a form of Bolshe—
vism,”’ and the suggestion that
Germany is first, the USSR next.
The wish is deliberately revealed
in the careful but systematic
propaganda being developed in
favor of restoration of monarchy
in Germany and in the reiteration
of the idea, most crudely expressed
by a columnist in the Toronto
Globe and Mail in the following
words: “ ... if Stalin’s Russia is
to be the eventual enemy, a Ger-
many shorn of Nazism will be
harnessed to the Allied machine.”

Ts contradiction between the
objective of such propaganda
and Ganada’s vital national inter-
ests is clear. It is caleulated to
develop, here in Canada, artificial
national hates and baseless preju-
dices as part of the cynical pro-
cess by which the reactionary im-
perialist interests are striving to
integrate our country perman-—
ently in the recurring wars of
capitalist Hurope.

Tt is dangerous to Canada and
it is wrong. The vital national
interests of Canada do not lie in
Europe. Canada is an American
nation and her vital interests are
those which flow out of that fact.
Ganada’s national unity and Se
eurity will be best assured when
our governments adopt, and ad-
here to, foreigm policies based
squarely upon the direct needs
and interests of Canada and the
Ganadian people as a part of the
family of American democracies.
Tt will be an evil day for Canada
if automatic involvement in
Huropeanm wars becomes her fixed
policy.

The line followed by the King
government since August 22, and
the broadcasts of the Prime Min-
ister on October 27 and 31, show
clearly that such a perspective al-
ready faces Canada unless our
people recognize the danger now.

FORUM OF THE PEOPLE

To the Editor,—In the midst of-

our stiff uphill climb towards the
$4000 sustaining fund drive, I am
prompted to take time off to look

around and see what we have ac-
complished and where we are
heading, so that we can gain all
round encouragement and stim-
ulus,

We are all justly proud of our
Advocate. But whoever heard of
an editor and his staff receiving
a word of praise? We feel they
are due a big hand for the Manner
in which they handle the material
and resources available.

Then there is the drive com-
mittee, planning, working, wait-
ing, trying always to keep ahead
of the work, with only one thought
and motive to put the drive over
the top.

We who are scattered through-
out the province are striving, en-
during hardship and privation to
do our share in building our
greatly needed labor press.

Then there are the people who
give as best they can, often at
great sacrifice.

Particularly I feel strongly for
those workers wha, through fear
of discrimination, social or
economic, are still unable to throw
off the yoke of bondage and sup-
port what they know. and believe
is right.

Since the outbreak of war and
the resultant confusion, our paper,
the Advocate, has shone as 2
bright star in its clear leadership
and steadying influence. I question
if any other paper has given us so
much that is worthwhile and in
the interests of the common peo-
ple than our own Advocate.

So let's get back to the job
again. All together, forward!
Quesnel, BC. AK.

To the Editor,On behalf of the
BC provincial executive of the
Gommunist party of Canada, f
wish to inform your readers of the
expulsion from the ranks of our
party of Dan O’Brien.

O'Brien has been fairly active
in labor circles in Vancouver for
a considerable period, being 2
member of the Amalgamated
Building Workers’ union, which

was affiliated to the ACCL and
later to the GFL. He joined the
Communist party in 1936, having
come here from Ontario.

As a result of his suspicious be-
havior over a period of time, his
past activities were investigated
and evidence obtained which
proved to the satisfaction of our
committee that O’Brien has been
acting as an informer for enemies

of labor over a considerable
period.
We have received information

that he also participated in the
labor movement in Etobicoke, On-
toria, and served a prison sSen-
tence in that province for an of
fense which had no connection
with the labor movement. While
in Eitobicoke he was known as
Buck.’

O’Brien is an effective speaker
and a plausible talker. All labor
and progressive organizations are
warned to be on their guard
against this individual.

FERGUS McKEAN, Secretary,

BG Provincial Executive,

Communist Party of Canada.
Vancouver, BC.

VIEWS
and

OPINIONS

ERMANY’S Communist and

Socialist workers have creat

ed their own literature, their own
songs in their fight for freedom.

It is the only worthwhile litera-

ture that has emanated from the et

‘New’ Germany.

Listen to the Fluesterlied of the
Austrian poet, Fritz Bruegel, the
song that is whispered and hum-
med everywhere in the Third
Reich: :
We are unseen, unknown are we,
Wo tell-tale badge is ours, 3
The enemy's hatred leaves us free,
We mock his brutal powers. 9
We are uncaptured, unrepressed, ©

Im darkness ever dwelling, he
In spite of the revengeful foe, 4

Our silent ranks are swelling.
The net grows finer as we spin: —
in darkest night arisen, :
it spreads through cities and
through towns,
Defying court and prison. i
We are the air you breathe, we slip

Through enemies’ hands unknow. |

ing; : :
He watches till his eyes grow i
blind,

Can only sense our growing. :

The light of dawn gives us no rest :

Through secret lanes we burrow:

Today we are the dis ;
but ours

Shall be tomorrow.

—THE CLARION, Toronto, —

> = = a

A eee small amount of authentic
news of British thinkins that ~
reaches us—in The Times sum
mary — might instruct our au-
thorities that the denial of liberty
ef thought and speech that has :
been attempted by some of the
lordly officials there, is being re —
sented so bitterly that even The )
ee is advising the government |
eo stop the nonsense fo i
Say The Times: eae
“Attacks in parliament on the
Bovernment’s war-time pewers,
WHICH HAVE VIRTUALLY DE
PRIVED THE BRITISH PEO
PLE OF AIT, THEIR LIBER-
TIES, leads The Times today to
recommend the cabinet to with-
draw those to which the House
ef Commons objects. These war

possessed, |

Sot ae” ¢

time powers would not be toler
ated in peacetimes. Consequent
ly, they must be proved to be es-
sential to the conduct of the war.

and so defined that they cannot i

be abused without an immediate
check on the government- Some!
of the regulations ACTUALLY
STRIKE AT THE FREE EX
PRESSION OF OPINION and
there is no guarantee that in un-
scrupulous hands they would not

lead to an interference with indi
vidual liberty,”

Here is BC we have Mr. Pat- i

tullo almost threatening jail to
Mrs. Steeves for criticizing and
questioning the infallibility of the
British government, while The
Times is lecturing that govern-
ment for trying to deprive the =

British people of the right-of free
expression.

—A. Buckley, in the High-
land Echo, Vancouver.

= = x

TOR YEARS the Times has en-
couraged the Nazis to believe
that the English people were com-
placent about the policy of Nation-
al Socialism; now, realizing at
length that British diplomacy has
thrown Hitler into the arms of
Stalin, it exploits all the resources
of polished venom to inflame pas
sion against the USSR. More dan-
gerous still, it sets to work to
build up a myth of Poland. ...-
Elementary common sense should
lead to the most cautious state
ments about Poland, whose full
restoration could only be accom
plished by the defeat both of Nazi 7
Germany and of Soviet Russia — ~
@ proposition which even the
Times does not dare to espouse.

We see in these articles in the 7

Times a perfect example of the |
type of mind which has brought |

us to our present situation. It 15 =

the mind which created Versailles
and which paid disreputable gen
erals to invade Soviet Russia af [
ter the war; the mind that refused |
justice to democratic Germany
and then truckled to Nazi Ger
many; the mind which sabotaged
the League, made war inevitable:
neglected every democratic cause
which we could have aided during
the last eight years and which ha
now landed France and Britain i? j
a war which need neyer Have)
happened. 3
—New Statesman

and Nation, London:

= = = -

TITTLE was known in Polant

about the USSR. The Polist; §
censors and police saw to that) 7
_ . . But hundreds of years OF
propaganda would not have yield}
ed as much as the meetings ©
the population with Sovie

filled with joy ... others with svt =
prise when they compared reality;
with what the Polish press 28
told them for years.

—WANDA WASILEWS:
noted Polish writer.

—

VL tert 1)