Page Six

THE ADVOCATE

THE ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Advocate Publishing Association, Room 20

163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019
EDITOR - HAT GRIFPERIN

One Year $2.00 Three Months —--—______$ -60

Half Year $1.00 Single Copy > -05

Make All Gheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B.C., Friday, December 29, 1939

Toronto's Civic Elections

|S Bee GARGRAVE, CCF provincial secretary, in a
newspaper interview attributed the defeat of CCE candi-

dates in Vancouver’s municipal elections to “apathy in the
East End.”

In Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario municipal elections
will take place on New Year's Day.

Alderman Stewart Smith who has been elected for three
consecutive years in Toronto’s Ward 5 is running as a candidate
for the Board of Control on a city-wide scale and other Com-
munist party members are contesting aldermanic and board of
education seats in the wards. :

Everyone knows that the Communists unequivocally oppose
the imperialist war in which Canada is now involved. But there
are no signs of apathy in the election fight now raging in
Toronto. On the contrary, in the wards where labor is strong
there is bustling activity, enthusiasm, devotion and sacrifice
+o elect true fighters for the working class to the city council,
while in banking and big business circles and in the offices of
the newspapers they control there is fear and frenzied plotting
to prevent any possibility of the electors choosing their repre-
sentatives freely and with a full knowledge of the issues in-
volved.

Premier Hepburn of Ontario has announced that there will
be no further municipal elections in Ontario for the duration
of the war, and his fascist-minded big business backers are
spending tens of thousands of dollars and resorting to the most
despicable methods to oust all true progressives from munici-
pal offices. :

This is how democracy works in Canada today:

The Labor newspaper that editorially supported Alderman
Smith — The Clarion — has been suppressed under the War
Measures Act.

All radio stations have refused to sell time to him, while the
air is polluted with the most fantastic and filthy slanders against

Under police pressure halls are refused for meetings, efforts
are made to even prevent him speaking at meetings to which

recalls that only a few weeks ago in Windsor a municipal can-
didate was arrested on the day before the election to have the

over, even a judge who in the same town sentenced men to
nine months’ imprisonment for distributing peace leaflets, had
to dismiss the charges as unproven) +hen nothing is too vile to
be excluded.

If, having closed up every avenue whereby a candidate can
address his constituents, big business succeeds by bribery, cor-
ruption and fraud in getting its subservient office-boys into all
municipal offices in Toronto, the newspapers will proclaim
that the people enthusiastically support the war and have
dealt a death blow to Communism. If they believed what they
proclaim they would not resort to the methods they employ.

Winnipeg has proven that the voice of the people is not the
woice of the capitalist press by re-electing its Communist
alderman and school trustee at the top of the poll.

The Canadian people are not fools ready to entrust their
lives and liberties into the hands of a gang of fascist fuehrers
who, proclaiming an all too obviously false desire to destroy
Hitlerism in Germany, seek to establish fascism in Canada.

The Truth About Finland

‘Eas NEWSPAPERS are talking about “brave little Finland’s
second war of independence against Soviet Russia,” the
first having suppos dly taken place in 1918.

Do you know that there was no war for Finnish independ-
ence against Soviet Russia in 1918, that the Soviet government
was the first government in the world to recognize Finland as
a sovereign state?

This fact, never before denied, is related in the history,
Soviets in World Affairs, by Louis Fischer (page 89, vol. 1),
published in 1930. He says: :

“Qn Dec. 4 (1917) the Helsingfors Senate declared Fin-
land an independent republic and applied to Russia for recog-
nition. Swinhufud, the head of the new government, went
personally to see Lenin in Petrograd. He laid his case before
the leader, and on the same day, Dec. 31, 1917, the Council of
People’s Commissars approved. On Jan. 4 (1918), Finnish
recognition by the Soviet Republic was officially proclaimed.”

Ti was only in succeeding years that the British, French and

US governments recognized Finland as a sovereign state. As _

long as they hoped to be able to overthrow the new Socialist
government in Russia they did not want to displease the Czarist
generals they were financing by officially recognizing Finland
as a separate state.

Under Czarism the Finns did have to fight Russia for inde-
pendence. And that fight was led by Finland’s grand old man,
Otto Kuusinen, who now heads the new people’s government
while the Czar’s fight against Finnish independence was led by
the same Baron Mannerheim who commands the army for
Helsinski today, who was then an ace general for the Czar, and
who is not a Finn at all, but a Swedish land baron.

The present battle of Vancouver's three daily newspapers
against the Soviet Union is in truth a continuation of the war
they started in 1917 when the Bolsheviks came to power.

The Sun at present is leading by a neck—a rather dirty one,
at that.

An enterprising correspondent (with an adding machine)
informs us that according to his count a total of 1,962,762 Soviet
soldiers have been reported slain in the news columns of the
Sun to date. In addition, 6037 tanks, 4077 planes and 3 battle-
ships have been destroyed since the outbreak of hostilities.

Evidently the reports of what is happening today are as
truthful and accurate as the accounts of the events of 1917
and 1918.

We can expect the News-Herald to publish an editorial any
day now demanding that the exercise of Ripley’s choice by any
person be declared treasonable and subversive.

EES OVER FIXLAND

AN ANSWER TO ANGUS MacINNIS, MP, IN THE FEDERATIONIST

| bees outbreak of war in Europe after a seven-year period of fascist aggression, in which the second: Imperialist war was |

marked by a one-sided development, denoted the inability of world imperialism to overcome its own inner contradictions. ;
ensive efforts to strengthen world imperialism at the expense of the socialist economy of the USSR, by means of
until the present at least, have failed and all the inner weaknesses of the imperialist world system are now

Despite int
war, these efforts,
exposed for all to see.

Instead of a united onslaught
by the imperialist world against
the USSR there has now broken
out a Major war between the dom-
inant groups of imperialist pow-
ers themselves. But this is not
all. The war between Germany
on the one hand and Britain and
France on the other, has tremen-
dously intensified and sharpened
the struggle between the two basic
divisions of the world’s popula-
tion, the imperialist and the anti-
imperialist camps. What is the
composition of these two camps?

The imperialist camp is com-
posed of the ruling capitalist
classes in the “various countries
with their state apparatus and
military forces. Because of the
very character of imperialism,
however, there is constant rivalry
and friction between these im-
perialist states for markets,
sources of ray materials, col-
oenies and spheres of influence
which periodically result in armed
conflict between them.

In the anti-imperialist camp
there is mo conflict of interests
and aims. This camp is composed
of the working people in all cap-
italist countries exploited by
monopoly capital; the suppressed
and exploited colonial peoples and
national minorities struggling to
overthrow the yoke of imperialism
and gain their freedom and inde—
pendence; and lastly, that section
of tne international working class
which has already overthrown im-
perialism, gained political power
and established the new social
order, the USSR.

@
A We history of the last 20 years
is replete with examples of
how these three groups, consti-
tuting the anti-imperialist camp,

- have cooperated in the common

struggle against imperialism. It
was the cooperation of the inter-
national working class, by forcing
the imperialist governments to
withdraw their armies of inter-
vention from Soviet territory,
which enabled the Russian work-
ing class to retain political power
and go forward to socialism.

When the Chinese people were
struggling to throw off the yoke
of foreign imperialism it was the
international working class which
came to their aid by stopping
shipments of war ‘material to
Japan, by organizing boycotts and
embargoes against Imperialist
Japan and by raising medical
supplies. And it was the USSR
which reduced its trade with
Japan 98.8 percent, supplied, and
is still supplying, the Chinese peo-
ple with the major portion of their
military equipment and supplies.

When the newly-won democracy
of the Spanish people was at-
tacked by fascist revolt from
within and imperialist interven-
tion from without it was the USSR
which supplied technicians and
military equipment and it was the
international working class which
provided 60,000 men and millions
of dollars to aid of the Spanish
people.

Se

< haere by inner contradictions,

faced with growing colonial
revolt and mounting opposition of
their own working classes to the
burden of war costs the imperial-—
ist camp strives desperately to
transform the imperialist war into
an anti-Soviet war and thus de-
stroy the rival social order of so-
cialism and, incidentally, the
strongest section of the anti-im-
perialist camp.

The achievement of this aim,
however, requires the splitting of
the anti-imperialist camp, the
isolation and separation of the
socialist people of the USSR from

their allies, the international
working class and the colonial
peoples.

To accomplish this task a tre-
mendous international propaganda
campaign is Jaunched through the
press and radio of the imperialist
world. The USSR having moved
rapidly to destroy the main base
of imperialism for its planned at-
tack against the most vulnerable
section of the socialist state after
six weeks’ negotiations to remove
the threat had failed, the fury of
the imperialist camp knows no
bounds.

The White Guard government of
Finland is presented as the “bul-
wark of Huropean liberty and civ-
ilization against the barbaric
mongol hordes of Asia.’ The anti-
jmperialist socialist state is
presented as a “yithless, barbaric
imperialist power” threatening “‘to
destroy civilization.” The im-
perialist powers are presented as
defenders of liberty, democracy,
religion and civilization; in other
words as anti-imperialists.

The propaganda regarding Fin-
jand is designed firstly, to con-
vinee the working people of the
capitalist world that the people
of the USSR are ruthless, bar-
baric killers lusting for power and
self-aserandizement. This is why
fantistic lying ‘eye-witness’ 2c-
counts’ are published of the bomb-
ing of Finnish workers’ apart-
ments and the machine-sunning of
women and children refugees. To
bolster this claim faked photo-
graphs, purporting te show 2
puilding bombed in Helsinki, are
distributed and published through-

By FERGUS McKEAN

out the capitalist world.

Secondly, the propaganda is de-
signed to convince the people that
despite its size the Red Army of
the worlers’ republic is actually
very weak and inefficient. The
inference being that it could be
easily defeated by the civilized
armies of the “enlightened, demo-
eratic countries.”

To bolster this idea the public
is daily informed that Soviet
soldiers are being slaughtered by
the Finnish White Guards because
they are without leadership since
Stalin shot all the generals;
Soviet soldiers are without proper
clothing and underwear and bhun-
dreds are frozen; they only receive
one meal 3 day; the OGPU, secret
police, forces the Soviet soldiers
to fight at the point of machine
guns; 200 Soviet tanks are de-
stroyed; Soviet warships are sunk;
Leningrad has been bombed and
is in flames; 60 Soviet planes are
destroyed; nine Finnish White
Guards slaughter seven hundred
Soviet soldiers, and so on, ad
nauseum.

e

OQWEVER, the working class
is not so easily fooled with
capitalist propaganda. They re
member the lying campaign con-
ducted against the USSR in the
years following the last war. In
order to achieve their aims it is
necessary to secure the assistance
of so-called ‘Iabor ieaders’ and
‘socialists’ within the ranks of the

working class.

As during the last war, these
agents of capitalism leap to do
the bidding of their imperialist
masters.

In Winnipeg, the DLP (CCF af
filiate) aldermen adopt a resolu-
tion condemning the Soviet Union
and forward it to all city councils
in Canada for endorsation. -

In Vancouver, CCE Alderman
Hielena Gutteridge pleads for its
endorsation only five days after
the Vancouver organ of big busi-
ness, the Financial News, had stat—
ed editorially: “It is only fair to
Ald. Helena Gutteridge, defeated
with the CGE candidates, to say
that she had the respect of the
rest of the council and that she
served the city conscientiously.”

President E. A. Jamieson and
Birt Showler, most virulent of
red-baiters: in Vancouver Trades
and Labor council, passionately
denounce the USSR and add their
weight to the campaign.

But outdoing all others, appears
Angus Macinnis, CCF member of
parliament for Vancouver East,
with the publication of His dia-
tribe, “Bombs over Finland,’ in
the Federationist of Dec. 7.

@
[* RECOGNITION of his con-
tribution to the anti-Soviet
campaign, the Prince Rupert News
quotes MacInnis and comments
editorially:

“Now this week we wish to ex-
press appreciation of an article
by Angus MaciInnis, one of the
Vancouver members, in this
week’s issue (of the Wederationist)
and also of an editorial expressing
similar sentiments.”

Among the welter of malicious
distortions and lies contained in
the article the following excerpts
are good examples:

“inland was bombed. Men,
women and children were blown
to bits in their homes and in the
streets of their cities.” What are
the known facts?

The only official report of
Soviet flights over Helsingfors is
that of the United States repre-
sentative, E. Arthur Schoenfeld.
His official report was summar—
jzed by the New York Times as
follows: “A plane that flew over
the Finnish capital at 9:20 am.
dropped five bombs on the Malmi
airfield.” The item continued: “An
Hour after the first attack, nine
Soviet light bombers attacked
fortresses in the Bay of Helsinki
and, after being met by antiair-
craft fire, flew off at 10:25
o'clock.” “At 3 p.m. there was an

air-raid on Helsinki by i5 planes,”
the reports continued, “The planes
flew into the immediate vicinity
of the American legation offices
and there were some buildings
burning within three blocks of the
legation.”

So, according to this official
report by the US representative,
two of the flights were directed at
military objectives — an airport
and a fortress—and no mention is
made regarding the objective of
the third flight or of any casual-
ties.

But according to Angus Mac-
Innis ‘parroting ‘the capitalist
press), ‘Men, women and children
were blown to bits in their homes
and in the streets of their cities.”

MacInnis then makes the fol-
lowing statement: “Finland, free
and independent, could not be a
threat to the Soviet Union.” Again,
what are the historical facts?

They are: 1) The White Guard
government of Mann erheim
Jaunched a military attack against
the Soviet city of Olenetsk in the
spring of 1919:

2) In the fall of 1919 Finnish
White Guards again invadea
Soviet territory and General Man-
nerheim openly demanded des-
patch of the Finnish army to

_ ‘conquer’ Leningrad.

3) A new military expedition
against the USSR, commanded by
Finnish officers and supported by
British imperialists occurred in
1921-22._

4) The Finnish army was re-
organized and trained by British
officers who also directed build-
ine of the Mannerheim line.

5) A constant propaganda cam-—
paign has been conducted in Fin-
Jand for a ‘Great Finland.’

6) After General Mannerheim’s
last visit to London steps were
taken to fortify the Aaland
Tslands.

7) Ten times as many military
airports were built as were Neces—
sary to accommodate Finland’s
airforce. :

8) The islands commanding the
approach to Leningrad were forti-
fied,

9) Swedish, Italian and British
war materials were being poured
into Finland for months before re-
jection of Soviet proposals.

@

Ve further misinforms

his readers that “there is
much more democracy in Finland
than there was in China or Spain-
Finland is a republic with a par-—
liamentary system of government
in which the Socialist party is the
largest group.”

Gonsider the record: 1) The
White Guard forces led by Man-
mnerheim called in the German
army in 1918, executed in cold
blood, 30,000 men, women and
children, after suppressing ‘the
government placed in power by
the Finnish people. Of 80 Bolshe-
vile deputies arrested, only one
left prison alive.

2) In 1924, after two years of
sham constitutional sovernment,
all 27 radical deputies elected were
arrested and all left newspapers
suppressed.

3) By 1930 this democratic Zov-
ernment again arrested all left
deputies, suppressed the entire
Finnish Federation of Trade Un-
jons and arrested all its leaders
with the blessing of McInnis’ so-
cialist friends whom, he claims,
now compose the largest group-

4) Socialists such as Tanner
who cooperated with reactionary
White Guard elements were per
mitted to continue the sham of
democracy while the real power
rested in the hands of the Fin-
nish Employers’ Federation which
controls the Civil Guard, an armed
force of 200,000 men organized to
suppress the labor movement.

5) General Baron Mannerheim,
the most hated man in Finland
and known to all Finnish work
ers as ‘Butcher Mannerheim, is
head of the Finnish armed forces
while Premier Risto Ryti is gov-
ernor of the Bank of Finland.

FORUM OF THE PEOPLE

Labor Must
Watch MacInnis

To the Editor: In my Ghristmas
mail Tf received a letter from a Te—
turned soldier and CCE supporter
in Alberta. I have been sending
him a copy of the Advocate regu-
larly (other people please copy')
and he says: “The Advocate is 2
real paper. It suits me to a ‘TY
OY Bill is delightful and certainly
knows his stuff. His satire on
Blum was great.”

Regarding the article Bombs
Over Finland by Angus Macinnis
in the Federationist, it might be
as well for the rank-and-file of
the Hastings Bast constituency
to find out if this gentleman and
his lieutenant, Herbert Gargerave,
are really socialists at heart or
just «J iberal - Labor” candidates,
as the Einglish people wsed to say-
We must not lose sight of the fact
that it was the Taberal party
which sponsored WMacinnis in Yan-
ecouver South on His first entry
into public life as a Labor candi-
date.

Worthtfields, BC.

At the last federal election he
was given a big write-up by the
Vancouver Sun when it was found
he had such a large majority.

We are passing through trying
times and it is as well for the

rank and file GCE’ers and also
their supporters to watch that
Brother Angus is not trying to
lead the GCE back into the lib-
eral fold.

Again, where is that former so-
Cialist of Tastings Eiastt, Jack
Price, accepted as 2 brother by
the pro-fascist Won-Partisan ASs—
sociation.

Another GCF supporter in Sas-
katchewan remarked to me that
he was sorry to see Grace Macinnis
taking the capitalistic viewpoint
in the Federationist. He also said,
in his letter, that he was giad to
real Wal Griffin’s article in the
Advocate of Dec. 14, Imperialist
Intrigue in the Baltic. This friend
of mine is brother of 4 Gambridge
University professor.

TOMMY ATEINS.

December 29, 1939

This combination and this record
of fascist Suppression constitutes, ad! 4
according to Angus McInnis,
“more democracy in Finland than
there was in China or Spain.”

In an attempt to prove the idyl-
lic character of Finnish democ-
racy McInnis points to the Hin-
Mish co-operatives.

Be states: “Like the other
Scandinavian countries, she has
@ strong and efficient co-opera-
tive movement.” :

Vern Smith, in describing the
Finnish co-operatives, states:
“They had 60,000 of them, they
told you There’ were 800,000
members in the co-ops, you were
told. -..’ Then he explains, “Fin-
nish ¢€o-oOps are just corporations,
with a duplicated membership.
For example, the kulak farmer
will belong to one that sells his
lumber, another that sells the
knives and beadwork his ex |
ploited agricultural servants
make in their spare time, another |
that sells his grain, another that |
sells his wool and so on... . The
laborer may be forced to buy a
share in the co-op that sells him
his food and clothes, though he
doesn’t buy much of either: |

In other words, most Finnish
co-ops are just joint stock com=
panies in which the rich farmer:
business man or the merchant in
the city invests his surplus cape
tal.” fe] :

cINNIS concludes his slan-

derous diatribe with the fol-
lowing admonition: “Socialists ~
everywhere should protest againse
this invasicn of a peace loving :
and progressive people by the
Soviet government.”

Not to be outdone, Herbert Gar-
grave, CCE provincial secretary,
adds his voice to the song of hate.
in the Pederationist of Dec. 14
he claims the Soviet German non-
ageression pact was signed in or-
der that Hitler could make war
on Poland.

The fact is that the pact re
sulted in weakening Hitler by de-
priving him of his Japanese ally
and smashed the main threat
against the USSR—the anti-com-
intern alliance—and this fact is
distorted and presented as enab-
ling Hitler to make war on Po-
land. Like McInnis, Gargrave re
iterates the slander about bomb-
ing Finnish cities. He states:
“WE ENOW that immediately
following the breaking of rela-
tions the Soviet Union bombed
Finnish cities.” :

is it any wonder that Vancou-
ver East CCF District council has
passed a resolution of protest?

Se
HE FACT that Binland was
intended as a base for attack
against the USSR has been well
known for many years.

In April, 1919, the London Times
wrote: “Hinland is the key to
Petrograd and Petrograd is the
key to Moscow.” In June, 1939,
Captain Grenfell, MP, wrote in
the Labor Monthly: “This (Brit if
ish) government has already § #¢
made secret commitments with
Estonia and Finland for the use  /—
of airdromes in these countries ~
for British aircraft operating
against the USSR. ... the com-
mitments appear to have been im
existence for at least ten years.”

Describing Finland’s military
preparations, the Helsinski cor
respondent of the London Daily
Telesraph wrote on Oct. 23, 1939
(before the start of the present ~
conflict) : e

“Krom Viipuri to the frontier o
the entire country is full of tanks,
artillery, cavalry, air force base
and infantry. =

“Wow a small country of som
3,000,006 inhabitants has been ab
to organize such a huge military
machine is one of the world’
wonders. Soviet observers expres.
astonishment at the extent and
thoroughness of the Finnish mobi-
lization and general prepared-
ness.”

Thanks to the prompt and firm
action of the USSR the possibility
of using Estonian air bases has
already been removed and despite
the fact that British, French,
Italian and American war planes,
tanks and artillery have been
pouring into Finland for several
months the Finnish air bases will
mot remain in the hands of the
imperialists for long. Neither will
the gloody regime of Mannerheim
continue to operate,

Although in 1918 the workers’
fovernment of Filand was savase-
ly suppressed with the aid of
foreign imperialism, the 21 years
that have passed have profoundly
altered the relationship of forces.

In 1939, instead of an imperial-
ist army to crush the Finnisek
workers they pereet a workers”
Red Army which, together with
the rapidly growing Finnish Pee
ple’s Army, will this time restore
the workers’ government of 19
and remove the Finnish peopl
once and for all time from i
sphere of imperialist intrigue
And neither the military equi
ment and volunteers of the m2
perialists, the propaganda of theit =
press nor the rantings of th 4
socialist helpmeets will retain
Finland for imperialism. eae

The triumph of imperialist re-
action in Spain will not be re
peated in Finland.

a

SOURS