bruary 2, 1940.

THE ADVOCATE

Page Five

'George Seldes, author of ‘You
Shin’t Print That,’ and ‘Lords of
te Press, is one of the best
hown nwspapermen in Ameri-
He began his 31-year journ-
istic career on the Pittsburgh
bader; was working for the
aited Press in London when the
3 entered the war; was corres-
mdent with the AEF in 1918-19;
‘as chief of the Chicago Tribune
areau in Berlin for nine years.
= knows the newspaper busi-
oss.
‘In a recent magazine article,
J2ldes denounces the people re-
Soonsible for the spate of lies
s0ut the war in Finland that
yw flood the front pages of the
merican and Canadian press.
In part, he writes: “All of us in
ie press section of the US army
4, France lied about the World
far—and some of us told the
uth and were sent back home,
3; in Heywood Broun’s case. We
ll lied, sometimes through ig-

sea egen cd he aaa

cely. It was our war and we
vere patriotic.”

> They were not paid to tell the
" uth. They were paid to lie ang
i they did not lie they were fired.
* they were all as honest as
‘eorge Seldes they would admit

) Another proof that lying is
Sieir principle function is pro-
ided by the action of Lord Beay-
-brook’s Londen Daily Express,
sferred to in last week’s Advo-
ate. Lord Beaverbrook, once
nown in Canada as Sir Max Ait-
en, the moving spirit in what
still referred to here as the
tanada Gement monopoly scan-
al, is well qualified to be a news-
Waper mogul in a world where
ying is the main function of the
ress.
The Express’ correspondent in
foscow, Robert Magedoff, did
ot happen to have been brought
p in the tradition of the British
r American press but in the
‘onest principles of Soviet jour-
alism. Recently he wrote the
ollowing letter to the press de-
{ artment of the people’s commis-
ariat for foreign affairs: “On
‘an. 12 I received a query on a
-“innish question from the Daily
Eyupress, whose Moscow corres-
yondent I was recently appointed.
Vithout waiting for a reply, the
Jaily Express published on-Jan.
2 an untrue report, alleging it
ame from their Moscow Ccorres-
‘ondent. Because the Daily Ex-
ress resorted to such an imper-
nissible method of falsification
vhich is incompatible with my in-
egrity aS a journalist, I, in pro-
est, refuse to continue my asso-
iation with the Daily Express

onger to consider me its corre-
pondent.”

Such is the difference between
ie Capitalist and the Soviet
1etheds in journalism!

WHAT the poor Soviet army,
which, as Gabrielle of the
sondon Daily Worker says, “has
10 boots, no underwear, no mor-
Je and no dartboards,’ has any
men left in its ranks, is one of
the marvels of this century of
marvels.
| One of these specialists in hyp-
erbole whose job it is to keep us
dosted on the war’s progress,
fames Aldridge, of the North
American Newspaper Alliance,
cetls us that the Finns had to use
shovels to clear the dead Rus-
sians out of their way after a
dattle.

And today as I write this,
comes a story from a young wo-
man (she must be young for she
iS so naive) working for the same
news - manufacturing organiza-
tion.
| She says: “We were unable to
stand the cold for any length of
time and soon stumbied into a
corner cafe. The proprietor
brought us hot meat sandwiches
and coffee. While serving us he
informed us cheerfully that the
top floor of his house was on fire

. it was an odd experience to
be sipping coffee in a burning
building . .. to be trying to get
warm in a house that was on
fire.” Boe

You see, the old man was quite
cheerful about it; not the least
bit seared about burning the flap-
jacks. The boy that stood on the
burning deck had nothing on
him, But the young lady reporter
did not know the house was on
fire even while she was eating
her sandwiches, until the Finn
proprietor told her. It was hear-
say evidence and so are all the
other yarns coming from Finland,
either that, or deliberate concoc-
tions.

ECENTLY the Dutch broad-

easting station, PHOH-i, ad-
mittine the falsity of ‘news’ from
Finland, said: “A whole army of
press reporters are now in Hel-
sinki. Sitting in their hotel rooms
these gentlemen write descrip-
Hons of ‘exploits’ by Finns whom
they have never seen.”

One story quoted by the sta-
aon was about a Finn who climb-
sd a fir tree in Petsamo and shot
of Reds. “The only trouble with

HE lurid tales relayed by correspondents in Finland
+ Copenhagen, London, demonstrate at least one truth,
‘uct them in the fine art of lying. Nevertheless, some guiding influence is obviously
(feats its object. It is not subtle enough, and draws only laughter from the quarters w. : 5
} And these Munchausen writings are laughable, even though they are about the most tragic phase of human relations—war.

porance, but as a rule, deliber--

nd am therefore asking you no ~

By WILLIAM BENNETT

the yarn,’ said the broadcaster,
“is that there isn’t a fir tree in
the Petsamo region.”

There are people, however,
simple-minded enough to swallow.
some part of the exaggeration of
these political Tartuffes. Capital-
ist propaganda is not very inven-
tive. It goes over the same
ground, uses the same technique
time after time. So if we go back
a few years in history, we can see
it at work under somewhat simi-
jar circumstances and understand
more easily just what it is worth

~today.

e

OR THE workers of the Soviet

Union 1919 was-the most mo-
mentous year. The imperialists,
haying patched up their internal
quarrels, turned their ferocious
muzzles in the direction of the
workers’ republic. A ‘cordon sani-
taire’ was established by all the
‘Christian’ powers, with some help
from the Japanese Shintoists and
Moslems. Death was to be visited
on the Soviet peoples by starvation
and disease through lack of nec-
essary medical supplies.

At the same time military pres-
Sure was being applied by the
soldiers of 14 different capitalist
countries and the dispossessed
White Guard landlords and capi-
talists of the old Russia. Battle-
fronts existed at Archangel, at
Petrograd (now Leningrad), in
the Ukraine, on the Pacific Coast
and the most dangerous of all,
in the Urals.

The head and front of this mil-
itary campaign was centered in
Kolchak and the so-called Omsk
government, operating from Si-
beria. The peace conference at
Paris was-the staff headquarters
for this offensive and it was di-
rected by the Big Four, the im-
perialist group which laid down
the terms for the defeated na-
tions in the war just closed (7),

the group which divided the

spoils, Britain, France, the Unit-
ed States and Japan.

After four years of slaughter,
the world had a surfeit of war
news. Besides mutinies had brok-
en out in all the armies. The In-
ternational had been sung by
soldiers all over Burope. The
Red Flag had been raised in
French casernes and on British
warships. Workers, too, were re-
fusing te handle war material on
railreads and docks,

One result of this was that
there were fewer war correspond-
ents’ bombastic fables in the
pages of the daily press. No bat-
teries of press staff correspond-
ents went with the invading ar-
mies that tried to overthrow the
Soviet government. The poverty-
Stricken seribblers who did try
to earn an honest penny writing
of the victories of Kolchak, did
so from the safety of Helsingfors,
the mother of lies; of Riga; of
Reval and of Paris and London.

e

PROPOSE to let you read over

a few of these fictions that ap
peared in the Vancouver Prov-
ince, contributed by the press as-
sociations of that day.

The Province is not selected be-
cause its newS was more distort-
€d or its purpose More venomous
than other newspapers. Some of
them were worse, in fact. The
news was poisoned at the foun-
tainhead. The newspapers print-
ed it as they received it from-the
press bureaus and associations.
Their local contributions consist-
ed in providing the insinuations
of misleading and fake head-
lines.

But first let me tell you what
actually happened. What follows
will be more easily understood
then.

In April, 1919, Kolchak'’s army

_ protest,

was spread along the Urals foot-
hills, from Perm in northern
Kazan to the Gaspian Sea. Dur-
ing the winter the Red army had
been forced to retreat but had
spent two months in learning to
use skis and were then able to
check any further advance of
the Kolchak hordes. Changes in
tthe Red army personnel, on de-
mmand of the army, relieved the
Trotsky-appointed WVatsis from
command and placed Michael
Frunze at the head of operations:

Immediately after the May Day
eelebrations were over the Red
army opened its campaign for the
summer by Smashing the center
of the Kolchak army. Of this vic-
tory Popoy writes in his “Outline
History of the Communist Party,
of the Soviet Union’ (Vol. 2, page
17):

“At the beginning of May, Kol-
chak, who had almost reached
the Volga, was dealt a decisive
blow near Buguruslan, by a sec-
tion of our army under M, V.
Frunze, after which commenced
the uninterrupted retreat of the
Kolchak armies towards the east
... ” Remember, this happened
around May 3 or 4.

OW? read what the fiction writ-

ers told us in the Vancouver
Province about Kolehak’s glori-
ous yictories during that month:
KOLCHAKH DRIVING THE
‘REDS’ BEFORE HIV

LONDON, May 2.—Admiral
Kolechalk’s army, driving the
Bolshevila before them south-
west of Sterlitamak, have ad-
vanced 90 miles.

(Sterlitamal: is 150 miles due
east of Buguruslan.)

HELSINGFORS, May 3—De-
feated along the entire East-
ern front by the Siberian arm-
ies, the Bolsheyiki forces are
retiring in disorder.

BOLSHEVIK MILITARY
SITUATION PERILOUS.

LONDON, May 6—With Kol-
chak’s northern army moving
rapidly towards the line of
communications between Iios-
cow and Archangel, the Bolshe-
vili military situation seems
extremely precarious.

(Not a word yet about Bug-
urusian.)

HELSEINGEORS, May 12 —
Five regiments on the Urual
front have mutinied and
drowned a number of the Bol-
shevyiki commissaries.

BERNE, Switzerland, May
15—The troops of Admiral
Kolchak have captured Samara
on the Volga River, the Ukrain-
ian Press Bureau here says it
is learned from a well-informed
source, -

(Samara is 100 miles west of.
Buguruslan. And still no men-
tion of the Buguruslan battle.)

LONDON, May 19—A Rus-
Sian wireless dispatch says the
Kolchak forces at Bugulma
have been defeated and the
town has been captured by the
Soviets. The dispatch says the
Red Army ‘broke deep into the
enemy's rearguard.

(Bugulma is about 100 miles
north of Buguruslan, which is
still not mentioned — but at
least the Reds are now fighting
the Kolchak rearguard.)

OMSK, May 24 — The 10th
Moscow regiment, a part of the
Bolshevyiki army, has surrend-
éred with its arms to the Kol-
echak government. The regi-
ment went to the front under

but as soon as it
reached the firing line the sol-
diers killed their officers and
went over to the Siberian
army.

ONE THOUSAND
NEW READERS

OE thousand new readers for the Advocate before
April 1. This is the objective of a circulation campaign
to be launched by the management next week. Can it be

done? It can.

Since last September the Advocate has added 2100 to its
fast increasing circle of readers and supporters. Today it
has the largest circulation of any labor weekly in British
Columbia. This is no idle boast, but one we’re prepared

to prove at any time.

It’s a tribute to the Advocate’s consistent policy of giving
its readers the facts behind the news under all conditions.
And it’s a tribute to those thousands of Advocate supporters
throughout the province whose efforts have made the paper

possible.

We want twenty-five of these supporters (more if we can
get them) to send us their names with a pledge to compete
in this campaign for the prizes were offering those who
sell the largest number of subscriptions between now and
April 1. And as an added inducement, with each annual
subscription to the Advocate we’re offering a free copy of
D. N. Pritt’s book, ‘Light on Moscow.’

How about it, you Advocate boosters? We're expecting

to hear from you.

ee ea ee Pit

MUNCHAUSEN IN THE PRESS

and other places from which Finnish war ‘news’ comes, Stockholm, Oslo,

that British and American newspapermen need no Goebbels to in-
lacking, for their work is so crude that it
here it is meant to have telling effect.

KOLCHAK ARRANGES TO
xEED SIBERIA.

LONDON, May 3i—The eva-
cuation of Orenburg, one of the
last Bolshevili strongholds in
S.E. Mussia, is suggested in a
Russian official wireless re-
ceived today from Moscow. The
message says that to the west
of Orenburg the Bolsheviki
abandoned Tatikevo ‘under mil-
itary pressure.’

BOLSHEVIKS CLAIM ROUT
OF KOLCHAK.

COPENHAGEN, June 6 —
Swedish Socialist mewspaper,
Folkets Dagsblad, which is said
to be in close communication
with the Russian Bolshevik
government, has received a tel-
egram from Petrograd report-
ing that the forces of Admiral
Kolchak of the Omsk govern-
ment have been defeated in the
south and center while the nor-
thern front is shaking. The
Soviet troops are said to have
captured 40,000 prisoners, 100
guns and much war material.

STOCKHOLM, June 6—The
Bolsheviki acknowledge defeat
by the Siberians and Cossacks
on the Ural River, according to
a Helsingfors dispatch. The
Bolsheviki have been forced to
evacuate the town of Uralsk,
capital of the territory of
Uralsk.

(Still no mention of Buguru-
slan).

Wow place all that has gone
before in the garbage can for
here is enough of the truth at
last (though not all of it). Tucked
away in a corner where it is
searcely noticeable is the follow-
ing item:

BRITISH WIND-UP IN
NORTH RUSSIA.

LONDON, June 7—Speaking
in the House of Commons on
Friday, Winston Spencer Chur-
chill, secretary of war, said:

“We are endeavoring to wind-
up our affairs in North Russia,
which, we hope, will have been
self-supporting before the end
of the summer, enabling us to
leave, having honorably dis-
charged our duty.”

Mr. Churchill said the check
to Admiral HKolchak’s advance
Was now more pronounced and
that no attempt should be made
to encourage extravagant hopes
in that quarter. The minister
of war explained that all the
British were doing was to sup-
ply Admiral Kolchak with
munitions, the small British
force in Siberia being hundreds
of miles from the firing line.
The British troops in the Cau-
casus, he said, were simply re-
maining there until the con-
ference decided what would be
the future of that country. He
added, that in North Russia
and Siberia, Great Britain had
searcely more men than the
United States.

Two days later, the same noble
battler for freedom, democracy
and the small nations who ‘need’
help, speaking again in the Bri-
tish House of Commons, told his
fellow members, “The produc-
tion value of munitions supplied
to Admiral Kolchak and General
Denikin probably would not ex-
ceed £20,000,000 (approximately
$100,000,000) arrangements
had been made for repayment by
the possible future Russian goy-
ernment.

“Mr, Churchill deprecated ex-
aggerated talk about pouring out
blood and money on yague, wild
Russian expeditions. ... The Rus-
sian policy was not British policy
but an Allied policy, in conjunc-
tion with other great powers, all
of which were constantly watch-

ine these matters.” (Vancouver
Province, June 9, 1919.)

Finally, on June 12, came the
admission in a headline: KOL-
CHAK’S REVERSES MATTER
FOR ANXIETY WITH THE BIG

FOUR.
These two statements are a
veiled acknowledgement that

Churchill and his anti-Soviet
friends knew the course events on
that front had been taking. The
announcement in the Swedish So-
Cialist paper on June 6 was not
about the battle which brought
about the utter collapse of Kol-
ehak’s Siberian offensive. One
reverse like that would not make
Churchill throw up the sponge.
That decisive defeat occurred
five weeks before and the imper-
jalists at Paris were hoping all
through that period that Kol-
chak’s army would make a recov-
ery.

Everyone of these stories was
a phoney with the possible ex-
ception of that in the Folkets
Dagsblad, and the story from
Bugulma.,

When Churchill made these
statements in the House of Com-
mons, part of Kolchak’s army
had already retreated as far east
as Lake Baikal. The rest of his
army was being harried and
chased in other parts of Siberia
by the Red Army and the Siber-
jan peasants, who, without ex-
ception, joined the Bolsheviks.
Before the summer was over
there was little left of Kolchak’s

(Continued on Page 6)
See MUNCHAUSEN

7 7 There are people today who laugh at the idea that
Finnish ‘poor little Finland’ should be accused of attack-
Democracy! ing the ‘big’ Soviet Union with its 180 millions

of people. This is because they do not know that
the Finnish fascists, with imperialist encouragement, dreamed of
‘a greater Finland,’ embracing a great part of the Soviet Union—
Soviet Karelia and the whole Soviet Arctic litteral as far east as the
Ural Mountains and the northern parts of Norway and Sweden in-
habited by the Lapps and had developed a mental outlook commensur-
ate with that grandiose program.

It might interest Angus MacInnis and other humanitarian defenders
of ‘democracy’ in Finland to learn just what White Finnish democracy
is. Since 1918, Mannerheim has been the big figure in the Finnish
government, no matter who the ministers might be or how they. might
disguise their fascist rule.

In 1930, Ivan Maisky was the Soviet ambassador at Helsinki. On
July 20 of that year, Maisky presented to Finnish foreign minister
Prokop a note protesting against the invasion ‘of Soviet territory by
the Finnish fascist organization, the Finnish Sharpshooters Corps.

The note began: “Recently the Soviet frontier guards observed
that Finnish citizens were being systematically and compulsorily
driven over the Soviet-Finnish frontier inte Soviet territory without
the permission of the Soviet authorities. There is the case of the Fin-
nish citizen, Isaak Heikka, chairman of the Finnish trade union fed-
eration. He was arrested by the Finnish police on June 17 at Julivieska
station. On the morning of June 18 he was carried forcibly over the
frontier into Soviet territory, through the woods in the Repola-Tuuli-
waara district.”

The note listed sixteen other concrete cases, and it is not a complete
list, of violations of the Soviet frontier. Among these sixteen specified
cases, there are eight members of the Finnish parliament — Juho
Perala, of Teuva; August Maenija (worker); Karl Kichana, and
Juho Myllymaki, all of Kokkola; Kalle Kujala (peasant) of Sievi-
Emil Tabel of Kali; Arvo Lehto of Helsingfors, secretary of the Leather
and Rubber Workers’ union of Finland; and Karl] Mirelain. The other
eight were: Arne Hiltunen, Josef Korhonen, Matwei Ronkonon, Thomas
Humonen, Armas Hiltunen, Hugo Richard Petikainen, Taipe Olley
Raagelsalm and Juri Makela.

These men were seized in their homes, generally

Soviet at night. In some cases they were only half
P clothed when they were separated from their
rotest. families and escorted across the Soviet border

and left to be cared for by the Soviet workers.

Information in the possession of the Soviet government left no doubt
that these forcible deportations were carried out with “the direct
support of the Finnish authorities and the Finnish Sharpshooters
Corps.”

The note continued: “Reports concerning the forcible transport of
leaders of the Finnish working class movement over the frontier into
the Soviet Union have appeared again and again in the Finnish press.

“The Soviet government places the fact on record that the Soviet
frontier has been systematically violated by Finland and that armed
detachments have actually crossed the Soviet frontier and entered
into Soviet territory, thus committing a breach of international law
and violating the comity of nations. The Soviet government hereby
protests energetically against such happenings.

“The Soviet government expects from the Finnish government that
it will- take effective measures to prevent such violation of the Soviet
frontier in the future, and that it will not permit the forcible deporta-
tion of Finnish citizens over the Soviet frontier.”

If Angus MacInnis had been a leader in the trade union movement
in Finland in 1930, he might have got into the Soviet Union. But he
never made any protests then; he was too busy supporting Chief
Bingham, in the clubbing of Vancouver unemployed.

Mannerheim’s storm troopers, the Schutz Corps,

Peasant Life are carrying on the war against the Finnish peo-

: ple, today, as they did in 1930. The villagers

In Finland. and farmers are driven out and their homes razed

by fire, wherever the Finnish people’s government forces come. Hoover

claims there are 900,000 refugees in Finland today, one-quarter of the

total population, not driven out by the ‘Reds,’ but by the fascist storm
troops of Baron Mannerheim,

However, all the peasants have not been driven out. Many have
escaped by hiding in the woods. At one place, the village of Karku
on the shores of Lake Ladoga, one old peasant showed his taxpapers
to a Moscow correspondent. Maybe you can tell how they lived after
reading his story, I can’t,

“In 1939 we had to pay 1277 marks income tax, 100 marks dog tax,
150 marks to the church, 150 marks fiscal tax, 500 marks compulsory
insurance, 190 marks for repair of public bridges, 4,250 marks for im_
provements.” So that by Dec. 1, 1939, the old peasant, Arnes Tiilikainen,
had to pay 6,517 marks into the treasury. Yet the income of the old
man for the whole year, together with that of his two sons who worked
in the woods, only amounted to a little over 8,000 marks. (A Finnish
mark is worth about two cents). >

In addition, his debt to the public bank amounted to 13,200 marks
and he owed 1035 marks at the ‘Salmo’ store for goods bought on credit.
His cottage was burned down and his cattle driven off. But better
days are ahead for him. The new people’s government will pay
off these debts for him—by wiping them out.

The vicious, nay monstrous, sentence of four years
Class and $2000 fine imposed on Earl Browder for fail-
Justice ing to conform to the routine demanded by the

> US passport office, when compared with the failure
of the US attorney-general to prosecute ‘Father’ Coughlin, is a glaring
example of the class character of capitalist law and its administration.

Browder travelled with a passport bearing a false name, just as the
big shots travel incog. He did not do so because he had done anything
to be ashamed of, but because he travelled in countries where to be
known as a Communist might mean imprisonment for life or even
death—China in 1927, Germany, Poland, ete. For failing to state this
fact in applying for a later passport he is now slated for jail.

His conviction is the first victory for the Trotskyists in America.
The tip-off to the Dies committee came from the Trotskyist stoolpigeon
Gitlow. Trotsky himself has offered to become a stoolpigeon for the
Dies red-baiters, if given a safe conduct,

In the Coughlin case, John Spivak, America’s ace journalist, has
laid charges with the department of justice. He accuses Coughlin of
diverting tax-exempt funds to political uses; of using the mails for
fraudulent purposes; of filing false statements with the postal authori-
ties; of using money collected for religious purposes for stock gambling,
“shooting craps with other people’s money,” as the Radio Priest calls it.

Spivak’s charges are supported with documents which prove them
up to the hilt. Yet Hoover’s G-men, who were so zealous in the prose-
cusion of Browder, make no move whatever in the case of Coughlin.

Coughlin should be in jail with his dupes of the Christian Front
who are awaiting trial at this time for “attempting to overthrow the
US government.” He calls himself “a friend of the accused” and
Says, “I do not disassociate myself from that movement. Therefore I
reaffirm every word which I have said in advocating its formation.”

He is at large—but then he is not a Communist.

PUBLIC MEETING

| SUNDAY, FEB. 4, at 83:00 P.M.
|
| ORANGE HALL

| Gore at Hastings
| “VITAL ISSUES OF THE DAY” — Speaker, MALCOLM BRUCE
| Chairman: W, BENNETT Silver Collection |

|

— ae