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' \ REVIEW

Books — Motion Piectures —
Musie — Arts

Readers’ Digest Has

Stalin’s Life Is
Slice Of History

By BILL BENNETT

STALIN’S LIFE—By Dyson Carter—15 cents—To many
people the study of history is a bore. The historians and their
methods are to blame partially for this. So also is the fact
that many people are not possessed of the powers of applica-
tion to wade°through invariably ie IS a biography of Stalin and

dry-as-dust tomes in which the biography becomes history

‘Digested’ Nazism

THE TRUTH ABOUT READERS’ DIGEST — by Sender

Garlin — 15 Cents.

The idea behind the publication of a digest which will
select articles of merit and reprint them in convenient form
seems to be a good one and appeals to 7,000,000 readers. Over
50.000 teachers in 12,000 US schools use Readers’ Digest in

their classrooms, and one out of
four colleges and universities in
the US find it “helpful” in their
teaching. Energetic subscription
drives, the offer of half rate sub-
scriptions to men in the forces
and gift subscriptions to promis-
ing high schoo] students warrant
an investigation into the true na-
ture and purpose of this publi-
cation.

in his pamphlet Sender Garlin
exposes the fact that more than
50 percent of some issues of the
alleged Digest are known to have
been original articles, solicited by
the editors. In 1986, he points out,
Fortune magazine wrote: “It not
enly pays generous fees to KS
magazines for exclusive reprint
privileges but even supplies cer~-

in of the magazines, gratis, with
original articles which Readers’
Digest proceeds to condense and
reprint.”

Republished articles are most
likely to be pro-fascist pieces.
They have included support of
fascist Franco, glorification of
Lindbergh’s “world views,” and
a digest of Anne Morrow Lind-
bergh’s book, “The Wave of the
Future,” continuing her husband's
line of propaganda. In May 1940
they printed a “digest” of an ar-
ticle by Esrl Reeves entitled
“Why Russians Can't Fight”

Gerlin points out that this s0-
called “objective” Digest has
lacked the honesty to reprint a
singie one of the number of maga-
zine articles telling of the mag-
nificent achievements of the Red
Army. A brief reprint of a sec-
tion of the late Alexander Polia-
kov’s book, “Russians Don’t Sur-
render,” followed a slough of ant-
Soviet articles, when even the
publishers of Readers’ Digest
could no longer ignore the spread-
ing public admiration of Russia’s
fight.

Their piece de resistance, “Out

of the Night,” whose author Rich-
ard Krebs, alias Jan Vaitin, was
stigmatized by the US Board “of
Immigration Appeals as an agent
of Nazi Germany, was condensed
in Readers’ Digest and later
Krebs was asked to write an orig-
inal article. In publishing “Amer-
ican Dawn,” the editors tried to
“sell” this pro-fascist adventurer
to the American people.

Following Krebs’ arrest as a
Nazi agent, publisher Wallace
agitated for the “clearing” of his
name

Appointment of Max Eastman
as “roving” editor foreshadowed
publication of such articles as
“We Are Already Invaded,” an
attack on the CIO, and an attack
on Russian War Relief, Inc, in
December, 1941. This latter ar-
ticle rated special treatment, and
the Digest offered free reprints
of EBastman’s diatribe

Stanley High, whose rticles
are neatiy published in booklet
form and circulated free in Can-
ada, is a noterious anti-Roosevelt
writer who sneers at what he
calls the “generalizations” of the
Atiantic Charter

The occasional reprinting of
some worthwhile article or con-
densation of a book such as “Sa-
botage—The Secret War Against
America” does not mean Read-
ers’ Digest is changing its policy
or trying to be impartial, but only
indicates the fact that when a
book or an article is too big to be
overlooked, Digest editors wili
esrefully dissect it and delete the
best of it, so that while they may
claim to be unbiassed in their
choice, they pass on only the
name, empty of much of its con-
tents.

R. R. Donnelly and Sons, print-
ers of Readers’ Digest, is an open
shop firm and has been for the
past 37 years, Garlin adds.

~Elsie Anderson.

‘Soviet Exibition At
Vancouver Gallery

Twenty-five years of Soviet Russia is portrayed through
the medium of an exhibition of posters, cartoons and photo-
graphs now on display at Vancouver Art Gallery, 1145 West
Georgia. Prepared in Moscow by the All-Union Society for

Cultural Relations with Foreign
countries, it will remain on view
until June 27. Admission is free,
except on Thursdays, when a
small charge is made.
Photographs comprise a good
portion of the exhibit, arranged
under headings of art, music and
drama, sport, war, industry, edu-
eation and agriculture, ete. Eng-
lish sub-titles clarify the pictures,
but no explanation is required for
many of the cartoons, which sa-
tirize Goebbels and the “master
race” theories of the Hitlerites,
in Russian humor at its best.
The Soviet Union has always
made good use of its artists for
educational purposes, and in the
period of this war they come to
the fore as essential workers in
the fight against Hitler’s hordes.

Goebbels is the target of many
of the cartoons, in one of them
pictured as a rat using a fountain
pen for a machine gun. Soviet ar-
tists jeer, too, at the Nazis as
conquerors, pointing out the fear
that dogs the footsteps of all such
“conquerors” and revealing the
cowardice of those who destroy
children and old people in their
brutal onslaught against human
decency.

Thousands visited the display
in other cities where it was shown
through courtesy of the National
Gallery of Canada,

Almost the entire first floor is
taken up by the pictures, the
gallery's permanent collection
having been removed to make
room for the exhibition.

real forces of history are hidden,
purposely in some cases and in
others because the historians
themselves are ignorant of them
and see only the froth on the
fermenting brew of men, of na-
tions and of cfasses, which is the
subject proper of all historical
writing.

Just as there are schoolboys
who learn more about history
from reading adventure stories
than dé from their school teach-
ers, so there are grown-ups who
take their history sugar-coated.
For them this latest book of
Dyson Carter will act like a tonic.

The introduction of the pub-
lishers promises a story “in
simple, forceful, poignant fash-
jon ... of the boy, the youth,
the mian, against a background
of heroic -adventure, intrigue,
plots and counterplote. Of love
and hate, of a man’s devotion to
his people, his friends and his
cause.”

What starts out as a romance,
however, does not take long to
develop into a thrilling and en-
grossing story of the rise, the
growth and the ultimate success
of the party of Lenin and Stalin.

when it deals with the life of a
man whose whole existence has
been spent in a political move-
ment of the caliber of the Rus-
Sian revolution, the greatest event
in the history of the human race
since the first slave toiled for
the first master under the watch-
ful eyes of the first soldier.

To tell the story here would
be to spoil the reading of it But
it will do no harm to say that
it covers the period of illegal
party work, of exile in Siberia,
of organizing the workers in the
early trade unions, of the part
played by Stalin in the unsuc-
cessful 1905 revolution.

It tells of the building of the
fire-tested Comunist party by
Lenin and the successful culmin-
ation of the task he set it — the
establishing of a society freed
from class rule. It describes the
struggles against wreckers from
within and without, of the smash-
ing of all the Quisling elements
who would hae betrayed the So-
viet people and of how the Soviet
people themselves were steeled
for the great job they are doing
today — destroying the WNazi-
fascist cancer at its roots to save
civilization from barbarism.

&

On the Hollywood Front

Filmtown Gets Down

Pictures that deal with current problems abound these
days. Hollywood has apparently realized the “astonishing”
fact that people are interested in this war, in the fight against
fifth columnists and saboteurs, and even in Russia, so behold!

we are deluged with movies de-
picting a spy hunt in a plane
plant, or the glamorous and
amorous adventures of an Amer-
ican journalist in the occupied
countries of Europe.

But out of the welter of tripe
and nonsense there begins to
emerge a new Hollywood. Ack-
nowledged superior in technical
methods, Hollywood now steps up
to prove its ability to handle in
a masterly fashion films of true
significance and deep interest.

Mission to Moscow is an out-
standing example of this new
realization of film values. Critics
agree that the presentation is
clear and straight forward, a
well-planned and excellently por-
trayed picturization of the build-
ing of a new society, the elimin-
ation of its would-be quislings,
and the consistent and.unfailing
work for peace on the part of
Soviet leaders.

Charges from less disinterested
individuals that the movie does
not stick to facts or to the text
of former Ambassador Davies’
book are refuted by the author's
own statement in the introduction
to the picture:

“T am deeply grateful to the
motion picture industry and the
patriotic citizens who comprise
it, to the great organization of
dramatists, artists and techni-
cians who have projected this
book upon the sereen for you,
my fellow citizens of the Ameri-
cas, and for you, my fellow citi-
zens of the world.”

Mission to Moscow will come

to the Capital Theater on Thurs-
day, June 10 or 17.

“Twentieth Centry Fox is film-
ing the life of Dr. Norman Beth-
ume. Metro Goldwyn Mayer is
producing Lillian Heliman’s
“North Star.” The last month has
brought many excellent films to
Vancouver, one of the most im-
portant, the currently-showing
“Hangemen Also Die.” Thi story

these act”
Stalin, since the deat
Lenin, has played the &
role. That is why a biog
of Stalin is history, and §
of a period in which soci
being re-made. History is,
ally, the sum total of suiq
ographies. “Men,” writes
“make their own history, n
of the whole cloth but fro
matertals they find to Han

Dyson Carter has done 4°
job. His inimitable style of
ing, familiar already to ove’
hundred thousand Canadian
have read Russia's Secret W
will make history entranci_
many more, for ‘the backg”
of heroic adventure, ini
plots and counter-plots,”
stage-property background
is of the very essence of 7
tionary life itself.

To Wai

N° Ald of

of the Czech peoples org:
resistance against the Hi
army of occupation has
very fine acting and is
worth seeing. A song writt
a worker in concentration
closes the picture, ‘with
words, “No Surrender!” sk
from a thousand throats.

Other important films to?
for are: Edge of Darkness
Keeper of the Flame, Journt™
Margaret, The Ox-Bow inc
Inside Fascist Spain (a 3}
of Time feature) and Actic
the North Atlantic.

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New Books On Hand

STALIN’S LIFE—By Dyson Carter _..__._____. 15¢
(See review on this page).
PRODUCTION FOR VICTORY—

By. Earl Browder... 3 SS eee 10¢
TRADE UNIONS AND THE WAR—

By W: Z Foster... ces ee er oh at ie
FARMERS AND THE WAR—

By. Anna Rochester. 3 Se eee 19¢
THE TRUTH ABOUT READERS’ :

DIGEST—By Sender Garlin 2... 15e

300 MILLION SLAVES AND SERFS; LABOR
UNDER FASCIST RULE—J. Kuczynski___... 15

THIS IS OUR LAND: Ukrainian Canadians ;
Against Hitler—By Raymond Arthur Davis.. 75¢

€
The People Bookshop
105 Shelly Building
119 West Pender MA 6929 Vancouvis

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