atten ke stele’ THE PEOPLE Published every Wednesday by The People Publishing Co., Room 104, Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street, Vancouver, B.C. Telephone: MArine 6929. Eprror = Har GrRirFin MANAGING EDITOR -2---ce--oeee--—- AL PARKIN Business MANAGER .....-.-..4-- MINERVA COOPER Six Months—$1.00 Qne Year—$2.00 Printed at Broadwar Printers Limited, 151 East 8th Avonue, Vancouver, B.C. The CCF Unity Move epee DECISION of the CCF provincial council to establish a committee to investigate the possibilities of cooperating with the Communists and other groups will be sincerely wel- comed both within the CCF and among labor men and women generally. The whole question of unity in the labor movement is a basic one. Not that unity between the Communists and the CCF is a cure-all for every problem. But it is a historically proven fact that unity within the labor movement lays the basis for a solution to labor’s problems, and in so doing, cre- ates the conditions for a national unity between all sections of the people so necessary to the winning of the war against fascism and for laying the foundation of a peaceful post-war world. The move by the CCF provincial council reflects very clearly the trend toward unity in a number of countries. The lessons of the past—of Hitler Germany, born out of labor dis- unity; of Spain, betrayed into the hands of fascism by the appeasers who were themselves encouraged by British and French labor's disunity—are bearing fruit. Labor has learned —though the lesson has been bitter—that the fight against the reactionary and fascist enemies of mankind both abroad and at home can only be successful by presenting a common front. Now, in France, in the Lowlands, in Czechoslovakia, even in Italy, all organizations from Communists to those of the extreme right are becoming united in councils of resistance against the fascist occupationists. And in Great Britain, mil- lions of trade unionists are actively campaigning for affiliaton of the Communist Party with the British Labor Party, with opposition coming from only a handful of the top Labor Party leadership. = It was Leon Blum, leader of the French Socialist Party, speaking at his trial at Riom in 1942 before Nazi judges, who summed up best the question of unity with the Communists. Defying his would-be executioners, he declared: “That there were between myself and the Communists in the past such and such differences is no longer of import- ance today, and for my part I obliterate them entirely from my mind. I do not forget that at the moment when I speak now, the Soviet Union is at war, in the same war against the same enemies. Nor do I forget that in the Occupied Zone the Communist Party contributes its share, its very large share, of victims and hostages. “The other day I saw in a newspaper list of hostages the name of Timbaud. I knew little Timbaud; he was secretary of the Metalworkers’ Union in the Paris regime . . . I often saw him and was often in battle with him. Now I know only this—he has been shot and he died singing the Marseillaise. “That is how Timbaud died and that is how many others have died too. Therefore, for my part, as far as the Commu- nist Party is concerned, I will not add another word.” These words of Blum should be committed to memory by every member of the labor movement, here in BC as else- where. It is apparent that the lesson contained has been understood for some time by numbers of CCF followers and trade unionists. It is to be sincerely hoped that the committee appointed by the CCF provincial council will arrive at a de- cision so ardently desired and so supremely necessary. - Fuel Robbery Te increasing tendency to lower the quality of goods and services together with the general slackening of price control wreaks a double-barrelled hardship on the consumer. One of the most brazen examples of lowered quality is in the Vancouver fuel business, where coal dealers this week, far from attempting to deny the delivery of poor quality coal to consumers at the same high prices, calmly warned the pub- lic “not to be choosy or temperamental when the load of fuel delivered at their home is not exactly the type they are ac- customed to purchase.” Here is an outstanding instance where the Wartime Prices and Trade Board should exercise its function of protecting quality as well as prices by stepping in and putting a stop to such plain and fancy highway robbery perpetrated under the excuse of a war emergency. Building A\nglo-Soviet Trade Union Acction By Wireless to Allied Labor News KUIBYSHEV. LL OBSTACLES to international trade union cooperation can be overcome, a spokesman of the All-Union Council of Trade Unions declared this week, if the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee, scheduled to meet in the near future in Moscow, demonstrates to labor in the United Nations that it is actively and energetically carrying out its principal job — in- creasing the production of air- large cities. At these meetings planes, tanks and guns for vic- Soviet workers not only passed tory over Hitler. resolutions warmly supporting In an important article in the the Anglo-Soviet committee, but first issue of War and the Work- ‘Sindertook to fulfill the concrete ing Class, official bi-monthly or- obligations arising out of the gan of the AUCTU, E. Danilov, agreement.” editor of the magazine and chair- e man of the central committee of WN the reluctance of the AFL the College and University Tea- O to associate directly with So- chers’ Union, wrote: viet unions, Daniloy quotes the “The more activity the comit- British authority Ernest Davis, tee works, the more influence it writing in the London Political will have with the mass of demo- Quarterly: eratic factory and office work- “Notwithstanding that the AFL ers. Only by active work can the professes to pay tribute to Rus- committee show the unions of the sia’s resistance, it remains anti- democratic countries, including Communist and therefor there the United States, the need for are no prospects of its coming in- joining with it to achieve victory to an Anglo-American-Soviet over the enemy and solve the committee. It is possible that the tasks that will confront the labor CIO might have agreed, but it is movement after the war.” not likely that the TUC general e council, which has always con- > Kr centrated its attention exclusive- eva ENS the history of the ly on the AFL, would risk a rup- nglo-Soviet committee in 2 the last year and a half, Danilov ture with the AFL for the sake 2 = of affiliating with the CIO.” recalls the early enthusiasm é: among British and Soviet work- Daniloy adds: “It is, of course, ers at the news that a delegation ‘the privilege of leaders of the from the British Trades Union SF executive committee to de- Congress had reached an agree Cide with whom they wish to col- ment with the AUCTU in Moscow ‘borate. To what extent such de- on October 15, 1941, He observes, isions correspondent to the de- However, thet “of late Soviet. “cee Of tie factory, and office trade unlon members haye not Wworsers united’ in the federation, come across many press reports however, is another matter. As on the committee's activities? ‘0% the position of ithe Soviet One reason for this, he indicates, ‘t#e. Unlous: affections, says an is the large amount of time and ld Hussian proverb, cannot be effort devoted in the past year ‘“™posed by force.” : fo) Geroliaons jwith the exec: | Dose the avowed) poion tive council of the American ‘be AFL committee, Danilov Federation of Labor. says, “One would expect elemen- Soviet workers are greatly in- tary courtesy toward the labor terested In the life and struggles organizations of a friendly coun- of working people in other coun- try. Thus the behavior of AFL tries, particularly in Great Bri- representatives at the TUC Con- tain and the United States,” he &7e55 in the autumn of 1942 could writes. “Our workers regard not but occasion surprise. Al- every act of fraternal solidarity though SERS S OF ithe: presence on the part of the workers in there of Soviet trade union repre- other countries as a means of sentatives, the AFL delegates did consolidating all our forces for not hesitate to make hostile state- the struggle against the common ments with regard to Soviet trade enemy.” unions, . The TUC’s proposal in 1941 to “Incidentally, these hostile form a joint trade union com- ‘St#tements were moll Siven Sny, mittee was “welcomed by the So- Sep ateeey phe UG pened coun: viet trade unions and millions of ou This also was surprising, for factory and office workers as an neither _the general council nor expression of the desire of Brit- any of its leaders can accuse the ish working men and women for ‘ militant collaboration with labor loyalty to the TUC. in the Soviet Union.” 6 British union leaders of all poli- URNING to the Anglo-Soviet tical views cabled support for the committee, Danilov says: committee. Sir Walter Citrine, “Although the Anglo-Soviet secretary of the TUC, said in a special message to Soviet work- filled its mission, in recent ers through the Tass correspond-. months the workers of the USSR ent in London: “I hope the Rus- 2nd Great Britain have seen few sian people will understand that Signs of its activity. The commit our proposal is something more tee’s importance, however, has by than an act of friendship. I as- Mo means diminished. Its tasks in sure the Russian workers that Winning the war against Hitler- we will do everything we can to ite tyranny — and preparing the make our Anglo-Soviet commit- unions of both countries for the tee a permanent working organ- Solution of post-war problems— ization.” are more serious than ever. e The war is not yet over. The ase cordial reception given the bitter struggle still lying ahead delegation of Soviet unionists will demand more time, more who visited Britain in January, $acrifices; and further mobiliza- 1942, says Danilov, ‘‘was regarded tion of all forces at the disposal as a splendid beginning for car- of the United Nations. In the war rying out the tasks outlined in against Hitler Germany and its the agreement.’ When they re- accomplices the role of the trade turned to the USSR, members of unions is immense. They must the delegation reported on their constantly mobilize the people for visit at mass meetings called by 2 Steady increase in the output unions in Moscow, Leningrad, of armaments. Therein lies the Sverdlovsk, Molotov, Gorki, Nov- principal task of the Anglo-Soviet osibirsk, Baku, Thilisi and—other Trade Union Committee.” - serting that if we all had Soviet trade unions of any act of ~ commiittee has still far from ful-— “Pducation” — OME of the stuff that © over the radio is - the nonsense that fin into the press. Recently by accident, an ‘educa education it would solv difficulties. To the uninitiated th; seem feasible but when ered in the light of exper is so much wind and is | the radiorater needed son) } cation himself. 4 To him, education mj thorough drilling in the = faught in the colleges ar versities. Now this is a vi- sirable thing to have anc such an education has an for expression will go a lo in helping the individualt the exigéncies of life in| strenuous world as the which we live. : But—before the last © War, chemists were tur by mass production in man universities. This wa necessary by the needs { man imperialism to overco” handicap of coming lat” struggle for world markets» ever much it helped th man imperialist overlords © not do much for the 7 German chemists. These were the lowe: German workers. A ( chemist with papers, certi- diplomas and the handle | tor” tagged on to his 5 received lower wages + longshoreman on the Ham Altona waterfront or a tru er for the Krupp gun fa He was rated, in fact, few marks above an agrit laborer. India, Too HEN in India, I’ve se whose families mean for the Indian civil sery spent fortunes on their edi They had been through ties in France and G They had even taken high at Oxford and Cambrids there were so many W civil servants that man; glad to get jobs as bank) or messengers for the wages as a coolie who basins of concrete on ce tion jobs—8 annas or 16 — day. : Even in BC it has bi mored that college EF have worked on ‘space’ & ments for local papers at lucky to make more th minimum wage. as Again, to theorize a every one had a colle tion, would there be ar tage in it to any individi would it solve anythin tions being as they ar ety was organized to ma of an educated people, 4 in the Soviet Union, it wi different. If the advante education accrued to allt ple instead of to the ow: the means of productic higher the standards of education, the easier would solve its problems 2 society, the individual, But that involves politi catio as well as education and science. That, how outside of the curriculum | “educationists”’ who wow all our problems by “edt Education may increase ledge but wisdom is 80 else again!