PACIFIC ADVOCATE

PEOPLE’S VOICE

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VANCOUVER, B.C., SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1945

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D ERA BEGINS ©

Allies Triumphant As
eaten Foe Signs
itional Surrender

This was a better and happier world this week,

One war has been won. Fascism as an organized force in Germany and
central Europe has been broken, its followers dead by the millions, its re-
maining members defeated and demoralized, driven into hiding among the
rubble and filth they caused or snivelling their disavowal of the horrors

lim Buck
itresses
Unity

We call upon all progres-
--minded Canadians to
Fognize that the slogan
-ake Labor a Partner in
yernment, epitomizes the
-. of bringing all the pro-
"= ssive forces in Canadian
| among workers: farmers,
_iness people, French and
-zlish, inte unity and co-
‘ration with industry, ag-
pulture, business and com-
Prce as a whole to build a
ter Canada by making
W iada a force for peace and
ogress in the world.”

“hese words keynoted* ad-
uses by Tim Buck, National
'der of the Labor-Progressive
-ty, in Wancouver and New
‘stminster where he spoke to
bacity audiences this week.
Fuck, well known and popular
4. workers from coast to
»st brought a message of hope
fighting determination to
people of British Columbia.
ressinge his regret at being
le to join in the V-E Day
rations the National lLead-
-stated:

sfhe day to which the demo-
¢ people of the world have
Yooking, and for which our
ers haye been fighting has
ed. German Fascism is de-
ed, its military power is de-
E,yed ... United Nations’ vic-
ly. in Hurope will mark the be-
eninge of a new era in the re-
Hons of the United Nations and
© tasks they will undertake.
m our soldiers from Canada,
tain, the United States and
er countries clasped hands
ch the soldiers of the Red
my around the blazing ruins
Berlin, their handclasp sym-
ied more than military vic-

“It symbolized above all the
‘utual confidence and eco-
mic coperation that has de-
e2loped between the Socialist
puntries of the world and the

“!

3

What Peace Must Bring:

capitalist democracies. It was
in a sense a promise that this
cooperation would continue af-
ter the war.”

ROLE OF THE LABOR
MOVEMENT

Pointing to the need of main-
jaining this cooperation after the
war Tim Buck said that the
basis of the agreement between
the late President Roosevelt,
Churehill and Stalin at Yalta
was this idea. The aim of the
three great leaders was the aim
of continued cooperation and
mutual aid in building up the

war torn cities and shattered in-
dustries of Hurope; for the econ-
omic development of the world
and the raising of the standard
of life for all mankind.

“The labor movement will play
a different role in the postwar
years to that it played in the
past,” Buck continued. “The new
labor international imitiated at
the recent london conference,
will embrace sixty million work-
ers. It will unite the overwhelm-
ing majority of all organized
workers in the world for the first
time in history. Furthermore, it
will bring together, also for the

first time, the trade unions of
the socialist parts of the world
With the trade unions of the cap-
italist countries.

And it is uniting upon a pro-
gram which includes close co-
eperation with the United Na-
dions world organization and
the governments constituting
them in carrying through
world reconstruction along the
lines envisaged in the Yalta
conference.”’

Tim Buck took sharp issue with

Continued on Page 2

See TIM BUCK

they had inflicted. on the
world.

Defeated by the tree people

of the world if had hoped to

enslave, German fascism is
gone. Adolf Hitler, the arch-
enemy of freedom and de-
cency, is dead or in miserable
hiding. The Third Reich,
which Hitler boasted would
‘live for 1,000 years;” has dis-

integrated in unimaginable chaos.

And over the ruins of the world’s
most bloody regime stand the
victorious armies of the Big
Three nations, a living symbol
of the unity that brought victory
and of the unity which even now
at San Francisco is laying the
basis for enduring peace and Se-
curity.

But even as the news of Ger-
many’s unconditional surrender
was flashed to a joyous world
last Monday, the thoughts of
most people turned westward
across the Pacific where Hitler’s
partners’ in crime Emperor
Hirohito and the Japanese mili-
tary fascists -remained to be
dealt with. This was the one
factor that tempered the celebra-
tions—this and the thought of
the thousands of Canadians and
the seores of millions of Russian,
British, American and other lives
lost in the conflict. For if free
men had won a tremendous vic-
tory, they had won at the most
terrible cost in lives and suffer-
ing in all of mankind’s ‘history.
END CAME SWIFTLY

The end came swiftly. Only a
matter of days before members
of the fascist hierarchy were
still bleating thei defiance,
pleading with the German people
tc hold out. Then the Soviet
Unions great Red Army, which
had fought that long and ter-
rible and imeredibly heroic 1500
miles from Stalingrad, climaxed
the long struggle by the capture
of Berlin on May 2. When this
key fortress of Hitler Germany
went under, the remainder of
Germany and its once arrogant
Wehrmacht literally fell
apart. Two days later Northern
Italy surrendered to Allied
troops aided by Italian partisans,
the Nazi government had broken
up, Hitler was dead of fleeing.

On Monday, May 7, the Ger-
mans sued for unconditional sur-
render, the agreement being
Signed at Reims in France at
General Hisenhower’s head-
quarters. On Tuesday, May 8,
designated officially as VE Day,

Continued on Page 8
See NEW WORLD ERA