eeatest power in Europe,
=-cises the greatest di-
Bice in Europe.

@, the role of the Red
1) mighty part that the
“gt played in the smash-
Me Pler’s war machine, re-
potent political force

> on that continent, and
in a potent political
m that continent for a
ei after every Red Army
1; been drawn back be-

ef Europe the people’s
@-and the conquering
i smashed to smither-
vestige of the- state
| the reactionary land-

» ss and the partners of |

» | italism in those coun-
pas smashed all their civi-
‘zations.. These are all
and they are all fun-

:o the future of the:

he capitalist countries
| also taken place very
t ‘anges which are not
% but which, on the
il of these big changes,
_>-mendous influence on
'ig of national and _in-
'= policies. First of all,
Hx as a world system
i slems today such as it
1 since the first steam
™) +s invented. The area
% = it exercises domina-
veen reduced tremen-
| the war. The number
-over which capitalism
> tion has been reduced
ly by the war. The
capacity of the great
tates has been doubled
ar. Their investments
ie - almost doubled as a
°@ .e war, mainly through
ou t contracts: Their’ need
a@ > has been increased
by the war. The field
@ ation from which to
= income without a new
has been immensely
§ :apitalism as a world
= ces tremendous prob-
= cesult of the war, prob-
= *h will unquestionably
_ nditions of crisis with-
‘les of finance capital
@® n capitalist economy
Ss as a whole. Against
unprecedented growth
* sive sentiment, of la-
} izations and -working
* rstanding ef the role
' oly capitalism in the
_-n of the war and build-
fascism. The working
' are consciously anti-
us is one of the great
prought about by the
>. labor movement in
italist country is not
1S sciously, but avowedly
= st. The fight against
Ms already a broad pop-
tele,

- onopoly capital stands
E of being the source,
E t of fascism, the source
appeasement by which
was able to build up
fin all capitalist coun-

| War is over and peace
caught the King
4 absolutely un-
41. The so-called
© Paper’ which was held
3 te program for partial
‘sion between peace in
Fand victory in the Pacific
< even started going into

-We were assured that
ite Paper was the plan

£ i |

Labor Faces Big Tasks

for full employment-througk“the
period between the two victories,
and that the text of the plans
for the period after V-J Day was
not necessary as yet. So here the
King Government is not even
started on the plans for the
period between -V-E ,and V-J
Days. There is no doubt that
within the next few months half
a million people will have to
change jobs, not counting those
leaving the armed services. With-
in the year there will be one-
quarter of a million: unemployed.
There will be mass unemploy-
ment, although it will be transi-
tional.

For some time there will be an
enormous _ civilian demand, not
only for consumer goods but also
for capital goods. There will be
new possibilities for employ-
ment, but, on the part of the
Canadian Association of Manu-
facturers,. Chambers of Com-
merce, bankers and big business
interests, the fight for recon-
version wil be a fight for a policy
of relaxation of price montrol,
meduced taxation upon profits,
and to abolish wage control.

Big business will strive to get
the workers back to peacetime
jobs at lower rates of wages.

HE fight for trade union con-
ditions and organization will
be a crucial fight. We must give
a lead in the organization and re-
‘of tens of thou-
workers. It can be
done, but it is going to be a tre-
mendous job. We must fight as
never before in our lives to make
sure that our party leads the
struggle to maintain the condi-
tions which the workers have
won and to organize the hun-
dreds of thousands who must

participate in the battle to win
the peace.

organization
sands of

The question is raised: “Why
do we not formally denounce the
no-strike pledge?” The answer
is that it is not a matter of sen-
timent, but of the organization
of the workers and their trade
unions around the struggles they
face. We do not denounce the
no-strike pledge simply because
the fight to organize hundreds
of thousands ‘of new workers,
the fight to maintain wage
standards, price controls, a high
level of employment, the winning
of lay-off pay is first of all a
fight to maintain and strengthen
those new methods of political
struggle which the trade union
movement has developed during
the war.

It is a fight to win the sup-
port of the public, to strengthen
as far as possible all the legal
possibilities of union certifica-
tion, the right to collective bar-
gaining, all those legislative pro-
visions which guarantee the
rights of workers by law. It
would be very wrong for labor
leadership to say: “The war is
over; the fight for economic con-
ditions begins, so therefore the
labor movement repudiates all
other methods except the strike.”
That is how it would be inter-
preted if the labor movement de-
nouncés all other methods ex-
cept the strike weapon.

The need to emphasize Labor’s
desire to solve the problems of
ryeconversion in an orderly way
is highlighted by the danger that
the slight legal gains that have
been made might, in the present
situation, be eliminated as war-
time emergency measures. I
don’t say the King Government
will do it, but I’m afraid they
will unless there is enough pub-
lic pressure to prevent them. The
thing that would encourage them
most would be for the labor
movement to say: “The gloves
are off, the no-strike pledge is
finished!” That would play right
into the hands of the right wing
of the Liberal Party. It would

TIM BUCK
LPP National Leader

enable them to declare that P.C.
1003 was merely wartime legis-
lation which can now be dis-
pensed- with. We don’t want to
help the reactionaries in that
way. Our. fight is to make’it a
peacetime law, a permanent law
of Canada, and to strengthen it.

Ours is not_a fight to demon-
strate that the workers are look-
ing for strikes! Our fight is to
maintain jobs, maintain real
wages in terms of purchasing
power, union security, strong la-
bor -organization. We will place
all our emphasis on those aims.
If all other methods fail and
workers are forced into strike
action, then we will show that
the no-strike pledge and our
adherence to it during the war
cid not weaken the workers’
fighting capacity nor our abil-
ity to lead strikes when they
have to be fought.

But Labor is not going to start
with the slogan that peace is
here, so we.will revert to pre-
war conditions. On the contrary,
Labor must strengthen. its new

role in the struggle for the shap-
ing of national policy.

&
ECONDLY, we have : to
strengthen our activity to

raise the understanding of the,
necessity) for the trade union
movement to carry-on consistent
effective work in the fight for
jobs, for social legislation, for
international cooperation, and
even on the question of exports.

The question of exports can
no longer be viewed solely as in
the pre-war days, as a means by
which to enrich great monopolies
at the expense of the Canadian
workers. There is a great issue
today as to where the exports
will go. Will they help.maintain
the level of jobs in Canada by
helping the new governments of
of liberated Europe to*buy our
goods through credits provided
to them by the Canadian people
through our - government?

If the Bank of Montreal buys
20 ‘million dollars worth of Ca-
nadian government bonds so that
the government can loan the
money to Yugoslavia to buy Ca-
nadian products it will still be
capitalism. If it is to build state
industries it will introduce an
element of state capitalism. If
Yugoslavia establishes a _ social-
cialist economy it will mean that
socialist Yugoslavia will owe
money to capitalist Canada.
Well, which would democratic
Canadians prefer?

Would we rather have socialist
Yugoslavia owe money to Can-
ada for railroads which are their
own, or have the bank of Mon-
treal own the railroads?

It isn’t a perfect solution be-
cause nothing is perfect in this
world and the Teheran Agree-
ment did not create a situation
where all situations could be per-
fect: what it did was to help de-
velop a situation in which a lot‘
of things can be done which were
not possible before.

AS. I pointed out, it is true
that this will bring forward
tremendous problems of large-
seale economic cooperation be-
tween the socialist and capitalist
economies. There will be tre-
mendous problems of trade mech-
anisms, balance of payments
and international investments.
That is true. We cannot avoid
it. If it becomes international
investment through govern-
ments, its implications will be
much less cause for conflicts, but
that is all the more reason why

[te i | [Ste | a |e te ik [2k Jak De

EIEIEIEILIES IE3E

The Peoples’

ATTENTION

During Alterations
Bookstore Will

Opened At
875 E. Hastings Street
Hastings and Campbell Avenue

Be

we should be keen to fight for
every measure to ensure that
international credits will be not
through bankers to companies, or’
even to governments of countries,
but through governments to
other governments. :

This is true not only of the So-
viet Union but of Britain and of
al the new countries of Europe;
new Poland, new Czechoslovakia,
new Romania, new Bulgaria, all
of the new governments includ-
ing Finland. They will all need
credits in very large amounts and
the problems raised will be prob-
lems involving the fundamental
direction of their political and
economic development after the
war. It will involve the entire
question of whether internation-
al finance capital will once again
get a grip on their economies or
whether the peoples of our coun-
try and the world are going to
help them rebuild their eeono-
mies without becoming enslaved
to international finance-capital.

We must. maintain the fight to
keep Labor in this and to make
the membership of the trade
union movement aware of the
fact that you can, have no long-
term full employment in capital-
ist Canada if you don’t have ‘ex-
ports; and there is no long term
value to us as a nation in main-
taining large exports unless, in
large part, they help strengthen
democracy.

In the fight to help maintain
exports through loans and
credits to the liberated nations,
Britain, the Soviet Union, the
working class, in conjunction
with all other. democratic forces,
will be fighting in the interest of
the nation—to make this an en-
during peace with prosperity at
home through cooperation
abroad. In doing this we shail
be able at the same time to
make it clear while urging the
maintenance of national unity,
that those political forces which,
under the leadership of mon-
opoly capital, strive to re-estab-
lish the conditions that existed
before the war are enemies of
the nation and acting against
the national interest. Obviously
the compelling force that makes
us fight for national unity and
the bonds which can unite the
majority of the nation in the
postwar period are different to
what they were during the war.

O sum up on this question. It
was not merely correct but
obviously essential that the Com-
munist parties should be the
parties to initiate the fight for
the no-strike pledge. It was ob-
viously essential that we should
make the labor. movement con-
scious of the need for that
pledge. But the war is over and
labor cannot consider its hands
bound as they were during the
war.

That is the way. the question
of the no-strike pledge or strike
action must be placed- today.
Our task is not to agitate for the
refutation of the no-strike
pledge, but to emphasize the need
tc protect all those gains in the
legal defence of labor’s rights
that were made during the war.

These things are going .to tie
in, with the fight for political
action, because the _ situation
which developed during the war
and which found its clearest ex-
pression during the federal elec-

tion campaign has not ended. It
is still only in the early stages.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 8. 1945