B.C. LUMBER WORKER

Bulletin Published by
BO, DISTRICT COUNCIL
International Woodworkers of America
Editor

NIGEL MORGAN
Room 504, Holden Bldg., Vancouver, B.O.

Phone, PAcific 9727
Make Payments to: “LW.A, B.C, D.C.”

HELP KIRKLAND
LAKE STRIKERS!

‘The lumberworkers of British Colum-
bla join with labor throughout Canada
jn a rousing salute to the striking miners
of Kirkland Lake. They are fighting
the fight of all Canadian Labor; the fight
to force vicious anti-labor industrialists,
who refuse, despite the laws of this
Dominion and the great need for labor
to have a rightful share in war partner-
ship, to respect the rights of working men
and women.

A victory at Kirkland Lake will signify
far more than a victory over one anti-
labor employer in Ontario. It will be a
milestone in the history of the Canadian
labor movement when the Kirkland Lake
Strike is won. These Kirkland Lake Mine
operators symbolize the dream of a few
Canadian industrialists who still hope
to enslave Canadian workers with the
fascist pattern of life. Their method of
dealing with the Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers’ Union wins the admiration of
Hitler, not only because it is the way
Hitler deals with labor, but because a
disruption of vital production caused
by the mine operators withdrawing from
the Government conciliation, helps Hit-
ler's program for world conquest,

The desperation of the company is
shown clearly by their propaganda pur-
porting to show that the majority of
the strikers were of foreign or non- Bri-
tish extraction, This propaganda, aimed
at creating racial bitterness, is absolutely
fictitious according to Local 240, who
have wired Minister of Justice I. St.
Laurent demanding, and rightly so, that
he take action against the company offi-
cials under the Defence of Canada Reg-
ulations. Of the total number of men
normally employed by the Kirkland Lake
Company, 3701, only 686 are working. All
public bodies, labor organizations, camps,
and mills should immediately communi-
cate with Prime Minister Mackenzie
King and Minister of Labor Humphrey
Mitchell at Ottawa demanding that the
government intervene and compel the
mine operators to obey his own labor
policy.

The miners are keeping up their fight
on behalf of all Canadian labor, organ-
ized or unorganized. It is up to us to do
everything we can to make their sacri-
fices less severe by demanding that our
government act and by renewing our ef-
forts to raise money and show them that
they have the solid backing of labor
from the Atlantic to the Pacific,

It takes real courage to carry on a
strike in below zero weather for the
sake of principles—we must not let the
miners down. Victory at Kirkland Lake
will strengthen the entire labor move-
ment including the woodworkers. Their
victory will spur the membership of the
IWA to intensify their efforts and to
sweep aside all obstacles in the fight to
ensure greater sceurity and a better life
for all labor.

Union Holds Dance

'To assist in the raising of funds for
the Kirkland Lake strikers, members
of the United Fishery Cannery and Re-
duction Plant Workers’ Union, Local 89,
are sponsoring a dance to be held on

THE B.C. LUMBER WORKER

IWA Pledges Aid To Gov't

(Continued from Page One)

measures are taken to preserve our forest
resources for the unlimited demands that
may be placed on them before our battle
for survival is won,

3, To re-employ unemployed workers
in the communities ana regions in which
the industry operates as quickly as the
accelerated pace of the industry permits;
to fill the labor requirements of the in-
dustry from the available supply, and
train workers for those occupations in
which the Council finds a shortage.

4. The co-operation of labor organi-
zations in -registering and organizing
their membership to see an adequate
supply of labor is maintained in the
sections of the industry most vital to
the war effort. For example, to solve
the shortage of loggers which has ex-
isted all fall and winter in the Queen
Charlotte Islands, where most import-
ant war production is proceeding.

5, Promote industrial peace through
the perfection and extenston of sound
relations between management and em-
ployees, and improved understanding in
our respective efforts to contribute in
this great crisis our country faces,

In addition, we are urging full partici-
pation and co-operation of our member-
ship in the fighting forces, in a Civilian
Defense Program for the protection of
our lives, production-machinery, and
coast line in case of enemy raids, in Air
Raid Protection and Red Cross Work,
and are offering all the facilities of our

halls and staff, to this end, in case of
emergency.

We believe these proposals, if carried
out in the spirit in which they are made,
will assist in promoting increased pro-
duction for a greater Canadian war ef-
fort, and we feel sure your department
will give its full co-operation for the
benefit of the whole Canadian nation in
its fight, by the side of Great Britain, the
Soviet Union, the United States, China
and our allies, to wipe Hitlerism from
the face of the earth.

For the purpose of furthering co-opera-
tion towards this end, we propose a con-
ference between officials of our organi-
zation and officials of your department
so that a clear plan can be immediately
arranged to carry out the proposals
given above.

We look forward to a reply from you
in the near future, outlining your views
on this all-important question.

Yours faithfully,
IWA-CIO District Council No. 1,
Nigel Morgan, Secretary.

This week Secretary Nigel Morgan an-
nounced receipt of a reply from the
Timber Controller, printed below, and
pledged on behalf of the IWA member-
ship in B.C, our fullest co-operation in
meeting the government's war lumber
needs,

Department of Munitions and Supply,
Ottawa, Canada, January 13, 1942.
Dear Sir:

I acknowledge, with thanks, your letter

1942

Timber Head Asks
Maximum Output

OTTAWA, January 15—Timber Con-
troller, A. S. Nicholson, today appealed
for an “all-out effort” by lumbermen,
bushmen jloggers, and manufacturers to
produce the maximum quantity of lum-
ber this year. “There must be no slack-
ening in the industry, no part-time work,
no closing down, no long holidays. In
all seasonal producing areas camps should
be in operation to the latest possible
date.” Mr, Nicholson said, “Lumber is

used more extensively than anything else
as a substitute for materials In which
shortages exist.” He pointed out that
Canada’s lumber industry brings to the
Dominion $75,000,000 a year in foreign
exchange needed for the purchase of
war necessities which have to be {m-
ported, “Every individual associated with
the industry is doing a worthwhile job,”
the Controller said.

of the 7th, and appreciate your willing-
ness to co-operate and help,

I am sending your letter to Mr. D. D.
Rosenberry, the Assistant Timber Con-
troller at Vancouver, and asking him
to get in touch with you and see what
you can work out together. Unques-
tionably we need a maximum produc-
tion at the present time.

Yours truly,
A. S, Nicholson, Timber Controller.

union, including boats, cars, offices,

The Strategy Of A “People’s

War”

By ANNA LOUISE STRONG

Hitler is being beaten not by preponderant military
strength of the Red Army but by the strategy of
Soviet total defense known as the “People’s War.”
It was this strategy, revealed in Moscow to Harry
Hopkins that caused him later in Washington to speak
of Stalin as one of the great military leaders of all
time.

Guerilla war is not new, nor is the scorched earth policy
new, but the Soviet pattern which correlates army, industry
and civilians into one closed fist against the enemy is new
in military history, Marshal Tukhachevsky, executed three
years ago for high treason, didn’t approve of the strategy;
he inherited the traditional ideas of the Russian tsardom and
German Reichswehr, and was convinced that, in a show-
down, the Germans would win. That was why he conspired
to sell the Ukraine to Hitler in return for the “independence”
of the rest of Russia—the treason for which he was court-
martialed.

American military experts who last June agreed with Hit-
ler and Tukhacheysky that the Germans would swiftly win,
reasoned that Hitler had the steel production of Europe—some
50 million tons—to the Soviet’s presumable 20 million, Hitler
had superiority in armament, having tdken over all Europe
as a going munitions concern, from Czech war supplies ade-
quate to equip 1,500,000 soldiers to 400 new planes picked up
on a Paris field.

Hitler, if willing to take the risk, had even a possible
preponderance of manpower. The 190 million Soviet. popula-
tion could normally release not over five per cent—about
10,000,000 armed men—for the actual front. But Hitler, with
300,000,000 people of occupied Europe producing for his war

machine, could release up to 15 per cent of the 80,000,000 Ger-
mans and Austrians for fighting—totalling with Hungarians,

Rumanians and Finns—an army of 15,000,000.

Hitler’s superior striking power carried the German on-
slaught across important distances of Soviet territory and
encouraged the experts’ view that the Germans would win.
The Soviet High Command measured this German striking
power in the first week of war and based a counter strategy
on these estimates which was announced by Stalin on the
tenth day.

Soviet strategy called for a slow, hard-fought retreat by
the Red Army, selling territory and cities at the highest
possible price; for evacuation or destruction of industrial
plants an draw materials so that the Germans could not cash
in on the lands they won; and for a sacrificial civilian war
in the German rear.

‘The Red Army’s slow retreat across more than a thousand

miles of territory required exceptionally high morale. Such
a retreat is the hardest test known to armies, The Red Army
met the test, exacting a high price for every foot of territory
yielded. Encircled Red troops even fought on in defiance of
military custom, exasperating the Germans by the bloody
cost still exacted for ground technically won.

‘Meanwhile the country's industries travelled castward.
Factory workers gave to moving their factories the same
twenty-four hour a day devotion expected from soldiers at
the front. Thousands of trains travelled east carrying ma-
chinery on flat cars with the accompanying workers and
technical staff in box cars. All American correspondents in
the back country saw such trains.

Cases are known of factories which moved 2,000 miles and
resumed production with only fourteen days’ interruption; one
plant boasted of “completing its month’s production pro-
gram” in the month in which it moved! Together with the
destruction of any wealth that had to be left behind—of which
the blowing up of the Dnieper Dam and its accompanying
quarter of a billion dollars’ worth of industry was only one
spectacular example—this transfer of industry insured that
the Germans should acquire, not a going concern 28 in
Western Europe, but ruined cities and ravaged fields while
the salvaged machinery served the Red Army,

This correlation between industry and the army was
facilitated by state-ownership of large scale industry. The
central office of the airplane industry, for instance, could
sit in Moscow with a map and card catalogue and decide
that a plant evacuated from Kiev would fit neatly into a half-
finished plant in the Urals. The evacuation was carried out
on the same trains that brought troops and war supplies to
the front. ;

The terrific cost of all this to the civilian population was
increased by Stalin's call for civilian warfare in the area
taken by the Germans. The horrors of a “People’s War”
thus initiated cannot be grasped in terms of any of modern
Burope’s battles. In Western Hurope some of the armies
fought but the civilian submitted to the victor. The Soviet
People chose death by torture rather than life under the Nazi
heel. The Germans treated civilian fighters as outlaws. They
slaughtered women and children wholesale in reprisal for
the ambushes of German troops. They tortured to death old
men of sixty and even boys of twelve in the effort to make
them reveal the hiding-places of “outlaw” bands in which
their sons or fathers served. The only European population
that suffered at all similarly were the Poles and Serbs.

The Nazis's disdain of the common man and their reliance
on “leader-dictatorship” precluded their even envisaging a
“People’s War” in which a whole population would engage
in acts of sacrificial heroism which no leader was present
to enforce. That was where Hitler miscalculated; his attack
on Russia was not insane but based on military data which
gave him a good chance of winning. But the Russian people
decided otherwise.

Stalin staked all on the faith in a

eople’s war,
estimate seems proving true today, ioe ae