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GUIDE TO GOOD READING

Zilliacus wraps himself in

illusions in

KONNI ZILLIACUS, MP, was
one of the pink hopes of those
who believed that practicable so-
lutions to British imperialism’s
deep-seated crisis were to be found
in. a “Left Labor government”.

Zilliacus’ latest activities indi-
cate the instability of Left Social
Democrats, particularly when a
militant and united mass move-
ment has not been established
among the workers.

At the, World Peace Conference
in Paris I heard Zilliacus make a
useful contribution to the cause
of peace. But his speech was
somewhat soiled by the build-up
he gave the British Labor party
— the party that had just taken
a leading part in founding the
warmongering Atlantic Pact for
American imperialism.

Now Zilliacus has written a
Penguin book, I Choose Peace. He
offers many strong and well-docu-
mented criticisms of British for-
eign policy, a subject on which he
is an expert, on British ruling-
class support of fascism and anti-
Soviet provocations. He denoun-
ces Ernest Bevin’s foreign policy.

Yet Zilliacus comes forward
with harmful nonsense like this:
“The Labor party, and only the
Labor party, can make peace.
Peace can be saved by the Labor
party.”

swing to right

This belittles the efforts of many:
British workers and progressive
intellectuals outside the Labor
party, who have taken ,the initia-
tive in saving the peace, and have
happily won the support of many
Labor party rank-and-file mem-
bers. f

Zilliacus tells outright untruths,
to shield the Labor party leaders’
past treacheries:

“In all the years between the
wars, Labor clashed with the
Tories on every major issue, from
Russian intervention and the Ver-
sailles Treaty to Munich .

“Fyrom 1981 on, the Labor party

fought the Tories’ policy of pro-
fascist appeasement.”

As R. Palme Dutt, editor of the
British Labor Monthly,, says: “The
fact shows the contrary. The
Labor party voted for the Ver-
sailles Treaty. The Labor party
supported non-intervention in
Spain. The Labor record on Mu-
nich is notorious.” “

Zilliacus even claims for the
Attlee-Bevin-Cripps regime “a fine
record of achievement on the
home front.” ‘This “fine record”
has meant hunger rations for the
British people, foreign air bases
on British soil, and political and
economic colonization by Ameri»

can imperialism — not to men-—

WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN

True story presents an
utterly false picture

COMPARABLE in many respects to the best British pictures,
Lost Boundaries is a sensitive, fine production, distinguished by keen
photography, sets which look natural, and clothing and make-up which

present people as they are.

The story, which is well acted, is that of a-young doctor and bride,
both ‘ ‘colored’ but sufficiently light-skinned to “‘pass’’, who, through

the force of circumstances go to
a small New England town. There
they pass as white and become
respected members of the com-
munity. Their children grow up
in ignorance of the fact that they
are “passing” until the war when
the doctor's commission in the
Navy is turned down because Na-
vy Intelligence has learned of his
Negro. background. (The U.S.
Navy did not at that time, com-
mission Negroes; shortly after-
wards, Roosevelt forced through
a change). The reaction of the
son and daughter as well as the
-members of the town brings the
story to it’s climax and happy
ending.

Here is a story which, though
true, nevertheless is not true to
life. It was so unusual that it
became news. Reactionaries would
like us to forget this ‘fact, and
hope this picture will show that
though there is prejudice and jim-
crow in the United States (this
can. no longer be hidden from
other countries) still, the situa-
tion is slowly improving.

Compare this true story with
one: of fiction, Kingsblood Royal,
by Sinclair Lewis, which is true
to life, and we may well ask why

this book hasn’t been made into

the terrific weapon against pre-.

; judice, that it could be on the
‘screen. If there were a genuine
desire to combat jim-crow, why
pick on a story the Reader's Di-
gest went to such lengths to pub-
lish?
blood Royal?

_ We can be glad that this pic-
ture was made, for it does show
‘prejudice. It does speak | out

against jim-crow. It does have
the police lieutenant point out

¢

‘picture was made,

Why not Brau Kings-

that boys, regardless of race- or
color react the same to slum sur-
roundings. It does show the stu-
pidity of the “blood” nonsense
by having the nurse deliberately
drop the pint of Negro blood ra-
ther than mix it in with the
“white”. '

.All these things can be credited
to Lost Boundaries. The danger
is in not pointing out why this
The U.S. State
department is having more and
more difficulty in selling its kind
of democracy in countries where
large sections of the population,
if not the majority, are “colored”;
India, Japan,.Indonesia for exam-
ples. Pictures like this, and
Pinky, aim to help convince the
rest of the world that the situa-
tion is slowly getting better. Let
us never forget Peekskill! —G.L.
* 5 *

KKK :

Alexander Nevsky; Home of the

Brave; Three Women; Peter eae.

Great.
ea
Lost Boundaries; Hudson's Bay;
The Gay Lady; On the Town;
Passport to Pimlico; Wizard of
Oz, y
ok ;
The Red Pony; Tell It To the
Judge; The Great Lover; The
Girl Who Took the West; City
Across the River; Ma and Pa
Kettle.

‘Prince of Foxes; I was a Male
War Bride; That Midnight Kiss;
State Fair; Jolson Sings Again;
Tuscon? Look for the Silver
Lining; Good Sam; Johnny
Stoolpigeon; Undercover Man;
Saigon; Two Guys from Texas.

}

~ his successor,
-of Maclean’s Magazine is intim-

tion devaluation of sterling and

‘the new and darker crises that
_are looming.

* * *

THE LABOR PARTY, accord-
ing to Zilliacus, “is big and broad-
minded enough to allow reason-
able freedom to minorities and
dissenters within its ranks.”

This comments Palme Dutt, was

written before his own expulsion .

from the Labor party, and he has
to add a rueful postscript admit-
ting the breakdown in this illu-
sion.

Zilliacus eaps this by calling
for ‘liquidation of the British Sites
munist party.

“The Labor party,” he says,

~ “would recognize the French Com-

munist party and the Italian Com-
munist-Socialist alliance, ag well
as the Communist or united work-
ing class parties of Eastern Eu-
rope and the Soviet Union, and
would, withdraw recognition from
the British Communist party, re-
spect the right of the Labor party
to do anything it liked about the
British Communists...”

Says Palme Dutt:

“How simple! “Attlee will pro-
mise Thorez never to have any-
thing to do with that scoundrel
Blum, but to recognize Thorez
as the only voice of the French
working class: in their turn
Cachin and Duclos will promise
never to have anything mOre to
do with Pollitt and Gallacher,
but to recognize Bevin and Mor-
rison as the true voice of the
British working class; and all
will live happily for ever after.

“What an adventure into.cloud
cuckoo land!”

From Zilliacus’ swing in the
direction of Tito we can draw the
lesson that the struggle for peace,
independence and socialism can-
not be based on leadership of

“Left Labor” men, but on the mo-
bilization of the workers in fac- |

tories, mines, offices and _ ship-
yards, in alliance with the pro-
gressive middle-classes and with
farms.”

To a mass movement like that,
the “Left Labor” men often res-
pond. — RUPERT LOCKWOOD.

SIGN UP FOR PEACE

“J WISH I had asked for
more the first time I wrote,”
said Mrs. Annie Whitfield of
Glace Bay, N.Si when she
wrote for more Ban the Bomb
petitions to the Canadian
Peace Congréss office in To-
ronto. Her first petition came
back crammed with names and
with two foolscap sheets of
names attached.

“This is typical of the’ res-
ponse wherever people are
asked to sign our petition,”
Congress Secretary Mary Jen-
nison told Labor News Service
as she thumbed through her
file of cross-country reports.
“There is a holy hatred of war
burning in the hearts of most
Canadians. The petition taps

dians can speak together at
Ottawa for peace.”

She quoted from the peace
organization’s bulletin: “Every
worker in every shop, every
housewife, every minister,
statesman and professional per-
son is urgently asked to add
his or her signature to the
petition.”

Miss Jennison reported that
the Vancouver Peace Assem-
bly has pledged to lead in
gathering 40,000 signatures
from B.C. province, and has
issued an illustrated leaflet
explaining the purpose of the
petition.

Vancouver Peace Council was
informed at its meeting last
week that several affiliated
councils havé been formed
across the province, the larger

Alberni and Trail.

The French-speaking . “peace
council in Montreal expects to
cover many Quebec centers

eame direct to the Peace Con-
gress head office for copies of
the petition to be sent to the
Chamber of Commerce in each
of several Quebec towns.
Timmins, where a provisional

Thousands respond to
‘Ban the bomb’ appeal

that hatred. Through it Cana- .

of these being at Victoria, Port

with the petition. One request.

peace council, is active, has
seen a glimpse of the face of
war in the stormtrooper vio-
lence unleashed by Nazi DP’s
there. The petition drive has
been spurred by this experi-
ence.

In Toronto petitions are at
ready in circulation but the
main drive is scheduled to roll
from the first days of January.

Toronto Youth Council has
already discovered a sample of
the results that can be expected

in January. Several of its
members manned three street
corners with petitions and pla-
cards on a Saturday afternoon.
Over 200 signatures were ga-
thered in less than two hours.

All locals of the United Elec-
trical Workers’ Union have
been seeking petitions, | and
plans are afoot to circulate
the petition in other unions —
and shops.. _ ‘

Prairie plans announced to
date are highlighted by reports
that a concentrated drive will
continue throughout January
in the gateway city of Win-
nipeg. Climax will be a mass
rally where the signatures are
to be solemnly dedicated to
the cause of peace.

SUCCESSOR LINKED TO FINANCIAL POST

Big business pressure

ousting of film board

‘Behind the firing of National
Film Board Commissioner Ross
McLean, ostensibly because he re-

fused to go on working for $8,000

a year, is the direct pressure of
big industrialists and financiers to
bend all governmental agencies to
their anti-popular ends. Ottawa
observers point to the peculiar
coincidence surrounding the ap-
pointment of W. Arthur Irwin as
Irwin, as editor

ately tied to the Financial Post,
a Maclean-Hunter publication and

chief organ of Canadian big busi- ;

ness circles.

It was a Financial Post story
written by Ottawa editor Ken
Wilson which first exposed the
Liberal government’s intensive

_ mass screening of the film board’s

500 employees, and its refusal to
award military film contracts: to
its own agency on the grounds
that it would be a poor “security”

risk} owing to the presence of

“communists” in the board em-
ploy. et
The actual fact is that the hys-

. RCMP. -

teria pelierated was meant to con-
ceal the difficulties encountered
by government war program offi-
cials, in convincing artistic work-
ers with a conscience to produce
outright reactionary propaganda’
films. Continuous sniping has
gone on, sometimes condueted by
private commercial film corpora-
tions, and on other occasions by
the cabinet member. on the board,
R. H. Winters. In the recent
“communist” scare it is learned
here, that Crawley Films, a pri-
vate film company, actually sup-
plied the minister 50 names of
so-called “reds”, provided by the

For a long time now, McLean,
though a willing enough employee
of the cabinet, refused to string
along with the demand for re-

‘placement of his technical person-

nel with more “reliable” workers.
The aim of the government has
been ‘not so. much to. eliminate
the National Film Board as to
render it totally incapable of in-
dependent creative film produc-

tion, and make it completely sub-
eer to the ideological demands ~

-

behind
head —

of ini war artiie: 3

To this end there began a oes
dual weeding-out of the best film
workers and a sort. of transition

period of utilizing present person-

nel to train others of a reaction-
ary bent. McLean resisted this
trend, often defending victims of
‘tthe purge in order to preserve
some semblance of artistic and
technical standards.

His request before the Massey
Royal Commission on Arts and
Science for Crown Corporation
status and more monies for the
NFB, was intended as a measure —
to: meet the attacks on the film
board’s powers. They were both
disavowed by Winters. McLean’s
days were numbered. Now he

is being replaced by a man who
comes to the job with no film ~~

experience or broad cultural —
background, but who is, in the ©
eyes of the Tory Ottawa Journal,
free of the pseudo-intellectualism.
which is the bone of people with
obsessions about ‘culture’? And —
for this he will be paid almost —
twice as much as his predeossor..
— $15,000 a year.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 6, 1950—PAGE ue

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