96 days in space

for Soyuz-28 crew

Into the thickening book of
space exploration history go sev-
eral new entries as a result of
Soviet achievements in recent
months.

Completing what has been cal-
led the USSR’s most complicated
and successful space mission,
cosmonauts Georgi Grechko, 46
and Yuri Romanenko, 33,
touched down in their Soyuz 26
spaceship, March 16, after a
record-breaking 96 days, 10 hours
in space. Most of their time,
which bettered the U.S. record by
12 days, was spent aboard the or-
biting Salut-6 space lab. They
blasted off on Dec. 10, 1977.

On Jan. 10, cosmonauts Vla-
dimir Dzhanibekov, 35, and Oleg
Makarov, 45, left earth aboard
“Soyuz-27, to join the orbiting
crew, for a five-day stay.

Progress-I, an unmanned re-
supply spacecraft, blasted off Jan.
20 and docked with Salut-6 two
days later to take food and other
needs to the two cosmonauts
conducting experiments there.

Then, on March 2, one Soviet
and one Czechoslovak cos-
monaut left earth in Soyuz-28 to
conduct a seven-day course of
experiments with the Salut crew.
The international crew were:
Alexei Gubarev and Vladimir
Remek, 29. At this time it was
announced that not only are cos-
monauts from the German Demo-
cratic Republic and Poland train-
ing to make flights this year, but
trainees are being selected from
Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania,
Cuba and Mongolia for future
flights.

HUGE TOKYO-PEKING DEAL MEANS

Trade p

By E. KACHURA

MOSCOW (APN) — Japan and
China have signed an 8-year trade
agreement in Peking after a treaty
granting China a ‘‘most-favored
nation’ status on the EEC mar-
kets had been initialled in
Brussels.

Both events are linked by a
significant coincidence in time
and, more important, in aims -
which the Chinese leaders hope to
achieve with the help of these ag-
reements. Against a background
of Peking’s insistent calls for a
broadly-based anti-Soviet front,
these agreements complement
each other, as it were, meeting the
desire of the Chinese leaders to
speed up militarization of the
country by using the military and
economic potential of the indust-

lus politics

Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Alexei Gubarev (right) and Czechoslovak

. rial Western countries.

Peking hopes that trade with
Western Europe will provide
China witha channel for military
technology and weapons, while
Japan is regarded as a source of
technology for the development
of the Chinese military industry
and also as a major consumer of
Chinese oil.

Oil, China’s main foreign cur-
rency earner, accounts at present
for more than 40% of Japan’s im-
ports from China. At the same
time, Chinese oil has a high con-
tent of paraffin and costly equip-
ment is needed to refine and heat
it. This is the reason why
Japanese power engineering and
petrochemical companies had
long been opposed to any in-
crease in oil imports from China.

Supported by their govern-
ment, the leaders of the Japanese
business community eventually
prevailed, explaining their posi-
tion by Japan’s economic prob-
lems and the need to promote a
political accommodation with
Peking.

The Japanese-Chinese trade

cosmonaut-researcher Viadimir Remek, the crew of Soyuz-28 who seta agreement provides for a growth

precedent as an “international” crew.

A portrait of a corpo

Last week one of Canada’s corporate
elite, John A. McDougald died. His
death opened up a sizable number of
well-paying jobs. However, if you hap-
pen to be job hunting don’t break a leg
getting down to the nearest Manpower
office. They won’t be listing them. But,
just in case you're interested here are
some of the vacancies Mr. McDougald
left behind:

Chairman and president of Argus
Corporation Ltd. This job provides ex-
cellent connections with 46 interlocking
companies, banks and. trusts: In addi-
tion there are vacant executive posi-
tions in about 30 other companies, such
as chairman of Dominion Stores Ltd.,
Standard Broadcasting, and Massey-
Ferguson.

~
* * *

His is the classical success story —
from office boy to corporation presi-
dent.

McDougald started young and
worked hard. Leaving school at the age
of 14 (so we’re told) he started work as
an office boy in one of the bigger bond
houses. Twenty-three years and a siza-
ble bankroll later, he joined forces with
E.P. Taylor in the Argus Corporation.
And he never looked back for the rest of
his affluent life. Room for him at the top
was his motto and he was determined to

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 31, 1978—Page 8

in trade up to a total of $20,000-

The new China-Japan trade agreement Is geared toward utilizing

Japanese technology to modernize China’s armed forces.

embracing about 90% of
Japanese-Chinese trade, was in-
terpreted by observers as an indi-
cation of a.dramatic expansion of
economic cooperation between
the two countries in the future.

Statistics show, however, that
between 1970 and 1977, the pre-
ceding 8-year period, including

the three years during which
Japan did not buy Chinese oil, the
actual value of trade between
China and Japan was $18,400-
million, or almost as much as the
new trade agreement provides for
(taking inflation into account). So,
the aim of the trade agreement is
not to expand trade by any signi-

- ficant. percentage in order to
‘“‘boost the Japanese economy,”’
as Tokyo claims, but rather to re-
structure trade to gear it to the
priorities of the Peking leader-
ship.

Peking was clearly pleased with
the agreement, whereas in Japan
it caused different reactions.
Pro-Peking political circles and
businessmen hoping for ‘big ex-

thusiastic about the agreement.
But many Japanese businessmen
see serious problems ‘hidden be-
hind the outward attraction of the
deal. ‘‘Japanese invasion of the
Chinese market and the purch-
ases of Chinese oil — a burden
which Japan can hardly bear — as
well as the extension of credits to
China — will not only hinder the’
normal development of the
Japanese economy but also lead
to friction and differences in
world economic cooperation,”’
commented the _ influential
Japanese paper Sankei Shimbun.

Many commentators singled
out ‘the political implications of.
the agreement. The Hong Kong-
based South China Morning Post
said that the Chinese-Japanese
trade agreement was a prelude to
a peace treaty between the two
countries. In other words, this all
boils down to material and prop-
aganda support for the plan to
forge a military and political al-
liance between China and Japan
and to bring the latter into the
orbit of Peking’s policy of world
domination.

million. This ambitious target, port orders were particularly en-

rate tycoon

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

get there by hook or by crook. And he

did. He is reputed to have been the

most powerful member of the Canadian
business establishment.
* a *

If you are young and starting out on

life’s adventure but having trouble

finding a job, take heart. You, too, can
make it if you can get a start as an office

boy in one of our biggest bond houses. _

And on your ‘way to the top you can
follow Mr. McDougald’s footsteps in
another area of social endeavor. You
can get rid of the life-style of an un-
employed or under-paid worker and
master the life-style of a corporate ty-
coon.

What kind of life style took
McDougald’s fancy? A Toronto daily

_ tells us that his taste ran to exclusive

clubs, magnificent estates, rare cars of
which he had 30 at his Toronto estate
including a 1913 Silver Ghost (the most
valuable Rolls-Royce in existence) and
racehorses.

Next week, as you skrimp here and
skrimp there, to eke out a living that
hardly covers the basic needs of life,
just stop and think ‘awhile about the
privileges of the corporate few, who
live high off the hog on the profits

squeezed out of the sweat and misery of
. the many.
* * *

Is this anatural division of the wealth
produced by those who labor? The
answer is an emphatic NO. It is an
unnatural division. The cause lies in the
area of private ownership of the main
means of production, which is the cor-
nerstone of the capitalist system.

In the monopoly stage of capitalism
(which is what we are living under) a
small clique of giant financial tycoons
obtain control of the key economic pos-
itions.. How do they accomplish this?
We will let E.P. Taylor, who teamed up
with John A. McDougald in the Argus
Corp., tell about one way it can be
done, namely, through minority con-
trol. He once said, ‘‘I look for com-
panies that will not grow with the coun-
try, but faster (my emphasis) than the
country ... I look for companies where
no very large shareholder exists. With
my partners, I buy enough stock to give
effective control. The company holds
our view.”

eek

Once having gained control of a large

chunk of the key production means,

. such manipulators. of finance and of

working people’s lives gain entry into

the most exclusive club in our society.
That club consists of a privileged clique
of finance and industrial magnates who
exercise a despotic power over the
economic, social and political life of
society in the capitalist countries. That
despotic clique in the language of Marx-
ist political) economy is called. the
financial oligarchy.
' The financial oligarchy is the top of
the economic and political pyramid that
rules over capitalist Canada —a sort of
financial mafia that exacts daily tribute
from the vast majority of Canadians,
adults and children alike, in the form of
interest at so much on the dollar of all
marketable values created by those
who must toil for their daily bread. This
financial octopus is a veritable monster
with an insatiable appetite.
* * *

But, all of this does not need to be.
The capitalists hold no divine right to
rule. They hold no divine right to own
and control the wealth of the land.

Ownership of the main means of pro-
duction should rest in the collective
hands of those whose labor creates all
wealth — that transforms the bounty of
nature into marketable goods for the
use of man. It is time for us to follow the
lead of the working people of the
socialist lands, namely, to transfer the
political and economic power into the
hands of the working people.