GUIDE TO GOOD READING

Old Russia comes alive
in Gorky's great novel

A GREAT NOVEL of Russia
yesterday is Maxim Gorky’s The
Artomonovs (available here at
the People’s Cooperative Book-
store, 337 West Pender, at $1.25).

We can only be grateful. The
content and the writing of this
novel give us a precious yard-
stick for judging both ‘the
achievements of. Russia today
and the skill of today’s writers.

Into the compass of this book
Gorky has compressed the whole
history of the rise and fall of
the Russian bourgeoise from the
freeing of the serfs in 1851 to
the victory of the workers 56
years later.

Capitalism in Russia lasted for
. two generations. The Artomonovs
span them. The first, a freed serf
of dynamic energy and ruthless
fixity of purpose, but not without
humanity, establishes the family
flaxmill and dies while helping
to install a new steam boiler.

The second, stupid, brutal,
coarse and ignorant, is carried

by the wits of his half-brother
and the skill of his workers to a
position of great wealth and
power, only to sink into drunken-
ness and depravity as the power

‘of the workers overwhelms him.

The third, thrown out of house

“and factory by his father, joins

other Socialist students and be-
comes’ a leader in the great
struggle of 1917.

Into this story Gorky has dis-
tilled his own bitter experiences,
his own sufferings and humilia-
tions. But he has added a loving
sympathy for all human endeavor
in his characters, good and evil
alike, which raises the book from

the level of immediate propa- -

ganada to that of universal art.

For through this book there
move the sense of a growing
force, like a rising wind that
heralds a great storm, the force
of the developing consciousness
of ordinary working people. —
M. B. BROWN.

Ancient miners honored
as under socialism?

IN THE FIFE village of Loch-
ore some time ago, I attended a
gathering of miners and_ ex-
miners, the oldest a sprightly
veteran of 94.

William Pearson,-Scottish area
secretary of the National Union
of Mineworkers, presented them
with diplomas for life-long mem-
bership of the union.

During the entertainment that
followed one old miner sang in
a’ quavering voice the song of
thé Donibristle Moss Moran dis-
aster of August 26, 1901, when
ten miners were entombed and
four men volunteered to try to
save them: 5
There was Rattery and McDon-

ald, Hynd and Paterson,

Too well they knew the danger
and the risk they had to run.

They never stopped to count the
cost. “We'll save them,” was
the cry. :

“We'll bring them to the surface
or along with them we'll die.”
But the four rescue workers

were killed, along with the ten

trapped men, and the song ends:

We never shall forget them,
though they have lost their
lives, :

So let us pay attention to their

_ children and their wives.

it simply is our duty now, and
let us all beware.

Their fathers died a noble death
and left them in our care.

I was reminded of that folk-
ballad the other day when I read
an account of the discovery near
Worthing, in Sussex, of the skele-
ton of a man killed in a mining
disaster some 4,000 years ago.

The Neolithic miners did not,
of course, dig for coal. They sank
pits 50 feet down into the chalk
in search of the great nodules of
flint from which axes were made.

By the dim, flickering light of
smoky oil lamps—a_ wick float-
ing in animal fat held in a chalk
cup—they prised the flint out
with picks made of the antlers
of red deer.

Archaeologists | unfortunately
can tell us little yet about how
these mining communities lived.
No doubt they were honored as
miners are in the Socialist coun-
tries today.

In capitalist Britain, where 40
men give their lives every month
in the battle for coal, it is still
possible to insult and threaten
the miners and get away with it
—for the time being. — PETER
FRYER.

HOME OF
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Recently a forum on comic books was held in Winnipeg, with children instead of adults forming

a panel.

Photo above shows moderator Mitch Sago of the Labor-Progressive party as chairman an

five of the youthful speakers who voiced their dissatisfaction with Yankee horror comics.

ARTIST OF THE PEOPLE |

Britain marks 200th anniversary

of world-famous wood engraver

THIS WEEK marks the 200th
apniversary of the birth of
Thomas Bewick, the Tyneside
artist and naturalist, who has
achieved world-wide fame as a
wood engraver. :

In his day, wood engraving
was a mere reproductive process
in which the. artist designed the
picture and the craftsman copied
it on to the wood block. Bewick
was both artist and craftsman,
and with him the engraving be-
came a creative work of art.

Bewick was born at Cherry-
burn, on the Tyne, 12 miles from
Newcastle. His father was a
small farmer. After an elemen-
tary education he was apprentic-
ed to a Newcastle engraver.

*

Later, after a short period in ©

London, he entered into partner-

ship with his former master,

Ralph Beilby.
* * oe

The works on which his repu-
tation mainly rests — his History
of Quadrupeds (1790) and History
of British Birds (1797) were com-
pleted in his spare time after his
arduous day’s work as a jobbing
engraver.

Bewick was a realist. He de-
picted life as it was. His birds
and animals he engraved in their
natural background.

’ x * *

The men and women of Tyne-
side, whom he knew so intimate-
ly, he presents with realism and
sympathy. Often critical, but in a

. good-humoured way, he presents

a detailed picture of the daily
life of the common people.

In politics Bewick was a Left
Wing Whig or a Radical. His re-
ligious views were outspokenly
non - sectarian. Although they
seem. mild enough today, they
shocked his contemporaries, who
tried to have them omitted from
his biography. On most social is-
sues he was consistently progres-
sive. ;

Loving his country and _ its
people, Bewick naturally loathed
wars and its instigators. “I rea-
soned myself,” he writes, “into

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il}

a detestation of war, its cruelty,
its horrors, and the superlative
wickedness of the authors of it.”

But he was no pacifist. “All
wars,” he says, “except defensive
ones, are detestable.”

However, unlike many fake
democrats who admit that only
defensive wars are just, yet place
every war carried out by their
own country in this category, Be-
wick, when confronted with the
war conducted by Britain with
the aim of overthrowing the
French Revolution ,condemned it
in forthright words.

* .o *

Bewick’s yearning for peace is
reflectéd in his art. His vignettes
depict the old soldier returned
from the wars maimed, poverty-
stricken, pathetically clothed in
his only remaining possession,
his tattered uniform.

Or for the absurd side of war,
as Ruskin remarked, “he draws
a stone, sloping sideways with
age, in a bare field, on which you
can just read, out of a long in-

scription, the words ‘glorious
victory’; but no one is there 1
read them—only a jackass, wh?
used the stone to scratch hims¢
against.” 3
Bewick was always on the side
of the downtrodden, be it man 0
beast. One of his most ambitious
engravings, that of an old horse
waiting for death, was done #
the recently formed RSPCA. -
An advocate of penal reform
he made a cut called Liberty 4"
Slavery in protest against
incarceration of debtors. To a
port Wilberforce he engravet
two pictures protesting agaifs
slavery in America. ote
Thomas Bewick, the “printer
lad” \of Newcastle, was a gt4
artist, whose influence on 0
illustration was profound. es
was a true naturalist, deeply lon
ing and understanding the cou
try and its wild life.
He was also a great demo
a man who can truly be &
the honored title of “artist °

the people.” ae

erat,
jven
f

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