‘The essence of the'fight for our Party’

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Your part in the LPP pre-convention discussion

By TIM BUCK

national

UBLICATION of the

\

executive committee's

draft resolution for the national convention initiates the
pre-convention discussion throughout the Labor- Progressive
Party. Through club meetings, special membership meetings,

conferences and the party press,
every member should be involved
in a critical examination of the
Policies of our party, its activities
and its proposals. Through the
pre-convention discussion, the
background, estimations and pro-
Posals of the convention resolu-
tion must be made crystal clear
to every comrade. More than
that, through the discussion we.
must make still more concrete
our proposals for action.
When the resolution is finally
adopted it must be fully expres-
sive of the problems, interests
and aims of the Canadian work-
ing class and its democratic al-
lies in every sector of the class
struggle. The more critical the

examination and the more con-

crete the proposals the more
fruitful will be our coming na-
tional convention,

The main danger,
the main task

"THE central theme of the reso-

lution is Canada—our country
and its people. The resolution
warns its readers, urgently and
insistently, “The threat of hor-
rible atomic war hangs over our
country”. It places responsibility
for the danger squarely and in-
escapably upon the drive of the
imperialists towards fascism and
war, t

An important objective of our
pre-convention discussion— Par-
ticularly in the clubs and mem-
bership meetings—must be to
impress every member of the
party with the concrete and
alarming facts upon which the
resoluiion’s note of urgency is
based.

While emphasizing the immin-
ence! and tue magnitude of the
danger conironting Canadian de-
Mocracy, the resolution places

equal emphasis upon the fact that
the danger can be headed off:
atomic war can be prevented, the.
_ War-mongers can be defeated. The
resolution shows how a third
_ World war can be prevented and
it indicates the tasks that our

Party must undertake in _ its
Struggle to preserve peace.
The- resolution indicates the

humerous facts and concrete ex-
amples upon which its general
thesis -is based. It is vital, how-
ever, that every party club—in-

deed every member — should —

Study, separately, each postulate
in the resolution as well as its
Seneral thesis. —

Several statements in the reso-
lution are in direct contradiction |
to the arguments being dinned
into the ears and spread before
the eyes of the people every day
by the lavishly financed propa-
Sanda machinery of capitalism.
The: capitalist propagandists, in-
cluding the government-owned
Canadian Broadcasting Corpora-
tion, misrepresent thosqa issues
brazenly and systematically.

The truth about those issues is
exactly as stated in our resolu-
tion. Those honest people who ac-
cept the capitalist misrepresenta-
tion, often outright lies, do so
because it is.repeated so regular-
ly and so uniformly and they do
not hear the truth explained.

Truth political |
weapon for us

‘““THE teachings of Marx are
, all-powerful,” wrote Lenin,
“because they are true.” Today we

ae

‘can write, with equal assurance,

that the continuing world-wide
democratic advance and spread of
socialism is inevitable because the
evils created by imperialism have
made it historically necessary.

Hundreds of millions of men
and women are recognizing that
necessity today and, as Marx
pointed out, “The idea becomes a
material force when it is seized
upon by the masses’, Because of
that, the surge of democrStic
people’s action sweeping over va-
rious parts of the world is irre-
sistible.

It must be emphasized how-
ever, that victory does.not fall
into the hands of the democrat-
ic forces automatically. It must
be won. To win the victory for
peace and social progress the
truth must be made cjear to
every democratic man and wo-
man. In Canada this is OUR
task, The purpose of our con-
vention is to fit our party to
perform that task successfully
on behalf of the working class.

Our pre-convention discussion
must equip every member of the
party to explain and to prove the
incontrovertible truth of the
statements by which our resolu-
tion characterizes the two camps_
in world volitics the aims and
policies of the war-mongers and >
the growing superiority of the
forces of democratic progress and
peace,

For example: the capitalist

press and radio repeat, systemat-

“ically, the lie that the imperialist

powers headed by the United
States are driving for an atomic
war solely to ‘defend democracy
from Soviet aggression.” In Can-
ada, Louis St. Laurent, who ob-
viously has his eye on a special
constituency, says it is to save

“Christian civilization’—the very

term by which General Franco
describes his fascist regime in
Spain. ;

But the real aims of the imperi-
alists are illustrated by the inter-
ests that are determining United
States policy, the regimes that
they are propping up and what
they are seeking to laungh atomic

-war against. —

The interests that are pressing
for war are the monopoly-capi-
talist interests represented by

and the Morgan interests, by Win-
ston Churchill in the British Isles,
George Drew, J. S. Duncan, the
Toronto Globe and Mail in Can-
ada, and so.on.

The regimes that they are try-
ing to prop up are exemplified by
Franco, in Spain, the corrupt
Chiang Kai-Shek regime in China,
the fascist-monarchist clique in
Greece, and so on.

They are seeking to launch
atomic war against the only
countries in the world in which
the workers and farmers have
gained and are holding’ power.
That they are preparing for a
war of aggression is testified to
by the fact that authoritative
United States spokesmen admit
that the only countries in the

_ world that are preparing to carry

war across the seas are the
countries of the imperialist camp
—-particularly the United States,
Canada and the United Kingdom.

It was testified to by acting
Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent
last week, albeit unwittingly,
when he told an audience in Hull,
Quebec, that: “The feeling in Eu-
rope appeared to be that the Rus-
sians don’t want war—at least be-
fore 1956

It was testified to by the chief
of staff of the United States ar-
my, General Omar Bradley, last
week when he intimated to an
audience in Chicago that there
is little likelihood of war at
least during the next ten years,
unless the United States starts
one.

Studying, proving
political facts

QIMILARLY, the pre-conven-
discussion must equip every

- member to explain and prove the

truth of such statements as:

@ “The recklessness of the
drive for war betrays the grow-
ing panic among the imperialists
because of the deepening crisis
in their own system and the rapid
growth of the popular democratic
forces.

@ “Canada’s economic
pendence, even our sovereignty as
a nation, is being ‘sold down the
river’ in an effort to bring the
world under the capitalist dom-
ination of Wall Street.”

Harriman, Lovett, the Duponts @ “The right wing social de-

GATHERED in Regina in pro-
vincial convention, our* Sas-
xatchewan comrades brought
jut not a few examples of what’s
aeeded to strengthen and im-
* grove the work, Above all, the
sonvention struck a note of
irgency and heightened mili-
tancy in the Party. :

“I feel that with our hands
we are pushing the war back by
inches, and if we slip it will go
over us. So—to push it back—
everyone has got to fight!” ;

- That’s how Comrade’ Helen
Berezowski put it. -
Her speech struck the keynote
' of the whole discussion.
Not very tall, with greying
hair but boundless, youthful
energy, Comrade Helen is the
mother of Bill Berezowski, the
new provincial organizer of our
Party in Saskatchewan. “Never
be afraid,” said she later on, “to
‘teach your children to be good
workers and fighters.” She’s
- been as good as her word.

And she teaches by example
more than by word.

Was the local school in a

wretchedly dirty state? Comrade
Helen and our other members
in Kkamsack led a protest direct-
ed to the School Board.

Are the farm housewives hav-
ing difficulty in obtaining
stoves? Comrade Helen told
them why: because the jron and
steel are being used for arma-
ments, for war preparations, to
kill instead of to serve the needs
of life.

The local postmaster refused
to allow a poster to be put up
because it was written in a
Slavic language and not in im-
perial English. So Comrade
Helen fought that issue also,

“That was fighting too,” said

~

she. “We all fought. Every-
body's got to fight!”
e : ne

}

Comrade Helen spoke of the
fight for knowledge and un-
derstanding, and what, it means
to a Communist, :

Brought up in a religious; na-
tionalist atmosphere, she had
one year of school—no more. It
was from the Party, much later,

_ that she was to get her educa-

inde- 2
. strenethening the Party’

The LPP column.
‘Everybody’s got to fight!’ . .-

mocrats, in Canada as in Europe,
aré now the most important

single factor jn maintaining the
profit system.” —~

@ “The struggle for labor
unity and broad unity with labor's
democratic allies is absolutely
decisive but it advances the
cause of peace and socialism only
as it includes the development
cf effective opposition to the
treacherous policies of the right
wing ,social democrats.”

@ “The highest national ideals
of Canadians of French descent
now find clear expression in the
labor movement.”

@ “The most general danger
against which the forces of peace
and democratic progress must be

- aroused is the danger of dver-

estimating the strength and re-
sources of the imperialist war-
mongers and under - estimating
their own.” ;

e@ “The only class which rep-
resents the true national jnter-
ests of Canada today is the work-
ing-class—the struggle for Peace
and Socialism in Canada is a
struggle to make the working
class the political leader of the
nation.”

-

In statements, of which the
above are typical, our convention
resolution describes the political
issues confronting Canadian work-
ers, the roles being played by the
various political parties in Can-
ada, and the path to democratic
victory. Every progressive Can-
adian agrees with the general
tenor of the resolution, but it is
the privilege and the responsibil-
ity of members of the LPP to
study each postulation and equip
himself or herself with the de-
tailed facts which show it to be
absolutely true. :

Perfecting our
action proposals

"(HE essence of “the fight for

the party” is the fight to
steadily.improve its work. In ad-
dition to critical examination of
our estimations of political issues
and class forces, in addition to
cam-
paign against capitalist lies, the
pre - convention discussion must
generate a collective party study
of the concrete tasks which lie
immediately ahead.

The convention resolution names
specific immediate tasks in con-
nection with different sectors of
the democratic struggle. Such im-
mediate tasks are set out in de-
tail in some parts of the resolu- :
tion, particularly in sections nine,
eleven and seventeen.

One cf our aims in all phases of
the pre - convention discussion
must be to concretize as well as _
to elaborate the party’s proposals
upon immediate tasks—particu-
larly in the sense that comrades in
various provinces, industries or
occupations, are often able to add
to, elaborate upon, or criticize,
some particular proposal as a re-
sult of local or otherwise special-
ized knowledge.

The convention must adopt a
party peace program. The con-
vention will certainly elaborate —
and issue the Dominion election
platform of the LPP. There will
certainly be proposals that the

~ convention should propose a. Bill

of Rights. In addition, the con-
vention will re-examine and ex- —
tend the LPP program for the
defence of the interests of Can-

ada’s youth. :

Our Party’s program of action
on the field of workers’ economic
struggle, in the interests of demo-
cratic advance in French Canada,
for defence of the interests of the
farmers, for the further exten-
sion and development of working
class cultural activities, and de-
velopment of appreciation of the
democratic inter-relationship and
unity of interests of labor and the
arts.

Each of these, and the several
other questions and tasks upon
which the convention’ will adopt —
resolutions or programatic state-

ments, should be studied in the _

light of local and_ specialized
knowledge as well as in the light
of the general Canada-wide situ-
ation, : ‘

Every critical, constructive, —
contribution to the pre-conven-
tion diseussion, whether it is in
your club meeting, a member- _

‘ship meeting, a week end con-
-ference, a provincial conven-
tion or in the pages of the
press, will help strengthen our ©
party, and thereby strengthen
the working class and our
struggle for peace and socialism
in Canada,

tion. Her teacher, she told us,
was Comrade Walter Wiggins,
pioneer of our ys farm
work, and now Chairman of the
Provincial Committee.

“At first,” she said, “I would —
not touch a book. The comrades
would bring suitcases full of
them. But I _wouldn’t go near
them. Then later, when our
Party was illegal, Oh! for a
book—I had learned to long for
those suitcases!”

Recently Comrade Helen was
a student at the regional Party
school.

“My teachers,” she says proud-

ly, “were my own children!”
e@ Another participant in the
discussion who helped drive
home a vital point was comrade
Edna Williams of Porcupine
Plain.

Her successful fight for the
establishment of a new hospital
is an outstanding example of the
kind of community work that we
need to multiply and strengthen
in hundreds of localities. _

With a small club, and all the
usual difficulties aggravated by
distance up North, a solid job

By STANLEY RYERSON |

of effective public work was car-
ried through. As a result of this
initiative and activity, CCF sup-

democracy infringed upon. Our

porters were drawn closer to our
people. :
Comrade Edna spoke, too, of
the school problem jn the terri-
tory. Conditions are such that
the schools only opened in the
last week of October. The short-_
age of teachers is accompanied
and intensified by the wretched
conditions of work. With the
new, larger school unit, control
from the top has become prev-
alent, the powers of the local
School boards reduced, and local |

comrades will tackle these prob-
lems also, in the course of fur-
thering their. municipal work.
“We must: hold more public
nominated in the municipalities. —
“We must hold more public
meetings. ve
“We must talk more about our ~
Party, and its work, often and
proudly.” :
These words of good council —
can well be taken to heart by —
all our clubs and members from |
Nanaimo to Glace Bay.

"

: PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 12, 1918 — PAGE 7