Castilla

_ political

B.C. LABOR & POLITICAL ACTION

By NIGEL MORGAN
In April, 1958, the Canadian Congress of Labor convention in Winnipeg adopted an historic Be

Pointing to the ‘need for a broadly based people’s political movement, which embraces the CCF, the labor move-
ment, farm organizations, professional people and other liberally-minded persons.”

The convention met shortly after the 1958 federal
election in which the Tories had won an overwhelming
majority. The fact that the Tories and Liberals had got
87 percent of the popular vote and 97 percent of the seats
in the House of Commons was a shock to the labor move-

ment. It brought home a realization that after 22 years|.

of Liberal Big Business policies, the majority of voters
could see only the Tories, the other party of Big Business,

as an alternative.

The lesson was obvious — as
the convention declared ‘the
imperitive need of the Canad-
ian political scene today is the
creation of an effective alter-

- Mative political force’ —- nat!

confined to any one political
group, but a broad people’s
movement. That is why the
convention abandoned both the
traditional ‘no politics’ line
of the former TLC; and the
“make the CCF the political
‘arm of labor’ line of the for-
aier CCL.

Instead it called for discus-
sion and action leading to a
fundamentally new allignment
with the ‘broadest | possible
participation of individuals
and groups” leaving finaliza-
tion of the proposed change
Over to the 1960 convention in

_ Montreal next April.

Careful study of. the resolu-
tion shows that the very heart

- eof this resolution is its call for

an ALL-INCLUSIVE, BROAD
NEW POLITICAL ALIGN-
MENT, Therein lay its
strength and popular appeal.
Wide agreement was evident
on the idea of a broad, all-in-
clusive unity on a common,
minimum platform — the only
way of creating an effective,
realizable alternative in the
immediate future; of bringing
labor and farmers into united
action independent
of the parties of Big Business:
and of avoiding splits and dis-
sention arising from attempts
of any one group to dominate
it. -

._The year and a half since

April 1958, have been high-

lighted nationally and provin-
cially by greatly intensified at-

_ tacks by: monopoly capital on

labor and our liying standards.

The unity forged around the

Northland struggle, the heroic
Sudbury _smelitermen, and
steelworkers of Stelco and the
woodworkers in Newfound-
land demonstrated that if the
same degree of -unity..in polit-
ical action could be developed,
viciories in the parliamentary
arena could be won as well.
On the other hand, recent
provincial elections (Alberta,
Manitoba, Newfoundland and
Ontario — where a big effort
and big financial outlays were
made by. some unions like

-

Steel). should have proven,
even to the CCF, that an ef-
fective parliamentary altern-
ative cannot be built by. re-
stricting labor’s political activ-
ity to support of the program
and candidates of any one ex-
isting party.

The world, and political re-
lationships in Canada as well,
are going through sweeping
changes. The Khrushchey mis-
sion to the U.S. and the possi-
bilities it has opened up for
‘world disarmament has not
only opened tremendous op-
portunities for advance; It is
bound to have a profound ef-
fect in the reshaping of polit-
ical relationship. This was evi-
dent in the many positive and
progressive resolutions of the
recent B.C. Federation of La-
bor. ;

Tragic however, is the fact
that achievement of the aim
of many excellent resolutions

‘was seriously handicapped if

not cancelled out by the CCF-
right wing pressured decision
to tie political action to the
CCF straight-jacket. There can
be no denying that the move-
ment for independent —labor-
farmer political action, and
with it, the possibility of re-
placing the viciously hostile,
anti-labor Socred administra-
tion, received a set-back in the
restrictive decision which lim-
its action to those prepared to
“work for election of a CCF
government.”

To pass a resolution io en-
dorse the CCF is one thing,
but to deliver the vote is quite
another. The B.C. Federation

ui $ OX
‘NIGEL MORGAN

of Labor resolution, narrow-
ing down the whole question
in the coming provincial elec-
tion to one of delivering funds
and votes to the CCF does not
correspond either to the wish-
es or the needs of the vasi ma-
jority of the trade union mem-
bership.

While many members and
supporters of the CCF agree,
as the series of trade union-
CCF regional conferences in
B.C. demonstrated, that we
need such a broad people’s
political alternative, it has be-
come clear that national and
provincial leaders of the CCF
interpret the eresolution as a
means of giving one party, the
CCF, control of the new move-
ment. Top echelons of the
CCF and the CLC have util-
ized every trick in the book
to compress the area confer-
ences, seminars and-° other
political action activities into
a ready made CCF straight-
jacket, even to the exclusion
of unions like Mine Mill and
the United Mine Workers
which are the basis of election
of CCF MLAs and MPs in the
Kootenays.

Nigel Morgan aks
at Interior centres

Nigel” Morgan, provincial
leader of the Communist Party
of Canada, begins an organiza-
tional and speaking tour in
Chilliwack next Monday, Nov-
ember 9. ©

On November 10 he will re-
port to the Kamloops CPC club
on the party’s recent national
convention; followed by meet-
ings at Vernon, Trail, Castle-.
gar-Nelson, Fernie-Michel and

Coleman, Alberta.

On his return the following
week he will address a. series
of public meetings and give a
number of radio broadcasts:
Fernie, November 15; Kimber-
ley, November 16;* Wyndell,
November 17; Trail, Noveim-
ber 18; Vernon, November 19;
Kamloops, November 20 and
Salmon Arm-Notch Hill, Nov-
ember 21.

‘the development of

_ CCF Jeacers have clearly
subordinated
their attempts to build qa new
financial base for their party,
even to the point of ignoring
and evading big trade union

m|issues that. threaten the very

life of the trade union move-
ment, in order to avoid ex-
posing themselves
their narrow partisan political
line. across.

. This was particularly notice-|

able during, the recent B.C.
Federation of Labor conven-
tion, as it was during the
crucial struggles last summer
when they tried unsuccessfully
to lead the labor movement

-down the blind alley of depen-

dence on winning. the fight
against Bill 43 injunctions in
the courts, advancing the line
‘of ‘‘wait and defeat Social
Credit in the next election” as
the alternative to united ac-
tion and_ struggle through
which the trade unions finally
resolved the Northland and
Ironworkers disputes.

It is evident that the CCF
have substituted the aim of
‘getting a few sizeable dona-
tions from CCF-leo unions for
the creation of a genuine
broad, new, grass-roots alter-
native. At the same time the
Liberals in the top echelons of
labor have sawn-off on the
basis of being able to “con-
fine” labor’s political activity
within these narrow limits.

Only < wide united front
open to the entire labor and
farm movement of. the prov-
ince, including the Commun-
ist Party, big and influential
independent unions like the
United Fishermen, the Mine
Mill and Smelter Workers,
Vancouver Civic Employees
and many other people’s or-
ganizations, united on an anti-

monopoly platform can bring |-

about the kind of unity that
will defeat Social Credit.

The struggle to build such
unity will obviously not be
easy. It will not be achieved
overnight. It will require
much patient and untiring ef-
fort. Only on the basis of ex-
periences in’ the struggle
against monopoly. capital will
the working people of Canada
come to see the opportunist
and harmful character of the
role of this unholy alliance of
right-wing leaders and social
democrats,

The big question facing us is
where do we go from here in
indepen-
dent labor-farmer political ac-
tion? What concretely: § can we

propose?

everything 9}

and __ get)’

The starting point is ob-
viously public and united front
activity around the immediate
needs of the working people
—the struggle for peaceful co-
existance, trade, jobs, tax re-
lief, elimination of the legisla-
tive shackles on labor and im-
proved social: legislation.

Secondly, we must __ insist
that political action. simply
cannot be limited to a disguise
for the CCF to win elections.
It must be broadened out to a
genuine anti-monopoly move-
ment to bring. together hunhd-
reds of thousands of’ people ©
who have as yet no worked-out
political affiliations, but who
are opposed to the big menop-
olies and their Socred and
Tory governments, and who
want sweeping reforms end a
new deal in politics.

Thirdly, the Communist
Party must step up and fight
for genuine all-inclusive unity
around its candidates nomin-
ated for the next provincial el-
ection. There is no reason why
unity around municipal, and
even some provincial candid-
ates cannot be worked for,
and perhaps even won in some
constituencies. Certainly the
more the practicability of elec-
toral unity is proved, the more
the final decision will be in-—
fluenced.

Above ail, we must draw
the lesson that the rank and
file are going to be the archi-
tects Of any real new  align-
ment, any effective new polit-
ical action movement of labor.
As the B.C. Federation of La-
bor clearly demonstrated, it
must come from below, and
be a genuine mass movement.

Husnggearican
hoax is

exposed

OTTAWA — The external
affairs department this week
declared it has ‘no informat-
ion to corroborate the charge
that 150 Hungarian students
are being held for execution.’

The “execution” story hoax
began with a television broad-
cast by Ed Sullivan, and was
picked up by anti-Hungarian
elements in the U.S. and Can-
ada. (See Tom McEwen col-
umn on page 4.)

(In Hungary, Premier Janos
Kadar denied the Sullivan

ports as a “provocation’’).

November 6, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3

charge and described the re-