it could be in Vancouver within a year.

LATEST LADA...

The Lada—taking you
back to the $3500 car

If in these days of soaring
auto prices you're still looking
for a $3,500 car — complete with
all the options including a tool
kit — you may be in luck, if
current plans to import the
Soviet-built Lada are realized.

And there is every indication
that they will be, since the
president of Lada Cars of
Canada, Dennis Brown, has
already received some 100
applications for exclusive
dealerships in this province and
he hopes to have the cars on
B.C. roads within the year.

About 90 dealers are to be
established across the country
and, together with large parts
warehouses, they will provide
the necessary back-up services.

The clamor for dealerships —
there_have been more than 400
applications country-wide —
could presage considerable
popularity for the car. There
may still be a few smaller basic
model cars with a price tag of
less than $4,000, but the latest
edition of the Lada is no or-

years and where much of the
servicing is done by the owners
themselves, that is of major
importance.

Key to the reliability of the
Lada is the production. Despite
its small price tag, it is one of
the best built cars anywhere in
the world.

At. VAZ, the Volzhsky
Automobilny Zavod, or Volga
Auto Works, established a few
years ago as part of a Soviet-
Italian agreement by which
Fiat lent it auto assembly know-
how, all production is monitored
by a complex central computer.

Unlike the Big 3 automakers,
however, which use technology
to increase mind-numbing
speedup, the Togliatti plant
uses the computer to adjust
production accordingly to the
time of day and the number of
workers on the line, slowing
assembly accordingly.

Compared to the production
lines at Fiat in Italy, which
move at a rate of 20 feet per
minute, of the rate in Canada

dinary bargain. auto plants (25 feet per minute)
It’s based on the Fiat 124 the pace at Togliatti is slow —
which was producedintheearly averaging 16 feet per minute.

Workers are also organized
into production teams, a system
which has been adopted by
other auto manufacturers in
Europe such as in Sweden
where team production is
utilized in the manufacture of
the durable, but very expensive
Saab.

Coupled with the slower and
more careful production is a

to mid-1970’s, but there have
been a number of design and
drive train modifications and
the most recent model, while
retaining an outward resem-
blance to the original, is a
different car.

The engine and other major
drive train components have
been built to Soviet
specifications while various

other parts have been supplied comprehensive system of
by countries in the socialist quality control which includes a
world. The emission control five-kilometre test drive

following final assembly.

It all points to a car which —
and European experience is a
reliable indicator — would
stand up well under Canadian
conditions and would last a good
many years. And at $3,500 stor

system is of U.S. design.

Both the Lada and the Zhiguli
— the name by which it is sold
on the domestic Soviet market
— have established a _ sub-
stantial reputation as tough,
reliable cars — and in Europe

ae cars are kept for several a bargain worth watching for.

Youth Festival Committee
and AUUC Youth present:

DANCE WITH
CUBA7S FLYING MOUNTAIN

Special youth festival presentation by:

BARGAIN AT HALF THE PRICE
Sat. March 11, 8 p.m.

AUUC HALL

805 E. Pender St.

Admission $3 Food and refreshments

A guide to understanding
new, ultra left theories |

It has often been said that it is a
full time occupation to keep up
with the proliferation of ‘‘left’’
groups in Canada that seem to
continually arise, split, fuse and
die away.

And, it should be added, for each
member of the various splinter
groups, there are undoubtedly
many others whose organizational
forms run much looser, or are even
non-existent, but are nonetheless
ideologically committed to social
change.

The understandable reaction of
many in the mainstream of the
Communist and workers
movement has been to ignore the
fringe left — be it ‘‘new left” or
“ultra-left”” — and concentrate on
the practical tasks before them.
But this approach has to an un-
necessary extent left an open field
among considerable sections of
young people for ‘“‘left’’ views that
have diverted potential fighters for
social change to the sidelines of the
struggle, and often to the op-
position’s side.

What has been needed is a
readable, modern and serious
critique of the main ideas and
conceptions that underly ‘‘new
left”? and ‘‘ultra-left’’ trends,
whatever the organizational label
attached to it in a given setting.

That need has been partially met
with a new publication from In-
ternational Publishers, which
although written in the Federal
Republic of Germany is entirely
relevant to an understanding of
the “‘left’’ in this country. Robert
Steigerwald, a leader of the
Communist Party in the FRG,
writes clearly and forcefully,
drawing on an obviously immense
theoretical ability, to polemicize
convincingly against what he
terms in the title, Anti-Communist
Myths in Left Disguise.

What is immediately abvious,
and instructive, about this com-
pact, 100 page book, is the method.
Steigerwald refuses to paint all his
opponents with one brush, nor does
he resort to appeals to, emotion,
couched in rhetoric and cliche. As
Herbert Aptheker put it aptly in the
Foreward: ‘‘He analyzes central
theoretical questions of our epoch
in a calm, deep, persuasive
manner, singularly devoid of any
hint of vituperation; his

paragraphs contain a maximum of"

light and a minimum of heat.”

The book is divided into four,
relatively self-contained chapters.
The reader may be advised to take
a look at the last chapter first. This
chapter, aimed at clarifying the
term ‘“‘anti-communism’’ and
summarizing the dominant
“myths” of anti-communism, is at
once a conclusion and an _ in-
troduction to Steigerwald’s
analysis. .

Anti-communism is not merely
non-communism, Steigerwald
points out, but a ‘“‘system of
militant, aggressive, political and
ideological means to justify
capitalism and struggle against
socialism and communism and
which combats every ideology,
policy, organization, campaign or

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTHS IN
LEFT DISGUISE by _ Robert
Steigerwald, International Publish-
ers, 1977, $2.25, available from
the Peoples’ Co-Op BookStore.

other effort in which Communists
may be involved to solve vital
problems if is casts doubt on
capitalism or its consequences.”
But the myths that make up the
system of anti-communist
propaganda can assume a “‘right’’
or “‘left’? complexion.

Illustrative of this point is the
anti-communist ‘‘mechanism of
foreign influence.’’ The right
presents ‘“‘the internal forces of
change and revolution as being in
the pay of foreign forces” while the
“ultra-left” present the matter in
reverse: “In countries not yet
ready for revolution, they expect
salvation to come from the outside,
and accuse the Soviet Union of
betraying the world: revolution
because they reject as un-Marxist
this kind of expansion of socialism
through warlike means.”’

The lengthiest chapter is devoted
to the ‘‘new left”’, and in particular
to the latter day adherents of
Marcuse’s theories, or the rem-
nants of them. Many in the modern
‘new left’? treat Marcuse as a
“dead dog’’, Steigerwald admits,
but they remain more influenced
by him than they would care to
admit.

The truth of that contention will
be readily apparent as Steigerwald
systematically analyzes and
refutes the views of a group of U.S.
“new left’? theorists who con-
tributed to the 1970 publication
Critical Interruptions: New Left
Perspectives on Herbert Marcuse,
edited by Paul Breines.

The ‘new left’? has become
increasingly alienated from
Marcuse,editor Breines argued,
and the events of May, 1968 showed
that Marcuse’s theory of the
declining proletariat was wrong.
He pointed to the ‘Frankfurt
School”’ of ‘‘Marxists’’ as the new,
positive direction of the ‘‘new left’’.

Steigerwald’s response is
devastating, to the point of proving
that the so-called ‘‘new Marxists”’

have never read Marx, only

Marcuse on Marx.-The ‘“‘new left
Marxists’’ are still trapped in the
theoretical confines of Marcuse, he
shows, as are others in the post-
Marcuse, ‘‘new left’? who haven’t
yet adopted Marxism.

From individuation to
vegetarianism to Freudian psy-
choanalysis, all of the well known
trends in today’s ‘‘new left’? are
put under the knife of Steiger-

STEIGERWALD BOOK
polished, readable polemic.

wald’s incisive criticism — and?
operation is successful. a

The most powerful chap
however, is the second, wilk
deals with “left revision»
criticism of socialism”’. It is in 4
chapter that the arguments }

strike the most familiar tunes * :
Canadian ears. One by om «
Steigerwald polemicizes | g
criticisms of existing socialism

bureaucracy, planning, C® ;
tralization, Communist Parl t
organization and the principle’ é
socialist distribution — from 2?” 4
the social democratic and “uli —
left”? point of view, and ag?) |

demonstrates them to be differe™ '
twists on similar themes. _B

There is a common root to the :
ideological confusion of the “eft! k
critics of socialism, Steigerw@ |
contends: ‘‘they separate
ideological and political sup
structure from its material be
make it a thing in itself and elev
it to the position of the criterion
the social order .

There is a lot more in this smal
book, a book which Aptheker af
vises “‘is not to be read with has
but ‘‘a book to be studied, Palle
tively if possible.” In fact there’ u
hardly a_ significant ideologity
trend on the “left” that Steige!
wald’s book will not assist in U*
derstanding.

Most of all, though, this is a "4
to be used in guiding the moral
ideological oppositions |
capitalism of growing numbe
young people towards cae
and effective struggle. For th ,
kind of a tool, $2.25 is a small 1
vestment to deposit with. Y
Peoples’ Co-Op Bookstore, wheré
the book is now available. ;

—Fred wils?

t
'

Mummers’ show Mar. 21

The Newfoundland mummers
Troupe, which won acclaim right
across Canada for its. brilliant

* satirical revue, What’s that Got to
Do with the Price of Fish? and.

earlier its Company Town, based
on the life in a small Newfoundland
community, is slated to perform its
latest show, They Club Seals, Don’t

IRISH PARTY

Film and Fun
Karl Zuker’s, 2809 Wall Street
Saturday, March 8 — 8 p.m.

Admission: $3.00
Unemployed, Students, O.A.P. $2.00 .
Refreshments and Food

VANCOUVER EAST CLUB

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 10, 1978—Page 10

They? in Vancouver at the studi?
Theatre in Vancouver March 21"
26.

This new production based, a is
title implies, on the Newfoundlat®
seal hunt, promises to even mort
controversial than even t
Mummers traditional work since!
takes dramatic issue with
much publicized campaign of
Vancouver-based Greenpea@
Foundation.

The troupe looks at the hunt from
the point of view of the hunters df
Newfoundland who depend on thé
hunt for their livelihood and wa
are harvesting a resource which ©
renewable but must be soun
managed.

Like many of their sseaicll
the show is the creation of 2
members of the cast under tH
direction of the Mummer’s fouls
der, Chris Brookes. :