Which road will the NDP take?

Upholding labor’s tradition of
holding regular conventions, and
in contrast to the capitalist part-
ies which hold them rarely, and
then only for the purpose of elect-
ing new leaders, the New Demo-
cratic Party’s second national
gathering takes place in Regina
in August.

Delegates will
be wondering:
: has the NDP

t at the found-
. ing conyention?
: Is it really the
‘new align-
= ment’’ that the
— Canadian Lab-
or Congress looked for in its fam-
ous 1958 resolution? 4

There will be mixed feelings.
True, the new party has been
formed. It has a leader. It has
some affiliations from the trade
unions which were to be its base.
It elected a small group of MP’s
in the 1962 and 1963 general elec-
tions.

But it has not won the sup-
port of the farm movement. The
great majority of trade union-
ists still vote for the capitalist
parties and most unions are not
affiliated. It did not elect as
many MP’s as many thought was
possible! Saskatchewan might be
lost in the next election. And in-
stead of being the all-inclusive
movement its promoters said. it
should be, it is still exclusive; it
bans the Left.

If these matters come on the
floor and are hotly debated, as

_ they should be, the convention
_ will be a lively one.

If the delegates are silent
about them for one reason or
another, or dodge them, the con-
vention will be dull and will nei-
ther reflect the crisis of our
times nor the crisis of policy
within the NDP itself. The crisis

of capitalism is reflected as a
policy crisis in the NDP.
NO REAL UNITY
ON POLICY

For there is a crisis of policy
and has been from the begin-
ing. Not
threatens the existence of the
NDP but in the sense that there

is no real unity on policy in the
party and that the NDP leader-
ship itself is divided and so wav-
ers—but, above all, in the sense
that on the supreme- issue of

peace the NDP is neither the

educator nor the leader of a vast
working-class and public opinion
that it would be if it were to
act as an organization and crusad-
ing force against the threat of
war. :

The potentialities for the
NDP’s future are really incal-
-culable if it were to become a
party of peace. Canadian neutral-
ity, independence and the na-
tional rights of French Canada
in a wholly new federal agree-
ment between English and
French Canada — not another
agreement between nine English
provinces and one French ‘‘prov-
ince

On these paramount issues of
the day the NDP leadership
hedges and NDP policy is vague
-and ambiguous.
That is why the NDP parlia-
=mentary group has placed itself
in the opportunist position of
voting with the minority Liberal
government on some issues, vot-
ing against it on others (notably,
and honorably, on the nuclear
weapons question) and for a
time actually taking a decision
to abstain from voting at all if
that would embarrass the Pear-
son cabinet. — Ae
That is leadership from the

rear, not at the front. It is the

kind of class). collaborationism,

in the .sense that it.

which has stultified, weakened
and split the labor movement
and its political express:on since

the time over 100 year's ago now;

when the early Toronto trade
unionists passed resolutions for
independent labor political —ac-
tion,

There are two things. it seems
to us, which NDP members and
delegates to the Regina conven-
tion have to consider: first, policy.
and again, policy; second, the

inclusion of the Left.
What the new party needs, if it

is going to succeed, and not re-

peat the history of the CCF, is’

a fighting, radical policy which
will enthuse its members and
supporters and rally the votes
of millions of Canadians who
are leokine for alternatives (as
the last two general elections
showed): and a Left within the
NDP, loyal to it but fighting
against conservatism and colla-
boration with the old capitalist
parties, to give it strength and
inspiration.

It is a fallacy to believe, as
the NDP leadership does, that
the way to increased NDP
strength lies in being restrained
and cautious, in ‘‘keeping well to
the Right’’, in seeking the ““mid-
dle class vote,”’ not ‘“‘rocking the
boat”? and avoiding another gen-
eral election like the plague on
the self - manufactured assump-
tion that Canadians ‘‘don’t want”
another election.

Sure, the capitalists don't; but
who can claim that the working
people and the farmers ave so
hostile to the democratic idea of

voting in a general election
which costs less than a_ fighter
plane?

Who is the “expert’’ in the ©

NDP who can “‘prove’’ that the
majority of Canadians want
“Stable government” at all costs,
no matter who forms it? Did
not more than half the voters
last April reject the Liberals, the
main advocates of ‘‘stable gov-
ernment’’?

Nobody could deny that a
labor party has to have a set of
tactics, that it must manceuvre,
play in the dirty. game of capita-
list politics on occasion. But it
does these things because it has
to so long as it is a minority
party; it does not make policies
or principles out of these neces.
sities, but uses tactics to ad-
vance its policies and principles.

The trouble with the NDP at
present is that its policies and
principles are wanting, they fall
behind the realities of the Canad-
ian world crisis, they are limp
at a time when they should be
firm and challenging. And so the
NDP members are given no pros-
pect beyond parliamentary ma-
noeuvering and an NDP which is
the prisoner of the Liberals,
certainly a frustrating, demoral-
izing and sterile outlook.

IS NDP TO BE ONLY

ELECTORAL MACHINE?

Should the NDP limit its activ-
ities to parliamentary elections?
If so, what does it do, and what
do its members engage in, dur-
ing the long stretches between
elections?

Can a vibrant labor party be
built, attract public attention
and have a life of its own if ifs
only concern is to get out the
vote every three or four years?
In other words, if it never gets
out of the confines of capitalist
parliamentarism?

Can parliamentary activity, for
which the NDP was formed, be
limited to getting out the vote?
Or can the work of the NDP’s
members in Parliament be made
effective and the actions of the
Liberal government be influenc-
ed, by public activity, mass meet-
ings, demonstrations, and so on
all the year round?

How can you have an active

Se

membership in any other way; — and the rest of it, our “‘commit-

and how etherwise can the pub- |
lic be influenced and the unions _
— won which are now under the Lib-

eral and Tory influence? And
how can workers and farmers
be expected to join and become
active in a party which is only

ménts’’. which Minister of De-
fense Hellyer is now arranging,
ilows from Canada’s commit-
ments under NATO.

It is idle to talk of NATO as
an “economic’’ form of “giving
assistance’? to under-developed

forces generally.

could best be met

The August convention of the New Democratic
Party will be watched with more than passing in-

terest by the labor movement and progressive

Leslie Morris national leader of the Communist
Party of Canada, comments on some of the prob-
lems faced by the NDP and how these problems

an electoral machine?

The history of the British
Labor Party proves this point.
The reasons why the British

Labor Party, after the labor gov.
ernment of 1945, was defeated and
now finds itself having once more
to win office after 12 years of

Tery misrule, are being dup-
licated by the present NDP.
Having said this the main

problem now before the NDP is:
policy. Will it be a working-class
policy. which speaks for the
majority of the people and
voices +heir innermost feelings
and needs? Or will it be what
it is now, policy and tactics at
times indistinguishable from the
capitalist parties?

The supreme issue is, peace.
The NDP did a good job in op-
posing nuclear weapons cn Canad-
ian scil or in the hands cf Canad.
ian armed forces. But it still is
addicted to NATO, whence the
nuclear threat comes.

The NDP still
that NATO is the, American im-
perialist alliance, forced on
Western Furepe with Pearson’s
active help, whose only ‘‘justific-
ation” is: war against tre USSR.

As long as Canada is in NATO
it is in peril and is in the war
camp. NORAD flows from
NATO: the nuclear arms dumps

has to realize

countries, as the NDP does. It
was never intended to do that
in the first place. That is one of
the functions of the United Na-
tions. NATO is a naked, “un-
adorned military organization
under the command of the U.S.
military. :

More and more Canadians are
coming to see this, after many
years of deception.

The founding convention of
the NDP, after a stiff fight on
the floor, did make provisions
for a review of the  party’s
NATO policy.

The time has come to do just
that. NATO is a nuclear force.
It is a deadly aggressive alliance,
as some Western European gov-
ernments are coming at last to
see, founded on the fiction of
“Soviet aggression,” incorporat-
ing the loss of sovereignty for
America’s allies, and intended as
a shield for U.S. imperialist in-
terests.

Membership in NATO has at
last made Canada into a decoy
duck for nuclear bombs, in the
interests not of Canada, but of
the U.S.A.

Has the time not come for the
NDP to be an anti-NATO party,
a disarmament party, a Cana-
dian neutrality party, a party in
favor of a completely and wholly

independent Canadian — forcign
policy?

Clearly the answer is, yes.
NDP SHOULD BE PARTY
OF BOTH NATIONS

The biggest single domestic is-
sue is the relationship between
French and English Canada. The
recent ‘congress of orientation’
of NDP members in Quebec
showed clearly that unless the
NDP adopts as its policy the
demand for a new federal pact

between English and French
Canada which would establish
full national equality between

the two Canadian nations, it will
repeat the mistake of the CCF
and continue to appear to
French Canadian progressives
not as their party, but as a party
of English Canadians which re-
fuses to accord recognition to
the French nation as an equal.

If the NDP were to adopt a
consistently democratic and in-
ternationalist position on the
crisis of relationships between
English and French Canada, it
could really hope to become a
party of all Canadian working
people in both nations; if it does
not do this, it will not become
such a party.

MUST NOT CONTINUE
TO EXCLUDE LEFT

Finally, the NDP needs an in-
jection of the Left. It cannot live
without the reflection within its
ranks, and in its leading circles,
of socialist views. The NDP is
not a socialist party; it is a
reform labor party. That does
not mean that it cannot, indeed
it must, contain within its ranks
thos¢ who see the socialist solu-
tion for Canada and who fight
for policies from day to day with
this perspective in mind.

If the NDP does not contain
an active socialist Left; and if it.
denies its federative character
‘by continuing to exclude people
because of Left and Communist:
views, it will degenerate into a
right-wing election machine, do-
minated by a right-wing bureau-
cracy and performing the func-

See: NDP, Page 6

Huge crowd roars anger at royaity

A mighty protest against tyran-
ny in Greece has been directed at
visiting King Paul and Queen
Frederika by the people of Brit-
ain.

Unprecedented security meas-

ures failed to deter thousands of:

‘people who demonstrated and
chanted for the release of hund-
reds of Greek political prisoners,
many of whom are heroes of the
resistance movement against fas-
cism in World War II.

Even Queen Mother Elizabeth
and the reigning monarch _ her-
self were not exempted from the
crowd's anger. They accompanied
the Greek king and queen to a

theatre performance in London
last week and the entire party
was roundly booed.

The jeers might have been in--
-terpreted as being directed solely

at the Greek couple had it not
been for the fact that Queen Eliz-
abeth left the theatre alone and
the booing—if anything—increas-
ed. The queen was visibly shaken
and drove off alone to Bucking-
ham Palace. She was to have at-
tended a government reception.

The entire city of London was
turned into an annex of the Greek
police sfate as swarms of police-
men kept a vast area in front of
the palace completely free of any-

one not in uniform. Special de-
crees prohibited demonstrations
of any kind and scores of people
were arrested.

Despite all the precautions, the
crowd of thousands pressed re-
straining police lines up against
the palace. Commenting on the
tremendous. demonstration, the
British Daily Worker stated:

“Never was there such a mock-
ery of a state visit... There
were roars of ‘Sieg Heil!’ which
could, certainly, have been heard
within the palace.

“They must ‘have reminded
Queen: Frederika of her days in
the Hitler Youth Movement.”

OF nant,

oa

Picture shows part of the crowd of thousands which gathered in London's Trafalgar Square, then

marched to Buckingham Palace to demand the release of Greek resistance heroes and other political

July 19—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7