ET DRE a Se:

By NORA RODD

HAT thoughts come to
mind on the 50th anniver-
sary of the Soviet Union?

We went to friends from dif-
ferent backgrounds and of dif-
ferent ages and ways of life. A
Finnish-born school teacher and
office woman said, “It has given
women equal status, it has giv-
en them the opportunity to play
an equal part in society.” At a
gathering of Jewish women,
most of whom had lost dear
ones in Hitler’s concentration
camps—some were refugees
from torture themselves—a doc-
tor who had travelled widely
said: “Beyond everything else,
they have saved us from the
third World War. Soviet leader-
ship for peace has kept that war
from happening so far.” An
older woman, her body bent with
suffering, spoke from her own
experience: “The Soviet Union
has put an end to the accept-
ance of race discrimination. I
know they have not altogether
overcome it yet; that takes time,
but as a policy it is condemned
in all socialist countries, and
that has had>-great influence in
our own.”

A middle-aged man, worker in
a textile factory, after a few
moments put his feelings this

ne hs ne

way: “Fifty years of Soviet so-
cialism has kept off our depres-
sion. Our government has come
a long way to appease workers
because it fears the example of
socialist countries.” A retired
night-watchman from an auto-
mobile plant, whose boyhood
was spent on an Ontario farm,
made this reply: “The Commu-
nists have saved us from a de-
pression. Thosé millions of bu-
shels of wheat bought from our
Western farmers have helped
the whole country. Besides,

Demonstration In Moscow Nov. 7.

wasn’t early Christianity a form
of Communism? Well, it’s a good
enough for me.”

With some teen-agers and
their mothers, the general opin-
ion was that after the leader-
ship for world peace the impact
on education came next. Said
one high school girl: “After. the
first Sputnik went up one of our
teachers said to the class, ‘This
system of education is a hun-
dred-years out’of date’, and ever
since that time they’ve been
changing and. changing, and
they’re still at it. It’s a good
thing; now we have to measure
by Soviet standards, and what
their education is able to do for
youth!”

Two years ago the Minister
for Northern Affairs, Arthur
Laing, and his party of 17 were
among the first foreigners to
visit Norilsk, the mining metro-
polis of 100,000 people in Arctic
Siberia—the great industrial
complex around Bratsk, the
world’s largest hydro-electric
plant. In a feature article of
Maclean’s, Canada’s most wide-
ly circulated magazine, Jack
Austin describes their enthus-
iasm:

“A building budget for Arctic

Dynamism of socialism
in Moscow Nov. 7 parade

By BERT WHYTE

fae November 7th parade in

Moscow was one of the

largest and certainly the
most important in history. It
was a review, in capsule form,
of the mighty achievements of
the world’s first socialist state—
achievements which guarantee
that in the next half century
the USSR will succeed in build-
ing communism.

Newspapers around the globe
have reported in detail the order
of the parade — the military
might on display, the panorama
of the dynamic creative life ‘of
the Soviet people expressed in
floats depicting economic and
cultural advances, and the surg-
ing) pulse of hundreds of thou-
sands of marching Muscovites.

Perhaps the most colorful as-
pect was the march past of
contingents dressed in the garb
of the 1917 revolutionaries—Red
Guards, Baltic sailors, cavalry

and the famous tachankas. It

was a unique and thrilling spec-
tacle.

In all corners of the vast So-
viet land some 235 million citi-
zens, from babes in .arms .to

Novembel 24° 196722PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page' 10°"

centenarians, celebrated the 50th
anniversary of the Great Octo-
ber Revolution. On hand to
celebrate along with them were
Communists from many lands,
as well as representatives of
countries that have thrown off
the yoke of colonial oppression
and taken the road of struggle
for national independence and
freedom.

In the days preceding the Mos-
cow march Communist leaders
from other countries addressed
huge jubilee meetings in capitals
of the various Soviet republics.

William Kashtan, leader of the
Canadian Communist Party dele-
gation, was one of the speakers
at a great rally in Kiev. The
working people of the capitalist
world see every day that imper-
ialism means war and oppres-
sion while socialism and peace
are synonymous, he said. “The
world socialist system and first
of all the Soviet Union are the
strongest bulwark in the strug-
gle for national independence,
democracy and socialism.”

Henry Winston, National
Chairman of the U.S. Commun-
ist Party, told a meeting in

Minsk that the Soviet Union’s
advance toward communism “‘in-
spires millions of people in other
countries who, in their turn, are
quickening their pace on the
road to peace, democracy and
national independence.”

Both Kashtan and Winston
stressed that in view of the pre-
sent tense international situation
their parties felt the time was
ripe to hold a conference of
Communist and Workers’ war-
ties. This position was also taken
by Communist leaders from
scores of other countries. |

Speaking at a meeting in
Moscow’s Likhachev automobile
plant, Tim Buck, chairman of the
CPC, said that millions of Cana-
dians saw the profound differ-
ence between the principled
policy of the Soviet Union, aim-
ed at attaining the lofty ideals
of peace and friendship between
the peoples, and the falsehood
and deceit through which the
United States imperialists seek
to conceal their attempts to turn
back the wheel of history, to
burn by napalm and drench in
blood the hopes and aspirations
of small nations.

Siberia—30 percent of the total
budget ... What struck us most
was the enthusiasm and single-
minded devotion of the people
we met. Siberia, land of the
future, of national challenge and
personal opportunity . . . Money
couldn’t buy the kind of enthu-
siasm we found in Siberia.

“We saw what we had come
to see—methods of construction
in permafrost . . . methods of
looking after humans and main-
taining morale where it is dark
for two months of every winter
. . . The climate is as harsh as
our Mackenzie Valley . . . A les-
son for Canada.”

Respect for Soviet leadership
in the realm of international af-
fairs is well attested to by Pro-
fessor Eduard McWhinney, head
of the Faculty of Law of the
University of Toronto, com-
menting on the Soviet Draft
Treaty Against the Spread of
Nuclear Weapons, (Globe and
Mail, August 8, 1965):

“The main thrust is simple
and uncomplicated. It places an
absolute ban‘on the transfer of
nuclear weapons by nuclear
powers to countries not having
nuclear weapons. By contrast
... the Western sponsored draft
treaty . . . does not contain any
such absolute prohibition...

“The Soviet draft is refresh-
ingly free from propaganda, and
there is no concealed trap in it.
It is a treaty that could easily
have been sponsored by Canada.
Informed Soviet self-interest in
the nonproliferation of nuclear
weapons is as great today as is
that of Canada or the West in
general, hence Soviet emphasis
on a firm and comprehensive
agreement.”

Soviet woman has played her
part in all of this. From factory
and office to responsibility in
every level of government, in
scientific achievement and in
every branch of art and litera-
ture, women are active. How the
women of the world were
thrilled when Valentina Teresh-

‘kova made her flight into space!

What encouragement it gave
them! Yet what frustration, as
expressed by Clare Boothe Luce,

*

Sailors of the revolution in Nov, 7. P&™

SERABRLEBE SESS LSS SS

former Ambassador of thee
ed States in Italy, a5 ° Qe
to the flippant remarks?
ator Keating, that it was
ing romance too high,
“The right answer ak
Soviet Russia put a W? i
space because Cond
preaches, and since th a
tion has tried to pra
inherent equality of W? “i
In entrusting a 26-Ye" ig
man with a cosmonaul ig
the Soviet Union has € ji
women unmistakable Lae |
it believes them tO Poe
same virtues as mal. wi
naut is a symbol of th sig!
life of his nation. The

ig 2
Valentina Tereshkov4 4 af
bol of the emancipate
men... They virtually "og
the glory of conquent

(Life, January 20, 1963)

We think of that iy
the February Revolut iN
national Women’s ee ff
when women were — + ff
march in the streets it
grad, in the third ¥ ne
First World War, ye 4
dreds of thousands nt
workers across the CO)
on strike, and wé wi
soldiers -were mart Mp
them, joining in thet ny
us peace, and givé neti
We think of the ProP  ¥
of Lenin’s sister, vai I
rova, so well recall y
Woman, No. 3 of thie
last we have foun ist
happiness for Mee vt /

pidd

d]

sian women wor
be nothing locked,
attainable to you! "a te
Socialism is 9° jing
dream, but a living F451)
industrialization © | jo"
has come culture, Pri |
learning and bea f
more spread among nd
—science and art “or
Youth and adult, 4 toh
student going fo sett
May the next 50 ¥ nol
peace assured and got
countries building * 4)
is for us in Canals
part as a people
things to pass.

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