ror of the results of the pre-

Sent discussion on the arts
and literature in the Soviet:
Union, during which some of
the young stars, such as Yev-
Seni Yevtushenko, were criti-
Cized for goin g “off the beam”?
in some of their works and in
interviews published abroad,
is that hundreds of talented
young writers and poets have
emerged, .-

They were there before, but
had stayed in the shadows
because it was the vogue to
: Publish the above-mentioned
% ‘Stars’?, The stars them-
Selves in some cases became
Spoiled, as a result, while
Others didn’t have as much
of a chance as they deserved.

The Soviet papers and
Magazines today are printing
works of many more young
writers and poets andthey are
Very good,

* * *

A conference of these talent-

€d young writers from all
Parts of the country was held
in Moscow recently under the
auspices of the writers’ union.
(Some of those that had been
Criticized attended; Yevtush-
€nko sent regrets, saying that
he couldn’t break his speaking
tour), \
After the meeting, along
With other foreign correspon-
dents, I got the opportunity
to meet some of these young
People and hear them read
Samples of their work.

Thus I heard Maya Rum-
Yantseva of Lipets, Olga Fok-
iha of the Archangelsk area
in the north, Vladimir Demi-
dov from the Don Cossack
area), Vladimir Samgi from
Sakhalin,

x RS

Characteristic of all of
hem, in addition to loads of
talent, was that they were
Working and studying and that
hey breathed optimism and
80-aheadness, Several of the
bOems were on themes con-
Rected with the war against
© Nazis,

Olga Fokina, for example,
Wrote about a tree her fath-
€r planted before he went to
© front, never to return.
~ Was a very moving poem.

€st to have part of their
air dyed grey; recalling how
“tae young people turned grey
n the war against fascism;

Ravn DiGia, administrative
eectetary of the War Resist-
s. €ague, has neen denied a U.-
. Passport because he refused
Ke Sign an anti-Communist oath

WORTH
_ READING

be
rene Co-operation Be-
n the USSR and Underdevel-

Opeq Cc
; Ount
 Pricg 55¢ ries, by V. Rimalov.

The

| SOntrip, pet Union strives to
Eto ta vs all within its power
id aa hg the peoples of under-
Dove Ped countries to overcome
Regs Y, economic backward-
Coe = Colonial exploitation and
ialis ©n on the part of imper-
Powers,

’ Soh Soviet people consider
trom aC important and useful
View he humanitarian point of
anit d@ from feelings of sol-
Y with all mankind.

~ New Soviet crop
of young writers

Freedom’—U.S.A. style

she saidsyit, was a badge of
honor, like a nvedal and should
be earned and not dyed.

Boris Kulikov, whose
grandfather died in the strug-
gle for Soviet power during
the civil war and whose father
and uncle fell in the war
against fascism, devoted his
poem to the debt youth owes
to the older generation.

V. Samgi is a Nivkh —that’s
-a nationality of only 3,000
people in Sakhalin Island and
along the Amur River. Until
recently they were fishermen
and hunters, had no agricul-
ture, no written language.
Their religion, animism. held
that the earth itself was a ;
sacred being that would be ;
hurt if it is ‘‘scratched’”’
i.e. ploughed.
*

* *

Samgi told the story of his
people and how they leaped in
one generation from the most
primitive to cultured socialist
life, The poem was half-spok-
half-chanted, as Homer

Greece, and as the sagas of
all peoples ancient and those
emerging. from the oral

to written literature in our
own times, were composed and
recited,

The Nimkh, said the poet,
speak a language different
from any of the languages in
the Far East. They had bor-

then added a number of letters
of their ownto denote addition-
‘al sounds in their new alph-

abet.
* * *

After the meeting Iasked V.
Samgi whether it was not pos-
sible that the Nimkh lang-
uage was related to Indian
dialects spoken in Canada, He
replied that there was a theory
to that effect and that studies
were now under way to test
its corectness.

The first result of the dis-
cussion on literature, then,
is the appearance of many
new young writers. And their
quality is very high.

As for the old ‘‘young fav-
orites’? — G. Markov, secre-
tary of the writers’ union,
told us that Yevtushenko and
the others are taking the cri-
ticism very seriously, andare
working on new poems which
will be presented to the pub-
lic soon.

—J. WEIR
(PT Staff Correspondent) '

°
on the application. Asa result, he
was unable to attend the WRLtri-
ennial conference held in Norway

recently.

‘‘fyeryone who knows DiGia,”’
commented Liberation Magazine
in its Summer issue, ‘‘including
government officials, who must
have a tull file on his activities,
knows that he is no Communist.

‘“sDiGia refused to sign the
oath because he considers such
a requirement #n interference
with the basic freedom totr: vel,
regardless of one s political be-
liefs or associations.”

The constitutionality of the.
anti-Communist oath is being
challenged in a suit brought by
Milton Mayer and supported by
the American Civil Liberties Un-
ion. i
A McCarren Act denial of pass-
ports to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
and Herbert Aptheker is being
brought to the U.S. Supreme
Court.

‘ManandPhilosophy’debated

STANLEY B. RYERSON, author
of “The Marxist Quarterly, was a
member of the delegation of the Can-
adian Philosophical Associttion to
the recent World Congress of Phil-
osophy in Mexico City.

He mailed his comments of the
congress to the ‘PT’, which we are
pleased to publish below.

or over half a century the
philosophical sccieties _ of
many lands have been holding
international congresses, gener-
ally at five year intervals. The
XIlIth. International Congress of
Philosophy, held in Mexico City
Sept 7 to 14, brought together
close to 1,000 participants from
48 countries.

Two main themes dominated
the agenda: “The Problem of
Man” and “The Criticism of our
Epoch”. They were discussed in
12 major introductory commun-
ications and 140 individual papers;
in addition some 200 other pa-

"pers were delivered in a series

of symposiums on a wide range
of subjects.

The very broad spectrum of
views represented may be at
least faintly suggested by a sam-
pling of names and topics: Gab-
briel Marcel, French existential-
ist: ‘“‘The existential aspect of
human dignity”; P. Fedoseev, So-
viet philosopher: ‘“‘Humanism in
the World of Today’’; Herbert
Schneider (U.S.A.): ‘Global Or-
ientation’; P.T. Raju (India):
“Life’s Ideals: East and West’;
Derisi (Argentine): ‘Divine Ba-
sis of the essence and existence
of man’; Mitin (USSR) ‘Man
as object of philisophical inves-
tigation”; Loenen (Holland):
“The Philosopher’s responsibilty
for the future of mankind’; Leys
(USA) ‘Irrelevence as a_ philo-
sophical problem of our time”;
Melvil (USSR) ‘‘Man in the space
age’; Bourke (USA) ‘‘Man in the
space age’’.

* * *

The congress was a forum on
questions of peaceful co-exist-
ence. It was a massive confron-
tation of opposing world-outlooks.
It was a dialogue, a debate, a
symposium, with rare moments
of serenity and innumerable cla-
shes.

The plenary sessions, held in
the great auditorium of the Cen-
tro Medico (a huge complex of
buildings of the Social Security
administration), were attended
daily by two: to three thousand
people; the smaller meetings
were held in the University City,
in the southern outskirts of the
capital.

A notable feature was the very

great interest shown by the Mex-

ican press; coverage in the daily
papers ran to two or three pages
of each issue, reporting the de-
bates, commenting, interviewing
participants. (One would never
know, from the press in Canada,
that such a congress had taken
place at all.) On the eve of the
proceedings the conservative dai-
ly, Excelsior, hailed the congress

as ‘‘a clear example of the feasi-
bility of a confrontation of hu-
man thought’, and as a contri-
bution to peaceful coexistence and
understanding among peoples.
A note of raucous discord was
promptly struck by Herbert Sch-
neider, as a leading member of
the U.S. philosophical ‘‘estab-
lishment’, who gave a cold-war
interview inciting anti - com-
munism, denouncing Marxism as
the source of ‘‘hate and envy” in
the modern world. A rejoinder
came from another American,

STANLEY B. RYERSON

who asserted that universal dis-
armament was the crucial is-
sue of our time.

* * *

Thus, despite the awesome
number of highly abstract meta-
physical contributions, the though
was strongly affirmed that phil-
osophy today more than ever
possesses actuality, that it is rel-
avent to practical, compelling
problems of the life of man.
More than one non-Marxist par-
ticipant emphasized this, as did
also several progressive Ameri-
can philosophers, e.g. Howard
Parsons, in a paper on philosophy
and mental health, and John
Somerville (author of “A Phil-
osophy of Peace’) speaking on
East-West ideological conflict.

P. Fedoseev, leader of the 18
member Soviet delegation put it
this way:

“The first and foremost res-
ponsibility of the philosopher in
the modern world is the respon-
sibility for the present and fut-
ure of man Philosophy
sheuld use a simple and common

-human language because it is

only natural that human prob-
lems which bestir every man’s
mind should be the main prob-
lems of philosophy’’. :

A highlight of the congress was
a meeting of the Soviet delega-
tion with some 40 or 50 philos-
ophers from the United States
(some members of the Canadian
delegation also were present?.
This encounter, the first of its
kind, did not come within the
forma! confines of the congress
agenda, but was arranged with-
in the the American Philosophi-
cal Association: the Society for

the Philosophical Studay of Dia-
lectical Materialism.
* * *

The themes that came to the
fore in this question-and-answer
session were: changes and con-
tinuity in Marxist-Leninist phil-
csophy in present conditions of
world technological and social de-
velepment; the meaning of dia-
lectics for natural science (this
seemed a _ particulary prickly
point for the Americans);coex-
istence and ideology. On this last,
a query was put: why the Soviet
condemnation of ‘peaceful co-
existence in the realm of ideol-
ogy’.

To which Fedoseev replied that
while renunciation of war be-
tween states with differing social
systems is fully possible, there
can and should be no renunciat-
ion of the battle of ideas. Giving
up one’s convictions cannot be
made a condition of peace, for
either side.

Competition, debate, exchange
of views must go on; and this

* can occur without turning it in-

to a Cold War that endangers
peace. ‘‘We are against the Cold
War but not in favour of elim-
inating the struggle of ideolo-
gies’. He contrasted the debate
between Protestant and Catholic
ideologists, in the period of the
Reformation, with the resort to
violence in the St. Bartholomew
massacre and the Thirty Years~-
War.

With peaceful coexistence be-
tween states, the struggle of ideas
on the level of principle, the ar-
gument over the respective ad-
vantages of competing social sys-
tems, can be carried forward, he
asserted.

* * *

Two episodes during the cong-
ress were reminders of Cold War
methods encroaching on free- -
dom of though. A delegate from
the German Democratic Repub-
lic protested that over a hundred
velumes sent for inclusion in the
Exposition of the Philosophical
Book (held in conjunction with the
Congress) had been excluded
from the display. (Just like La-"
val”, commented a Canadian
philospoher, recalling a similar
act of discrimination at the last
Learned Societies meeting.)

An eloquent message to the
congress, dealing with the rela-
tion of art to philosophy and to
society, in the light of the trad-
ition of Mexican realist painting
and graphic act, was published
as a paid advertisement in the
press. Its author regretted his
inability to participate directly
in the debates; one of the world’s
greatest living painters, he sits in
cell-block “T’’ in the Mexico City
prison: he is David Alfaro Siq-
ueiros. He is charged with the
crime of ‘“‘social dissolution’’ for
having supported the strike of

‘railway workers. One cf the strike

leaders, Vallejos, sentenced to
16 years, had just received the
ruling on an appeal of his sen-
tence: the judge added six more
years to the sentence.

AUUC youth evening is success

he ‘*Evening With Youth’’ pre-
sentation of the Association of
United Ukrainian Canadians, held
at the Pauline Johnson Theatre
(Queen Elizabeth Playhouse) last

Saturday evening, was an unqual-
ified success. ;

Over 500 people warmly ap-
plauded the varied fare, high-
lighted by Earl Robinson’s cant-
ata on Abe Linclon—‘‘The Lone-
some Train.’’ The cantata itself,
traditional Ukrainian (and other
Slavic) folk dancing, as well as
guest appearances by pianist
Andrea Kalanj and the Vancou-
ver Chinese and Russian dance
groups were all enthusiastically

- welcomed.

‘Lonesome Train’’ is a work
which would present a challenge
to many an accomplished choir
and soloists. The fact that it
came off as well as it did is a
tribute to the hard work of the
AUUC Youth Choir and its con-
ductor, Karl Kobylansky.

The accomplishment looms
even larger when considering
that it is quite early in the seas-
on for such an ambitious under-
taking.

There were certain minor
weaknesses which will no doubt

be improved when the cantana -

is presented again, as it should

be. Central among these was
the lighting, which could have
been used with much more ef-
fect in spotlighting soloists.

Another criticism could be in
programming the evening; of 15
items, only four were Ukrainian
in content—less than 25 percent.
For a Ukrainian cultural organi-
zation, this proportion would ap-
pear to be a mite low.

However, as we stated at the
outset, the main impression was
one of success. In no uncertain
way, the young people who par-

_ ticipated in the evening made up

for whatever minor faults were to
be found with youthful zest and
enthusiasm. JERRY SHACK

October 4, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9