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A proud tradition lives on in

the pages of the Pacific Tribune
| Forty years fighting
- for B.C.’s working class

ihe By MAURICE RUSH

ke ly in 1934 the Communist
_Movement in B.C. decided the
time had come for the working
Class in the province to have a
peer of its own. It was a bold and
r-sighted decision which the
turbulent events of the early ’30’s
Made necessary.
Although the Communist Party
Was still illegal and its leaders in
Prison under the notorious Section
» the Communist movement was
rowing by leaps and bounds and
Mereasingly ccoming out in the
9pen after years of being forced to

fork underground. The growth of

“e Communist movement
reflected the rising struggles of the

Working class during those stormy
years, +

_ The unemployed movement had

8rown spectacularly and was
challenging the starvation policies
the government and Canada’s

Unemployed was obviously
fading for a showdown. In the
Province’s basic industries

organization and the fight for union
Técognition was growing under the.
€adership of the Communists. In
Many industries, where unioniza-
lon had been carried on un-
derground, the unions were
Preparing to come out in the open
to challenge the bosses for the right
to organize and to defeat their

dive to cut wages. and impose

M™possible conditions: in the
forests, mines, mills and on the

docks,

At the same time fascism was

Tearing its ugly head in Europe

With the rise of Hitler and the
Spread of fascist movements in all
Capitalist countries. The anti-
Oviet campaign was being
Stepped up and it was obvious that
M™perialism was looking to

fascism to stem the rising tide of

Working class and democratic
Struggles and to unleash war

8ainst the only socialist state in

© world. The threat of a new

_ World war was on the horizon.

_ The launching of a working class
Paper with a Marxist-Leninist

_ Point of view became an urgent
_ ‘hecessity. Such a paper was

Needed to expose the lies of the
Capitalist class, their govern-
Ment’s and the big business media.
t-was needed to popularize the
Cemands and rally support for the

_ Jobless, the employed workers,

Youth and women, and peace
loving people anxious to prevent
€nother world war, and to stop the
Spread of fascism. It was needed to
defend the first socialist state from
the campaign of lies and expose the

_ imperialist plots against the

Working class and socialism; to
defend democracy in Canada‘
Which was increasingly being
threatened, and to win legality for
the Communist Party.

The rising movements of the
People needed a voice to speak out

‘on the crucial issues of the time.

But the launching of such a paper

was a tremendous undertaking. It
required in the first place: the
raising of money to make it
possible, and the bringing together
of a staff capable of publishing
such a paper. It was a courageous
venture for its time, but one which
history has confirmed.

te ae

In 1934 the Proletarian
Publishing Association was formed

to launch the campaign for funds |

which got underway in April of that
year. President of the Association
and heading the first financial
drive in the history of the paper,
was the beloved veteran of the
socialist and later Communist
movement, William ‘Ol’ Bill”
Bennett. Secretary. of the
association was Jim Peters.

The main means of raising funds
was through the sale of a _cer-
tificate of various denominations
among working people across the
province. The inscription on the

certificate set out the aims of the
soon-to-be launched paper. It read:

“In the struggle for better
working conditions and the defeat
of capitalism, I hereby subscribe to
the Proletarian Publishing
Association the sum of $- as

the first step towards building a .

workers’ paper for B.C. that will
fight for the betterment of the
conditions of the working class and
for its final aim — the abolition of
capitalism.”

Armed with this certificate and
much enthusiasm hundreds of
Communists and supporters across
B.C. raised hundreds of dollars

from the unemployed who gave ~

generously out of their starvation

relief allowances, from the
woodworkers, miners,
longshoremen and _ seamen,

fishermen and workers in other

industries fortunate enough to

have work. The money came from
the grassroots of the people in B.C.
in contrast to the millions the large
newspapers received from the
corporations. To this day the

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The Pacific Tribune is part of the tradition of the radical, labor and
socialist press in B.C. going back many years. In this photo are shown
many of the early publications, along with the B.C. Workers News,
which formed part of that rich tradition. —

means of keeping the workers’

press alive comes from the
working class who see their own
interests and needs represented
today by the Pacific Tribune.

By the end of 1934 the decision
was made to launch the first issue
of the new paper as a weekly on
January 18, 1935 to be called The

- B.C. Workers News. Thus, the first

Communist weekly to see the light
of day in B.C. was born and with it
a tradition which has grown
stronger over the 40 years of the
publication of the Communist
press in B.C.

* * *

The launching of the B.C.
Workers News represented an
important historic event in the
history of the radical and labor
press in B.C. and was an act of
great political importance which
heralded a new stage in the
political development of B.C.’s
working class. .

British Columbia has a_ long
tradition of a fighting, radical and
labor press which reaches back to
the earliest days of the province’s
history. The roots of today’s
Pacific Tribune, successor to the
B.C. Workers’ News, reaches back
to early beginnings in the struggles
of the Cariboo miners to prevent
annexation of the province.to the
U.S. and to win representative
government.
against the annexationists and the
colonial clique in the 1860’s and 70’s
the Cariboo miners and other
democratic forces founded or
backed papers which supported
their demands.

After the ‘defeat of the an-
nexationists and the colonial

. clique, the working class in the

province grew rapidly and along
with it there appeared a large
number of papers, some of which
were short-lived.

These expressed the demands of
workers or sections of workers,
and reflected the growing
radicalism which found strong
support among B.C.’s_ early
working class population. By 1902
this radicalism led to the growth of
socialist ideas and the launching of
the Western Socialist in B.C. which
signified that socialist ideology had

won support among the most ad- .
, vanced sections of the workers who
had come to see the need of

changing the system, not just
reforming it. The Western Socialist
expressed the confusion of the
socialist movement of its day but it
was one of the important land-
marks in the growth of the socialist
movement in B.C. and was in a
true sense, one of the early
predecessors of the B.C. Workers
News. :

In the years that followed the
founding of the Western Socialist
up to the time of the launching of

. PACIFIC TRIBUNE SUPPLEMENT—FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1975—Page 1

In the struggle -

~ MAURICE RUSH

‘the B.C. Workers News many
working class papers came and
went. Some of these were in-
dustrial papers representing
contending union movements, or
the economic interests of workers
of a given industry. Other papers
represented social democratic and
other ‘‘socialist’” trends in the
working class movement which
during those years was shaken by
sharp ideological struggles. Some
of these papers achieved sub-
stantial circulations and some
lasted many years. But because of
ideological confusion and an un-
clear orientation these papers
came and went, often ending as a
result of sharp political differences
in the movements supporting
them.

Despite their limitations, each of
these papers were part of the rich
tradition of the radical, labor and
socialist press in B.C. The idea of
“having a paper of our own” was
deeply rooted among B.C.’s early
working class. It grew as the
working class grew and developed
its class consciousness. The idea of
a workers’ press was itself a
reflection of a growing class
consciousness among the working
class. The early roots of the B.C.
Workers News and our present day
Pacific Tribune can be traced to
this rich tradition going back
almost 100 years.

With the launching of the B.C.
Workers’ News 40 years ago a
whole new stage was reached in
the tradition of the working class
press and in the development of the
working class movement of B.C.

With the turbulent events
surrounding World War I, and
especially the Russian Revolution,
the socialist and radical movement
in every capitalist country un-
derwent deep ideological changes.
The ideas of Marxism-Leninism
represented by newly formed
Communist parties attracted the

_ most experienced and far-sighted

members of the working class. In
Canada as in other capitalist
countries, the Communist trend,
basing itself on the teachings of
Marx and Lenin and the ex-
periences of the world
revolutionary movement, led to the
formation of a Communist Party in
1921.

By 1935 the Communist
movement had gathered sufficient
strength among B.C.’s_ working
class to launch an organ of its own,
the B.C. Workers’ News. The fact
the paper could be launched and
even more important, that it could

sustain itself over 40 years and
continue to gather support from
, the working class proves the fact
that the Communist trend among
_B.C.’s working class was firmly
‘based and that it was an integral
part. of the working class

See PROUD TRADITION, Supp. Pg. 8