Gateway to the Kremlin Gardens during the recent holiday

Season.

“EXODUS”

EXODUS. A United Artists re-
lease of an Otto Preminger
Production. Screenplay by
‘Dalton Trumbo. From the
novel by Leon Uris.

Dalton Trumbo has taken
another medicore novel and

Made of it an important and

Compelling motion picture that

_€ven Time magazine lists as

One of the 10 best films of the
year.

Trumbo had to toss out hun-

_ dreds of pages of the Leon
Uris novel, though some of
these pages (notably the con-
centration camp scenes in Ger-
Many and the story of the little
refugee girl, Karen) are among
the best in the book.

Even so, Exodus runs almost
four hours and there are few
dull moments in it.

Ari Ben Canaan (played by
Paul Newman) is a Haganah

. fighter whose job it is to spirit

Jewish refugees from Europe
into Israel in defiance of the
British blocade.

The British have captured a
refugee ship (The Star of
David) and interned her pass-
€ngers in detention camps on
Cyprus. Despite the Balfour
Declaration, which promised a
Jewish homeland in Palestine,
the British (who played the
Jews against the Arabs and the
Arabs against the Jews, to
Keep both divided and their

Mandate intact) violated their] ;

promise,

Ari Ben Canaan thereupon
mounts a brilliant deception
and gets over 600 men, women

and children aboard an ancient
Greek freighter which is re-

.Mamed Exodus. The ship. is| |
Caught before she can sail and|

held in the harbor — and the
Jewish refugees issue an ulti-
matum; they will starve them-
Selves to death unless the Brit-
ish release the ship.

ea is was a true story and
it made world-wide headlines
at the time it happened, and
the dramatization of .the inci-
dent in this film provides the
first great climax of the story.

IMPORTANT,
COMPELLING FILM

comes when the MHaganah,
which is an underground Jew-
ish fighting army, agrees to
co-operate with the Irgun, an-
other underground group of
fighters who believe that ter-
rorism will solve the problem
of British rule and eventually
cleanse the land of the occupy-
ing forces.
Unlike . Uris,

much closer to the issues in-

volved in this great struggle. |
his}

Uris (speaking through
Jewish characters) could see
no good in any non-Jew, be he
Arab, Briton, American or
what have you.

Trumbo’s screenplay  pin-
points the nature of British
rule (even though its presiding
officer is demonstrated—as in
the novel — to be a humane
man); it pinpoints, also, the
fact that the case for the
Arabs can be argued just as
cogently (if not more so) than
the case for the Jews; and it
demonstrates that Arab and
Jew can (and. will) co-operate
with each other to live in
peace and brotherhood.

PAULINE JOHNSON, In-
dian poetess, will be honored,
with the issue of a special
stamp on March 10 by Can-

7; B.C.

The Compassionate Rebel,
Ernest E, Winch and His Times
by Dorothy G. Steeves.

Readers of this fine book

life of an outstanding British

regret that in many of its pages
touching upon the history of
labor, author Dorothy
Steeves has permitted narrow
political prejudices to mar an
otherwise splendid work.

Her portrait of the man that
was Ernest Winch is warm,
generous, and deeply under-
standing. But much of the

|labor history (other than that
of the CCF) which the author |

weaves around him and “his
times,’ leaves much to be de-
sired. Perhaps this stems from
the author’s obvious desire to
have. the CCF strongly pro-

Trumbo has| jected throughout, the book,

managed an objectivity that is!

since Mrs. Steeves herself is a
CCF leader of long standing.

That
able and certainly won't de-
tract from the deep pleasure of
many an old-trmer as he traces
again through the pages of this
book, the long’ and hard road
steadfastly traversed by ‘Ernie’
Winch. But the youthful _ so-
cialist student moving up to
the battle-line in the decisive
60’s for a socialist Canada, will

tation of historical labor back-
ground had been equal to her
fine portrait of an English
bricklayer who became one of
B.C.’s pioneer socialists, a tire-
less social reformer, and a
steadfast champion of those
segments of unfortunate hu-
manity, which capitalism pre-
fers to hide away behind high
walls, strong bars and for-
gotten slums.

Up until his death on Janu-
ary 11, 1957, Ernest E. Winch
had represented Burnaby as a
CCF-MLA for 23-years. Elec-
tion after election “Ernie”
went back to the legislature
with big majorities over all
other contenders, a measure of
the high regard and esteem of
his Burnaby constituents for
their trusted MLA.

For 20-years or more before

Winch was prominent in the
activities of the Socialist party,
the B.C. Social Democratic
Party and succeeding political
offshoots of socialist ideology
and organization in the early
years of the century.

The breadwinner of a large
family,
often’ his

companion

The second great climax

ada’s postoffice department.

good fortune,

‘Ernie’ Winch:

socialist and reformer

who have lived and experienc-|
ed the events which shaped the |

Columbia pioneer socialist and |
reformer, will feel a tinge of}

is easily understand-|

often wish the author’s presen-|

he became an MLA _ Ernie

with adversity more
than
Ernie Winch

pio

embraced = socialism an
answer to the problems of the
| workingclass and which were
ijhis own, rather than as an
| “ivory tower’ philosophy pro-

as

i ductive only of + endless
futile debate.

In giving voice to some of
his differences with other ‘“‘so-
cialist” and CCF colleagues
during one of those numerous
‘inner’ party CCF wrangles,
Ernie Winch defended his so-
Cialist ideology by . declaring:
‘T- Jearned’ my socialism not
merely from books, but from
the bitter experiences of life,’
and many of these bitter exper-
iences are well recorded by
author Dorothy Steeves.

|
|
|

Again in later years when
|the CCF founding “Regina|
| Manifesto” and its declaration |
of socialist “principles” ‘was |
being scrapped in order to give|
precedence to social - demo-|
cratic ‘“‘respectability’” and)
class - collaboration over |

{

the |
class struggle, the veteran so-
cialist from Burnaby made his}

position clear: “‘The class war}
is here, and it won’t be over|
until exploitation of the hu-|
man race is over. Marxism is;
the basis of the Regina Mani-|
festo: As long as it stands as|
an expression of the principles |
of the CCF, we are safe.” |

It is clear of course from |
the record that Ernest Winch}
was much more a humanisi
than a Marxist, often exasper-
ated in polemical or theoreti-|
cal debate, and itching to “get|
on with the job.” Many of the
fads and fancies which took
up his attention in later years
were far removed from the
dialectics of Marxism. One
cannot avoid the impression}
however that the author looks}
down her nose at the socialism
of Ernie Winch (and others),
and only reaches her full)
stature as a biographer when|
presenting the vast’canvas of
his work as a social reformer. |

In that section of the book|
portraying the doughty “Min- |
ister of the Institutions” the)
deep humanity and fighting
tenacity of Ernie Winch is
magnificently recorded. To
him there was no contradiction
in being a socialist and an ar-
dent reformer. Nor is there
any since the immediate
struggle for the daily needs of
the working class is essential
to the overall objective of
working class political power.

During his final years we
find the veteran CCF-MLA for
Burnaby reiterating his social-
ist principles in action, very
much against official CCF dic-

|

and |

Nneer

ing of .one of
Peace Congress petitions to
“ban-the-bomb” brought offi-
cial CCF wrath on his head;
his adherence to the idea of
“unity”; that “The CCF must
ibe big enough to include ‘ex-
itreme leftists and extr

| rightists: So long as it reco
|nizes the class struggle and is
| determined to end capitalism,
|the CCF’ will survive.”

|

tne

Canadian

Author Dorothy Steeves con-
| cludes a. commendable worl:
| with typical bourgeois yearn-
ling; the regret that the Uni-
| versity of British Columbia
| “never got around” to confer
|ring an “honorary doctorate”
}on Ernest E. Winch.

Since these dubious ‘honors’
handed out by our institutions
of higher learning to aspiring
politicians, monopolists and
other specie of labor exploiters
have become. almost as shoddy

s their recipients, it is ques-
tionable if a man of Ernie
Winch’s calibre would have
worn such an ‘honor’ with any
measure of pride.

During the Winnipeg Gen-
eral Strike of 1919. when Ernie
Winch was secretary-treasurer
of the Lumber Workers Indus-
trial Union, at the princely
sum of approximately $12.00
per week (Joe Morris please
note), he sent out a letter
which is a much greater honox
than a political ‘doctorate.’

“The Winnipeg Defense
your scrap although some may
not realize it.

“Tf the employing and fin-
cial interests can get those men
jailed and make ijegal a gen-
eral strike, it will not be long
before every active union man
will be threatened with similar
treatment.

“Those men are there be-
cause they spoke and acted for
Labor.

“You are not asked to
change places with them, al-
though later on you may be in
a similar position. That de-
pends upon how you act now.

“Tf you were in their place
would you not expect the
workers whose cause you were
fighting, to back you to the
limit.

“This is not a begging letter.
It is simply to tell you that the
Central Defense - Committee
has sent out a most urgent
appeal for funds. What about
it”

Men who put workingclass
unity and aims in such forth-
right words, and who have
lived their life largely by that
creed, stand in no need of
‘honorary doctorate’ laurels.

|
|

tum from “above.” His sign-

January 27, 1961—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5

@ TOM McEWEN