USSR-THE NEW W

By JOHN WEIR

On this 53rd anniversary of the first
successful socialist revolution and the
establishment of the first workers’ state
in the world, we greet our class bro-
thers and sisters, the working people
of the Soviet Union. We congratulate
them on their achievements in building
a communist society, and wish them
every success in their endeavors, which
are not only of benefit to themselves
but serve the cause of peace and pro-
gress for all mankind.

We call for an end to Cold War poli-
cies which are contrary to the interests
of Canada as much as of the USSR, and
whose only purpose can be to lead up
to a nuclear world war.

We urge the closest good-neighbor
relations between Canada and the Sov-
iet Union—and also China, Cuba, and
all the other socialist and anti-imperial-
ist countries—for the promotion of the
widest commercial, scientific, cultural
and other ties and contacts.

We advocate the collaboration of
Canada with the USSR and other states
that are pursuing a policy of peace, so
that together we would strengthen the
United Nations, compel an end to the
U.S. war in Indochina, help to achieve
and preserve peace in the Middle East,
assist the remaining colonially enslaved
peoples to gain their independence,
bring our united weight to bear against

the fascist and racialist regimes,' pro- -

mote European Security (Canada has
been invited to participate in a confer-
ence to achieve this goal), and progress
toward universal disarmament.

we

These things are in the vital interest
of our country and our people. They are
our basic national and international ob-
ligations which we betray when we per-
mit the poison of anti-communism and
anti-Sovietism to dominate our domes-
_ tic and foreign policies. This is the poi-

sion that has led Canada into NATO,
NORAD and participation or complicity
in the United States wars against peo-
ples in various part of the globe. It has
been used to subordinate Canada’s
economy to the U.S. and makes us
spend a great part of our substance for
direct or indirect military purposes,
bringing inflation, unemployment and
growing reactionary rule in its train.

We repeat these truths on this anni-
versary because it is the Soviet Union
that has been and remains the fore-
most and strongest champion of peace
and friendship among the nations. The
USSR projected the mutual security
policies that could have prevented
World War Two. It made the greatest
contribution—at the cost of 20 million
lives — to victory in the joint war
against the fascist-militarist axis. And
it has consistently defended the cause
of peace, both in the actual breaches of
it and in the drive for security and dis-
armament, since the war’s end.

These are -the fundamental reasons
why Canada should discard the anti-
-Sovietism that has so long dominated
its official policy, and in its stead adopt
the policy of peaceful co-existence and
friendly relations. There are no areas
where the basic interests of Canada and

the USSR clash.
¥. \

x ~

The modern town of Palana

For Canadian working people the an-
niversary of the 1917 revolution in
Russia has a special significance. That
revolution established the workers’ and
peasants’ Soviet government, proclaim-
ed peace in the midst of an imperialist
world war, defended its power against
the combined onslaught of counter-
revolutionary forces and the armies of
14 foreign states, joined the various
Soviet nations in a voluntary indivisible
family of sovereign republics—the Un-
ion of Sovet Socialist Republics, built
a socialist society, already outstripped
all countries except the U.S.A. in its
economic development, and is sucess-
fully creating the foundations for com-
munism.

The people of the USSR achieved
that which the finest minds and noblest
hearts had dreamed of through the
ages, that which the genius of Marx
and Engels had foreseen and written
into the program of the international
workers’ movement, that for which the
workers of Paris fought and died in
the Commune. The dream became a
reality. The scientific forecast proved
true.

Fhe Soviet people proved in life that
the working class, guided by a scienti-
fic revolutionary theory and led by a
Marxist-Leninist party, can win the
masses of the people to join with it in
the democratic conquest of state power,
establish a working people’s state, ex-
propriate the expropriators, i.e., make
the industries, banks, railroads and nat-
ural resources the property of the peo-
ple instead of a handful of capitalists.
They demonstrated that it was possible
to administer the state and plan and
operate the economy of the country
without capitalists. They showed that
it was possible to end forever the ex-
ploitation of one man by another and of
one nation by another. And they show-
ed in the ordeals of the Civil War and
foreign intervention that they were sub-
jected to following the revolution, the
blockade and hostile capitalist encircle-
ment, the unparalleled military on-
slaught by Hitlerite Germany, and the
Cold War that followed the victory,
that a free people are invincible.

They have paid a terrible price in
blood and destruction during those epic
53 years. They have also made mistakes

&

in the Koryak national area and the sort of huts it

replaced graphically depict the transformation not only of the North but the whole

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRID.

AY, NOVEMBER 6, 1970—PAGE 6

as they blazed the trail through forests
hitherto unknown to man, and correct-
ed them and learned from them as they
marched forward. They have changed
history and other peoples have follow-
ed their example until today one-third
of humanity lives in socialist countries,
the great majority of the former colo-
nies are independent, and more and
more of the “third world” is moving
toward socialism.
t

It would be proper on this anniver-
sary to describe the achievements of
the Soviet Union, cite the figures that
show how the pace of its industrial and
agricultural growth is much more rapid
than in the capitalist countries. We
could tell how the technical revolution
is being carried out without resultant
unemployment. How, having a genera-
tion since liquidated illiteracy, it has
now brought in compulsory secondary
school education, and speak of its mil-
lions of people with a higher education.
We could talk of the saga of the build-
ing up and settlement of the Far East
and the Far North. Of the space flights.
Of the arts, literature, the press. Of
elder citizens with pensions at 60—wo-
men at 55, and the youth absorbed in
the great adventure of building new
cities and a new life...

Those things should be told, because
they demonstrate to us what we could
do if this vast and potentially fabulous-
ly rich country of ours, with its high
level of industrial and farm productiv-
ity, its bountiful natural resources and
its industrious’ people, turned its ener-
gies to building a better life for all. It
can be done—and we will continue to
fight to get it done. Furthermore, we
know that in the future socialist Can-
ada a brilliant future awaits us.

©

But at this moment other questions
intrude and ask to be dealt with. Our
prime minister, in an attempt to justify
his unjustified proclamation of the War
Measures Act, has revised history and
pretends that the Great October Revo-
lution was a conspiracy. Responsible
editors of capitalist dailies and irre-
sponsible reactionaries (so many of
them counter-revolutionary emigres
from socialist lands) are lyingly assert-
ing that Lenin was a terrorist.

Theories of “the post-industrial state”
are trotted out to confuse the people,
and “functional socialism” (a la Swe-
den — where the capitalists have re-
mained as the owners of industry and
the workers have been compelled to de-
fend themselves by sharp class battles)
is “generously” offered the Canadian
workers in lieu of “Soviet-style’’ com-
munism.

Thus in the 53rd year of its existence :

are the Soviet state, its founder Vladi-
mir Lenin, and the principles on which
it was founded falsified and maligned.
But their efforts are in vain.
®

Marxists from the very beginning
were unalterably opposed to conspira-
cies and individual terrorism as a meth-
od of struggle, and Lenin conducted a
concerted battle against such tenden-
cies,

The October Revolution in 1917 was |

a workers’ revolution, not a conspiracy
or a coup; when Lenin and the Com:
munist Party organized the seizure of

power by the revolutionary workers
and soldiers in Petrograd and through: ~

out Russia 53 years ago, they took it

from a regime that had usurped powel —

and was preparing counter-revolution,
including the handing of the city ove!

to the German Army of Kaiser Wilhelm
the Communists led the uprising at the
moment when the democratic orgalS
of the people, the Soviets, had bee?

won to the workers’ revolution, 4”
they placed it in the hands of the 2m!

All-Russian Congress of Soviets that
convened on November 8. No, this. wa

not a conspiracy but the most dem®
cratic people’s revolution in the history

of man, not only because it was made

by the people but for them.

As to the “substitute” theories that
are continually advanced, the fact is—
as the history of the USSR and all other
socialist states has proved—that there
is only one socialism, whatever thé
ways it is arrived at or its speciliC
traits, and that is when the workiné
class at the head of all the workiné
people takes over political power, whe?
the principle means of production—fa®

os

tories, mines, banks, railroads, etc. ~ —

are made the property of the peopl®
and when a planned economy is orga!
ized to satisfy the needs of society al
not the greed of a few.

@

To the more than 240 million peopl

of the Soviet Union, who pioneered i®

the opening of the new era in the his:
tory of humanity, the era without ¢% —
_ploitation and oppression, the era 0

peace and brotherhood, our sincere 4
comradely salute! 4 hi
0!

Let Canada and the USSR, 80
northern neighbors, work together for
peace and human progress.