ee tee

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

Bernal writes
as everybody’

PROFESSOR J. D. Bernal
shows in Marx and Science (ob-
tainable in Vancouver at the
People’s Cooperative Bookstore,
337 West Pender, price 45 cents)
“what Marx did for science in
his time and what the result of
his work will do for science in
the future.”

Marx drew from Hegel the
idea of human history as a series
of developments; but Marx was
the first to grasp that the ulti-
mate motive force of these de-
velopments in human society was
the productive process — how
mankind produced the food,
¢elothing and shelter it required,

Professor Bernal traces how
“Marx became a Marxist’—how
he cor from ia student of
philosophy into a philosopher
who saw his life work as not
only to interpret the world, but
to change the world.

Hence his early activities as
a political journalist, his associg-
tion with the _ revolutionary
movement of 1848, and his eon-
tinuous work with the working
class movement in Britain and
abroad.

As early as 1844, when Marx
was only 26, he stressed the
close relation between industry
and natural science, and between
natura} science and man:

“History itself is a real part
of natural history, of the de-
velopment of nature into man.

Later natural science will in-

i it | OU ee ee
° =

Ut td

Ut

MUL Lt nl

HE WROTE
FOR US.

The Story of
Bill .Bennett:
Pioneer Socialist
Journalist

EERE Eee Ee eE
MCe

of science
S business

clude the science of man in
the same way as the science
of man willincludenatural
science, There will be only one
science.”

It is industry that ‘expresses
the “unity of man with nature,”
and industry and commerce de-
termine the structure of the dif-
ferent classes in society. But in-
dustry depends on science, and
science depends on industry for
its development.

Professor Bernal quotes from
Marx to show that the theories
of science “‘‘are not absolute and
eternal ideas, They are part and
parce] of the ideology of the

rulling class of the time of their ~

origin, and they are maintained
and developed to suit the inter-
‘est of that ruling class.”

* * *

IN A SECTION dealing with
“Science and Industry in Capi-
tal,’’ Professor Bernal shows the
brilliance of Marx’s account of
developments in the use of ma-
chinery because of his compre»
hensive philosophic and econ-
omic approach, his understand-
ing of capitalist production and
of the motive for technical im-
provement in capitalist society
as first and last that of profit.

Marx “knew that the full so-
cial use of science could come
only when the proletariat, the
class that had been called into
existence by industry, itself con-
trolled the productive system
that it was already maintaining
by its own co-operative labour.”

Since Marx wrote Capital, pro-
ductive methods have enormous-
ly improved in efficiency; yet
this “has not diminished in any
degree the difficulties and con-
tradictions of capitalism.’’

Science has become so com-
plex that its high costs “make it
almost completely dependent on
either government or monopoly
support,’’ which in the imperial-
ist countries is now given in-
creasingly for military purposes.

Along with this, “research for
purposes of human betterment
in backward countries and even
in advanced industrial countries
is stagnating or is actually being
cut down.”’

On the other hand, in the

By TOM McEWEN

Here's what
Tim Buck says:

“No one can understand the
labor movement in B.C. who
has not read this book.”

$1.00

(plus sales tax)

TRIBUNE
PUBLISHING
Co. Ltd.

=Room 6 - 426 Main St.

or

‘184

BT

socialist countries, where the
domination of capitalism has
been overthrown, Marx’s ideas of
the relation of science to produc-

practice,

Science helps to satisfy human
needs, and is not the preserve of
an intellectual elite, but “is be-
coming part of the everyday life
and work of the great majority
of the population.”’ :

The philosopher has started to
change the world, ‘and what wa
have seen now is but a small
foretaste of things to come.”

Marx and Science is a short
book, but Prof. ‘Bernal has
brought. together in it many of
the key ideas of Marxism, and

ment of science,

He has moreover succeeded in
presenting them in such a way
that they not only link with the
present situation in capitalist
countries and in the world, but

PEOPLE'S CO-OP
BOOKSTORE
337 West Pender St.
Vancouver, B.C.

ONES EOE MEE

strengthen the understanding of
the scientific socialism of Marx
and give renewed confidence in

It is not a book only for pro-
fessional scientists; it is for us
= all—EMILE BURNS

tive forces are being put into

“of their relation to the develop- -

Marxism as our guide to action..

Photographers’ paradise |

From the boats in Coal Harbor around Second and Third Beaches to the magnificent panorait@—

from Prospect Point, Stanley Park is a photographers’ paradise these warm summer days.
shot of Second Beach pool, framed against a backgro

Vancouverite,

\

PROF. THOMSON TELLS CONFERENCE

Here ies

und of mountains and sea, familiar to every

‘Only working class can save
British culture from scrap heap’

A GLOWING picture of how
Britain’s working class must
rescue this country’s rich cul-
tural heritage recently brought
a packed audience in London’s
Holborn Hall to its feet cheer-
ing.

The picture was drawn by
Prof. George Thomson of the
British Communist party’s exec-
sutive committee at the annual
conference on May 25 organized
by the party’s cultural commit-
tee. The conference this year
was devoted to .Britain’s cultural
heritage.

“It is only the working class
who can save British culture
from the capitalist scrap-heap,”’’
he said. Soe

Some 900 delegates and visi-
tors from all parts of Britain,
musicians and miners, scientists
and factory workers, writers,
historians and architects, cram-
med the hall, many standing or
sitting around the walls all day
long.

“By taking the lead in this
struggle, we will forge new wea-
pons for the political struggle,”’
Prof. Thomson said.

“As the working class gathers
strength, workers will take to
themselves the best of democrat-
ic and pre-capitalist culture, and
create a new socialist culture re-
united with labor.’”’

* BG) Ge ike
WILLIAM MORRIS, ‘the
greatest Englishman of the 19th

DANCER’S PASSPORT LIFTED

Pearl Primus

won’t be

silenced by witchhunters

PEARL PRIMUS, young Ne-
gro American dancer whose art
seeks to portray the dignity, love
of peace and justice of her peo-
ple, has been deprived of her

“passport by the United States
government,

Only a few hours before ‘her
company gave a one-night show
in Los Angeles, the passport was
taken from her “‘because of the
delicate international situation.”

But in spite of the attempt to
intimidate her into silence, Miss
Primus that same night spoke
up for freedom and world peace.

Before each item of the pro-
gram, she explajned to the
crowded dudience the meaning

of the dance they were to see.

Of an African tribal war
dance, she said:

“My people believe that by
performing the war dance and
fighting an imaginary foe they
will satisfy the war gods and
they won’t have to fight a real
war against their fellow men.”

Her show was built up after
years of painstaking study of the

' art of the Negro people in many

lands, She spent 18 months living
in an African village.

Last October she took her en-
semble to London for their first
season at a West End theatre.

Her own performance of
“Strange Fruit,’’ a dance of poig-
nant protest against lynching,
won her great tribute from those
who understood and shared her
advocacy of the brotherhood of
man. i

At that time she spoke to me
of the tremendous admiration
for her fellow-citizen Paul Robe-

son, the great Negro singer and _

fighter for the rights of his own
and of all other peoples.

His passport had then recently.
been taken from him,

“Tt seems to have got to the
point in my country that, if you
‘have not been banned you are
not really a true artist,” she said.

century,” was the theme of AD
drew Rothstein.

He brought roars of laughte?
as he quoted a series of Morris
bitingly witty comments on 45°
pects of British life and art.

“Bring the real William Mor —
‘ris, with his dazzling many-sided-
ness, back to the British people
said Rothstein, “We are all his
heirs.” 3

The fact that Britain’s herl
tage has a rich scientific side Wa
brought out by Prof. J. D, Bet
nal in one of the outstandins
speeches of the conference.

And science, he pointed out.
came directly from “the hands
of craftsmen and farmers rather!
than men of learning,’ in the
first place.

“Here the workers first mad®
themselves felt in the fields of
knowledge,’”’ said Prof. Bernal,
and the centres of British indus
try became the birthplaces of
British science.

“Let’s begin now to build 2.
thorough union of science with
all the cultural forces and thé
working class movement and
pave the way to building a 8° -
cialist society ourselves.”

A plea from Alan Bush, thé
composer, to find the commo? —
ground between what people
want and like here and now and

b! . ye
the content we want to be there
won enthusiastic applause.

Summing up the discusssio™
Prof. Thomson said: ‘We hav®
recognized the urgent duty of #
of us to place all our knowled8®
at the service of the people. -

“Let Communists take col
mon cause with the thousands
engaged in some form of cultul
al activity even at a low lev®
and bring in our ideas for pea”
and progress till they grip thé
masses and themselves becom*
a force in the struggle for a 894°
and happy future for our chil
dren.” —SHBHILA LYND

. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 13, 1952 — PAGE 8
\