Pages from history

a Miracles are being perform-
ae: Bae not by gods but by peo-
call - .” These words by Bella

Gauld are borne out in

_ ‘Teading the five books (listed

~~ I have before me. They
liver Out or by women whose
hey and work, to a great de-
epee cmporancous, are out-
vict Ing examples of how con-
ae dedication and vibrant
a ership can give great im-
ae to the struggle to advance
a ay towards the great goal
. !reedom from poverty, in-
Justice and war. ;
et chronologically, is Har-
ali ubman (1820-1913). Born
a ve, knowing hard labor at
a and beaten so mercilessly
eats, repeatedly, the whole
ig aie of slavery is revealed
Enks its horror in her experi-
1849 Escaping to free soil in
life , she vowéd to devote her
hie freeing her people from
oor She took on the role of
se that most dan-
one job of guiding slaves to
Grae in the north and in
we a. The moral effect of her
ee exploits and her ability
Le thousands in the work
i tremendous impulse to the
ree for the abolition
im ry, culminating in the
evil War and Lincoln’s Eman-
Pation of the Slaves Act.
nena as a soldier, leading
rehabin battle, scouting,nursing,
a llitating, working in the
as Begsvetion and ‘later caring
tit : aged and-indigent, Har-
ener ubman found time and
ee to engage in many ac-
brs ais for women’s suffrage.

ae "a
io Keller. 1880-1967 needs
_ introduction. Overcoming
ao handicap of being deaf,
ear mute, she became 4a
Ook in her lifetime. In the
her ae hand we come to know
pies rough her writings in her
Cialist years” (1910 into the
eS). during which time she
tres me of the well-known fig-
Sotialic the American labor and
ec Movement, a tireless
article er in her speeches, books,
Rs and letters and major
> vee of militarism and war.
aa _she hailed the Russian
econ. Caught up in the

~ Suffta movement for women’s
19jn Helen Keller wrote in

* “Tt is the interest of all

workers to end this stupid, one-
sided, one-power arrangement
and have votes for all.” Although
after 1921 she devoted herself
wholly to work for the blind,
in her private letters to old
friends of the socialist move-
ment, whom she never forgot,
it was clear that her path re-
mained firm.

- Among the outstanding hero-
ines of U.S. labor and socialist
history no one occupies a more
shining place than Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn (1890-1967). Her
autobiography is a veritable
saga of the great labor and poli-
tical struggles over more than
half a century. Wherever major
confrontations took place there
this “Rebel Girl,” as Joe Hill
immortalized her in song, was to
be found. Book I of her autobio-
graphy, here considered, deals
with the period up to the late
20s. Descended from Irish “im-
migrants and revolutionists,” she
became a socialist at 16, was an
IWW organizer and strike lead-
er, and subsequently became
deeply involved in the defense
of civil liberties and labor’s
rights, and never more so than
in the seven bitter years of the
fight to save the lives of Sacco
and Vanzetti. In her book she
recalls the bitter struggles of
the ‘20,000 waistmakers,” the
“Girls Strike’ against intoler-
able sweatshop conditions,
struggles that were a motive
force leading to the declaration
of International Women’s Day
in 1910. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
joined the Communist Party in

1937.
©

“The real makers of Canada

‘are ordinary men and women...”

says the foreword to the book
that tells about Bella Hall Gauld
(1878-1961) . It sets out the life
story of this most modest of
women who grew up in Mani-
toba, early became interested in
sociat welfare work for the
needy and destitute in Brandon
and Winnipeg and then on to the
University Settlement in Mont-
real. Hers was a constant search
for the underlying causes of the
conditions she saw all about her
and for the solution to them—
a search that finally led her to
Marxism and_ scientific social-

LE Nae
ae ON THE EMANCIPA-
Publishes WOMEN. Progress
Price abe Moscow. 136 pgs.
QUES 5 cents. THE WOMAN

lishe TION, International Pub-

ee” New York. 96 pages.
ig $1.25. Distributed by
€ress Books, Toronto.

vase is no substitute for
; - Il. Lenin himself (and

: in Cas
e
Rethe, of the second book, to-

Stali
1) wrote on the question of

e@ jj
meter ration of women. No
Others: how helpful writings by
about te What Lenin thought
Re ‘ hat problem may be, the
are “Ource in the final account

Sai Own words.

Won 4 On the Emancipation of
Cerpts 5 1S a collection of ex-
Cles ae Lenin’s books, arti-
to the letters from the 1890’s
tion ig ot of 1922. The collec-
face enon by a superb pre-

_ ttten by Nadezhda Krup-

With Marx, Engels and

skaya, Lenin’s wife and life-long
comrade, and an appendix con-
sisting of a recollection of pene-
trating remarks of Lenin by
Clara Zetkin, the German Com-
munist leader. Both these out-
standing women of our era pro-
vide precious additions to the
Lenin legacy.

What a wealth of angles Lenin
deals with, always concretely on
the basis of the real situation,
and always as a principled fight-
er for the final emancipation of
women with the overthrow of

capitalism and building of the

new society. He studied the po-
sition of women with the deve-
lopment of capitalism, argued
out such questions as =tLee
love,” birth control and prosti-
tution, and in a detailed and
practical manner showed what
steps had to be taken after the
achievement of workers’ power
in order to achieve equality of
the sexes in life as well as law.

It comes almost as a shock to
realize that things Lenin dealt

Lives of remarkable women

ism. An outstanding organizer,
a teacher and accomplished
pianist, she applied her great
abilities in the field of worker’s
education through the well-
known Labor College in Mont-
real which she organized in as-
sociation with another veteran
of the labor movement, Annie
Buller. Bella Gauld’s whole life
was a labor of love devoted to
helping workers and young peo-
ple and everyone she came in
contact with to understand the
need for the kind of changes
that would transform society.

Wife and co-weker of Lenin,
Nadezdha Krupskaya (1869-
1939) was an outstanding public
figure and stateswoman, a peda-
gogue and a deputy minister of
education. In “A Life Dedicated
to Struggle,” we come to know
something of the truly tremen-
dous scope of her activities.
From her early “years and
throughout her life she was or-
ganizing, writing, publishing,
speaking; long years of political
exile; then the Revolution and
the aftermath of civil war, in-
tervention and _ the socialist
construction. Hers was a life of
total dedication to education of
the youth and the education and
development of women to be-
come part and parcel of the
struggle for a better life. Like
Lenin, Krupskaya looked upon
women as a tremendous reser-
voir of ability and talent for or-
ganization once they were’ help-
ed to get out of the especially
oppressed condition in which
they had lived for centuries. We
read too of her personal life with
Lenin, how much they depended

‘on each other, each the discern-

ing partner and each the firm
critic of the other’s voluminous

work.
e

Harriet Tubman: Negro Soldier and Abo-
litionist. By Earl Conrad. International
Publishers, N.Y., 1968. 47 pp.

Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years. Edited
by Philip S- Foner. International Publish-
ers, N.Y., 1967. 128 pp-

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: 1 Speak My Own
Piece. Autobiography, Book |. Masses &
Mainstream, Inc., New York, 1955. 326 pp.

Not by Gods But by People (the Story of
Bella Hall Gauld). By Catharine Vance.
Progress Books, Toronto, 1968. 65 pp.

N. K. Krupskaya: A Life Devoted to Strug-
gle. Novosti Press Agency,» Moscow, 1969.

48 pp. eye

with so clearly and definitely
half and three-quarters of a cen-
tury ago are still on the agenda
for discussion and action in Can-
ada of 1970.

The Woman Question is also
of special value because it pro-
vides the background and gives
even wider treatment of the
problem with Engels describing
conditions under which the en-
slavement of women took place
in prehistoric times, Marx and
he outlining the position of wo-
men in capitalist society, Lenin
showing how women must be
drawn into the revolutionary
process, and how the working
class “cannot achieve complete
freedom,_unless it achieves com-
plete freedom for women,”
Stalin contributing conclusions
from the fight to build social-
ism in the U.S.S.R.

Lenin and the classics of
Marxism continue to be a living
guide to the understanding and
solution of this supremely im-
portant social problem. J.W.

SAVE THE PRAIRIE
FARMER!
DON'T BE FORCED
OFF—FIGHT!

The prairie farm crisis is a major catastrophe—adversely
affecting all aspects of the prairie economy—creating hard-
ships and threatening thousands of farmers and small busi-
nesses with bankruptcy.

Capitalism is plunging deeper intc serious economic
difficulties—inflation, growing unemployment, and increas-
ing regional disparities. All the people's problems, includ-
ing the farm crisis will only eventually be solved through
socialism.

But, in the meantime the Trudeau administration relent-
‘lessly follows its austerity program, which instead of help-
ing the farmers is brutally forcing half of them off the land.

The scheme for converting wheat acreage to grass and
summerfallow will reduce the standard of living of all farm-
ers. It is in effect, an admission by the federal government
that its agricultural goods export policy is/ bankrupt and
without perspective, and that their only solution is to place
the burden ‘of their failure on prairie farmers. The acreage
reduction scheme aimed at reducing the huge stocks of
wheat, is in effect a proposal to force prairie farmers to
spread dwindling income over a number of years without
doing a thing to reduce farm costs imposed by monopoly
CUTTING DOWN ON FOOD PRODUCTION IS A CRIME
IN LIGHT OF THE WORLD SHORTAGE OF FOOD.

The federal government must be made to take full re-
sponsibility for finding and financing new markets and ex-
panding old ones for all agricultural products—for making
it possible for Canadian farmers to diversify without
serious loss and dislocation to the individual farmer.
The government is already doing this on a large scale
for the giant monopolies in this country.

ALL OUR WHEAT CAN BE SOLD

Only federal government action can do it. The huge
sums of money spent by Ottawa on Canada's military bud-
get could have financed new markets and would have been
returned making possible other peace-making projects in
the interests of the Canadian people.

To win such new policies requires a fight by the Cana-
dian farmers and workers. Both are victims of monopoly
exploitation. The same monopoly concerns that charge high
prices over the counter also pay as little as possible to the
farmers for his produce, and to the worker for his labor
When the farmer can’t buy machinery, there are layoffs in
Ontario in the implements manufacturing industry.

United the farmers and workers can win a new deal for
the working people of Canada.

The Communist Party of Canada demands that emer-
gency measures be taken by Ottawa. We say: FARMERS!
TAKE YOUR CASE TO OTTAWA! A mass delegation of
farmers, workers and businessmen from the West to Ottawa
can force the government to act. We believe that all sorts
of protests and.demonstrations by the farmers and workers
are required to win new people's policies.

WE DEMAND:

1. Put the sale of wheat for the ex i
port market in th
hands of the Federal Department of Trade and ripitree:

countries, based on long-term credit arrangements. Extend
such trade policies to include the Middle East, Africa, Latin
America and Asia, using both credit and barter.

3). A moratorium on all farm debts so that no farmer
loses his holdings, machinery or stock because of adverse
market conditions.
coe. S Make ample cash available to those farmers who

need it on a long-term low-interest basis. Guarantee each
farmer a yearly minimum net income of no less than $5,000
based on a system of guaranteed floor prices for products
—as $2.25 per bushel of wheat.

5. Special federal-provincial government assistance to
all rural counties and municipalities to cover the costs of
services that are now becoming an unbearable tax load
Assistance to rural-based small business.

6. Financial assistance to build on-farm storage and the
payment to farmers for on-farm storage of grain. -

hs Immediate government action to reduce the price of
ae macy and repairs, and assistance to import
ower-priced farm machinery, based on the findin

: s

Barber Royal Commission. es

8. Place the purchase and domestic i

sale of all gr
under the Canadian Wheat Board. oe

SUPPORT THE FARMERS!

2. Develop extensive two-way trade with all Socialist

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 6, 1970—Page 9