ici EDITORIAL A war to end all wars “The war in Europe officially ended on Tuesday with the unconditional surrender of Germany. To the last, the German fascists sought to split the Allies, to surrender only to Britain and the U.S. To the last, even as they surrendered in the west, they fought the Red Army and Czechoslovak patriots in the East. “But they were finally forced to give up. And even in surrender they still tried to hold out the hope of a German rebirth and an anti-Soviet war in the future. “The war in its nearly six years claimed more than 40 million lives. The British Commonwealth lost 307,000, among them 32,000 Canadians. Uni- ted States killed were 166,000. And the Soviet Union lost 4,500,000 fighting men and women and 15,000,000 civilians killed — half the total casual- ites including German dead. . .” This was how the May 12, 1945 Canadian Tribune’s lead story began as the anti-fascist alliance drove the last nail into Hitler’s coffin in Europe. * * * The world yearned for peace, to heal the wounds and to rebuild. In the trials that followed, the scope of nazi crimes shocked the world. Anti- fascist states vowed to purge fascism as a genoci- dal ideology. Agreements were reached by the Allied powers to track down and bring to justice nazi war criminals wherever they may be found. In the socialist states this pledge was fulfilled. Not only were nazis tracked down and punished, but succeeding generations were taught what fas- cism is; anti-war, anti-racist laws govern the con- duct and attitudes of socialist citizens. The capitalist states, as history has shown, betrayed the victims of fascism. Thousands of war criminals were spirited from justice and took up residence in the U.S., Canada, West Germany and other capitalist countries. Forty years after the end of World War Two, 3,000 such persons are reported living in Canada. We have no anti-fascist laws. In West Ger- many a neo-nazi resurgence has occurred; in the U.S. nazi groups terrorize citizens. And in Can- ada we now witness the spectacle of a Toronto trial to “decide”’(!) if nazi death camps existed. 2 Since the 1945 allied victory there has been a conscious campaign to denigrate the role of the Soviet Union in fascism’s defeat. Allies become enemies, enemies become anti-communist allies. Led by U.S. imperialism, capitalist military blocs again openly talk of the destruction of socialism, of a “Soviet threat’’, of the need to arm to the teeth to “roll back communism”. Hitler’s Lebensraum becomes United States’ “global interests”; the Wehrmacht’s blitzkrieg becomes Reagan’s Star Wars. In all this, to the discredit of the Tory govern- ment, Canada acts as a U.S.-NATO client state. Ottawa takes up Reagan’s “Soviet threat” howl as it ties our country more tightly in the military web. Is this what the world’s people made such great sacrifices for 40 years ago? Did 40 million pay with their lives for new war preparations, another “roll back communism” crusade — this time with the final weapon? As the post-World War Two period clearly shows, it is again imperialism, this time led by U.S. imperialism, that is the source of today’s war danger, the system of exploitation, interference and crusades. * * * The marking of the 40th anniversary of fas- cism’s defeat offers a tremendous opportunity not only to honor the millions who sacrified for that victory, but to rededicate a common resolve to end war. In the socialist world, May 8, 1985 will be marked with thousands of meetings, commemo- rations and celebrations. A contrast in attitudes toward this anniversary can be seen in the way the two German states will mark the occasion: In the German Democratic Republic, reports the Trib- une’s Berlin correspondent, the entire people and state will mark the day as a national holiday. In the Federal Republic of Germany, Chancellor Helmut Kohl will address a meeting of the Land- mannschaft who demand a return to the border of Hitler’s Third Reich of 1937. And the attitude of the USSR, which bore the main brunt of fascism, can be summed up in this editorial in the Soviet publication New Times: “For our country this is a year of pride, pride in our hard-earned victory which we owe not to chance, but to our social system. . .the year of the 40th anniversary can — and must — become the year of victory over the threat of a new war.” Every year Ma Bell goes cap in hand to Ottawa complaining that she can’t make do on what she squeezes out of Canadians. But Ma Bell isn’t all that close to starving: profits of Bell Canada enter- prises Inc. for the year ended Dec. 31, 1984 was $940.3-million, compared with $745.2-million a year earlier. Most Canadian work- ing people would like to be so hungry. IRIBUNE Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR Graphics — ANGELA KENYON Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 125 Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada — $14 one year; $8 six months Foreign — $20 one year; Second class mail registration number 1560 t is nothing like the ferocious campaign of vilification against the miners that has been waged by the commercial media, especially the tabloid press, in Britain. But the coverage of the British miners’ strike here is still numbingly predictable. The same old saw is repeated day after day: there is a steady return of men back to People and Issues Oe . nyone following the education cut- backs campaign who saw the Jan. 31 edition of the Province would undoubtedly have been dismayed to see the generally " negative coverage of the student sit-in pro-- test, accompanied by a photo of the sit-in in Vancouver Technical School Audito- rium in which only seven students are sit- work, the miners must ultimately accept that they will have to give up so-called “uneconomic pits”, Arthur Scargill is los- ing his grip. And so on. So it’s particularly refreshing to get a glimpse of the miners’ side of the line as we | did this week when White Rock reader Jim Ormerod brought in a letter he had received from a striking miner from Clip- stone in the Nottinghamshire coalfields. With it were several editions of Strike Back Clipstone, a four-page mimeographed bul- letin put out by the strike committee of the Clipstone branch of the National Union of Mineworkers. The bulletins themselves give a different picture of the strike, showing the work of the strike committee, with reports and anecdotes, in the midst of an area where, according to media reports, miners have -worked throughout the strike. They also reveal the duplicity of the government and the National Coal Board which was supposedly offering generous “buyout” terms to older miners in return for closing pits. The government offers — that each would be paid £1,000 for each year of service — have often been used in media reports to “prove” the claim that the NUM launched the strike not for economic reasons for but political rea- sons, all based on Arthur Scargill’s agenda. But according to one Clipstone bulletin, 300 Moorgren and Pye Hill miners, who have been working through the strike, applied to NCB chairman Ian McGregor to take advantage of the buyout terms — but were refused. McGregor has since admitted that “some miners may have been misled.” That admission gives new dimension to the word understatement. Another bulletin carries the report that the financial firm Price Waterhouse one of the largest companies in London, had been hired by the Thatcher government to track down NUM assets all over the coun- try. The company sent letters to all unions affiliated to the British Trades Union Congress demanding details of all pay- ments to the NUM since Oct. 6, 1984. Worse, it demanded that “any and all” further sums be paid in the future to Price Waterhouse. - As the Clipstone miners put it: “How much more proof is needed that Maggie is using our dispute to try out the most recent legislation as part of her war against the entire trade union movement?” Perhaps the most compelling lines, however, are from the letter sent to Ormerod from miner John Lowe and his wife Elsie. They would, no doubt, be echoed by miners all across the coal fields of Britain. “Yes, it’s been rough and very hard,” they wrote. “The likelihood is that it will get harder before its finished. . . “So many things have happened during this struggle to shatter forever the faith we had in the impariality of the media, the law enforcement agencies and the judicial sys- tem of this country. “We have been subject to assault, abuse, intimidation and threats and crimi- nalized as an organization. The cost of trying to break this strike is taking the country towards bankruptcy. — “That we have to fight we are in no doubt. That we will continue to fight is also certain. Victory has to be the end result, otherwise this society of ours will become an intolerable place to live.” ting amidst empty tables. But they would have been more shocked than dismayed if they were there, as we were. When we walked into the school cafete- ria at about 3:30 p.m., there were some 200 students there, all wearing black and sit- ting at tables scattered throughout the hall, surrounded by signs announcing the protest and stating opposition to the budget cuts ordered by Victoria. To get a better visual impact, we asked a number of the students to gather around a few tables with their sign as a backdrop. The photo, which appears elsewhere in the paper, speaks for itself. But the Province photoyrapher was there at the same time-we were, (as was a television crew), including the moment when we organized the group shot. Some- how, the crowd disappeared in the morn- ing paper. The only charitable thing we can say is that the caption was wrong and it wasn’t Vancouver Technical School at all. Either that or the editors had a point to make and weren’t about to let the majority of frames on a photographer’s roll of film stand in the way. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 6, 1985