BOOKS Fast's pattern ‘never strange to progressive movement in US. .* 13 years a member of - the U.S. Communist party Howard Fast became a world renowned fighter for peace, for a better life for all peoples, both through his writings and through his participation in the struggles of people the world over for these noble aims. Today he has another aim as’ expressed in his recent book, The Naked God. He says: “I have only one important task in front of me —to define this thing, to ex- plain it, to picture this un- holy god in his own. frightful nakedness; so that if there is another generation in my land that must face the agony of my generation. they will never see this avenue as a road to any future that man should face without loathing.” The full circle-has been made. What makes a man move in this way? In his own words: “T went to prison, and after I came out of prison I lived with fear; fear was my con- stant companion day and night, fear of the ugly gods who had entered my life, fear of arrest, fear of assault, fear that harm would come to my children, fear of prison, fear that some _ sick stool pigeon, would begin to invent lies about me, fear of frame-up, fear that I would be expelled from the party... There came the day when I read’ the words of Nikita Khrushchev — how grateful I should be to him -— and then, at long last I was re- leased. I came awake. The fear stopped, and only dis- gust and sorrow remained.” An oddly disjointed book, without feeling, The Naked God is a torrent of spleen against the leadership of the U.S. Communist party and of the Soviet Union. While of the rank and file of the party Fast says, “pure souls, so many gentle and good people, so many men and women of utter integrity” he tries to belittle and defame _ their struggle. Fast recalls Spain, and the fight of Americans in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to stop fascism in that first great fight against its tyranny and states that these brave men did not-fight and die in the “pest of causes, the fight for the liberation of mankind.” He bitterly attacks those who give money to the party. In the United States the writer is free while he is en- slaved under socialism, states Fast: But, as he points -out in this book, from 1951 until The Naked God, no publisher would handle his books. % ea es Fast is particularly vindic- tive about those who criticized his books. It is tremendous egotism that can cause a man to say of his own writing: “It was taken to the hearts of the Negro people as was no other novel of our time,” referring to Freedom Road or “At the risk of being decided immod- est, I will say that I feel it {to be one of the best novels of the American Revolution to appear in recent “years” about The Proud and the Free. Or again, “For two years > Richard West (above) of Britain will be the adjudicator at the B.C. Regional Festival to be held at Chilliwack, March 17-20. and more I had labored to produce a book that would be an epic of the oppressed, a paean. to liberty and the high conscience of mankind” of Spartacus. How then can such books be criticized — “..... . the priest - commissars func- tioned to destroy me as a writer. Yet they failed.” Fast reprints a: recent letter’ he received from Boris Pole- voy, a Soviet writer with whom he corresponded for many years. To the question posed by Polevoy that of all his writer friends with many different outlooks on life, “there is not a single one who adds fuel to the fire of the cold war”; Fast can only reply by de- nouncing the Soviet Union and inferring that the 20th congress of the Soviet Com- munist party did not and could not mean 4ny possible changes. The great struggle of mankind for peace is no longer the concern of Howard Fast, winner of a peace prize in 1953. In 1951 Fast wrote in the “Autumn issue of Modern Quarterly: “Judas is a familiar figure through class history. And whether the renegacy is to a man, a movement or an idea —or even to oneself—the twin patterns of coward and traitor have always been with us. These patterns were never strange %o the progressive movement in America, and we have as long and as ig- noble a register of traitors as any movement on earth.” Those who read The Naked God know that Fast can now be added to this list. Robeson's Here | Stand statement of his views oe ROBESON, noted Ne- gro singer and actor, has written a book, Here I Stand, published in New York this month by Othello Associates. The book presents a com- prehensive statement of Ro- beson’s views on the contro- - versies which have centred around him, and of his out-: look on present efforts to achieve first-class citizenship for Negro Americans. “As I see it,’ he writes, “the challenge which today eonfronts the Negro people in the U.S. can be stated in two propositions: “1, Freedom can be ours, here and now: the long- sought goal of full citizenship under the constitution is with- in our reach. “2 We have the power to achieve that goal: what we ourselves do will be decisive.” In explaining how he came to his present viewpoint—and what that viewpoint actually is—Robeson draws upon many personal experiences from his childhood days in Princeton, N.J., through his years as in- ternational concert artist and star of stage and screen. Soviets, Chinese seek ‘Abominable Snowman CHINESE film director claims to have seen the “snow ‘man” in the Pamirs, says the Peking People’s Daily. The director, Pai Hsin, of the People’s Liberation Army Film Studios, who has just returned to Peking after spending a year in the Hima- layas, said he spent the whole year of 1957 in*the Himalayas and had only just heard the reports about the sighting of a “snow man.” He recalled that he himself saw the “snow man” in 1954 when he and three colleagues were film- ing glaciers on Mount Muztagh Ata, 22,500 feet above sea level. Just after sunrise one morn- ing they suddenly sighted two “men,” not tall, their backs hunched, following one an- othér, up a slope more than 1,000 yards away. Pai Hsin and his colleagues shouted and fired a pistol into the air, but the “men” paid no heed and went on climbing with long strides. They seemed to climb with ease and they fin- ally disappeared among the rocks. Pai Hsin said that on one occasion a photographer and he discovered footprints of a two-legged creature in deep snow. They were similar to. human footprints but bigger. They followed the marks for nearly a mile and found some drops of blood on the path. A day’s pursuit finally led them to a massive rock of ice but they. had to return be- cause it was too dark to go _ further. The haunt of the “Abominable Snowman” SCIENCE February 14, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE On another occasion o frontier guards with who of Pai Hsin, was staying tne out the meat of a cow tt had died of disease. They hs it about 50 yards from the hut. In the small hours; the bright moonlight, 4 guards saw the “wild ™ wrapped in white fur Pp up the meat and run off wi te < Pai Hsin added that hee were many local Jeger xbout the “wild men” 9 the Pamirs.. Fi He concluded: “whateve the name of this strane ereature, I believe from wy own experience that it rea exists in the Pamirs.” the oe ale A team of Soviet scientis® will search for the “ghom? able snow man” in the Pam) mountains bordering Afghan istan although they doubt *” existence, Moscow radio * ports. F In a letter to the newspar? Izvestia, the scientists. sal they would send a team th month. : ‘ Panel on education A. S. Tovstogan, secretatY at the Soviet embassy, W} participate with William Gi Carr of the U.S., Sir Ronal Gould of Britain and Dr. W. Trueman of Canada, in 9 pane] on the purposes of edue cation at the Canadian Co? ference of Education in tawa February 16-20.