: 00 years of Communist representation

‘The conscience.of City Hall’

WINNIPEG — Fifty years of
_ continuous public service to the
working people of Winnipeg by
Communist representatives. on
City Council and School Board
_ was marked at a public meeting
on November 21st addressed by
City. Councillor Joe Zuken,
former School Trustee, Mary
as Kardash and Wm. Kashtan,
Leader of the Communist Party of
_ Canada.
“The election of Alderman
_ Wm. ‘Kolisnyk in November,
1926, the first Communist to hold
public office on the North Ameri-
can continent, was not a fluke, a
political curiosity’’, declared
Councillor. Zuken. ‘‘It started a
tradition which helped to shape
the politics of Ward 3 and of the
city. It was followed a few years
later by the election of Alderman
Jacob Penner and Joe Forkin who
became household names in Win-
nipeg. Penner served for 25 years
on City Council and Forkin for 17
years.””
‘They brought something new
__ tocivic politics —a working-class
position. They stood out as men
___ who were incorruptible and dedi-
cated, the conscience of City
Pal Se
Councillor Zuken pointed out
_ that what started as only Com-
_ munist support in 1926, advanced

over the years to become the only
realistic alternative to the coali-
tion’ of discredited, - reactionary
old-line civic groupings. ‘‘That
fight still goes on today, to make
life better for the people. That’s
what civic politics is all about —
people, people-oriented priorities
and policies,

‘The progressive traditions of
the past 50 years illuminate the
present and help forge the fu-
ture.”

Stood Steadfastly

Mary Kardash, in her remarks,
reminded the audience that 1933
was another landmark in Win-
nipeg civic politics because that
was -the year in which Andrew
Bileski was elected as the first
Communist School Trustee. He
served 11 years on the School
Board where he was joined in
1936 by the second Communist
School Trustee, William Ross.
Andrew Bileski was interned dur-
ing World War Two and Ross
joined the armed forces.

In 1941 Joe Zuken was elected
to: the School Board and served
with distinction for 20 years be-
fore going on to take Penner’s
seat on Council when the latter
retired in 1961. Other members of
the Communist Party serving on
the Winnipeg School Board were
Margaret Chunn, elected in Ward

. the elections reflect;

ta in its solution.”

: [ Meeting on Quebec

The Communist Party’s 59-member Central Committee, newly
elected at the 23rd Convention in October, and representative of
Communists across Canada, will be called into session January 29
and 30; the Central Executive Committee had announced.

“After receiving a report and discussing the implications of the
Quebec elections for the future of Canada, and of the various
reactions to it, including the position of the parties in parliament;

“And because of the deepening crisis of confederation which

“The CEC agrees to hold a special meeting of the CC so as to
examine the developing situation and decide how to advance our
proposals for a truly democratic solution to the national question
in Canada, to solve the crisis of confederation, and the decisive
role the working class and democratic forces are called upon to

red,

Class and nation

2 in 1947 and Mary Kardash,
elected in Ward 3 in 1960 and con-
tinuing for six years.

‘‘For a stretch of 28 years there
-were Communists sitting on the
Winnipeg School Board. They
were elected time and time again
because they stood steadfastly on
a program of providing the chil-
dren of this city with universal
education of high quality’’, said
Mrs. Kardash. ‘

“Tt was only as a result of polit-
ical gerrymandering, of reducing
the size of the Board from 15
members to 9, that reaction suc-
ceeded in eliminating Communist

representation. But this is only a.

temporary .sét-back. On this his-
toric occasion we pledge to pre-
pare ourselves to strengthen labor
representation on School Board
and City Council in 1977, to elect
additional fighters for the in-
terests of the working people.”’
_ Remarkable Record

_ William Kashtan congratulated
the working people of Winnipeg
and the Communists for setting a

MARY KARDASH

remarkable record of public ser-
vice. He paid tribute to the work
of Councillor Joe Zuken, who
with 20 years service as School
Trustee and 15 years on City
Council has set a record of con-
tinuous Communist representa-
tion.

‘‘Why have the working people
of Winnipeg kept on electing
Communists to public office’’, he
asked? ‘‘Because they never sold
out, they never betrayed the
people, they always defended
their real interests.

“In the present period of
economic and political instability,
of the crisis of capitalism, new
problems are emerging for the
cities — large scale urbanization,
heavy tax loads, reduced ser-
vices, etc. There is need for a

WILLIAM KASHTAN

comprehensive program of
democratic reforms. Working
people need more spokesmen and
women on an ever larger scale/in

‘municipal governments, provin-

cial legislatures and in parliament
who will give leadership to the
strugglés for basic democratic re-
forms at all levels of govern-
ment.”

The meeting also gave recogni-
tion to the work of William Kar-
dash who setved in the Manitoba
Legislature for 17 years and to the
many candidates of the Com-
munist Party and
Committee and their campaign
workers over the 50-year period.

William Patterson, has earned
one of the highest rankings in the
list of people’s heros. He exposed
the effects of racism in the U.S.
through a genocide petition pre-
sented to the United Nations.

Wm. Patterson celebrates
85th birthday in December

~ The Communist Party of the
USA will celebrate, on Dec. 12,
the 85th birthday of William Pat-:

terson, a member of the Central

Committee of the CPUSA and
long-time member and _ revolu-

tionary fighter.

- Patterson has spent his entire

life in the struggle for democratic
rights and equality for Blacks and
minority peoples, for peace and
against fascism, racism and re-

pression. In a message of greeting

on this occasion, William
Kashtan, general secretary of the
Communist Party: of Canada
wrote:

.‘*We raise a toast to you not’
only for your consistent struggle
for democratic rights and equality
for Blacks and minority peoples,

By ALFRED DEWHURST

for peace and against fascism and
racism in your own country, but

also for your assistance to our

Party in its time of need, when we
were inflicted with Section 98
which illegalized our Party, led to
the imprisonment of its leaders
and the arrest of Communists,
anti-fascists and democrats in our
country.

““You showed a high degree of

heroism and a strong inter- —

nationalist position in coming to
Canada during that period and

helping us in the battle to Repeal Sao

Section 98 and bring about the re-
lease of men like Tim Buck, and
restore democratic rights to
Canada.

“We shall always remember |

this..."

Election —

_ bourgeois

The election of a Parti Quebecois
government in Quebec has, in a most
dramatic fashion, pushed the question
of the nation onto center-stage from one
_ end of the country to the other.

No longeris heard the question ‘what
do they (Quebekers) want?!. Instead is
_ heard the cry ‘they want to separate,

divide the country, split the ‘nation’.
___ This new refrain arises from Premier

_Levesque’s declaration that the new
government of Quebec will sometime in
the next couple of years hold a referen-
_ dum on the question of independence
for Quebec, Taking their cue from the
~ PQ’s_ referendum proposition,
t and petty-bourgeois
_ ideologues, politicians and the media

seek to muddy the waters by equating
‘independence’ with ‘separatism’ and
‘nation’ with ‘country’.
 Inorder to get at the heart of what has
tiow become the centerpiece of Cana-
dian politics, best described ‘as the
crisis of Confederation, it would be well
to scientifically define the terms ‘na-
tion’ and ‘country’.
Y ® * *

At the beginning of the formation of
human society, the basic form of the
social formation was the clan and the
_ tribe. The chief feature distinguishing

the clan (tribe) from other people was
their common origin, that is, their blood
relationship. With the coming into be-

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

ing of private ownership and its accom-
panying production relations, 1.¢.,
slave and slave-owner, came the
break-up of the. primitive communal
system characterizing tribal society. In
this way the unity of the clans and tribes
gradually collapsed and the significance
of blood ties weakened.

The subsequent merging of several
tribal communities into one gave rise to

the pre-nation or nationality. People be- _

longing to one nationality were no
longer bound by ties of kinship. The
features the people of a nationality
shared:in common — language, territ-
ory, and culture — had a common so-
cial, historical origin. The unity of the
nationality, however, was not a stable
one either. Rather, it was extremely un-
stable. Stability could.only be secured
with the emergence of. the national

community. .
* Seas 2

In the conditions of the slave and
feudal systems it was not possible to
establish the kind of unity of economic
life which is the essential condition for.
firm territorial unity and a stable com-
munity of culture. The prerequisites for
the conversion of the nationality into
a_nation came into being with the ad-
vent of the system of capitalism, which

destroyed feudal isolation and created a
single national market, i.e., the home
market.

National relations, therefore, are the
product of prolonged historical de-
velopment. Consequently, such rela-
tions are marked by their great stability.
National ties cannot be wished away or
legislated into oblivion. On the other
hand, though, they are not of an eternal

character. National ties as we know

them. today will eventually wither
away,, but not under the system of

capitalism. For capitalism is based on

the single national market, the forma-
tion of which includes the forcible in-
clusion of smaller nations by the
economically dominant nation into the
given single economic unit.

* * *

Examined scientifically, it can be
seen that a nation is a stable community
of people that is historically consti-
tuted, formed on the basis of acommon
language, territory, economic life, and
psychological make-up manifested in a
common culture. :

On the basis of the above Marxist-

Leninist definition of the nation, the
French-Canadian people living in
‘Quebec-constitute a nation. However,

it is ‘this fact that the proponents of
‘cooperative federalism’ and ‘bilin-

‘gualism’ stubbornly refuse to face up

to.
oo ew 4

Canada as a country, on the other
hand, is a territorial, geographical con-
cept — a given territory organized
economically and: politically in a state
structure. A single country may en-
compass one nation, two nations or a

number of nations, and may be or-
ganized as a one-nation state, a bi-

national state or a multi-national state.

For instance, the Union of Socialist =

Soviet Republics is a country organized

as a multi-national state. In this union, — > z
each member republic is joined withits

fellow-republics in a clearly de

fined —
economic, * political and territorial”
whole — a multi-national country or
ganized as a free association of equal

nations in a multi-national state.
* * * E

The situation in Canada stands in

“sharp contrast to that in the USSR,

which under socialism came into being

as a stable community of nations.

Canada is a two-nation country, or-

ganized and maintained by compulsion — .
on the part of. the dominant Anglo-—

Canadian economic unit, as a one-

nation state. Herein, lies the crisis of G s

Confederation.
More on this next week.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 10, 1976—Page 9 | en

ee

RAGAN ARR ACU SED

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