© 8) JOHN WEIR

me many, the men and
Who over the past half-

Peach according to his

etd the circumstances,

mt Up brick by brick the

ithe Canadian Commu-

Hhonor shines the name
an Bethune, who died
St in the front line of
Ble on Nov. 12, 1939—
years ago.
member this anniver-
scially today when we
m8 the 50th anniver-
‘ 4 € Communist Party of
‘te party to which he
y Which guided his
Mt Which by his life and
"Man Bethune enriche
ated, :
my’ life pointed up es-
i) for all the world to see
€ fundamental features
imunist — proletarian
)Onalism.
d stat he was some sort -of
: ie different from his
4, °° thousands of other
i is S. It’s just that those
Hie Stand etched out in
Mm, USe of his great talent

ha
I; “itcumstances in which

‘y,, bis contribution, which
if bo World-wide canvas.
1h fe hy is partially re-
ale the book “The Scal-
“ig Sword” by Syd Gor-
Ted Allan, although it
}, imprint of the period
|p ublished — the early
1, the cold war—more
, Missions than other-
A) Chinese biography,

Mition, Bright in that.

which is not available in Eng-
lish, deals only one-sidedly with
his work and death in China.
There have been articles. in
various publications, but there
will yet be much research in
the years to come when the
possibilities are better.

These are the bare bones of
his biography:

-Born in 1890 in Gravenhurst,

Ont. Moved to Toronto when.

seven. Finished Owen Sound
Collegiate, was at the Univer-
sity of Toronto when war be-
gan in 1914. In Canadian army,
British navy and Canadian air-
force in medical capacity. Serv-
ed his internship at the Hospi-
tal for Sick Children in London.
Became a Fellow of the ‘Royal
College of Surgeons in Edin-
burgh. Studied on the Contin-
ent. Then doctored the unem-
ployed and poor in Detroit
(“for groceries”). Contracting
tuberculosis, was given up as
doomed, but fought for life, re-
ceived artificial pneumothorax,
recovered—and became a thora-
cic surgeon in Montreal, con-
structed new instruments to
save lives.

Went to the Soviet Union for
a medical convention, studied
not only the art of healing
(Soviet experiments later helped
him to make blood transfusions
right on the battlefield in Spain)
but avidly learned the new way
of life that was being estab-
lished. Returning to Canada,
pioneered in propagating state
medical care. In 1936 went to
assist beleaguered Spanish peo-

ple fighting off the fascist
armies. In 1937 he toured Cana-
da to arouse support for Repub-
lican Spain. In 1938 he sailed
for China, set up an army hos-
pital for the liberation army. In
1939 he caught infection from
a cut while operating on a
wounded Chinese revolutionary
army man, yet wrote a stirring
article “Wounds,” and died the
next morning — literally at the
front.

The high point in his biogra-
phy, which topped and directed
all his thinking and energies,
was that he joined the Commu-
nist Party of Canada, and while
the deeds are his, they were ac-
complished with the guidance
and team work he found in the

party. When questioned whe-
ther his party membership
would diminish the _ effective-
ness of his work, Norman Be-
thune proudly replied:

“Oh no! I can’t let that .go
unchallenged! Yes, I am a Com-
munist. That is a matter of my
own belief and my own deci-
sions. If I say now that milk
is good for children, will anti-
Communists therefore suggest
that it is not good? And if I say
that the people need bread, does
it mean that they don’t, simply
because the man who says it
considers socialism the most
equitable, the highest political
and moral form of human
society?”

It is necessary to recall these
things not only because they
should be engraved on our
hearts and minds, but also be-
cause enemies are trying to dis-
tort and pervert the image of
Norman Bethune.

We have seen writers and

-CBG panelists try to make a

“liberal”? out of him, a man who
was simply a humanitarian but
got entangled with the Com-
munists . . . Oh, the philistines!

Yes, Bethune was a humanist,

but a revolutionary humanist,
he was fighting like a soldier,
like a regiment of soldiers,
against fascism, | against im-
perialism, against the war-
makers!

Now some kind of Maoist
splinter group calling itself the
“Provisional Committee of the
Canadian People’s United Front
Against U.S. Imperialism” (the

e legacy of Norman Bethune

more picayune the outfit, the
more highsounding the title it
assumes!) placards Toronto with
lying posters claiming that in
China Bethune became “a fol-
lower of Chairman Mao” and
“applied Chairman Mao’s mass
line in medicine” (!).

And in the‘same poster these
misplaced hunweibins call for
“national war against the U.S.,”
no less!

Norman Bethune was a Cana-
dian Communist. He saw and
condemned the treacherous ac-
tions of the Trotskyites and
anarchists—the blood brothers
of the authors of the poster—
in Spain. He worked with the
leadership of the Chinese Com-
munist Party at the time when
it was following the interna-
tional line of Marxism-Lenin-
ism, and no apologies are need-
ed for that. Irresponsible and
senseless talk about some sort
of ‘Mao’s mass line in medi-
cine” could be ignored, but
combining the name of the
Communist Bethune with “na-
tional war” claptrap, which is
not only revolutionary phrase-
mongering but outright provo-
cateur talk, has to be rebuffed.

Norman Bethune was a Com-
munist, a true proletarian inter-
nationalist, a socialist human-
ist. His name is inscribed and
shines bright on the banners of
the party to which he belonged,
the Communist Party of Cana-
da. We won’t let any one sully
it, be it “liberals” or “ultra-
lefts.”

y

: TAVROM YANOVSKY

pay;
. ae a summer sunset in
m “dst the wilderness
to Algonquin. Park, I
Bee conductor of the
a Choir, the late Emil
+“ *Nding beside me, and
7 ith I feel as if you and
i in a Tom Thomson
tg The atmosphere sur-
aa Seems to have cap-
Non mood created by
f, 1d the Group of Sev-
Mes you can’t tell who
reom—Nature art, or

Pi
N Mh

i
; 4 mostalgic recollection
Hy, Me while viewing The
how Thomson exhibition
an at the Art Gallery
Rint Toronto. For from
7  2gs wafted that very
beg It was Thomson who
bin Rrure — congealing
all confines of his can-
_ time, to be admired
t
Poyc™es to mind also is
i ih non of what is
Ry, Telation to landscape
Mon 8iven by that emi-
dat theoretician of the
Neatigst Soviet Commissar
| hs oy Anatoli Lunachar-
Sof wing an exhibition
Mis the great French im-
“4 Painter, Renoir, he

egy 200d) ... is the psy-
Warrusic which seems to

by from the land-

Bohn.

Raley ch in fact the art-

nda ®S put into it from
Ce of his own experi-

tatythe landscape painter
ly» ally into the role of

~N apt description of

Tom Thomson:
\anadian realist

Thomson and his art. During-

his short life (he was mysteri-
ously drowned at the age of 40
in 1917 while canoeing in Algon-
quin Park) he left us some of
the great Canadian poetry in
paint. His works are painterly
reflections of “his own experi-
ence” as park ranger, guide, and
expert woodsman. There is “ly-
ricism” in his use of color.

* * a

La

Realism in painting (as in all
the arts) is the truthful repre-
sentation of reality by means of
artistically created images. The
realist artist achieves this by
combining the objective reality
before him with his subjective

penetrating perception of that

reality; resulting not in a mere
superficial photographic surface
resemblance, but rather bringing
forth the essence of that parti-
cular reality.

Thomson’s paintings show he
was precisely such an artist—a
realist, who through his genius,
plus his brilliant sense of color
and his turbulent manner In lay-
ing on the paint, enables us to
inhale the very breath of North-
ern Ontario’s atmosphere — its
raw multicolored unbridled rug-
gedness.

True, this can also be said
about the Group of Seven of
which Thomson, contrary to the
general belief, was not a mem-

ber, having died three: years

prior to its formation. However,
Thomson, besides painting and
exhibiting together with some of
those who later founded the
Group, also had a similar ap-
proach to Canadian art (reject-
ing the adaptation of European
landscape painting to depict the

of

Canadian scene). Quite properly
then the Group is always men-
tioned together with Thomson.
Many even consider him the

Group’s precursor.
* %

Of course the exhibition in-
cludes his two most familiar
paintings, Jack Pine, and the
West Wind which has become
almost a national symbol. Al-
though only a few of his pic-
tures include human beings, his
humanism is reflected in the very
way he tenderly treats all the
aspects of nature. In the paint-
ing The Drive, his vigorous driv-
ing brush strokes show loggers
wrestling with the onrushing

logs.

“Timber Chute” by Tom Thomson. Oil on Sant:

Special credit should be given
to Joan Murray, curator of Can-
adian Art at the Gallery of On-
tario, who organized the exhibi-
tion, for using some of Tom
Thomson’s’ early decorative
pieces in which he _ included
quotes from his favorite authors,
one being from Maeterlinck
which hints at a somewhat .ro-
manticized materialist approach
to life.

’ During the First World War,
disturbed at A. Y. Jackson go-
ing off to the front, Thomson
wrote to Macdonald, one of the
painters: “. . . as with yourself,
I can’t get used to the idea of
Jackson being in the machine,
and it is rotten that in this so-

called civilized age such things
exist.”
* % *

In leaving the rooms display-
ing Thomson’s works, you no-
tice on the walls in the hallway
the paintings of Canadian art-
ists who follow the so-called
“New York school” — formalis-
tic, formless blobs of paint
splashed all over the canvas, and
you realize that Tom Thomson

‘ls not merely the great Canadian

painter, but a challenge to the
up-and-coming generation of
Canadian artists, to continue
where he and the Group left off
— to paint Canada, this time
with the people as the center of
the subject matter.