CONGRESS SHOWED CONFIDENCE, OPTIMISM, STRENGTH

Detente, social progress — twin goals

TORONTO — ‘‘The world is
changing before our very eyes,
and: changing for the better,”
Leonid Brezhnev had told the re-
cent 25th Congress of the Com-
munist Party of the Soviet Union.

The words were quoted by Wil-
liam Kashtan, leader of the
Communist Party of Canada,
when he reported to a meeting of
200, March 17.

It was a Congress of confide-
nce, optimism and strength,
Kashtan said. Alfred Dewhurst,
CP of Canada ideological direc-
tor, a second fraternal delegate,
occupied a place at the speakers’
table as Kashtan reported. The
meeting was chaired by Metro
Toronto’s Communist Party
chairman, John Bizzell.

Describing the Congress as
having ‘‘a specific impact’’ going
‘*‘much further and deeper’’ than
previous Congresses, Kashtan
dealt with developments inside
the Soviet Union, its new 5-year
plan; the key place in Soviet pol-
icy of the world-wide desire and
struggle for peace; Soviet-
Canadian relations; and the
ideological struggle — socialism
versus capitalism.

Most Democratic

Regarding the Congress, and
capitalist press charges of lack of
democracy for the 4,998 elected
delegates, he said a pre-Congress
country-wide discussion had
made ‘‘over a million proposals
and suggestions” for the finaliza-
tion of the document adopted by
the Congress. :

Citing this participation by
masses of people in the economic
and social policies of the USSR,
the speaker asked: ‘‘What could
be more democratic?’’ He con-
trasted it “‘with the fact that in our
country we’re not asked to dis-
cuss economic and social ques-
tions; and we have no means of
deciding on these ... questions.
They are decided upon by
monopoly and its governments,”
he said.

The decision to erect a monu-
ment in Moscow to heroes of the
international working class, the
national liberation movement,

and the Communist movement, to _

express solidarity, had raised an
interesting point for Canadians,
Kashtan related.

Tim Buck Honored

“The chairman, Comrade Sus-
lov, asked the delegates to stand
and pay their respects to those
who had passed away since the
last Congress. Among those ...
was Comrade Tim Buck. We can
be honored in the fact that the
working class in the Soviet Union
has not forgotten the contribution
that Comrade Buck has made to
the revolutionary movement in
Canada and on an international
scale.””

Canada was mentioned in a dif-
ferent context at the Congress,
when Leonid Brezhnev made the
point that relations between the
two countries are now richer in
content, and that prospects are
good for closer economic, trade,
cultural, scientific, and political
relations between the two coun-
tries.

“Tf there is one feature of this
Congress that one can point to, it
is precisely this,’’ Kashtan said.

Willlam Kashtan addressing the 25th Congress of the CPSU.

‘‘The .confidence, the optimism
and strength that was expressed
in the presentation of the report,
the discussion, and the total pro-
ceedings of the Congress as a
whole.’’ And part of the reason
was the success of the previous,
9th, 5-year plan.
“Real wages had risen 20%’,
while there was no inflation,. is
an example. Besides, in the last
five years, 11 million new dwel-
ling units were built, he noted.
In production, he said, the
USSR had now passed the USA
in production of steel, oil, ce-
ment, mineral fertilizers, tractors,
grain combine harvesters, diesel
and electric locomotives, foot-
wear, cotton, woolen fabrics,
sugar, milk and butter. ‘“When
one considers the point from
which the Soviet Union started in
1917, and in less than 60 years it
has surpassed the United States
which was free of war, which had
a wide market unattacked ... it
indicates the marked develop-

ment and advance of socialism in .

the Soviet Union.”’
Double Capitalism’s Growth Rate

Kashtan reported that the
growth rate of the Soviet Union
and of the socialist countries from
1950 to 1975 was on an average,
9.5% annually, as against a
growth rate in the capitalist world
of 4.6% — an almost 100% greater
growth of the economy than in the
capitalist world.

In contrast, he said, Time
Magazine asked: Can capitalism
survive? ‘“‘Harpers Weekly asks
the question: Is capitalism dying?
Der Spiegel in West Germany
asks: Can capitalism be saved?
And Le Monde asks: Has
capitalism a future?”’

At the CPSU Congress, he
said, the question was how to
strengthen the economic and so-
cial base of socialism to make it
more effective.

Struggle for Peace Is Central

Because of a ‘‘skillful, all-sided
struggle for peace, and peaceful
co-existence and detente, the
Soviet Union, the socialist coun-
tries, the peace forces of the
world, have been able to prevent
the outbreak of world war since
1945, and have been able to

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 26, 1976—Page 8

strengthen the trend and the ten-
dency toward peace on a world-
wide scale,’’ Kashtan said.

“‘Attention was given to the
fact,’ he said, ‘‘that annually, in
the world, $300-billion is spent on
arms.’’ The peoples of the world
have to compel imperialism to
disarm — not unilaterally, but on
the basis of equality and security
for all countries.

“‘The Congress also outlined
the need to integrate the fight for
peace with the struggle for a new
economic order.’’ (This is in
keeping with the call of the Stoc-
khoelm Appeal 1975, inaugurated
in Stockholm, June 2, 1975, by the
World Peace Council, as a
world-wide signature campaign
for world disarmament and de-
velopment.)

Kashtan explained an aspect of
the new economic order:

“Those underdeveloped coun-
tries, which have enormous re-

sources, or the erstwhile that are-

now independent, that have re-
sources ... have always been
exploited by imperialism, which

bought their materials cheap and ©

sold them manufactured goods
dear— that’s the way imperialism’
operated.

““These countries now want to
get the results of their own mate-
rials,’ he said, and they are
fighting for a new international
economic order that would estab-
lish a different relationship bet-
ween these countries and all other
countries, particularly the im-
perialist countries.’’ He referred
to this concept as ‘‘an important
element of the struggle for peace
today, which will increasingly be
at the center of world attention’
as a guarantee that peoples will
achieve mastery of their own re-
sources.

“‘Ifthey can become masters of
their own resources,’’ he em-
phasized, ‘‘there will be fewer re-
sources for imperialism to use
against other people.”’

The Congress resolution said:
“The task of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union is to
fight for peaceful co-existence,
for relaxation of tensions, and for
freedom and independence of

peoples.”

Kashtan made it clear that this
combined two questions: ‘‘the
struggle for peace, and the strug-
gle against imperialism, each rein-
forcing the other ...”’ :

The attempt of imperialism to
interpret detente as the end of the
class struggle and the social
struggle, is not the world’s
people’s idea of detente, Kashtan
said. Detente or peaceful co-
existence is a matter of state rela-
tions, not class relations,’’ he
pointed out. The class struggle,
he said, continues according to
laws arising out of capitalist pro-
duction.

He cautioned that ‘‘world
peace is not yet guaranteed,” and
referred to Ford’s ‘‘peace throug
strength”’ policy as the Dulles pol
icy of years ago. ‘“‘It shows the
need for a continuing, consistenl;
struggle for peace,’’ Kashtall
said.

The Canadian Communist
leader called attention to the Com
gress report’s castigation ol
Maoism as ‘‘an important aid 0
imperialism in the struggle agains!
socialism. Maoist ideology and)
policy is not merely incompatible
with-Marxism-Leninism, it is dF

~ rectly hostile to it.’’ Nonetheless:
the USSR had left the door opel)
for improved relations.

Kashtan spoke at some length
on ideological matters,
Brezhnev’s criticism of oppor
tunism, and the Congress’ heavy
stress on proletarian «intel
nationalism.

Proletarian internationalism:
one of the main principles of
Marxism-Leninism, he said, “‘ré)
quired an understanding of tht)
correct combination of the strug)
gle in defence of the national it
terests, in defence of your ow!
working class, with the defence dl

citing) -

7

the international working clas)

and its gains’’. He stressed thal
despite the nonsense in thé
capitalist press, all Communis!
Parties are independent, as em
phasized by the disbanding of tht
Communist International in 1943}

Before closing, the meeting et”
dorsed the Stockholm Appeal and
the chairman called upon the au"
dience to add their individual sig!
natures.

states in recent years.”

Frederic Joliot-Curie Peace Prize

Romesh Chandra (r), general secretary of the World Peace |
Council who will be in Canada, to attend the biennial meeting of j
the Canadian Peace Congress later this month, is seen here pre- j
senting the Frederic Joliot-Curie Gold Medal of Peace to Leonid |
Brezhnev at a ceremonial meeting in Moscow. The award is beS-—
towed on outstanding workers for world peace. In his acceptance |
speech, Brezhnev said: ‘The mass peace movement has undoub: "
tedly been one of the important factors in implementing the policy
of relaxation of tension and normalization of relations between

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