_ declared.
Crucial to the victory of the) §

BUCK AT TORONTO RALLY

Sees era of peace,
triumph of

Three major world developments are
in our time’’ in Canada, Tim Buck, national

at May Day rallies in Hamilton

In his first public address since his return from Europe and the Soviet Union, where

he attended the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist party, Buck said the three facts

which constituted the opening
ef a new era in world relations
were:

® Emergence of socialism

from the bounds of a single
country into a world system.
® The growing conviction
: among leading sections of
the capitalist class that war
today is unthinkable.

® Knowledge that the peace-

ful coexistence of the capl-
talist and the socialist sys-
tem is absolutely essential
for all mankind.

Buck contrasted the role of
labor in this era of the fulfilment
of socialism to what it was when
May Day was first celebrated 70
years ago.

“Seventy years ago May Day

was the heroic declaration of a|}

dream, but today May Day is
triumphant and the dream is be-
ing realized in the victories of
Socialism across the world,” he

world’s working class, now in

process of becoming a class for pt
itself, was the winning of social- ||
ism in the Soviet Union, he said: ||

“If there had not been estab-
lished a first socialist state we
would still be in the position
ef regarding socialism as 3
dream. If the Soviet Union had
been crushed in the war against
Hitlerism, the dream would
have been shattered too.”
Dealing with the 20th Congress,

Buck said it was clear now that
big mistakes had been made dur-
ing the years of dramatic socialist
gains in the Soviet Union.

“They were shocking distor-
tions of Soviet policy, socialist

democracy and crimes,” he said.

“These mistakes, distortions
and crimes took place during 4
veriod when the Soviet people
were carrying through the great-

est social changes ever under-
taken by any people in history.”

These were the years when the
Soviet people transformed them-
selves from illiteracy; from a4
backward economy to a highly-
industrialized one; the years when
encirclement by “hostile capitalist
States ready.to make war at any
time was finally ended in the de-
feat of the Nazi armies.

A second important feature,
Buck emphasized, was that the
present leadership revealed the

story of grave errors when it
was at the height of its popul-
arity. Further: it revealed them
te the 1,640 delegates to the
CPSU 20th Congress before the
election of the new central

- eommittee took place at a closed
Session. :

‘Buck reported that Stalin had
increasingly drawn into his own
hands the direction of the state
during the later years of his
leadership.

For many years Stalin had been
a fighter for Lenin’s ideas on
Socialism; for the industrilization
ef the country; the collective idea
‘n-agriculture. — .

He was the one who led the
Struggle against those who had no
confidence in the building of
Socialism in one country. He led
the battle against others who said

it was impossible to build a social-
ist industry in a great peasant

broadening the

and Toronto.

Shown seated on

*

ae f£ economic
’ corner of e

oe oes been turned after

Five Year Plan, Stalin

ok into his own

of administrat-

ll. matters of

successes
the first
imperceptibly to
office the power
ing practically a

din personnel. :
ae euders threatening state-

ts about invading the Ukraine
ate more frequently, Stalin in-
tensified his drive against all
who could be suspected of being
enemies within the country and
within the Communist party it-
self. The murder of Sergei Kirov
i ified this process.
Re the USSR was invaded
Stalin became all-powerful, as-
suming not only leadership of the
CPSU, but the posts of prime
minister and commander-in-chief

armed forces.

a eciuis is going to deny
that Stalin performed gigantic
services,” said Buck. “But
many shocking things were
done — some of them clearly
indefensible for the survival of
the socialist state.

“J have to say that we of the
LPP accepted the cult of the
great man, the great leader.” This
idea, he added, had spread to
Communist movements through-

the world.
US ae still we allowed this
general cohception of the ‘great
man’ idea to interfere with our
political thinking. It marred our
judgment and our ability to test
decisions that were made. No
matter how critical we were, we
were only so within the frame-
work of the great man theory.”

The ‘reasoning had been that
Stalin was at the head of the
collective wisdom of the social-
ist world and that perhaps we did
not have all the facts.

‘In that thinking we were
wrong,” . said Buck. Concrete
mistakes had been made in Can-

socialism

leader of the Labor-Progressive Party declared

are the 16 officers elected to lead the new orga
peing suggested, should be held in Vancouver.

TORONTO

path to winning of “‘socialism

the platform at the founding convention of the Canadian Labor Congress
nization until its next convention which, it is

ada. “We didn’t know about the
actions taken against certain na-
tionalities in the Soviet Union.
When we heard of it we said it
was impossible, that it was incon-
sistent with the Leninist concept

nations were equal.
“This socialist practise was in-
fringed on, not by the collective

decision of the majority of the

central committee of the CPSU,
but by military and administra-
tive decision as part of the war
operations. Some of these de-
cisions were perhaps necessary,
but many were such as could only
evoke a protest from every Com-
munist.

“This was true in the case of
the outrages performed against
Jewish writers. We believed
this was being done with the
full approval of the Commun-
ist party of the Soviet Union
and according to socialist law.
It is now obvious we were
wrong in this.”

Another error which the LPP
fell into was its failure to check
the general hue and cry and de-
signation of Yugoslavia as a “fas-
cist-led” state when Yugoslavia
was expelled from the Commun-
ist Information Bureau in 1948.

The LPP leadership did not of-
ficially characterize Tito as a
fascist “but we failed to check
up against individual leaders of
our party who did,” he said. This
illustrated “the extent to which
the cult of the great man marred
our critical Marxist approach.”

But it was not enough simply
to admit mistakes, the LPP
leader continued. It was neces-
sary to get at the reasons why
they were committed and to
see to it that they never were
repeated. :

The CPSU, he said, had al-

ready introduced bold measures

to uproot the evils and ensure,

of socialism which held that all)

By JOHN SWITZMAN }
MONTREAL |

A written judgement by As- |
sociate Chief Justice W. B. Scott
of the Superior Court of Quebec
has declared unconstitutional a
Montreal City bylaw requiring a
permit for distributing circulars

on city streets. This was a test-
case launched by the Labor-Pro-

\through the restoring of collec-
tive leadership, the extension of
socialist democracy and the in-
violability of Soviet law, that
there can never be a repetition
|of such evils in the Soviet Union.

In Canada, he added, “the LPP
will fight consistently to carry
into every section of our move-
ment and in every field of party
activity, the lessons of these rev-
elations — to ensure that never
again shall we succumb to the
false theory of ‘the great man.’

Buck spoke enthusiastically of
the growing unity of the Cana-
dian working class, in the forma-
tion of the new Canadian Labor
Congress, in its new political
maturity and desire for auton-
omy. He expressed pride in the
fact that Communists were the
first to plant the ideas of indus-
trial unionism, autonomy and
political action among the work-
ers of Canada.

Back in 1952 the LPP drafted

a program based on the fact
that millions .of Canadians
would accept the need for ac-
tion against the U.S. domination
of:our country. “We said it
alone, then,” he declared. Now
it is winning support every-
where,

Vital to the winning of the strug-
gle for independence, he said,
and the taking of Canada out on
the highroad to socialism, was the
unification of the working class
and its political expressions.

“The ideas motivating mem-
bers of the CCF and the Labor-
Progressive party are becoming
increasingly similar ... in Can-
ada as a whole, a new political
alignment is taking place. On
the one hand we have those
who want Canada truly indepen-
dent; on the other, those who
want to continue U.S. domination

Montrealbylaw
upset by court

'Gabrielle Dionne,

gressive party to challenge the
constitutionality of the bylaw.

The judgment of Chief Justice
Scott arose out of the case of Mrs.
a housewife,
who stood for election in August,
1953 as an LPP candidate in La-
fontaine constituency. Mrs.
Dionne was arrested for distrib-
uting her election leaflets with-
out a permit.

She applied to the Superior
Court for a writ of prohibition
against a ruling of Judge Henry
Monty which sentenced her to a
fine of $20 and costs or 15 days
in jail.

The chief justice maintained
her contention that the bylaw
under which she was prosecuted

“was unconstitutional.

In his judgment, the chief jus-

i tice said in part:

“Both before and after confed-
eration, all citizens have had the
inherent right to solicit votes
both orally and in writing and
safeguards for the distribution of
written election appeals have
been preserved and_ protected
by the BNA Act for all classes
of elections. Any interference
with this right was wrong and
the city council in 1952 adopted
what was in effect a censorship.
The bylaw as a whole was un-
constitutional.”

{In the opinion of Chief Jus-
tice Scott, the real aim of the
bylaw was to establish a cen-

; sorship “autocratic and free of

all restraint” on the content of
circulars, prospectuses or pa-
pers distributed in and around
the city.

“In virtue of this principle, the
chief of police and the Montreal
city executive were given by the
bylaw, the power to refuse a per-
mit to their political opponents.
The municipal authorities could
thus deprive the electors of a
powerful means of getting to
know the electoral program of an
opposing group.”

As the chiew justice pointed
out, “the bylaw deprives citizens
who seek to attain public office
of the right to solicit orally in
writing the votes of their sup-
porters and the population in
general.”

This fact was very clearly
illustrated in the 1953 federal
elections. Along with Mrs. Di-
onne there were 20 others ar-
rested.

Another similar case arose
during the Cartier byelection ef
1950. On Sunday, the day before
the polling day, when 53 election
workers for Harry Binder, LPP
candidate, were arrested distri-
buting his last election message.

The Scott judgment will
have an immediate bearing on
the provincial elections in Que-
bec. The LPP is contesting at
least 30 constituencies outside
the City of Montreal, where in
many cases similar bylaws
exist.

This judgment is considered a
great victory for democracy and
for the working class in Canada.
It reflects the growing democra-
tic movement in Quebec, and will
itself contribute to further
strengthening the forces that will
defeat the worst of the censor-
ship laws “autocratic and with-

and involvement of Canada in
U.S. wars.”

out restraint,” the infamous pad-
llock Law.

MAY 11, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 3