Kashtan — why we celebrate

the Great O

The following are excerpts
from the speech by William Kash-
tan, Communist Party leader, de-
livered in Toronto November 7:

We are sometimes asked why
we celebrate the Great October
Revolution. I think the answer is
not difficult when one considers
the enormous contribution that
the Soviet Union has made to the
progress of mankind and _ the
struggle for peace and its mainte-
nance in the world.

One can think of three specific
major contributions made by the
Soviet Union and the Soviet
people. First, it was precisely in
the Soviet Union that socialism
pioneered, the first break with
capitalism took place and a new
society, free of the exploitation of
man by man, free of national op-
pression and inequality, was
founded.

* KK

Socialism has shown that it can
not only eliminate the exploita-
tion of man by man, but that on
the basis of public ownership of
the means of production, it can
organize a planned economy to
ensure dynamic, planned
economic growth.

One can see in the Soviet Union
today as well as in other socialist
countries, that socialism can ad-
vance in a dynamic way, free of
unemployment, free of inflation,
free of economic crisis — exactly
the evils that plague capitalism.

On the other hand, if one looks
at capitalism, one can see the
sharp contrast with planned
economic development and prog-
ress and rising standards of the
Soviet people. Unemployment
has become a permanent feature
of capitalism, inflation has be-
come a chronic feature of
capitalism; anarchy of production
and planlessness is a built-in fea-
ture of capitalism. The working
people under capitalism have no
assurance of rising standards. In-
deed, the Prime Minister of our
country tells the Canadian people
they must lower their expecta-
tions, they must get used to less,
without saying in effect that this is
the nature of capitalism — it can-

What is profit?

WILLIAM KASHTAN |

not guarantee higher standards
for the. people. Anything that
working people can achieve un-
der capitalism comes out of sharp
struggle with capitalism.

In the sphere of economic poli-
cy, socialism is already showing
its superiority in every way.

* *K *

In Canada we are faced with a
first class crisis having to do with
the solution of the national ques-
tion because of the inability of
state monopoly capitalism -to
solve the national question in a
way that would strengthen the
real unity of the country through
cementing the unity. of the
French- and English-Canadian
people.

Socialism has shown that the
national question, which is a most
complicated question, one of the
most difficult questions mankind
is treating with, can be solved
in a way that integrates the
people, unites them in a common
aim. Soviet experience has shown
that only socialism can give a
complete answer to the national
question. Capitalism can never do
that.

* OK OK

A second very important

reason for celebrating this 59th —

Anniversary lies in the massive
contribution of the Soviet people
and socialism in ensuring the de-

ctober Revolution

feat of fascism, in the Second
World War. The defeat of fascism
kept open the door of social and
human progress, to transforming
the world.

And not least, a third major
reason to celebrate this historic
event is the role the Soviet Union
has played and continues to play,
in a most principled manner, in
the world-wide struggle to pre-
vent atomic world war. If today
mankind still is free of a third
world war, I think it can be said it
is due in large measure to the
foreign policy of the Soviet Union
for peaceful co-existence while
striving to prevent and overcome
those forces in the imperialist
world that strive — implicit in the
nature of imperialism — toward
aggression and toward war.

What this points up is the sharp
contrast between socialism and
capitalism. The Soviet Union’s
position has been consistently di-
rected to ensure that world war
will never break out again. It has
been, and continues to be, di-
rected to try and impel im-
perialism to accept peaceful co-
existence, detente, and to move
toward disarmament. On _ the
other hand imperialism has
shown that it can’t live in condi-
tions of peace, and needs to find
ways and means of trying to pro-
voke it where they can in order to
perpetuate and maintain its sys-

tem.
ah ae 3k

The Helsinki Conference on
Peace and Security in Europe
shows that the capitalist world
cannot ignore the Soviet Union,
both from the standpoint of the
maintenance of peace and of the
need to trade with socialism. The
visit of 50 Canadian businessmen
a few weeks ago, headed by the
Minister of External Affairs, Mr.
Jamieson, to discuss the possibil-
ity of trade on a massive scale
between Canada and the Soviet
Union, is a case in point.

Canada’s relations with the
Soviet Union is closely tied up
with its ability to maintain, de-
fend, or extend its independence

struggling.

Nissensen.

of Protest..

( Nov. 7 celebrations °

TORONTO — At a public meeting, Nov. 7, a Toronto audi- i
ence greeted the 59th anniversary of the Great October Socialist |
Revolution which heralded the birth of the Soviet Union.

Through songs, a photo, display, and an address by William
Kashtan, leader of the Communist Party of Canada, the crowded
Ukrainian Hall on Bathurst Street, echoed with response to the
progress of socialism, and its decisive contribution to detente,
democracy, and independence for which the bulk of mankind is

William Kashtan pointed out to those present that the peoples |

of the present-day Soviet Union had proven that workers can 1
direct their country’s economy, can indeed operate the state. (A ||
more complete report of the address is given elsewhere.) —

The evening opened with the chairman, John Bizzell offering a
sweeping view of working-class and democratic achievements on
a world scale, in the space of one person’s lifetime — how F
colonialism had been pushed back, how dictators had been top-
pled — in the 59 years since October 1917 — and what optimism
there should be in looking ahead to the next 10 years. (Bizzell,
who is Metro Toronto chairman of the Communist Party, is a
candidate for alderman in Ward 8 in the Dec. 6 civic election.)

Songs in the national, democratic and labor vein were provided
by Veli and Sanni Kentala (Finnish), Chino from Chile (who sang
two Victor Jara songs, and by request, Venceremos), and Jack

A photo display by the art group, Partisan, brought to life |
scenes from the Soviet Union and from Canada’s October 14 Day —

The formal part of the evening concluded with the singing of
The Internationale. Afterward, during refreshments, audience |
members had a chance to meet the captain and two officers of a
Soviet ship docked in Toronto. They had come to join with
Canadians marking the 59th anniversary.

~

4

a

from United States pressure and
economic control.

So that for Canada, the ques-
tion of trade with the Soviet
Union, development of scientific,
economic and cultural relations
with the Soviet Union is impor-
tant both from the standpoint of
strengthening the independence
of Canada, strengthening its a-
bility to ease the pressure of the
United States upon our country.
At the same time it is part and
parcel of the fight for jobs for
Canadian workers.

Of course, trade with the Soviet
Union doesn’t mean that the
crisis in Canada will be over-
come. Trade alone won’t solve
that. But trade can be an impor-
tant element in mitigating the ef-
fects of the crisis and in creating
thousands of new jobs for work-

ing people in our country.
aca

The Great October Revolution |
proved that it is possible for work- |
ing people to build a new system

of society. It proved that workers — Be
do not need the owners of indus- __

tries to run these industries. They |

can run them themselves, and run

them better. The myths that were
spread, and are still being spread, |
in the capitalist world that the
working class could not govern
the state, could not manage the |
national economy, could not
create a new culture — have been |
smashed to smithereens. ee
The great October Revolution —
proved in practice that the work-
ing class could govern, coul
manage the economy, coul
create their own culture that
would advance the well-being and
deepen the knowledge of thé
people, could create a system of
society without landlords and _
capitalists.

The Toronto Globe and Mail in its
November [3th issue published the
views of some big business executives
on what constitutes a “‘fair’’ profit. The
views of Donald Mclvor, executive
vice-president of Imperial Oil are illus-
trative of the standpoint of big business.

Mclvor says in part, **The fairness
of profit is bounded by three things: the
riskiness of the activity; the relevant
efficiency of the activity; the degree of
freedom of entry into the business ac-
tivity by competitors. A return on in-
vestment or the cost of capital, there-
fore, becomes thé measure of a fair
proht .. <°

Herein lies the credo of modern
capitalism, i.e., securing maximum
profits through the highest possible
exploitation of wage labor, capital as a
personal thing, monopolization.
Worthy of note is that profit and its
Source are not defined nor disclosed.

* * *

To properly assess profits (fair or un-
fair) it is first of all necessary to examine
capital. Is it really a personal thing? Or

is capital, rather, a product of man’s

labor as are a pair of shoes?

Karl Marx in his exhaustive study of
capitalism established that capital is a
collective (social) product of man,
which only by the united action of all

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 26, 1976—Page 8

Marxism-Leninism in Today's World

members of society can be put into mo-
tion. Thus capital is a social, not per-
sonal, power.

Marx discovered that capital is the
creation of wage labor: a kind of private
property which exploits wage labor,
and which cannot increase except by
securing a new supply of labor power
for each fresh start. The creation of
capital rests on the existence of a class

_ possessing nothing but its capacity to

labor. :

In his classic work Wage-Labor and
Capital, Marx wrote: ‘‘It (capital A.D.)
is only the domination of accumulated,
past, materialized labor over direct, liv-
ing labor, which turns accumulated
labor into.capital.

‘Capital does not consist in accumu-
lated labor serving living labor as a
means of new production. (as Mr.
Mclvor would have us believe — A.D.)
It consists in living labor serving ac-
cumulated labor as a means for main-
taining and increasing the exchange
value of the latter (capital — A.D.).”°

* * *

Tracing the exchange relationship
between the worker and the capitalist,
Marx showed that the source of profit

and the reproduction of capital lies in
the unpaid labor of the worker.

The worker receives payment in the
form of wages in exchange for his labor
power. The capitalist buys the produc-
tive power of the worker and thereby
owns the product of the worker’s labor.
This product gives to accumulated
labor (capital) a greater value than it
previously possessed. In other words,
the worker creates value over and
above the value needed to cover the
cost of his wages. This additional value
goes to the capitalist who hired him.
This additional (new) value, (a surplus
of values created over the cost of the
worker's wage), is the source of all pro-
fit. It is also the source of new capital.

For instance, a factory owner pays a
worker $40 for eight hours of labor. As-
suming that the worker produces suf-
ficient new value to pay for his wages in
four hours (a conservative assumption
considering modern productivity stan-
dards) the worker will produce for the
next four hours without any additional
pay. If he should work two hours over-
time he would produce six hours with-
out pay, less the extra rate for overtime.

Looking at this process from a

somewhat different angle it will be seen
that the original $40 has been consumed

‘in a double way. Reproductively for

capital, for those dollars have been-ex-
changed for labor power which pro- —
duced $80 of new value. Unproduc-
tively for the worker, for those dollars
have been exchanged for means of sub-
sistence which have disappeared
forever, and the value of which he can —

only recover by repeating the same eX- |

change with the capitalist. =
This process is repeated day after
day, week after week, month after
month, year after year, for the whole of —
the worker’s working life. :
hires ok ;

Profit can only increase if the price of
labor, if relative wages, decrease. Rela- —

tive wages can fall, said Marx, even |

though real wages rise simultaneously

with nominal wages, ifonly they donot

rise in the same proportion as profit. In
times when business is good, and wages _
rise by eight or nine per cent and profit
on the other hand by fifteen to thirty pe!
cent, then the comparative, the relative
wages have not increased but decreased:
This, then, is the real question facing
the workers. The main question is not
whether profits are ‘‘fair’’ or ‘“‘unfair’’
but to whom do the fruits of labor ac
crue. ; +