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LUIS MENESES ...
citizenship.

CUT leaders

stripped of

lose rights

Luis Meneses, general secretary
of the exterior commission of the
Chilean Central Trade Union
Conferderation (CUT), who visited
Vancouver to address trade
unionists in March, has_ been
stripped of his Chilean citizenship
by the fascist junta. Two other
members of the CUT commission
Humberto Elgueta Guerin, founder
of the CUT and Ernesto Araneda,
former director of the construction
federation — were also deprived of
citizenship by the Chilean fascists.

All three have been active in
solidarity work aboard, organizing
trade union actions of behalf of
Chilean workers.

The CUT commission denounced
the junta’s move as “openly un-
constitutional’® and a flagrant
violation of human rights and
called on trade unionists and
democrats to voice their protest to
Chilean consuls as well as to the
directors-general of the UN In-
ternational Labor Organization,
the Human Rights Commission
and UNESCO.

New film produced by Mac-Pap veteran

Vivid history of the XV Brigade

It is perhaps one of the great
ironies of history for the victims of
the XV International Brigade who
fought in-Spain that, although they
were looked upon as ‘‘premature”’
anti-fascists, their struggle has
been recognized only belatedly.

For two generations, only those
who shared their struggle, trade
unions, Communists, former
brigade veterans, wrote about it.
Only in the socialist world where
the struggle against fascism is part
of a proud — and continuing —
tradition, have the International
Brigades been given the glory that
is rightfully theirs.

Recently, however, that has
begun to change. Even though a
wall of silence still stands in the
way of official recognition, an
increasing number of books and
films have brought into public
consciousness an idea of the epic
struggle that was Spain during the
years of the Civil War. A few
months ago, Albert Kish’s National
Film Boardwork, Los Canadienses
was shown to CBC audiences
across Canada. Now there is
another film.

That film is The Last Cause and
although it isnot yet known when it
will be generally available — Isaw
it in a screening arranged by the
veterans of the MacKenzie-
Papineau Battalion — it is cer-
tainly a film to watch for.

Produced by William Brennan,
himself a former sergeant in the
Mac-Paps, its scope is greater than
the NFB film — it examines the
role of the whole XV International
Brigade (made up of English-
speaking volunteers) — but the
structure is similar. Interviews
with Brigade veterans have been
woven together with archival
footage which writer-directors

MACKENZIE-PAPINEAU BATTALION VETERANS .

Stephen Franklin and Alex Cramer
have brought together from
several sources including film
libraries in Moscow and New York.
The result is a film that is both
documentary and living history.

And here is history long omitted
from the official version: the
macabre farce of non-
intervention; the complicity with
fascism of the Western powers
which, even in the last terrible
days of the war, when the Republic
was bleeding at every wounded
city and village, held up ar-
maments at the French border.
With close attention to detail, The
Last Cause outlines the history of
the Spanish conflict from the first
birth of the Republic to the final
fascist onslaught. Above all, it

A Soviet looks at exchanges

King Kong and culture —

By VLADLEN KUZNETSOV

King Kong — the original one —
was thefirst horror film I ever saw
when I was a‘ correspondent. in
Bonn. I can’t say I liked it but I
conscientiously sat through it.

Now I hear that it has been
remade, doubtless in the ex-
pectation of commercial success.

Do Soviet cinema-goers need
films like King Kong or Jaws?
Would they broaden their outlook
or give them food for thought?

Personally, I don’t think they
are the kind of films the vast
majority want and I don’t think
there will be any grumbles when
people learn that the Soviet Union
has not bought them but has bought
more serious films such as The
Conformist and The Passenger.

I recently encountered an
American publication called
Nothing. ;

The book has no text. The pages
are blank. The “reader” is invited
to fill them in himself.

The publication has been on the.

market, I’m told, for two years and
apparently sells very well.

But I doubt ifI would be wrong in
saying that Soviet readers, who
have new editions of F. Scott Fitz-
gerald and Herve Bazin to enjoy,
will not show any eagerness to
spend money on Nothing.

The point I am trying to make is
this: there are Western books,
films and TV productions which
are not suitable for export and that
the Soviet Union, which has its own
cultural values, isn’t bound to take
all that is offered.

Unfortunately, what frequently
happens when we refuse to take
something which is unacceptable
or which people won’t like, is that

are accused of being

“culturally isolated and _ back-
ward” and worse, of failing to
comply with the ‘‘third basket”
requirements of the Helsinki ac-
cords.

Now, the accords committed the
participants to promote spiritual
enrichment of the human _per-
sonality. That is the essence of
useful and fruitful cultural ex-
change.

Icannot believe that Jaws or The
Exorcist or King Kong, or assorted
comics or thrillers meet that
criterion. In fact, they flagrantly
contradict it.

The spirit of Helsinki has to
satisfy at least three demands: it
must promote rapprochement and
closer understanding between
peoples; it must help to enrich and
ennoble the human personality, not
debase it by perpetuating violence
or racism; and it must provide a
truly humane culture, not a
pseudo-culture.

Maybe there are those who think
these requirements excessive. But
they are the principles of cultural
exchange worked out and accepted
at Helsinki by the representatives
of both East and West — and it is
not the socialist countries which
flout them.

The socialist countries do not
want to find themselves in the
position of some Western countries
such as France, for example,
where progressive circles are
greatly concerned about the
domination of television by
violence-ridden commercial
programs, or West Germany
where virtually every other film in
the theatres has been made in the
Unit ed States.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 10, 1977—Page 10

At Helsinki the participants
pledged themselves to respect one
another’s right to choose freely
their own culture and cultural de-
velopment.

But any freedom, including
cultural freedom, has to be
defended. That defence does not lie
in cultural narrow-mindedness or
dictatorial imposition of values.

The socialist countries can, while
preserving their cultures, respect
the other national cultures in the
world today.

Not every country has so tolerant
a view.

Consider: a
education has withdrawn books by
Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Gogol and
Sartre from school libraries. This
happened not at the end of the
world but in Turkey — one of the
countries which signed the final act
at Helsinki.

Severino Gazzelloni, one of the
world’s. greatest flautists, was
refused entry to the United States
— because he had addressed a
meeting called by. the Italian
Communist Party.

Another Italian, the sculptor
Giacomo Manzu, -who lives in
Muenster in the Federal Republic
of Germany, was forbidden to
make a monument there to Car-
dinal von Galen, a determined
opponent of Nazism — because he
is a communist.

Anti-communism is a burden on
cultural exchange — and those who
cling to it will never persuade
others that it is they who are the
champions of the free exchange of
ideas, information and cultural
values.

—Soviet Weekly

K

ministry of —

details the role of the International

Brigades.
The filmmakers carried out
extensive interviews with

Canadian, American, British and
Irish volunteers and _ their
reminiscences fill out the narrative
history of the Spanish war. In
straightforward documentary
style, the film follows the Interna-
tionals from their first arrival in
Spain to the last, audacious of-
fensive across the Ebro and
finally, the march-past in Bar-
celona. Beyond the narrative are
the events in Europe, giving
background and context to the
struggle.

To many, particularly those of
more recent generations, much of
that background will be un-
familiar, such as the role of U.S.
president Roosevelt and his glib
acceptance of U.S. companies
trading with Franco despite the
pretense of non-intervention.

Unfortunately what is the
strength of The Last Cause is also
its weakness. In its close following
of events, it is drawn out to three
long hours, an excessive length
that could have been avoided had
editing been tighter and had the
interviews, many of which are
themselves unnecessarily long,
been used more selectively.

Similar weaknesses are ap-
parent in the filming. Although the
history itself carries its own
drama, the film lacks the
emotional tension that Albert Kish

skilfully drew in Los Canadienses. -

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. their story detailed in another new film.

Missing, too, is the vital link with
the continuing struggle in modern
Spain which has the strength of
another film, Dreams and
Nightmares, by Lincoln Battalion
veteran Abe Osheroff. Producer
Brennan has brought to life the
memory of the struggle against
fascism but has forgotten its
contemporary meaning. His title —
The Last Cause — would suggest
that it was more than mere over-
sight. -

There are other flaws — the film
completely neglects for example,
the central role of the Communist
Party in organizing for the In-
ternational Brigades — but for the
moment, The Last Cause must be
judged in the context of prevailing
opinion. Whatever its short-

comings, it draws strength from its”
honest portrayal of heroic men and

women who came ‘“‘out of every

borderland’’ for one purpose: t0-

fight fascism. And as official
circles in this country, in the
United States and Britain continue
to distort the meaning of the In-
ternational Brigades’ struggle in
Spain, The Last Cause “sets their
cause alright.”

For that reason the film should,
like Los Canadienses, find its way
onto the television networks,
perhaps as a three-part series or in
edited version. Certainly, it should
be placed in the audio-visual

departments of every high school -

and university.
But see it — wherever you can.
—Sean Griffin

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