GUIDE TO GOOD READING

A brilliant Marxist thy

of American imperialism

VICTOR PERLO’s”. American
Imperialism (International Pub-
lishers, $2.75) is a masterly refuta-
tion of one of the biggest hoaxes
perpetrated by the monopolists

though the newspapers, radio and >

all other means of propaganda
which they- own. It is the hoax
that U.S. capitalism has no inter-
est in obtaining control of foreign
territories.

A brilliant economist, Perlo piles
fact on fact, derived from govern-
ment and industry sources to ex-
pose this big lie. His book, obtain-
able at the People’s Cooperative
Bookstore, 337 West Pender, is the
first American work which fully
traces and lays bare all the prin-
cipal means by which Wall Street
has amassed a world empire that
puts all earlier imperialist powers
in the position of rank amateurs.

“Naive Americans,” Perlo writes,
“who think that ‘we’ do not have
a colonial financial empire in all
history, and that the aim of gov-
ernment policy is to maintain and
extend political domination—e.g.
political empire—so as to guaran-
tee and permit the expansion of
these corporate empires. &

There is not an area of the cap-

italist and colonial world in which
the U.S. trusts have not taken
over. In distinction from earlier
empires, such as the British and
the French, Wall Street has not
had to build this empire by plant-
ing. the U.S. flag over a territory
(as it did in the case of Puerto
Rico, the Philippines and other
areas after the Spanish-American
War).

Wall Street did it through the

use of billions of dollars for in-
vestment and either bought off
native rulers to guarantee the re-
turn of super-profits through guar-
anteeing substarvation wage
Standards, 6r it forced the old col-
onial rules to perform the same
function for Wall Street.

And the superprofits have been
tremendous. Perlo produces fig-
ures showing how much greater is
the rate of profit from investments
Overseas than obtained at home.
It ranges from a return of 14 per-
cent in Canada, 14.5 percent in the
Marshall Plan countries of Europe
17 percent from Latin America to
20 percent from the colonies of
Marshall Plan countries and 31.3
percent from the Middle East.

“The varying yields or foreign
investments,” he writes, “in differ-
ent areas refiect, as in an inverse
mirror, the depths of human mis-
ery on which the profits are built.*

Of great interest is Perlo’s esti-
mate of the superprofits Wall
Street obtains from the superex-
ploitation of the Negro people, the
basis of which is the colonial type
of exploitation employed against
the Negro nation in the Black
Belt. ,

NIDA

CANADA’S FINEST MORTUARY

4

He shows that the monopolies
obtained an extra profit of $4 bil-
lion in 1947 as a direct result of
lower payments to Negro farmers
and workers than to white. These
are superprofits obtained over the
entire nation. It might have
sharpened up the special aspect of
the Negro question in the U.S. had
the author dwelt a litle more on
the Black Belt itself.

The source of this aggressive
drive all over the world are ten
of the biggest U.S. monopolies.
Perlo traces their penetration in-
to nearly all the areas of the

“world. And he shows how a sub-
servient administration in Wash- .

ington charts its foreign policy to
meet the requirements of these
monopolies (including the war in
Korea).

* * *

MOST. IMPORTANT. in this
foreign policy to increase Wall
Street’s swollen profits is the drive
to war and war itself. Again Perlo
produces the figures to show how
much the giant corporations get
out of this war drive. Though
tremendous, they are little com-
pared to what the trusts hope to
get gut of war itself. a

Their difficulty, however, is that
the peace forces throughout the
world have grown and are grow-
ing at a tremendous rate. These
forces are led by the Soviet Union,
and along with that country, New
China and the People’s Democra-
cies of Eastern Europe. On top of

that there are the powerful col-
onial liberation movement ‘as
well as the heightened struggles
for peace and security by the peo-
ples in all other countries.

‘These have halted Wall Street’s
war drive up to now and have also
stymied its hopes of world empire.

This reviewer feels that Perlo
was a little too sweeping in lump-
ing virtually all non-productive
labor as part of the “parasitic su-
perstructure”, of imperialism.
Lenin did not do that in his works
and. Marx, made clear that because
some labor was non-productive it
did not mean that it was not ne-
cessary or socially useful labor.

The main point, however, is the
one Perlo makes, namely, that it
is a sign of the decay of capital-
ism when more people are involv-
ed in epider Woks work than in
productive.

The book does not set out to
define American imperialism in
its full sense, but primarily in
respect to its drive to grab off
world markets and cheap sources

of raw materials and labor power, ’
It is an important Marxist addi-:

tion to such other works as Anna
Rochester’s Rulers of America,
Labor Research Association’s Mo-
nopoly Today, Harry Haywood’s
Negro Liberation and, above all,
William Z. Foster’s outstanding
work, Outline Political History of
the Americas—BERNARD BUR-
TON.

‘BIGGEST THIEF IN TOWN’

UJPO Drama Workshop
to present Trumbo play

*THE DRAMA WORKSHOP of
the United Jewish People’s Order
is presenting as its feature pro-
duction of ‘the current season The
Biggest Thief in Town, by Dalton
Trumbo. : :

Trumbo, one of the Hollywood
Ten, was indicted for “contempt”
of the notorious House Un-Ameri-
can Activities Committee and sen-
tenced to a prison term.

The noted screen writer got the
idea for the theme of his play
when he was a cub reporter in
‘Colorado, and was assigned to the
mortuary run. Lee Sabinson
agreed to produce the play, and
of this Trumbo says, ‘‘We. were
all conscious that we had two
plays in one — a serious piece
and a comedy.” %

The cast of the UJPO Drama
Workshop production includes
Lory Rosen, Alec Becker, David
Pellin, Ethel Shuster, Ed Gofsky,
Harry C. Weinstein, Perry Fried-
man, Searle Friedman, Nate
Wiseman and Soli Jackson.

Director is Sylvia Friedman.

The group will be remembered
for its previous productions of

. PENDER

AUDITORIUM

(Marine Workers)

339 West Pender
LARGE & SMALL HALLS

FOR RENTALS
Phone PA. 9481

Awake and Sing by Clifford
Odets, and It’s Hard to be a Jew
by Sholem Aleichem.

The Biggest Thief in Town will
open at the Everyman Theatre,
2237 Main Street, for a week’s
run from June 4 to 9 inclusive.

EE

Czech editions of
progressive wrilers _

in Americas. issued

A novel, Our Bread, by the pro-
gressive Ecuadorian writer, En-
rique Gil Gilbert, has just been
issued by the Publishing House of
the Czechoslovak Writers at Pra-
gue.

Publication of this work in
Czechoslovakia is part of a plan to
issue a series of books by Ameri-
can authors.

.

The series includes works by —

the Braziilan writer Jorge Am-
bata. the Chilean poet Pablo Ner-
luda, one of the most popular La-
tin American authors Alfred Var-
ela and the progressive American
authors Howard Fast and Albert
Maltz, all of whom are being read

with great interest by the Czecho- ¥
v

slovak, public.
Recently, Tomorrow Is With Us,
the new novel by Dyson Carter,

noted Canadian writer, was pub- ;
lished in both the Czech and Slo-

vac languages.

7

a

STANTON

& MUNRO.

Barristers, Solicitors, Notaries
SUITE 515, FORD BUILDING, 193 E, HASTINGS 8T.
(Corner Main & Hastings Sts.) MArine 5746

‘STOOLPIGEON’ ON TOUR

VANCOUVER

aby, on Friday, June 22.

Play goes to Royal City

THEATRE of Action will
New Westminster this weekend to present its new
play, Steolpigeon, at Tatra Hall, Queensboro, on Sun-
day, May 27, 8 p.m. Tickets for the production may
be obtained by phoning New Westminster 2282L.

Other performances scheduled for next month in-
clude one at the Association of United Ukrainian Can-
adians’ hall, 805 Kast Pender, in aid of the Shevchenko
memorial fund, tentatively arranged for Friday, June
8, and another at Capitol Hill Community Hall, Burn- '

go to

PREMIERE WELL RECEIVED

Theatre of Action has
hit in ‘Stoolpigeon’

LAST SUNDAY saw the prem-
ier performance of Stoolpigeon, a
three-act play by Hal Griffin pres-
ented by the Vancouver Theatre
of Action, a drama group devoted
to labor and social drama. \

This production is the second
presented for Vancouver audi-
ences by the Theatre of Action,
and marks a milestone of pro-
gress and achievement for this
group. Hal Griffin, playwright
and director, chose a most timely
theme and in this play displayed
a thoroughgoing understanding
of the forces at work in our so-
ciety in the labor movement.

The play centers around Charles
Trtlawney, played by Stu Ken-
nedy, and his social climbing wife,
Agnes (Betty Gadd) who because
of their weaknesses are easy prey
for the misleaders of labor. These
eventually lead Trelawney to de-
generacy and sell-out of his class.

With the opening of’ the cur-
tain on the first act, one was im-
mediately struck by the vast im-
provement in the stage settings
as well as by the performance of
the individual actors and the
group as a whole. The program
did not mention the name of the
person or persons who created
the sets, but there is no doubt
that these deserve special com-

_ mendation,

Stu. Kennedy in the lead role
displays an ease on the ‘stage
which is a tremendous asset to
an amateur actor. While Kennedy
attained moments of fine acting,
one felt a weakness, particularly
in his scene with Gordon Snyde
(Phil Gadd) the trade union bur-
eaucrat. This was a scene which
required of Kennedy a display of
emotional conflict and this was
negated by the very ease already
mentioned.

Phil Gadd,
trade union boss, the labor mis-
leader, is to be commended for
a very fine performance. Rank-

in the role of the -

ing with him are Cecilia Collins
(Peggy Kennedy), the “good time
girl,” Agnes Trelawney, played by
Betty Gadd, James Chandler, play-
ed by the author, Hal Griffin,
and Mary Osborne, working class
mother, played by Betty Griffin.
A good supporting cast included
Alice Bowker Audrey Brandon, —

Bruce Macdonald, Art Bowker, —
Frank MHorsford, Alec Kucker
and Fay Curle.

The, characterization of one of

.the two Communists in the play: —

that of Alex Stewart (Art Bow-
ker), was a rather forced and stiff

one. For the second time we find

the author portraying an elderly

person as a progressive with 4 ©
long record in the working class

movement and we could perceive

almost no difference between the
progressive in Stoolpigeon and thé

progressive in Griffin’s earlier

play, But Ye Are The People. It

were as though he had stepped

out of one play and into another

without any change of costume:

The danger there is of stereotyP-

ing characters,

One other weakness of the play
was the constant change of
scenes; the continuity and effec
tiveness might have been enhanc-
el by blackouts and lighting, rath-
er than by change of scenes. it
certainly would have improved
the pace of the play. ;

All in all, the Vancouver Thea
tre of Action as well as the auth-
or and director, Hal Griffin, at®
to be congratulated for their fine
effort and for re-laying the found
ations in our province for a lab!
theatre.—B. Cc. x

SOD9OSS

_Admittance:

Auspices: May Day Continuations Committee

Free — Collection

OOOO A

“CONCERT & FILM

“at

PENDER AUDITORIUM.
339 West Pender

SUNDAY, MAY 27, 1951
8 p.m.

SSE EESOS SSOSCOSOSSOSS