as SOWET THREAT “fg 25 years ago... U.S. WAR BUDGET President .Truman asked Cengress on March 6 to extend the foreign arms. program. for another year and to appropriate $7.9-billion for this purpose. Of this, $5.9-billion would go to arming Western Europe, includ- ing West Germany. Of. this amount $1.4-billion would be in planes, tanks, artillery etc, and the West European govern- ments would get $1.8-billion in what Truman calls “defence support” — goods and machin- ery for arms production. U.S. satellites in Asia and the Pacific would get a billion dol- lars, of which a “large part” as Truman admitted would be used against the people of Indo-China. Another large part will go to the “Chinese armies on Formosa,” the president said. _ The Tribune, March 17,1952 50 years ago... VICKERS MAKES TANKS FOR USE AGAINST- CHINA A report from London, ac- cording to which, the works of the Vickers Company are man- ufacturing a hundred tanks for use against the national troops in China has caused a storm of in- dignation. It is pointed out that this message proves a direct par- ticipation of the British in the internal struggles of the Chinese people. The report is exercising a great effect upon public opin- ion and the populace is demand- ing that the national govern- ment take energetic measures. Discontent is showing itself amongst the British troops which have been landed in Shanghai. The Indian soldiers are particularly indignant at the propaganda of the British of- ficers who .attempted to per- suade them that the Chinese had destroyed holy Indian places in Shanghai.- - : The Worker, March 19, 1927 an OUR AND MANAGE ate TO GUTHE, NO S$ \TS THE Es Bled LiL.) EDITORIAL COMMENT Put Canada back to work! JOBS More than one million Canadians are being denied jobs as a result of govern- ment policies dictated by Canada’s state system — monopoly capitalism. : The 932,000 “officially” unemployed during February raised the rate to 9.1% ‘of the labor force, until Statistics Canada “seasonally adjusted” it to 7.9%. Even so, at 932,000 jobless it is the worst month since Statscan began in 1953! None of this takes into account some 290,000 who have either given up look- ing for work or have been swindled out of Unemployment Insurance Benefits in line with new UIC directives to branches to cut payments by 40% The horrors of unemployment are re- corded by the monopoly mass media to sell papers, sell air time. The mental breakdowns, the increased numbers contemplating suicide; the desperate minor crimes for survival, are all on dis- play. But these same kept media — an integral part of the obsolete system that creates mass unemployment, will never to the end of its days, admit that state monopoly capitalism is responsible. As the arch enemy of the workers, this sys- tem is prepared to squeeze out the last drop of life — as it is demonstrating. Exaggerated? Ask the jobless; ask the hungry; ask those who have given up hope. Look at the dismal future.offered . young people. Unemployment for men aged 15 to 24 is 14.5%, for women 15 to 24 it’s 14.2%. Is that the best offer of the “free world”, of the system that is so con- vulsed over “human rights” in other countries? The only rights state- monopoly capitalism and its weeping media care about are the power and profit of the monopolies -who rule Canada and do their best to crush the rights of the working class. The only answer is to fight — in the trade unions, in the democratic and ethnic organizations, and in the ranks of the Communist Party and the Young - Communist League, the two organiza- tions which have never wavered from the struggle of the working class, work- ing women and working youth. The workers, united, can Put Canada Back to Work. PRICES In the social system which is lauded by its well-paid media as the wellspring of freedom, one might expect that the prices of food, that most crucial and fundamental of things people must buy would be kept within bounds. The monopolies, one might think, would mask their greed with magnanimity in the case of food. No — there is not even that grace. Monopoly is rapacious. - Food led the cost-of-living increase for February at a jump of 2%, the largest increase since July 1975. The inflation rate hit 6.7% in Feb- ruary. But attempts to befuddle people by arguing that the amount of the rise is being whittled down is a smokescreen. The cost of living is not going up and down — it is going up. The index which started off in 1971 at 100 now stands at 155.4! And the only reason a new index was started in 1971 was because the pre-. ing. The system is exploiting the working people — on the production line in the’ first place, in the market place, through government finagling, and through rig- ging the “law” to serve monopoly capitalism to the maximum. . One thing is clear: the system which is. owned and run by the monopoly corpo- rations and their governments will not change its ways until compelled to. PROSPECTS _ Who gets pleasure out of crying gloom | and doom? Not the .workers or the working-class press. Working people get — their pleasure from having a job, a home, a family, a vacation, having in fact, a buoyant economy. They don’t crave un- employment, inflation, high rents, cut- backs in education and medical care, and all the rest of capitalism’s “solutions” to its crises. But, workers read. And who are the prophets of doom? — the banks, the economists, the heads of chambers of commerce. A headline in a Toronto paper: Pros- pect of recession looms. That was March 11, 1977, and it quotes the Royal Bank’s Trendicator which “raises the possibility that Canada is already in a recession.” Expansion in 1977 will be 4.1% “at best.” — vious one at 1949 prices was too reveal- And average unemployment at 7.5% — “may err on the low side.” Also, “the rate | of recovery from the-1975 recession is” becoming static,” — there is little real growth since first quarter, 1976. It’s not that the Royal’s cynical. The Canadian. Imperial Bank of Commerce says: “No further improvement seems likely” in the inflation rate, and residen- ~ tial and non-residential construction will ‘be weak in 1977, with housing starts: around 242,000. ~ The annual cost to the Canadian tax- : oe of government debt has risen to 822.92 per employed person. The trade deficit for the 1976 final quarter was $1.36-billion. : What about elsewhere? No, we find | another headline, Mar. 14, telling us: Economic picture bleak for Western Europe. Well how is it this “best of all systems” _ gives us unemployment, soaring living costs, poverty, gutter culture, not even ABCs education, and for many, depres- sing hopelessness? The workers are finding their answers. But Marxism-Leninism has long had effective answers — to struggle for the immediate interests of the work- — ing class and for a fundamental change in society to end the system of exploita- tion of man by man. Zaire pretexts With the USA sending close to $2- million in war material and its NATO partner, Belgium, with its dirty history in the area, rushing plane-loads of small arms to Zaire, the stench of the CIA and U.S. imperialism grows apace with the arms build-up on Angola’s borders, The — pretexts have a familiar odor.