SQUUEEEACHEEEEOCEUEE

We can say that one- of the
Purposes of the War Measures
Act proclamation was to create
a climate of fear in Canada
among. the Canadian people, and
to use this climate of fear to
press for reactionary legislation,
Communist Party leader W.
Kashtan told the Canadian Tri-
bune. Since the War Measures
Act was introduced, they have
already ‘been firing people from
their positions in different parts
of Canada.

There is censorship over the

student press, and the imposition
of a witch hunt against progres-
Sive-minded people in Quebec,
which has been used to influence
the outcome of the municipal
elections, and to prevent the
election of a substantial number
of FRAP candidates.

One of the main aims of the
War Measures Act, he said, is to
check the movement for social
Change in Canada and to shift

Politics to the right. What is in-

Fishermen's

The heroic strike of the fisher-
men of Canso Strait in Nova
Scotia continues. Their,battle is
for collective bargaining rights
and for the right to choose the
union that is to represent them.

Latest reports are that an in-
terim agreement between the
two foreign-owned fishing com-
panies and the strikers’ ad hoc
Committee -is tobe expected
Shortly. An important issue still

at stake for this interim contract.

1S the fishermen’s absolute in-

Sistence that all charges against
the strikers be dropped. They
‘are also demanding guarantees
that the Mulgrave plant of Aca-
dia Fisheries remain in opera-
tion and not be closed as the
Company threatens.

In an interview with the Cana-
dian Tribune, the British Colum-
bia northern organizer of the
United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union, George Hew-

ison, who has just returned to.

BC after several months spent
With the union’s striking Nova
Scotia members, said, “Even if
an interim contract is signed, it
will take a-month anyway before
full work resumes. The amount

and kind of support given now —

will have an important effect on
the conditions under which
these brave men will go back to
Work,”

Explaining that all the strikers
continue to wear their UFAWU
buttons, Hewison declared, “Al-
though the strikers and their
families are suffering near-star-
vation conditions, they are very
determined to win decent con-
ditions for themselves. They are
fighting for status as first class
human beings with the right to
bargain collectively. To a man,
they’ll not go back under threats
of blacklisting, and they are firm
that their union do the bargain-
ing for them.”

Hewison stated that the newly-
elected Liberal minority govern-
ment in Nova Scotia, was elect-
ed on a program that included
its undertaking to give de facto
recognition to the-collective bar-
8aining rights of the fishermen.
He pointed out that the two New
Democratic Party members of
the N.S. Legislature, who now
hold the balarice of power there,
have consistently supported the
fishermen’s strike and their de-
mands.

volved is not only the right to

dissent but the right to bring

about change in the capitalist
system of society and an end to
the exploitation of man by man.

To have any illusions about
the intention of the War Meas-
sures Act would be dangerous
indeed. It is not only directed to

_ maintain inequalities in Quebec,

but to take away democratic and
civil rights of Canadians every-
where. The government now
states it will introduce new leg-
islation to replace the War
Measures Act. From what has
been reported in the press it will
be just about as dangerous as
the War Measures Act, and in
some respects even more so.
The main direction of such
new legislation will be aimed at
what the government calls “civil
insurrection.” From the past ex-
perience of the working class
and democratic forces, it should
clear that this is a broad um-
brella which could embrace any

strike solid

No final settlement of the

strike is expected, however, un-
til the Nova Scotia Supreme
Court brings down its ruling on
whether the N.S. fishermen are
under provincial or federal juris-
diction. Under the present anti-
quated N.S. law, the fishermen
are still classified as ‘‘co-adven-
turers” with the giant fishing
companies!

Hewison told of some of the
recent donations received by the
striking fishermen:

e The students of McGill Uni-
versity Arts and Science Under-
graduate Society have given
$250 to strike fund.

e The Sudbury Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers Local 598 gave
$600 outright and continues with
regular weekly contributions.

e@ The National Farmers Union,
“that all along has given magni-
ficent support with gifts of
food”, also contributes weekly.

e@ Some 10 locals of the United
Auto Workers Union have sent
separate financial contributions,
and these include the striking
UAW-GM locals in St. Cath-
arines and Oshawa.

e Many United Steelworker
locals across the country have
sent financial contributions.

e “Clothing, warm, winter
clothing is very important now
down there,” said Hewison. Last
week two large shipments of

such contributions were received .

in Mulgrave from the Port Cre-
dit local of the Oil, Chemical and
Atomic Workers Union. “This
was in addition to three trans-
port trailers full of clothing that
the strikers previously received
from Prince Edward Island and
Nova Scotia strike supporters,”
reported Hewison.

e Members of the. Canadian
Seafood Workers Union in Hali-
fax last week sent $168.

e Canadian Brotherhood of
Rail and Transport Workers
(CBRT) crews of fishing vessels
are currently taking up collec-
tions for the striking UFAWU
members. ‘

All donations, and all mes-
sages of solidarity with the
striking fishermen, should be
sent to: ~ be

United Fishermen and
Allied Workers Union

Box 298, Mulgrave, N.S.

strike, any mass protest against
unemployment or rising prices—
any move directed against mon-
opoly policy.

All that has been carried
through under- the War Meas-
ures Act — and the propaganda.
— are all based on the claim of
the government that a state of
“apprehended insurrection” ex-
isted in Quebec.

When asked to produce the
facts, neither Mr. Marchand, Mr.
MacDonald, Mr. Turner nor Prime
Minister Trudeau could produce
any facts. All they could pro-
duce was the kidnapping of two
men and the assassination of one,
of them. While we deplore kid-
napping and assassination as a
method of struggle, this gives no
justification to invoke the War
Measures Act or introduce any
new repressive legislation. What
is obvious: is that the govern-
ment was not so much concern-
ed with kidnapping and assassin-

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War Measures Act seeks shift to right

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ation, but with the growing de-
mand for social change in Que-
bec and throughout the country,
and that this is what they want
to stop with such draconic legis-
lation.

From this point of view the
statement by some NDP spokes-
men that the party was prepared
to cooperate with the govern-
ment in writing new repressive
legislation is, to put it mildly,
ill-advised. Any such new legis-
lation will be aimed at the demo-
cratic rights of the people and
to. maintain monopoly power
and profits. :

We urge the NDP to recon-
sider, and not to allow them-
selves to be sucked into a four-
power united block in parliament
which Trudeau so sorely wants.

Trudeau knows that while at
the moment he may appear to
have support for his position, it
is temporary and will wither
away. Those who stand firmly

against it will in the end be the
beneficiaries of public support
for their principled stand.

The present situation is a
dangerous one. No single organ-
ization or party can defeat the
War Measures Act, but if all
democratic forces in Canada
unite they can bring about such
a defeat. The real question for
the Canadian people and for la-
bor is not only to demand the
restoration of democratic rights

but to unite for the extension of

these rights, without which the
struggle for democratic advance
and for further social change
will be made much more diffi-
cult. :

The various committees which
have sprung up throughout the
country, and the strong actions
taken by the trade unions, par-
ticularly in. Quebec, he conclud-
ed, point up the fact that the
possibility exists to compel the
government to retreat.

Mr. Trudeau rewrites history —

By MARK FRANK

Prime Minister Trudeau has
invoked the ghost of Alexander
Kerensky one time chairman of
the provisional government of
old Russia whose regime was

_ overthrown to make way for

history’s first socialist revolution
in 1917. :
Irked by opposition probing in

Commons on Oct. 23, for more .

information on why the War

‘Measures Act was put into ef-

fect, he urged NDP leader T. C.
Douglas to “ask himself how
much information Kerensky had
in the spring and summer of
1917 when he was pooh-poohing
the possibility of an insurrec-
tion, which in fact happened in
October 1917.” :

_ The comparison between the
political situation in Quebec and
war-ravaged revolutionary Rus-
sia of 1917, where millions of
peasants, soldiers and workers
were demanding peace, bread
and freedom—and had just over-
thrown the hated tsar, shows
how feeble an historian — and
how demagogic our~PM really
iss 77

To draw a far-fetched com-
parison between the two situa-
tions is bad enough, but to side
with Kerensky in the situation
that faced him in the spring and
summer of 1917 is odious in the
extreme—a case of supporting
one of history’s most ardent ad-
vocates of violence and killing
on a grand scale.

The call for the armed insur-
rection in Russia of 1917 was

not a putsch or act of terror. It

was decided on at the 6th Con-
gress of the Bolshevik Party
July 26-Aug. 3, 1917 and arose
out of:

1. The new political situation,
the danger of a counter-revolu-
tionary thrust for power, involv-
ing the continuation of the
senseless butchery on the East-
ern Fronts in World War 1, and
the violent destruction of all the
gains of those who had over-
thrown the hated tsarist regime
in February of 1917.

2. It envisaged mass support
of the workers, peasants and
soldiers, a support based on

» those elected to. the Soviets. It

was not a narrowly-based move-
ment. As a matter of fact in

September of 1917 before the
armed insurrection Lenin was
able to say “We have the follow-
ing of the majority of the peo-
ple.” 3 ‘

Then why the armed insurrec-
tion?

John Reed writes in Ten Days
that Shook the World — “Instead
of being a destructible force, it
seems to me that the. Bolsheviki
were the only party in. Russia
with a constructive program and
the power to impose it on the
country. If they had not succeed-
ed to the Government when they
did, there is little doubt in my

mind that the armies of Imperial -

Germany would have been in

_ Petrograd and Moscow in De-

cember, and Russia would again
be ridden by a tsar...”

Kerensky’s provisional gov-
ernment was endangering all the
gains of the democratic revolu-
tion that overthrew the tsar; he
was opening the door to the
conquest of Russia by the Ger-
man imperialists; he was giving
comfort to the pogromists and
Black Hundreds of tsarist days;
he was seeking to block the road
to the socialist revolution in the
interest of foréign and Russian
capital.

This is the black record of
Mr. Kerensky who seems to
have been adopted overnight by
Mr. Trudeau to justify his ac-
tions in the present political sit-
uation in Canada.

Kerensky was a_ Socialist-
Revolutionary, the Provisional
Government’s War Minister in
June of 1917. He favored the
continuation of the war, when
millions demanded peace. Peace
to the allies of old imperial
Russia like the U.S., Britain and
France was a dirty word. But
Kerensky supported this most
unjust of unjust wars.

On: July 8 he was appointed
prime minister and on July 18
General Kornilov was made
commander-in-chief. At a State
Conference held in Moscow Aug.
12, Kerensky called for continu-
ing the war and the establish-
ment of “order” in the army and
in the country. (A familiar
enough slogan in North America
today). Only the much-maligned
Bolsheviks exposed this drive to
“terror from the right” and the

threat to the gains of the demo-
cratic revolution. On Aug. 25
Kornilov moved into action with
the Third Mounted Corps taken
from the front and directed
against the workers of Petro-
grad. This was violence with a
vengeance — the counter-revolu-
tion, which placed armed popu-
lar insurrection on the order of
the day for the defense of lib-
erty and the advance of the
socialist revolution now beyond
the stage of what was possible
earlier—peaceful transition. Ker-
ensky was profoundly involved
in this ill-famed “Kornilov Re-
volt” which was quickly put
down despite his disclaimers.

Lenin wrote: ‘“Kerensky is a
Kornilovite; by sheer accident
he has had a quarrel with Kor-
nilov himself, but he remains in

intimate alliance with all the

other Kornilovites.”

To carry through his unpopu-
lar policy, Kerensky ordered the
arrest of Lenin and suppression
of the revolutionary workers and
soldiers. Capital punishment was
reinstituted in the army. Print-
ing presses where workers’ pap-
ers were printed were raided,
sacked and closed.

On Oct. 25 (Nov. 7—our calen-
dar) the provisional government
was ousted. Kerensky fled to
lead a counter-revolutionary mil-
itary operation on Oct. 27

against Petrograd which failed.

The socialist revolution had tri-
umphed.

Who then were the progeni-
tors of violence and terror in
the Russian Revolution — those
who wished to continue the sav-
agery of World War I the Keren-
sky’s et al; or the Bolsheviks led
by Lenin who brought a separ-
ate peace to all Russia and the
liberation of their peoples from
the knout of tsarism and the ter-
ror of unbridled rule and exploi-
tation of native and foreign capi-
talists. ee

Surely Mr. Trudeau knows bet-
ter than to distort the history of
the Russian Revolution to serve
his current purpose: to red bo-
gey all opposition out of exis-
tence to his present draconic

War Measures Act and pending -

emergency legislation against
the rising movements of the peo-

ple.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 30, 1970—PAGE 9