F Review ee

Labor and ie Core

HE MANY positive and pro--

. gressive features of last
week’s convention of the British
Columbia Federation of Labor are
greatly weakened, if not indeed
cancelled out, by its CCF - right
wing pressured decision to “active-
ly work for the election of a CCF
government” as an alternative to
the Socreds come the next election;
and to sugar-coat this pressured
“endorsation” with lip service for
“the establishment of a new politi-
cal party based on the principles of
the Canadian Labor Congress reso-
lution.”

In'this the CCF-top heavy lead-
ership of the BCFL is fooling no
one but itself.

BCFL “‘endorsation” is based on
the assumption of “an emergency
situation” in which organizéd labor
won't have time to build a new
party as set forth in the CLC reso-
lution, hence it is necessary to
make the CCF “it” for the time
being.

If there is an “emergency” situ-
ation, as the CCF-BCFL leaders
argued in order to put across their
CCF endorsation, this emergency
is of their own design and making.

Ever since the origin of the CLC
Winnipeg resolution with its broad
perspectives for a people’s political
alternative to the rule of big busi-
ness, top echelons of the CCF and
right-wing trade union bureau-
crats have resorted to every politi-
cal trick in the book to compress
all area conferences, seminars, and
other political action activities into
a ready-made CCF straitjacket. To
‘make the CCF “it” to the exclusion
of all else, even:in constituencies
where excluded unions were and
are the backbone of CCF voting
strength.

The BCFL convention even car-
ried this narrow concept a step
further when CCF-BCFL spokes-
men stipulated that any non-CCF
labor candidate running for elec-
tion, would have to be approved
and acceptable for membership in
the CCF before his candidacy could
have official blessing.

e e 2°
Pacific Tribune
Phone MUtual 5-5288
Editor — TOM McEWEN
Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Printed in a Union Shop

Subscription Rates:

One Year: $4.00

Six Months: $2.25

Canadian and Commonwealth

countries (except Australia): $4.00
one year. Australia, United States and
all other couniries: $5.00 one year.

That stipulation is itself a fine
yardstick to measure just how the
CCF-BCFL will “contsnue its ef-
forts” to implement the CCF “al-
ternative.”

Organized labor in B.C. will not
feel bound by this BCFL-CCF
pressurized “endorsation.” Nor
will Scores of hundreds of trade
unionists, within and outside the
BCFL, abandon their hopes or ter- |
minate their efforts to build a
labor-farmer-people’s party, united
and determined to challenge the
political and legislative rule of big
business. :

From the people’s “alternative’’
implicit in the CLC resolution the
political lackeys of big monopoly
had a genuine cause for concern.
The BCFL-CCF “endorsation” dis-
pelled their fears. By creating an
“emergency” from which it could
launch its CCF “endorsation,” the
BCFL: has pledged a “support’’ it
can’t deliver, either in labor’s dol-
lars or votes.

Small wonder that Premier W.
A. C. Bennett is wearing his best
smile—even if a lot of trade union-
ists aren’t. Instead of being en-
couraged to build a new political
alternative, they’ve had one clamp-
ed on! :

¢

“EDITORIAL PAGE x

LPP Se comes CPC ©

ITH the unanimous and en-
thusiastic approval of its 140

- accredited delegates from all prov-

inces, the 7th national convention

of the Labor-Progressive Party .
decided to restore to this party of

Canadian Communists its. histor-

ical name — the Communist Party

of Canada.

First formed in February of
1922 under the name of the Work-
ers Party of Canada, the third con-
vention in 1924 of this original or-
ganization changed its name to
that of the Communist. Party,
which name it held until 1940.

At that time the Mackenzie
King government, which during
the immediate pre-war years had
pursued a policy of. Hitler appease-
ment, and which even extended
into the first years of the Second
World War, outlawed the Commu-
nist Party by one of its many
“order-in-council” reactionary de-
crees.

Refusing to be denied the right
of making their fullest contribu-
tion to the nation’s war effort
against German, Italian and Japa-
nese fascism, and faced with the
government’s refusal to lift the
ban on their party, the Canadian
communists founded the Labor-

Progressive Party in August of ”
1943; a party of communists with |
a Marxist-Leninist program f0t
victory over Hitlerism, for peace”
and. socialism. :

Restoration of the name of the
Communist Party at this time COP
responds with the new perspectives

. opening up for coexistence and
peaceful competition bet wees
states of differing social systems)
and ideologies; perspectives bene
ficial to Canada and the whole

- world. It also strengthens the vane
guard role of the Communist Party.
and the working class in the real
ization of these aims; of a Canada
relieved from the nightmare of |
nuclear war, .and an end to the }
criminal squandering of the Na}
tion’s resources for destructive
purposes.

The resolutions and program f
peace and socialism adopted by
this 7th national convention, Car
ried forward under the restored
banner of the Communist Party of
Canada, will find a warm response
from the workers of factory, farm,
office and school, because they
contain what millions of peoples
desire, work and fight for—peace,
independence, progress and social-
ism. ca

HERE are some _ justifiable
T reasons for people to seek the
safety of anonymity when giving
voice to their opinions on a given
subject. For instance a B.C. gov-
ernment employee, dubious of
phoney Socred policies and moved
to say so out loud, is quite justi-
fied in hiding his (or her) identity
behind some pseudonym or other.
To do otherwise would be to in-
vite disaster.

Genérally speaking, however,
this business of remaining ‘“anony-
mous” has become something of a
habit in this way-of-life of ours,
designed to facilitate the ‘“‘smear’”’
technique without the risk of re-
prisal or fixed responsibility.

Many press news items today
start off with ‘an unidentified
source close to the government’
said so and so. With such a start
the validity of what may follow is
highly questionable, since the ‘un-
identified ‘source’ remains un-
identified.

One good rule to follow in this
“unidentified” brand of journal-
ism is to assume that the ‘un-
identified source” is the editorial
scribe himself, who wants to get a
bit of smear off his chest, and con-
structs his own anonymous launch-

-ing platform to shoot it off.

Just last week a letter came to —
our desk from a writer in Nanaimo
who signed himself “Disgusted
Citizen” to two pages of unprint-
able language, describing how
many different kinds of a heel he
thought we were. He may have
had a point but, like all of his
kind, lacks the guts to associate his
identity with his viewpoint.

Last week too there came to our
desk Vol. 1, No. 1 of Our View-
pOint, published by The Anti-Bol-
shevik Block of Nations in Tor-
“onto, Ontario, with the informa-
tion that this piece of anti-Soviet
garbage is ‘‘Edited by the Editors.”
This latter is: probably inserted as
a precaution, lest readers get the
idea it was “edited” by a inmate
of a padded cell.

This anonymous publication
deals in its entirety with the re-
cent visit of Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev to the U.S., and
quotes all the coldwar hard-core
of Yankee stupidity to discount the
visit, with Harry Truman getting
front-page prominence as one of
the top ignoramuses.

The prime aim of Our Viewpoint

is to evolve a “creed of freedom” —
which would have as its key
clause the “liquidation” of the
Soviet Union and all it represents. —
But, as “‘edited by the editors” em-
phasizes, keep out of sight and Ri
identity meantime. ae:
We. don’t. know who Our View- |
point represents or who prints or |
finances it, but we can make a |
pretty good guess it isn’t anyone |
devoted to the cause of peace, |[
labor or the people. ae
And while we’re on the subject |
of anonymity we also have the —
poison-pen series of letters panning |
hell out of the LPP, its leading —
personnel, policies and what not.
A joint RCMP - Trotskyite - Re-
visionist effort, with no signatures —
of the identity of these garbage
collectors, who toil laborously to
produce a periodic plethora of dirt:
all done behind the boudoir cur-
tain of anonymity, lest anyone dis-
cover the political brothel they —
now inhabit.
“An unidentified source close to
the government disclosed today
.’, or “Edited by the Editors”,
it’s all the same. Compared with
some of these carrion Ananias was
a paragon of virtue, since he at
least had to make known his iden-
tity to cash in on his profession.
The modern Ananias breed lack
that sterling quality. Like all dis-
ease-carrying rodents, they prefer
to work under cover of darkness.

October 16, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4