12 = = ALENT TN ETT TTT BEE sche and: Peaple By KAY GREGORY OM MMMM MMM MMMM A\ NEW book just published about China raises the ques- tion of the blockade of the Communist armies in a manner calculated to arouse wide protesst against reactionary groups in the Kuomintang. Sharks Fins and Millet, by Ilona Ralf Sues, has as its hero “the Nameless Builder of China” and it reveals a state of affairs which, the author says, “is not only bad for the inter- nal situation, but which is the Sreatest obstacle to a United Wations victory in the Far Fast.” The United States, by friendly pressure on Generalissimo Chi- ang Kai-shek, can do a lot to- Wards changing this situation, Miss Sues thinks. Her special admiration is re- served for the guerrilla armies and the people of the northern provinces where, she says, “the Highth Route and New Fourth Armies have given them hope end confidence in China’s future.” “Since 1939 the blockade has been so effective that guerrilla armies are not receiving their pay, no uniforms are issued to them and all their armaments come from captured Japanese. Notwithstanding all of this and the fact that the BHighth Route and New Fourth Armies have never seen a bullet or a cent of any lend-lease material sent to China by the United States, they have still accounted for nearly |0 percent of all Japanese kill- ed, wounded and captured.” Miss Sues, in her book, quotes words of Chu Teh, “father of China’s guerrillas’. which, she remarks, still ring in her heart as the explanation why the Unit- -ed Front is still alive in China today. “When the life of the nation is in peril, we put all private grievances in our pockets,’ Chu Teh said, “and whatever we do is not a sacrifice but our duty as soldiers and citiens of China. We are the People’s Army and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is our commander-in-chief.” THE PEOPLE BOOKSHOP | At a luncheon in Chicago re- cently, Miss Sues told the story of two missionaries ‘kidnapped’ by guerrillas, but returned to safety. “They came-to no harm —we treated them well, didn’t we?” the guerrilla leader asked Bishop Roots of Hankow. “In- deed you did,” he replied. “When they finally came back, we had quite a problem—they had ai- most turned communist them- selves.’ : : @ Sean O’Casey’s new play, Red Roses for Me, holds promise of all the suecess his others have had. The play, published by Macmillan, has yet to be pro- duced, but it still makes good reading. The story of Red Roses for Me is set in working class Dub- lin where underpaid realway workers are striking for a much needed shilling raise and being clubbed and ridden down by mounted constabulary. There is all of O’Casey’s acid pen in conflicts between Protestant and Catholic bigotry, and his poetic Irish idiom. “That’s Dublin, Fin- noola, an* th’ sky over it. Sor- row’s a slush under our feet, up to ankles and the deep drip of it constant overhead.” : The title is from a ballad run- ning through the play: “A sober black shawl hides her body entirely, Touched by the sun and th’ spray ~ of th’ sea; But down in the darkness a slim hand so lovely, Carries a bunch of red roses for me ALASKA and the CANADIAN NORTHWEST Our New Frontier by HAROLD GRIFFIN The Story of CANOL and the ALASKA HIGHWAY. Illustrated 3.50 MY NATIVE LAND Yugoslavia 1933-1943 by LOUIS ADAMIC “Of course, the Partisans of Marshal Tito are the only people who are doing any effective fighting against the Germans now.” —Winston Churchill. 5.00 ° FRENCH CANADA A Study in Canadian Democracy by STANLEY RYERSON, $1.00 MArine 6929 105 SHELLY BUILDING — 119 WEST PENDER VANCOUVER, B.C. Council Library A\vailable A LARGE library of Soviet music, orchestral, chor- al and instrumental, has been made available to sroups and individuals throughout Canada by the National Council for Canadian-Soviet Friendship, with headquart- ers in Toronto. The music ean be procured for use in meetings, concerts, musical study groups and teaching. Selections on file, chosen by Boris Berlin, chairman of the council’s National Musie Committee, and Nor- man Wilkes, principal of the Toronto Conservatory of Music, includes works by Prokofieff, Shostakovitch, Khachatourian, Khrennikov, Miaskovsky and many other well-known Russian compos- ers. Music available is listed under the following headings: Plano, songs with piano ac- companiment, choir with piano accompaniment, vocal albums, opera — vocal and choral, _—_ violin, orchestral scores, vocal with orchestral accompaniment, and military band. : While many selections may be borrowed free of charge from the council (by sending a deposit fee of $5 to the Conservatory librarian) many selections may be pur- chased from the music com- mittee. Among these latter are Fifteen Red Army Songs in English, and Ten New Songs the Soviets Sing. Works borrowed for per- formance may be used with- out charge. Enquiries should be ad- dressed to The Librarian, Toronto Conservatory of Music, College Street, Tor- onto. Booklet on Tito by Howard Fast OWARD Fast, noted author of The Unvanquished and Citizen Tom Paine has written a booklet on the national liber- ation movement in Yugoslavia around the central figure of Marshal Tito. Entitled The In-= credible Tite—The Man of the Hour, it has just been published in the United States by Lev Gleason. Paper bound, it sells in the U.S. for 25 cents. No in- formation is yet. available as to whether- it will be sold in Can- ada. Reviewed This Week Rise of a Nation The Rise of the American Na- tion: 1789-1824 — By Francis Franklin—Internationa!l _Publish- ers—288 pp. : H°” did the United States. emerge as a Nation? Under what conditions did its democ- tacy develop? How did political parties arise and what economic groups did each represent? How was foreign policy fashioned, what ends did it seek? How did the: common people preserve the democratie content of the Revyo- lution and enlarge upon it in the years between the framing of the Constitution and the be- ginning of Jacksonianism? Answers to these questions are vital to a clear understanding of America’s present-day war role. As Franklin points out in his preface: “There is a continuous line of development running from the Declaration of Inde- pendence of 1776 through the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 to the Pact of the United Nations of 1942. ... The Pact of the United Nations is the logical ful- fillment of the democratic foreign policy of our nation during the period of its youth.” And this policy was a reflection, in the main, of democratic internal de- velopment. Ape history of the United States in its formative years is an enormously fascinating sub- ject, but one whose true signifi- eance has long been obscured by historians of the economic de- terminist school. Such writers as Beard, for example, have popularized the belief that mer- chant-capitalists were the true progressives of their time, be- cause of their insistence on de- veloping certain capitalist forms: and that the small producers were anti-capitalist and, there- fore, anti-progressive. Franklin renders a distinct service by sharply correcting this view. “The small producers (who were the backbone of Jefferson’s and Jackson’s political support) were anti-merchant, anti-specu- later, but never anti-capitalist,” he says. They themselves were developing the mode of -produc- tion which always and every- where has been and must be the absolutely necessary precondi- tion for capitalism and which always, when left to its own de- vices, develops automatically into capitalism. By describing these movements as anti-capital- ist and by pointing to the ob- vious fact that capitalism was not abolished, the economic de- terminists have created the ut- terly false impression that the democratic movements of small producers never accomplished anything.” Buttressing further his Marxist analysis, Franklin declares: “The political movements of the small- producer democrats did not abol- ish capitalism and did not estab- lish or perpetuate economic equality. The first aim was in- conceivable to them. The second was utopian. However, they did prevent that “‘hot-house’ develop- ~ment of capitalism’ advocated by the Hamiltonians, which would have prevented the expansion of the American nation across the continent, and they did preserve and extend hbourgeoios-democ- racy. These were no mean ac- complishments. They establish- UNIVERSAL NEWS STAND 138 EAST HASTINGS STREET Mail your Order for all PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE MOSCOW NEWS WEEKLY ed the conditions under 4 the working class is ab undertake the execution ¢ more advanced historical ¢ A™ understanding of the nature of the small pr ers-is the key to all the history of the U.S. Witho one cannot evaluate proper struggle over Western land ternal improvements, the of 1812, the Missouri Compr and other landmarks of pre War national expansion. F lin’s keen and discerning 3 sis of these events is a if to his application of MM: nistorical method. Perhaps no event in Ame history is less understood the War of 1812. The po conception has played up _ war as both “imperialist” 4 failure. Yet the facts are th was a progressive war af suecessful one. ois It was, indeed, a decisive for on the outcome depe the course of democratic ialist development of the nz il determined that the smaij ducers, the frontier demo and not the commercial | geoisie, were to control the tiny of America for genera to come. It was in every s a just war for national fi tion and for the crushimg oa ternal traitors. Franklin deyotes a large tion of his book to a stud this war, and the implicit p leis which he develops bet 1812 and 1944 are proof of fact that good historical wr ean illuminate the past so < enrich the present. N a book so excellent an important, it is per picayune to point to one or instances of over-simplified Discussing the Indian prok Franklin says, “The cause for slaughter on all the ‘dark bloody grounds’ extending - Jamestown in i607 to the fight with Custer in the West must be found in the perial policy of Great Br and, to a less degree, of Fr and Spain.” It would haye more accurate, I believe have admitted that early democracy had its blindspots Indian policy was one of t However much the Indians ~ vyietims of foreign int against the United States, were also victims of the av for land and furs. | One other point, and th: the Kentucky and Virginia i jutions which played so im ant a role in the fight ar the Alien and Sedition Here, I think, Franklin tend compress his analysis too and has not made the it possible use -of available ¢ mentary material, with the sult that the reader may be confused over the issues states’ rights in this. instane But these are minor mai and in no way refiect on the tremendous contribution. ¥ Franklin has made to our erstanding of American his Franklin’s students at the Jt son School are aware of his found knowledge and of Marxist perception of hist¢ relationships. The skillful — bination of these two attri has produced The Rise of American Nation, a book Vv, no thoughtful person, no fi in today’s battles for nal survival, can afford to pas” It is MUST reading, for, wi it, there will remain great ~ in one’s knowledge of the ¢ cratic heritage for which w_ struggling. — STEPHEN BODY. : | '