§ Advocate:

Pvho realize that
@ ends on a peace-
sof China’s in-
2s, will welcome

| reflection they
lize this is but
pace, as how can
‘ined while Am-
-n armed inter-
“n only serve to
'tensify strife?
es of the meet-
eneral Marshall
ives of the Kuo-
-ommunists pro-
must remem-
= mberlain was
- acemaker; The
= retain Ameri-
| forces, to safe-
| asport Chiang
nintang fascist
“1e pretext this
-te disarming of

Sy

3 foreign forces
a, there is al-
tdanger of “in-
“iy well lead to
Nar. For who
“tat provoéative
ag planned by
_rferers, obvi-
no atomic pow-
(ist one way to
"ger. Remove
the American
x the Chinese

their family
1eir own way.
of American
indicates the
© ‘eir recall has

| ‘ined sufficient fe
"turn shows the

© 3rica are not
© med as to the
= he situation.
© censorship and
= ¢ propaganda,
'.2 have been led
"3 Chiang Kai-
f S progressive
| But since Gen-
* call because of

tang’s traitorous use of lend
lease equipment, to suppress
the struggle for democracy,
more and more people are be-
ginning to appraise the situa-
tion realistically.

Noted writers such as Leland
Stowe, Edgar Snow and many
others, present concrete evi-
dence to prove the Kuomintang
dictatorship is corrupt, and in-
stead of cultivating unity,
places party interests above the
needs of the people. As an ex-
ample as to how the Kuomintang
controls news from China, a
well known outhor exposed in
her latest book, that Chiang
Kai-Shek - pays a bonus of
thousands of pounds yearly to
one of the world’s news agencies
in consideration they would not
issue news unfavorable to the
Kuomintang.

No wonder censorship exists
when we learn that trade unions

are smashed, black-markets are _

rampant, Kuomintang pets be-
come rich over night through
inside tips on currency man-
ipulations, that free elections
are denied the people, and that
mayors and other officials are
appointed by Kuomintang dic-
tators.

But despite censorship, many
Chinese people abroad are be-

ginning to learn Chiang Kai-°

Shek is merely a glorified ban-
dit. This because all through
the time of Japanese occupa-
tion, the Kuomintang smoothy
advised them to send all their
money to the National Govern-
ment, who would deliver it to
their various relatives. Thus

. with implicit faith in the goy-
thousands of:

ernment, .many
Chinese forwarded large sums,
believing the Kuomintang would
donate as promised an extra
$1,000 sent. Now though the
war ended almost six months
ago, they are being informed
the banks have not delivered
this money. as Kuomintang of-
ficials had pocketed all remit-
tances. As a result of these

i: TIM BUCK

bry 18, 8:30 to 8:45 --- CJOR

C ADVOCATE

4

— PAGE 5

One
Billion
Dollars

for

WAT DO YOU THINK?

his opposition to the Kuomin-——~

frauds, some Chinese people
here in Canada are beginning
to hold protest meetings, and
are very angry their starving
kinfolk have been cheated.

In contrast to this £orrup-
tion, one famous writer de-
clares that Communist China
“is the closest approach to so-
cial and economic, as well as
political democracy that China
ever had.” This is because in
the Communist eontrelled
areas, the democratic principles
of Dr. Sun Yat Sen are applied.
He received his inspiration for
these from the Gettysburg ad-
dress. :

I must ask then why does
the U.S.A. give powerful mili-
tary aid to Chiang Kai-Shek,
in his cruel attempts to smash
the only democratic institution
in China? Is this not the same
fascist brand of interference
that enabled Hitler and Mus-
solini_to crush democracy in
Spain? I eannot understand
then why. all Americans:.do not
realize this, as. they would
then be able to foresee, they
will bring upon themselves the
bitter hatred of Asia’s teem-
ing millions by tacitly endors-
ing American efforts to yoke
Asiatics to imperial bondage!

A- war torn impoverished
backward, disunited. China can-
not be an asset to world de-
mocracy! What ‘is needed in

- China is a ‘democratic coalition

government, trade unions and
industrialization. Do Americans
realize that if wages in China
were raised even to the paltry
sum of 10¢ per day this would
add billions of dollars annually
to her purchasing power? Such
would. enable the Chinese peo-
ple te buy sorely needed sew-
ing and washing machines, etc.,
from the USA and would econtri-
bute. much to American pros:
perity. —

Shortly _ before he died,
March, 1925, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
was striving to achieye unity
between.the political factions,
so as. to. extend democracy
throughout China. . When he

passed away, it was only a year -

later Chiang Kai-Shek staged
a coup at Canton, against the
progressive “leaders and stu-
dents who opposed his dicta-
torial rule. Aided by foreign
interventionists he has con-
stantly striven to exterminate
by mass executions and impris-
onment, all Kuomintang mem-
bers and others, who did not
concur wth his fascist ideology
and actions.

The people of China have
suffered from many years of
war, pestilence and famine and
yet America, instead of extend-
ing eredits for peacetime re-
construction, persists in adding
to their suffering by support-
ing Chiang Kai-Shek, the Chi-

wnese Franco, Americans might
well heed Mrs. Roosevelt’s com-
ment that Madame Chiang Kai-
Shek “could talk very convinc-
*ingly about democracy, its aims
and ideals, but hasn’t any idea
how to live it.” As a Canadian

. Chinese I would say that Mrs.

Roosevelt should have included
the Generalissimo and reac-
tionary leaders of the Kuomin-
tang. ;

I am sure the people of China
having learned this long ago
by experience would vote Chi-
ang Kai-Shek and his pro-fas-
eist clique out of power Hf a
general election was held.

H. SHAN GEN.

eanprres

Short Jabs by Ol’ Bill

SOUUGCOLICROUStItDesreseeeraxeeresverterr

“The Ten Greatest Books

FVE2Y so often, some professor of alleged literary standing pub-

lishes a list, more or less extensive, of the world’s greatest books.
Sometimes it is a five-foot shelf; sometimes it is, “the 100 greatest
books”; sometimes it is more, sometimes less, but they all have
one claim im common. According to the alleged geniuses who make
up the lists, they contain the essence of all philosophy, all knowl-

. edge, they are, their sponsors would have us believe, a sort of uni-

versal boil-down of all human experience, and must be read by every
one desiring to appear cultured.

The latest outbreak of this disease is, “The Ten Great Books

You Should Know,” which was published during the re-Christm:
period in the Chicago Daily News. = e =

The tipster in this case is a top-notcher, Dr. Robert M. Hutchins,
Chancellor of the University of Chicago. It would hardly be worth
noticing this hot tip, if it were not for the fact that not one of the
ten books listed has: any bearing on the life: of the people who live
on this world today. With the exception of Shakespeare’s works,
they are ‘out of this world’ in a truer sense than the phrase was
ever used by jitterbug and boogie-woogie addicts. ;

The nine others listed with Shakespeare are, Wiad and Odyssey
by Homer; Plato’s Republic; Nicomachean Ethies and Politics by
Aristotle; the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides; The City of God
by St. Augustine; Treatise on God and Treatise on Man by Thomas
Aquinas; the Divine Comedy by Dante; Meditations by Paseal and
War and Peace by Tolstoi. ;

In the world of the split atom most of these books are so much
trash. Science has outmoded the natural and. moral Philosophy of
Aristotle, the historical theories of Thucydides, the Utopian social

concepts of Plato and the religious pipe dreams of St. Augustine
and Thomas Aquinas. :

There was a time when such works projected themselves into
the life of the Western European nations. They served as a spurious
eulture for a class of parasites. whose livelihood was provided for

them ‘by another class who had no knowledge whatever of Greck

and Latin poetry, who were, mostly illiterate and who did. not know
whether Homer was the name of a Greek poet or an island in the
great Affican desert; who never heard of the wars between the
Greeks and the Persians and to whom Aristotle might have been
the. name of a toilet bowl, if they had ever seen such a thing. But
that time is in the past! . : :

°.In view of our positive knowledge today, of’ the brain ‘and its

-function of the. material origin of ideas, to read what is called

“philosophy” in these oid “classics,” is so much wasted time. At
best it could only show us how ignorant of the real world the
authors were (and how ignorant also. are the authors of such a list-}

‘Just. as the -seiences of physics, chemistry and biology have
piled up a mass of incontrovertible data to confute the writings of
Aristotle and the dogmatic assertions of the clerics, so, history, since
it has been interpreted on the basis ‘of “class. struggle” has tossed
into the discard the conceptions of “the father of history” Thucy-
dides. ‘ ‘

Some of the lists of “great books” were undoubtedly compiled
te further the sales of some publisher, but judging by the books
on Professor Hutchins’ list that could not have been the object in
this. ease. --No amount’of streamlining will make them best sellers.
They may however be used:to confuse the minds of a people. whe
are tending to put an end to the capitalist system, by . insinuating
that, on the basis of these writings a new world dominated by the
atomic bomb may be built, a world in which class division will still
exist, a world in which one class will ‘still live without working and
another class will work without living.

Since books have been printed, many great books have been
written. Immediate pre revolutionary periods are an inspiration for
such great works. The beginning of the capitalist system saw _ this
proven. Indubitably great books, philosophical, economic and political
appeared then in justification of the new system.

Among them were books by Bacon, Locke, Hobbes, Adam - Smith
and David Ricardo in England, the Physiocrats and the Encyclopacdists
in France, and Paine, Jefferson and Franklin in America. :

These were for their time, historically, and in their social purpose,
greater works than those in the list under review, for capitalism was
then a progressive system. But they have outlived their purpose.
Greater works have appeared since, because a new historical period,
a new social perspective, with capitalism in decline, has made that
possible. .

Great books now are not poetry, nor drama, nor musings on ideal-
ist philosophical dreams, nor journeyings out into new worlds which
have their origin in such dreams. No, they are scientific! They are
about as sentimental as the tables of logarithms in the navigators
handbook, but they lead to a better world. :

They may be lengthy like the Origin of Spécies, by Darwin and
the Evolution of Man by Haeckel; they may be short as a student’s
thesis for his M.A. degree, like the Periodic Law of the Elements by
Mendelyef; they may deal with only theoretical aspects of our world
like Clerke Maxwell’s mathematical articles on electric phenomena
or they may deal with the concrete work of making hydro-electric
power plants, but they are more important to the human race than
the books listed by the Chicago professor.

And the greatest book of them all is Karl Marx’s masterpiece,
Capital, which made history into a science, which by showing what
made the capitalist sytem work, lifted Socialism out of the dream
world of the Utopians and made it also a science.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1946