QUIPS and QUIRKS A heading in the Toronto Globe & Mail reads, “Called Jesus homo- sexual, former Jew made bishop.” But surely there were other qua- lifications as well. —o0o— The old Wobbly song tells how strikebreaker Casey Jones, when he landed in heaven, went “scabbing on the angels just like he did to workers on the S.P. line.” What brought this biting satire of yes- teryears to mind was the disclosure in Time Magazine that Lt. William L. Calley, who is accused of ordering the massacre of Viet- namese civilians at Song My, was a scab in the strike of the East Coast Railroad in Florida during the early 1960’s. He was a switch- man when he got launched on his career of scabbery, then was promoted to freight car conductor, earning up to $300 per week. In the song the unionized angels sent Casey Jones to hell aflying and there he was put to shoveling sulfur . . . But of course that’s how the problem was resolved by organized angels taking direct action in heaven, while in the U.S. of 1970 things may go different . .. Calley might even be promoted to general or something. —o0o0— We hear of one tenant who complained that his apartment was so cold that every time he opened the door the light went on. » —o000— The enquiry into various charges of police malpractice in Metro Toronto has provided juicy newspaper stories. They include tales of quashing of such charges as impaired driving against persons who were wealthy or prominent, or relations of police higher-ups, of cops drinking on the job (and the finding of contraceptives in police cars), extortion and so on. The smelly mess recalls the case some years ago when Toronto constables were caught robbing a down- town shoe store. It transpires that the above charges had been made and investi-' gated in secret quite a while ago, the public enquiry only being ordered when items leaked out and public pressure began to be applied. : —o0o— The wrongdoings of the Metro Toronto cops are being probed by the Metro Police Commission. We understand that the city’s under- world has applied for similar privileges—that in future criminal charges against thieves, killers, swindlers, goons, etc., be laid before a commission of top gangsters. —o0o— Monday’s dailies carried an AP story from Saigon that should be clipped and re-read every time there’s an account of victorious U.S. battles in Vietnam or comments on them. Here it is in part: The Americans pulled off the slopes of Black Virgin Mountain yesterday, claiming a victory. But the mountain caves still. be- longed to the North Vietnamese. “Tt’s a ludicrous game,” same one junior officer who took part in the five-day sweep of the battered mountainside 55 miles northwest of Saigon. “It involves risking the lives of American men to make enough noise so a decent body count can be reported. “They want bodies, so we give ’em bodies. When we spot a target, we shoot up some ammo, call in artillery and gunships, and when all the noise is over, we call in a reasonable count of kills that will satisfy higher authority. “Sometimes we know we didn’t give anybody more than a head- ache. But it’s all part of a game, and we all play our part.” —o0o— Now it’s crystal clear that the GI’s weren’t engaged in massacring old men, women and children in My Lai and other places in South Vietnam. They were only providing statistics for the body count. —o0o— YCL hits “Murder Inc.’ In a press statement sign- ed by secretary Chuck Mc- Fadden, the Young Com- munist League issued the following call for public ac- tions to defend the Black Panthers: “The growing spectacle of murder of the youthful lead- ers of the Black “anther Party and other champions of the peace, democratic, la- bor and progressive move- ments in the U.S. is cause for great alarm. This is the _ kind of development which if not checked by the U.S. people and world public opinion could lead to fas- cism. As a next door neigh- bor, we are particularly con- cerned. “The Young Communist League of Canada calls upon progressive Canadian youth organizations to join it in forming local commit- tees in the major centres in Canada for the defense of the Black Panther Party and other young victims of ‘U.S. Murder, Incorporated’. “We urge a campaign of petitions, demonstrations before the U.S. embassy and U.S. consulates in Canada, letters seeking an investiga- tion to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations and letters to Fede- ral, provincial and local gov- ernments in Canada urging official protest of the exter- mination by U.S. police of militant and democratic fighters.” PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 16, 1970—Page10 Peer TUTTE EETOREE CEE PROBLEMS OF ESTHETICS, a Collection of Articles. Pro- gress Publishers. Moscow. Available at Progress Books, 487 Adelaide St. W., Toronto, or your local bookstore, 350 pages. $2.75. By PHILIP BONOSKY This book is long overdue. It is a collection of 13 essays by Soviet workers in the field of esthetics, and it ranges widely among many difficult problems as varied as ‘“‘The Ideal and Hero ine Art’ ism” and “The Scope and Limits of Realism.”- But together, the collection presents a fully-deve- loped exposition of the laws of socialist realism. To readers accustomed to the built-in slander against socialist realism, generally current in bourgeois circles, the careful, documented, closely-reasoned ar- gument of most of these essays will come as a surprise and per- haps even as a revelation. WHAT IS SOCIALIST REALISM? Socialist realism is the appli- cation of Marxism-Leninism to the field of esthetics. If ‘“‘esthe- tics” sounds too snobbish, call it the field of art including “en- tertainment.” In any case, it deals with man’s effort to under- stand himself and his world spe- cifically through “art.” Art (literature, painting, mu- sic, dance, etc.) is a spiritual re- flection of what men do, think and dream of ir real life, in so- ciety (and nature). However, art is no mere photographic ‘“‘dead’’ reflection of how people act; it is a “dialectical” reflection: that is, it is a reflection of men in motion, in conflict. Life “makes” art; in its turn art shapes life. Therefore, it is important that art be true. For true or false, it will influence life. And that is why we are so interested in it. But what is truth? And there’s the rub! There is no social truth that everybody in society agrees on. There is struggle for the truth, and each class believes that its existence and survival represent the “truth” of history. And art, therefore, seems either true or false depending on whether it conforms to this idea of which class is decisive to history. One Chaucer somewhat Americanized Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s English classic, | Canterbury Tales, the musical at Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre illustrates five of the spicy stories told to re- lieve the boredom of a group of men and women making the pil- grimage from London to Canter- bury Cathedral to celebrate the memory of Thomas a Becket. The Chaucer tales express an earthy, realistic attitude to the relations between medieval men and women the stories take de- light in exposing sex foibles and hypocrisies, in ridiculing the cuckolded old men and rejoic- ing in the conquests by the young Lotharios. Nevertheless, as the stories reveal, there is an underlying assertion that love is more than sex, that men and women must respect each other, and that their relationship flou- rishes in:a social context» SAUQUUUUUUOUUUEUUUEUUUENUUUOUUUUU ETE SEEEU NAHE Essays by Soviet writers “Unadorned Modern-’ Book on socialist realism: SSrvvvsvcvccerecvuauuocuucauccecsvvevseneccceoouoouuuennatsesncgeneneygugsusngseeseeecececnacuvaceaeaageataneceecgennociaaaaaeggenen ene of the two main classes is right —the other is wrong. Which? Hitherto, up to 1917 in any case, the dominant art — with growing exceptions — did not fundamentally question that bourgeois values were “true,” were “real,” as the artists did not question that bourgeois so- ciety was permanent, was “real.” But with the revolution in 1917, all these solid beliefs fell into severe crisis, and instead of the certainties of Victorian England the uncertainties of a Churchill who dreaded the thought of pre- siding over the dissolution of the © British Empire, which neverthe- less, despite Churchill, continued ta dissolve. CLASS VIEW OF TRUTH For people who believe that the British empire represented “truth” and “reality,” the pres- ent world is frightening, nothing seems stable, and ‘“‘truth,” once so obvious, has become elusive or gone entirely into hiding. But not for the world’s work- ing class. As one class sees the future more and more darkly, the other sees it more and more clearly. And that is what art is all about. One side’s art sees reality more and more darkly; the other side needs to see it more and more clearly, and de- mands of its artists to help them see. z A Marxist not only believes that reality exists and is know- able. He believes that that real- ity should be known and is not afraid of what it is. Therefore, he doesn’t run away from the exploration of it or draw a veil around it or obscure it by trans- posing it to another level of ap- prehension. He wants it plain— direct. That imposes the realist style. He wants it to reflect the motion of reality of which he is part—the reality driving on to revolution—and that unites the “socialist?” aspect with the real- ist style. And that’s “all” there is to socialist realism, and it has nothing in common with calen- .dar art or making flattering pic- tures of political leaders! - MARXISTS AND REALITY The reason why a Marxist is not afraid of reality, and a bour- geois is, is because the Marxist believes that reality ‘‘favors” him. Pursuing the class struggle For Chaucer the intimate re- lationship between a man and a woman was a thing of joy and of beauty which, debased, be- came ludicrous. I think the weakness of the production is that it has been over-ornamented and under-con- ceived. The writing by Martin Starkie and Neville Coghill is thoroughly satisfying; the music by Richard Hill and John Haw- kins.is gracefully and medievally English even when it leans on rock or calypso; the lighting, settings and costumes are deco- rative, sometimes exciting, de- spite distractions of too-busy on- stage set shifting. Chaucer’s words, up-dated, are here; his human perception is here; but despite the. huge O’Keefe stage and the sound and the color, the show too often has the: feel of a cameo. It is mostly on: the 4} to the end climaxes in the Ul umph of the workers. Why. the? should workers be afraid of # struggle — affirming a reality that promises (and already ha’ brought them) victory? If this is true, why not say » in books, art, music, etc.? Socialist artists do say so. Ane that’s what bourgeois criti have against them. After all, wht wants to be told that his day ending? In this book, the “basic pri ciples of Soviet literature” alt reducible to, the principle th# the present and the future belom to the working class and thef fore art should understand th@ and react sensitively in its ow! form, to the great change in hi tory and mankind. This is ter ribly hard to do—though man people think nothing more required of a socialist artist thé that he sit like a bird on a WU all day and sing: “Hosannah!” No, what is required is a tho! ough-going exploration of new fields of . human experient whose frontiers have scarce) been breached. This book sub gests some of them. ROLE OF LABOR IN ART The signal contribution of th! book, in my opinion, lies in th treatment of the role played labor in art. You’ll find no sue discussions from any bourge? critic. At most, he will grudgin ly concede that “work” had som relationship to song and dance! the remote past. But none now Yet the whole theme of m0 ern art is the complaint that it! “alienated.” It has no home—" father, no mother. But the whol aim of revolution is to aboli§ the “alienation” of the work from his work (the middle cla is doomed until the class itsel disappears), and to re-establi§ the harmony which existed D tween man and the product ® his labor in communal times. Th! re-healing of the historic SP will also reproduce the whol man, that is, the healthy ma who is almost totally © absé from the scene today. Esthetics, as you see, is i) discipline that has nothing to with life. Art is the reflection life. Without life, there is no 4 Without art, life is bleak. (Daily world surface. It lacks lustiness, the! is no real joy in this amorov’ ness, the bawdiness lacks bod! the form does not enrich ™ content. : The actors, dancers and sinh ers work too hard. They m? sparkle and style. In brief, @ gaging as it is, the producti! in its voyage from Chaucel” 14th Century England, has bf come Americanized. But Canterbury Tales, ap from its flaws, is usually ve amusing. I particularly liked 1” Nun's Priest’s Tale about rooster, the hens and the f@ for its sheer physical color, mime and its dancing and I lik® The Merchant’s Tale, especial! for its glorious garden. Martyn Green, Constance C# penter, Patrick Hines and Re Walston head the large com ny: ».. —MARTIN.ST