* Twenty-four years is a long time for a ra

fio program to be on the air, but the Lone
Ranger has won an enduring place in the hearts of Canadian children and the program’s
popularity continues undiminished.

Soviet comedy showing tn city
widely acclaimed by critics

HEN the Stratford Shakes-
‘pearian Film Festival was
looking for a comedy of pres-
ent day Soviet life it specifical-
ly requested the new Soviet
film Soldier Ivan Brovkin.
The request was made, it
seems, after reading the con-
tinental film reviews, and those
of British critics, apart from
the fact that Soldier Ivan Brov-
kin is the first film here about
life in the peace-time Red
Army.
The film is of interest in its

completely uninhibited picture
of a born “misfit.” Ivan is a
peasant lad who has a knack
of getting into trouble no mat-
ter what the situation and no
matter how much he tries.
Gales of laughter have follow-
ed Ivan as he patiently trudges
from mishap to mishap equally
in civilian and army life.

Soldier Ivan  Brovkin is
beautiful magicolor and has
Russian titles with English sub-
titles. It plays at the Hastings
Odeon here April 11-13.

TICKETS NOW ON SALE AT
PEOPLE’S CO-OP BOOKSTORE
Arthur Miller’s |

“All My Sons”

FRIDAY and SATURDAY

APRIL 19 & 20

os 8:20 P.M.

York Theatre — 639 Commercial

VANCOUVER DRAMA WORKSHOP

New encyclopedia
goes on sale this June

HE first five volumes or the
new Encyclopaedia Cana-
diana are scheduled to be on
sale by June. The remaining
five are expected to follow in
quick succession.

The encyclopaedia contains
3,000,000 words divided into
10,000 articles. It has accounts
of every Canadian community
with a population of 300 or
more — and of smaller places
that have historical signific-
ance.

China's giant strides
to freedom retraced

N A park in San Francisco’s

Chinese community, the
massive figure of Sun Yat-sen}
reverently wrought in stain-
less steel gazes serenely over
the city. But in these times
serenity ill becomes the face
of Sun, whose dreams of a
mighty friendship between
China and the United States
are yet thwarted by his life-
long foe, imperialism.

Probably a majority of Am-
ericans believe the U.S. gov-
ernment’s hostility to China
dates from the Korean war.
This impression is deliberately
fostered by government
spokesmen, who claim U.S.
“security interests” dictates
their policies.

The truth, however, is al-
together different.

Sun Yat-sen’s life spanned
but a second in the long his-
tory of China, which extends
back through the rule of Ku-
blai Khan (1259-1294 AD) to
the reign of Emperor Fu-hit
(2852-2738 B.C.)

Yet, for more than 25 cen-
turies, Chinese society was
stifled by feudalism against
which the peasant masses hurl-
ed themselves in more than
18 gigantic uprisings. Only af-
ter imperialism had shattered
the feudal barriers and set in

.motion the forces: of . revolu-

tion — the period roughly cor-
responding to Sun Yat-sen’s
life — was China able to take
the giant steps that have made
it one of the world’s great
powers.

These steps, the, latest great
revolts against feudalism, mer-
ging into the mighty upsurge
against imperialism and final-
ly realizing victory in the pro-
clamation, October 1, 1949, of
the People’s Republic of China
occurred in but little more than
a century. But this is the de-
cisive century, the one in
which attitudes and policies de-
veloped which govern U.S.-
Chinese relations today.

ot it x

Israel Epstein, a veteran,
painstaking, pipe - smoking
yournalist who loves China and
the Chinese tells the story of
this decisive centuryin in his
From Opium War to Libera-
tion (obtainable here at the
People’s Co-op Bookstore, 337
West Pender Street, price 35
cents). Fact-filled, tightly
written and fast-paced it con-

RUSSIAN DIALOGUE
“ENGLISH. SUBTITLES
IN MA
ae

tains many actual revelations.

There is, for instance, the
well-documented record of
U.S. hostility to Chinese in-
dependence aspirations, stem-
ming from American partici-
pation in the opium trade im-
posed on China in the early
19th century, and Daniel Web-
ster’s dispatch of Caleb Cush-
ing to extort from China after
her defeat in the First Opium
War the humiliating Treaty of
Wanghsia (1844).

This treaty extorted extra-
territorial rights, reduction in
tonnage duties and the right
of internal navigation within
Chinese waters.

Uninterruptedly and consis-
tently during the next 113
years, U.S. policy opposed
true independence for the
Chinese people. Even during
the war against Japan, when
U.S. policy was most enlight-
ened and liberal toward na-
tional independence aims of
colonial peoples, Washington’s
basic objective was to
strengthen a regime that would
be subordinate to U.S. imper-
ialistic aims.

In the 1924 period, when
Sun § Yat-sen’s Kuomintang
set up the Whampoa Military
Academy, Chiang Kai-shek
the dean, was as much of a
“red bandit” to U.S. imperial-
ism as Chou En-lai, the politi-
cal director. After 1927, when
Chiang turned against the
workers and peasants, he be-
came for the U.S. government
leaders the “hero” and “strong
man” of China.

There is however, another
revelation in Epstein’s work.
Time after time the -Chinese
people were defeated and bru-
tally robbed and massacred by
the forces of imperialism. Each
time they came back to fight
again.

Epstein’s quotation of an ex-
cerpt from the U.S. State De-
partment’s White Paper on re-
lations with China (1949) is
apt. “ae. Dhe=result of. the
civil war in China was beyond

the control of the United
States ... It was the product
of internal Chinese forces

which this country tries to in-
fluence but could not.”

Epstein’s book exposes the
folly of the present U.S. pos-
ture of aggressive hostility to
China, the stupidity of its as-
sumption that what U.S. im-
perialism was unable to do be-
fore 1949 it is able to do now.

The alternative he proposes
is infinitely more wise, econ-
omically expedient, and basic-
ally sound.

“Kast or West, the true in-
terests of the peoples are not
in conflict . . . More and more
they are coming to an under-
standing of where their com-
mon benefit lies. They are win-
ning a new world by their
joint action,”

JOHN PITTMAN

APRIL 12, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 12