ee

VAVAV
BN/\/N

By WILLIAM KASHTAN

Leader, Communist
Party of Canada

ROGRESSIVE mankind is celebrat-
ing the 50th Anniversary of the
Great October Revolution, the re-

volution which not only “shook the
world” but literally began the process
of changing it.

No other revolution has had and
continues to have such a profound ef-
fect on the destinies of mankind. There
had been revolutions before, but these
led to a change in the form of explo-
itation of man by man. The aims of
the Great October Socialist Revolution
were fundamentally different—to end
exploitation, national oppression, in-
equality, misery and want, and build a
new society which would establish en-
tirely new social relations between
people based. on public ownership of
‘the main means of production. Under
the leadership of Lenin and the party
he helped to build and guided by the
science of Marxism, which he creative-
ly developed, the firm foundations of
such a new society came into being.

This opened a new era for mankind.
It signalled the fact that the domina-
tion of capital on a world scale had
been broken once and for all, and that
a new chapter had opened up—the con-
test between the working class which
had achieved political power in one
sixth of the world, and imperialism
which had assumed it was eternal and
sacrosanct.

The history of the past 50 years has
been a record of that contest expres-
sing itself in different ways.

The 50th Anniversary of the Great
October Socialist Revolution coincides
in time with Canada’s Centennial Year.
Over the last 100 years Canada has
been transformed from an agrarian-
industrial economiy into a highly deve-
loped capitalist state. Through cease-
less effort, working people have built
up their democratic organizations and
trade unions, and by militant action

have been able to raise their living .

standards. ,On the surface Canada ap-
pears as one of the affluent societies.
And yet, while celebrating the Centen-
nial, growing numbers of Canadians
ask: “what is Canada’s-future likely to
be over the next 100 years?” This anx-
iety arises from the fear of U.S. foreign
policy, fear of growing U.S. domina-
tion over the Canadian economy, un-
certainty about the effects of the tech-
nological and scientific revolution as
long as monopoly, U.S. and Canadian
alike, remain in the saddle, concern
about rising prices, taxes and rents and
the continued housing shortage. Not
least there is fear of a break up of the
country unless a new Canadian Con-

greet

Canadians

Fiftieth

Anniversary

stitution is adopted which establishes
a voluntary equal partnership of the
English speaking and French Canadian
peoples. ,

It is on this background that atti-
tudes towards the Soviet Union are
changing. We have gone a long way
from the period when a Tory Canadian
government participated with 13 other
countries in a war of intervention
against the then young socialist state
and sent Canadian troops to Murmansk,
as part of the effort of world imperial-
ism to crush the October Revolution.
Public opinion and above all the efforts
of the working class, compelled the
withdrawal of these troops. The work-
ing class of Canada became part of the
powerful movement of solidarity on a
world scale which nipped in the bud
Winston Churchill’s effort at “strang-
ling Bolshevism at its birth.”

We have equally gone a long way
from the studied, hostile campaign un-
dertaken in in this country to isolate
the Soviet Union and prevent the
spread of the great ideas the revolu-
tion helped to unleash. With all the
propaganda and misrepresentation of
the ideals and aims of socialism all
through the cold war, reaction in Can-
ada has not been able to undermine in
any basic way interest in the Soviet
Union not only in the working class
movement but among other sections of
society as well.

Throughout the years there has de-
veloped a growing respect for the
great scientific, economic and cultural
achievements of the Soviet Union and
with it the recognition that the real na-
tional interests of our country can best
be safeguarded by strengthening
friendly and good neighborly relations
with the Soviet Union. History has
clearly demonstrated that those reac-
tionary circles who try to undermine
this friendship do a grave disservice to
Canada itself. This is why Canadians
welcomed the beginnings of trade, tra-
vel and cultural exchanges between
Canada and the USSR and would wel-
come an ever greater exchange of
scientific and technical information, of
travel and of trade union delegates.

It is a fact that the very existence of
the Soviet Union and community of
socialist states has strengthened all
those national and democratic forces
who strive to maintain the real inde-
pendence and sovereignty of our coun-
try and want Canada to strike out on
an independent course in foreign
affairs.

The growing strength of the Soviet
Union and its power of attraction to
working people has created more favor-
able conditions for working men and
women to improve their economic con-
ditions and to begin challenging mono-
poly in various ways. Every struggle
for reform in our country—for com-
plete health services, for universal ac-
cessibility to university education, for
the extension of democratic rights, in-

cluding the right to a job and an annu-
al income, is reinforced by the living
example and achievements of the Soviet
Union.

The working class which is growing
numerically is also becoming increas-
ingly conscious of- its own strength.
The growing process of concentration
and centralization of power in the
hands of a smaller and smaller group
of monopolies, a process facilitated by
the technological and scientific revolu-
tion and the policies of state monopoly
capital, is in turn stimulating various
movements of the people all of which
in one form or another begin to ques-
tion and challenge monopoly and the
establishment.

Increasingly the workers are de-
manding that they have a say in how
technological change is to be effected.
Farmers are demanding a voice with
respect to agricultural policy. Students
have advanced the slogan of student
power. In here one sees the seeds of an
jidea—that the working people of our
country should have a voice and a say
in policy and not be the victims of
monopoly policy as they are today.
Sooner or later this idea of power
which today is limited to specific areas
will merge in one powerful stream and
move in the direction of an anti-
monopoly coalition and towards the
achievement of socialism in our coun-
try by peaceful means. These prospects
are made more real precisely because
of, the growing strength of the Soviet
Union and of the world socialist sys-
tem. ; :

Not only have the Soviet Union’s
economic, social and cultural achieve-
ments made an impact on the thinking
and action of Canadians, its approach
to and solution of the national ques-
tion has likewise had a profound effect
particularly in French Canada where
all the ingredients of a democratic re-
volution are in process of development.

In their efforts at overcoming the
unequal union which brought Confede-
ration \about in 1867 and which this
year is being celebrated as the Centen-
nial Year, the French Canadian people
are being compelled to strive for the
achievement of the right of national
self determination including the right
of separation. This is the heart and.
core of what is a crisis of Confedera-
tion and a crisis of bourgeois state re-
lationships. This demand for national
self-determination is growing with ever
greater vigor and as the French Can-
adian people seek solutions to this and
to the problem of effecting an equal
union of English speaking and French
Canadian people, they increasingly
look to the Soviet Union and the way
in which it solved the national ques-
tion.

It is a matter of considerable signi-
ficance when the anti-socialist Premier
of Quebec can declare:

“The Soviet Union has provided the
proof that federalism as properly un-

November 4, 1967 — PACIFIC TRIBE

“be resolved. Truth creeps the

derstood can be workable a
interesting and useful exe a
Canadians at a time whem a
thinking our own Constitutl

In this as on other Ph
Soviet Union has showf itse ef
model, an example of how a
mental problems before %

the lies and distortions of ;
ly press in the same way eh
and prejudices of yesterday i
pelled by the reality °
today. ; nett
The first 50 years have sgl
and difficult years as they yet
been joyous years. We be sh
phase of development will b is
the more so if imperialism
and its aims defeated. “59%
easy the example set Ya
Union, its very existence 108 1 7
a socialist community of $a
new inspiration and hopé ho

On the occasion of the ye
sary of the Great October
Canadian Communists, all
ing to a better future, ane
of the Soviet Union wou a
“Well done!. You have bir
your exertions and examp
indicated a path all mankit ys 7
to. assure a happy fut
ful world.”

NE =