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Russia,

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AS cach year rolls around to that

, -?,_ Alstoric: birthday, of January —
#2. the.Tmmortal Memory ‘of

~ Seotland’s national bard, Robbie
“Urns, assumes a new brilliance:
“nda new meaning,’ It is just six
“Years “short of. two  cénturies
“ince that stormy January ‘morn-

: ‘NY in 1759 when, in a poverty-

Stricken peasant’s cottage in Ayr-

Shire, a son of the people was

0, destined to sing the death-
#88 song of peace and freedom,
_ Rot only for his native land, but
“OF all oppressed and toiling hu-

Manity, ,
on a i eis P
The Span of the 194 years since
mane birth of Scotland’s plowman
aPget Covers the great advance of
i nManity from the birth of demo-
gecy. in. the first French Revolu-
( tanh £0 the birth of socialism in
The gréat Gctobet: Revolution in
a. .It covers the greatest
Jchiévements of the common peo-
2S, wrought out of their suffer-

ee and sorrow, —

x

ton at

The same span of years also coy-

AE Maly bloody wars of pillage and

‘Plunder, instigated -by a. ruling
~Saste in. whom the lust for greed
og ain is the only consistent
Roe It covers the period of
OY “great” men, “great”? only

leeting moment, ere their in-
“my and the earth hid ‘them from,

f Uman kent

re Over these long years, like the

Berets ebb and flow of a mighty
‘tide,

‘the People of .all lands have

oye cred strength to surge for-
en ard, Consciously and instinctive-

ith the songs of Robbie Burns

co ais
0 their lips and in their hearts,

CU tn tS ne

CZ :
7

NS
SS

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‘ Robert Burns,..born January 25, 1759.

toward that goal he so clearly fore-
told when he wrote:
“For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Its comin’ yet for a’ that;
When Man to Man, the
warld ower,
Shall brithers be for ’a that.”

The secret (if we may use such

‘a term), in describing the genius

of Robbie Burns, is not that he
was born and reared in poverty
and back-breaking toil, a humble
son of humble parents.” Wherever
the exploitation of! man by man is

. held to be a heaven-ordained ar-

rangement, that condition is still

all too widespread. F

The genius of Robbie Burns
rests entirely in his boundless love
and tender concern for every living
thing: his determination to hold on
to values which,. like the soil in
which they grow, are indestruct- |
ible; his affinity with every living
thing struggling with the forces of
nature or man-made obstacles to
live. Being born of and remain-

ing with the common people whose

is blended with: his
own — that. is the Secrets. thie
genius of Burns. Only those who
know ‘and share the sorrows, toil,

immortality

and fleeting joys of the people, can
give expression to the unspoken
hopes’ and desires that are locked’
in their hearts.

J . :

“In the concluding chapter of the

. History of the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin
refers to an ancient Greek legend
to illustrate the indomitable
strength of the Bolsheviks. It also
illustrates the flowering genius and
granite-like strength of Scotland’s
immortal bard — and how: little a
smug well-fed. bourgeois rattle-

McEWEN

4 f i SAE ELBIRU/ EEN RIENET EB!

head knows of the Bard his vulgar
orations are said to “honor” when

the Immortal Memory is toasted!

“In the \nythology of the
ancient Greeks there was a ceie-
brated hero, Antaeus, who, so the
legend goes, was the son of Posei-
don, god of the seas, and Gaea,
goddess of the earth. Antaeus

was very much attached to the

~ mother who had given him birth,

suckled: him and reared — him.
There was not a hero whom this

Antaeus did not vanquish.” He

wag regarded as an invincible
hero. Wherein lay his strength?
. It lay in the.fact that every time
he was hard-pressed in a fight
with an adversary he would touch
the earth, the mother who: had
given birth to him and suckled
him, and that gave him new.
strength.

“J think the Bolsheviks remind
us of the hero of” Greek myth-
ology, Antaeus.. They, like An-
taeus, are strong because they
maintain connection with their
mother, | the masses, who gave
birth to them, suckled them and
reared them. . .”

It was the stubborn earth of
those Ayrshire. farms,»Mount Oli-
phant, Lochlea. and Mossgiel, which
shaped the genius of Robbie Burns
and tempered ‘Win the class fires
of innocent. struggle. To that
earth and itg people he clung, be-
cause like Antaeus, it was the
source of his strength and genius,

carrying him from a humble Scot-
{

tish cottage into! the hearts of the
toiling peoples of every nation and

clime.

It was from these farms, weary
and dog-tired that the Bard would
sally forth to swap the stories and
songs of human toil and hope, to
meet with men of true worth and

learning who, recognizing his gen-

PU TT

“A man’s a man, for a’ that.” :
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 23, 1953 — PAGE 9

THUBIVELIEIIEL)

ius, gave of their own riches of

down-to-earth knowledge to hast-

en its flowering into full bloom.

It was from these stubborn
acres too, that he would some-
times go forth in search of con-
vivial company in the pubs eof
Mauchline, Kilmarnock, and far-
ther afield. There, with “Tam O'
Shanter,” “Souter Johnny” and
all the other worthies who became
the mirror of his genius, the Bard

turned the sordidness of poverty ~

and “gree” into the most beautiful
song and poetry that has ever
gladdened the heart of man.

From these farms, his hands cal-
loused at the plow, the Bard came
to Edinburgh, the national seat of
learning, class snobbery, and
haughty disdain, not for material
wealth, but for the poorly-clad
and “‘ill-geared” sons of toil whose
arduous labors. produced their un-
earned wealth.

e@

It is not uncommon for the up-
‘per crust of our: modern society
to “elevate” some talented son of
the people to their own social
level; to flatter and corrupt him
and buy him off either by direct
bribery or position. Should such
a person because of his following
among the common people be re-

garded as something of a chal-

lenge to organized parasitism, he
can, if he is built that way, write
his own bribery ticket.

In ‘that respect class society
hasn’t changed much since Burns’
day. These wiles they also tried
on the Bard. In debate his home-
spun native good sense flattened
their shallow pretenses of learn-
ing. In their social circles this
-plowman embarrassed his “pat-
rons” by conducting himself as
their equal. At all times he let the
Edinburgh “society” of his day,
know the only people that count-
ed in the real scheme of things
were those who toiled, worshipped
and lived — without guile or pre-
tense. P

boo

The tinsel and glitter of make-
believe and parasitiz idleness held
no attractions for Robbie Burns.
With deep earnestness ahd great
dignity he took from Auld Reekie
(Edinburgh) the gifts of learning
and knowledge she had to give,
turning his back on bourgeois
dross, dirt and deceit. Scotland's
plowman poet could not be cor-
rupted by the blandishments of his |

. betters.”

Joe Wallace, poet-laureate of
the Canadian working people, has
written a fine stanza on Burns? so-
Journ with Auld Reekie. It has a
splendid moral for Burns? ain
folk,” one in which the Bard gave
a brilliant. example. Wallace en-
titled this’ hitherto unpublished
poem, We all go up to Edinburgh:

“When Burns went up to Edin-!
burgh 2
‘ The town sak at his feet
He could have drunk from any
glass
Or shifted any sheet,

Where wealth and birth were
ranked as worth

And culture was assumed
And where the girls, while not’
the’ best, :
Were far the best perfumed.

Burns had that weakness of the
_ flesh

That most of us deplore
It wasn’t that he sinned’ so much
But talked about it more,

And here he showed nobility
. ‘+ That won him more than fame,
The only poet of our tongue
Loved by his Christian name;
He turned his back on Edin-
*. burgh diet
Where he was lionized
_ To join by choice and be their
Voice,
The lowly and despised.
We all go up to Edinburgh
Whatever be our role;
‘Turn back in time with Robbie
Burns
Before you lose your soul,

The Immortal Memory of Burns
is a tribute to those, living and
dead, who made his creed of life.
their own. Today millions are
building a new socialist world in
Europe and Asia — a world that
is a dream of Robbie Burns come
true. His Tree of Liberty, a stir-
ring tribute to the first great ef-
forts of a people to shake them-

selves free of oppression’s chains,.

is today nearing full bloom.

‘The songs of Burns are the
songs of toil, love, and peace. The
words, first pouring from his lips
in the “Lallans” tongue of ‘his
native land, are sung today by the
people of every land

in whose
hearts the hope of, and determina-

tion for universal peace is upper-
most. His is the deathless voice
of the common people, marching
towards Singing Tomorrows, con--
fident with their beloved Bard
that, :
“... the sword wad help to mak

a plow,
The din o’? war wad cease,
man;
Like brethern jin a common
cause, »

We'd on each ither smile, man; _
And equal rights and equal foun
Wad gladden every isle, man.”

e Illustrations on this Page are
from woodcuts by F. Favorsky, |
the Soviet artist who illustrat
ed S. Marshak’s Russian trans-
lations of Robért Burns,