By GENNADY PISAREVSKY

MOSCOW (SPN) — April 22,
the birthday of Vladimir- Ilyich
Lenin, founder of the Soviet
State, is marked throughout the
USSR. This commemoration is
indeed nation-wide.

Lenin was bom on April 22,
1870 in the town of Simbirsk (now
Ulynavosk) on the Volga into a
family of Russian intellectuals.
His real surname is Ulyanov, Le-
nin is his penname which as-
sumed when he had to go into hid-
ing from persecution by the tsarist
regime.

Lenin finished secondary
school with a gold medal and then
graduated in law at St. Petersburg
University. From his early years
Lenin made a profound study of
the works of Karl Marx and Fre-
derick Engels, founders of
scientific communism, com-
prehensively' developed their
teaching and enriched it with new
conclusions and propositions.

In analysing Russian realities,
Lenin arrived at the conclusion
that the autocracy was unable to
solve any of the problems facing
the country at the turn of the cen-
tury. Under Lenin’s leadership
and a Party of Communists
created by him, the working
people of Russian accomplished
the 1917 socialist revolution.

Almost 60 years have passed

Be

since then during which a de-
veloped socialist society has been
built in the USSR. The Soviet
Union has become a mighty
industrial-agrarian power: its
economic potential is the biggest
in Europe and second biggest (af-
ter that of the USA) in the world.
Socialism has put an end
forever to all forms of enslave-
ment and oppression. Society is
no longer divided into the exploit-
ers and the exploited. In the
Soviet Union, with more than 100
big and small nations inhabiting it,
the national question has been
successfully resolved. Every citi-
zen enjoys real, and not formal,
rights: the right to work, to educa-
tion, rest and leisure, and security
in old age. .
And here are the results: there
is no unemployment in the USSR;
the last labor exchange in the
Soviet Union was closed in 1930;
All children obtain at least a sec-

ondary education; both at school

and in colleges education is free;
medical care is also free; all work-
ing people — men at age 60 and
women at age 55 — receive old
age pensions from the state
budget.

Of course, there are still many
unsolved problems in the life of
Soviet society. But taking a look
at the Soviet Union’s achieve-
ments, the unbiased person will

Lenin talking with H.G. Wells in his study at the Kremlin, In Oct. 1920.

“TE HUH,.

10 80 aapean

The house in Ulyanovsk, formerly Simbirsk, where Lenin was born in

1870.

easily understand that socialism is
areally humane society.

Lenin’s scientific heritage runs
into 55 volumes. Statistics show
that Lenin is the most widely-read
author in the world. His works
have been translated into more
than 120 languages and their edi-
tions total hundreds of millions of
copies.

No matter what key problem:

facing humanity, be it the struggle
for peace and social progress, or
the abolition of national oppres-
sion and racism, it surely found its
reflection in his works.

Lenin substantiated the possi-
bility of peaceful coexistence of
states with different social sys-
tems, the possibility of excluding
war as a means of settling interna-
tional disputes. This is particu-
larly topical now in this nuclear
age. The Leninist principles of
peaceful coexistence form the
basis of Soviet foreign policy.
Within the last few years alone,
the Soviet Union has made more
than 70 constructive proposals
aimed at preventing war, easing
international tensions and prom-
oting trust and friendship among
nations.

Basing himself on the objective
laws of history, Lenin scienti-
fically proved the inevitability of
the collapse of the colonial system
... The period of the awakening
of the East, ... he wrote, ... is
being succeeded by a period in
which all the Eastern peoples will
participate in deciding the destiny
of the whole world, so as not to be
simply objects of the enrichment
of others. The peoples of the East
are becoming alive to the need for
practical action, the need for ev-
ery nation to take part in shaping
the destiny of all mankind ...

This forecast of Lenin’s came
true before our very eyes: dozens
of independent states have ap-
peared on the political map of the
world.

Mankind has entered the last
quarter of the 20th Century. Le-
nin was deeply convinced that

sooner or later all peoples would -

embark on the road of building

socialism. The world socialist .

system is a confirmation of his
correct scientific prevision. To-
day, it is the most dynamic
economic region in the world.

TORONTO — On April 11,
members of Canadians Con-
cerned about Southern Africa met
at the Eaton's Centre to protest
the exhibition of De Beer’s
diamonds being held there. They
wore signs pinned to their cloth-
ing pointing out the ‘‘Diamonds
are the tombstones of South Afri-
ca” and “De Beer’s exploits
Black workers’’.

The protesters joined those.
viewing the diamonds until the
head of security at Eaton’s asked
them to leave. Wheni the protes-
ters replied that they were merely:
attending a public viewing, a
policeman was summoned who
ordered them from the building.

Outside on the street a crowd
gathered to discuss with the de-
monstrators the issue of South
African apartheid. A representa-
tive of the group, Jeanne
McGuire, explained their pur-
pose.

“‘We want to pressure govern-
ments and. corporations of
Canada into withdrawing all
economic and moral support from
the apartheid regime of South Af-
rica,” she said.

When asked why they had cho-
sen to protest this particular dis-
play Ms. McGuire replied,
“Diamonds are, more than most
products, a symbol of wealth.
The contrast between the deplor-
able conditions of the diamond
miners and the wealth denoted by
the diamonds (one of the
diamonds displayed has an esti-
mated value of $1,000,000) is too
gross to ignore.” ;

How do the conditions of South
African workers affect us in ©
Canada? ‘The existence any- ~
where in the world of workers
who can be super-exploited poses —
a threat to Canadian workers.
Plants in Canada are closed down
in order to relocate in South Af-
rica to reap super-profits. The
workers there are, by law, denied
the right to unionize to improve
their wages or working condi-
tions. This must be of concern to
all of us.”’

May First (May Day) is the day of
working class solidarity on an interna-
tional scale. Onginating on the North
American continent as a part of the
struggle for the eight-hour day, de-
clared a day of international solidarity
by the First (socialist) International, it
is now celebrated by workers in every
country where the organized workers’
movement exists.

May Day is a powerful symbol of
workers’ power, both real and poten-
tial. It is the day when the organized
workers gather together in their various
ways to assess the past year’s struggles,
and chart a course of struggle for the
year ahead.

* * *

Born out of the struggles of workers
against capitalist exploitation, it is
celebrated alike in the socialist coun-
tries where state power is in the hands
of the working people, and in those
countries where that goal has yet to be
attained. But, as sure as day follows
night, state power in all lands will even-
tually rest in the hands of the working
people. It is only a matter of time.

Almost 130 years ago the fathers of
scientific socialism, wrote these
prophetic words in the Communist
Manifesto: ‘“The development of mod-
em industry ... cuts from under its feet
the foundation on which the

bourgeoisie produces and appropriates
products. What the bourgeoisie there-
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1977—Page 4

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

_fore produces, above all, are its own

grave diggers (the working class, ed.).
Its fall and the victory of the proletariat
are equally inevitable’.

They showed that this is so because
“‘modern bourgeois society with its re-
lations of production, of exchange and
of property, a society that has conjured
up such gigantic means of production
and exchange, is like the sorcerer who
is no longer able to control the powers
of the neither world whom he has called
up by his spells’.

* * *

The authors of the Manifesto pointed
out that the history of industry and
commerce is but the history of the re-
volt of modern productive forces
against modem conditions of produc-
tion, against the property relations that
are the conditions for the existence of
the capitalist class and of its rule. It is
enough, they said, to mention the
commercial crises that by their periodic
return put the existence of the entire
capitalist society on trial, each time
more threateningly.

The Manifesto draws the conclusion
that the capitalist class is unfit to rule
because “‘it is incompetent to assure an
existence to its slave within his slavery
... that he has to feed him, instead of

being fed by him’’. ‘‘Society’’, it states,
“can no longer live under this
bourgéoisie ... its existence is no
longer compatible with society’’.
Look on Canada now. An estimated
million and a quarter unemployed and
the end not yet in sight as the crisis
lingers on, while the representatives of
the monopolists who sit in the seats of
power ‘fiddle while Rome burns’ admit-
ting publicly they have no solution for

the crisis which grips the country. Tru-

ly, they are incompetent.
x * *

Just as the modern working class is a
product of capitalism, so the working
class movement, both in single coun-
tries and on an international scale, is a
product of the working class. The
workers organized in trade unions: in
defence of their collective economic in-
terests. They organized political parties
in order to defend and advance their
political interests of the moment, and
for the ultimate aim of replacing the rule
of the capitalist class with that of the
working people.

They have organized their interna-
tional associations to defend and ad-
vance their vital class interests, for the
workers in all capitalist countries face a
common foe. They share in common

those social and economic problems
rooted deeply in capitalist exploitation;
and which can only be fully solved .
through the complete abolition of such
exploitation.
* OK i
The workers in the socialist and
capitalist countries, in the newly-

~ developing countries and those still
- languishing under colonial bondage, all

share the same class interests. Namely;
to. ensure that social progress is not
halted, that the road to sustained demo-
cracy and socialism is kept open.
Their vital class interests serve to un-

' ite workers the world over against the

international power of the capitalist
monopolies, and makes working class
(proletarian) internationalism not only
a possibility but a necessity for the -
workers, an essential condition for their
common struggle.

* ok *

In Canada the need for working class
solidarity has never been greater. Our
country is gripped in the throes of deep
economic crisis combined with a crisis
of confederation. The working-class
and trade union movement of both our
nations on this May Day, must see itself
as the decisive force in securing a
democratic solution to the crisis of
Canadian unity and to that of the
economy.

Long Live May Day and Working
Class Solidarity!