_ Ontario election.

_ Principles.

- Members a

AT hit us?” CCF mem-
-bers are asking since the
With a ‘ed-
eral election shaping up nfwybe

for next year and at least four’

provincial elections ahead they
may well ask that question.

'» Some of the answers can be

found in the new Draft of CCF
The CCF national
council has written the Draft
for discussion prior to its meet-
ing early in the New Year
where amendments will be con-
Sidered and a final draft sent
0n to the 1952 national conven-
tion.

It should not be difficult for
wide-awake CCF’ers to oppose
this document. The background
of the new Draft is the scuttl-
Ing of the 1932 Regina Mani-
festo which. founded the ‘CCF.
Tt was felt by the right wing
that the Regina Manifesto,
Written as it was in the middle
of the 1929-33 economic crisis,
Was capable of too. radical an
interpretation. Hence the new
Draft.

At first glance one would
think that the tumultuous his-
tory of the years 1932-52 held
no lessons for the CCF leaders.
But that is not so. Precisely
because of the world crisis the
present Draft moves to the
right—so that in essentials it
1S not much different from a
Program that could be support-

1 by, nationalization-minded
Liberals,

_Itis not a Draft program de-
Signed to meet the needs of the
Working class, or of the small
farmers, but to head off and

frustrate their struggles.

It is aimed at getting the
Support of the middle class and
Sections of the capitalists and
he a CCF further away

€ working class. The
ook Dratt Principles are those

a middle-class liberal party, ©
not a labor party.

Yet thousands’ of CCF mem-
ers, especially working people,
ey a ‘working-class party and

OuSands of CCF farm sup-
es ‘want a farmer-labor al-
Jance. Many middle-class pro-

_ 8?essives want leadership from

the working class.
ares forward-looking people
att fook in vain for the realiz-
on of their hopes in the new
Principles. The gulf between
fe Opinions of the CCF top
By €rs and the wishes of thous-
olde of CCF supporters is ever
Pare ine Hence the low CCF
ec in Ontario. Hence the
ISIs pas has overtaken the
€nce the sharp -differ-
shin Sige right-wing leader-
. nd t
mem : om masses of the
®

4 There is a sharp struggle go-

38 on within CCF ranks. This

Was strikingly expressed in the

opentto elections: in the re-
forine: among workers and
na €rs to the LPP appeals
,_~ Work for Jabor-farmer uni-
ed @ action for peace which led
an = Dowling, Harry Wal-
Gen. alter Parker, Lloyd Fell,
iner eo et Faweett, Reg. Gard-

» Joe Easton and Thomas
in Comas — CCF candidates
See Ss chief industrial
hens S—signing the five-power
DUblic sk petition or taking a
Peace. ah for negotiated

Oshac®, tue that Thomas of
electi 4 repudiated his stand on
‘bed eve, but the cen-

; S that CCF official
deneaates, in response to the
ands of the workers, in re:

to pressures of CCF
nd supporters, took
Dine. ‘Stands _ for negotiated
that nei And it is significant
B sancr M, J. Coldwell nor
‘ss rae rae dared to publicly
to kane these candidates, or
again a disciplinary action
"St them because they pub-

nie

Where
CCF going? —

Me ee By LESLIE MORRIS .

licly took a stand at. variance
with CCF national council
policy. :
These Ontario developments
go together with the important
Saskatchewan events where the
CCF provincial convention ad-

_ opted significant resolutions on

‘the peace issues.

Upon this matter there can
be no doubt: the CCF’ers who
recognize that jabor-farmer
unity in action for peace is the
way forward must shoulder
their responsibilities in a prin-
cipled manner and this means
struggle against the right wing
of the CCF. ;

No wonder a ‘hot debate is
going on in tthe unions and fac-
tories of Ontario as to where
the CCF is going.

. vices,

Four basic principles. are said
to govern the new CCF pro-
gram: human: dignity, social
rights, economic democracy.
world government. No mention
of imperialism and the struggle
against it. No mention of the
awful menace of atomic de-
struction and how to fight it.
No mention of the class strug-
gle between the workers and
the employers. No mention of
the danger of imperialist. war
and the traditional working
class struggle for peace. No
mention of U.S. domination of
Canada and the loss of inde-
pendence. No mention of the
fascist threat. A rejection of
the historical necessity for the
workers to take over the means
of production, and run the coun-
try. Just a number of abstract,
fuzzy paragraphs which run
completely counter to the state-
ment, “The ‘CCF program has
been forged from the realities,
and shaped by the experiences
of Canadian life.”

The basic principles put. for-
ward by the national council
have no relationship to the real
lives and experiences of ‘the
CCF workers and farmers.
These real experiences lead to
a realization of the necessity
of political struggle—a battle
against monopoly capital and
all its works.

There is not a wisp of strug-

gle in the new CCF Draft Prin-
ciples, for peace and the peo-
ple’s vital interests. ,
_ It is true that the program
talks of housing, a floor under
living standards, health  ser-
leisure and recreation.
But so do capitalist politicians,
especially at election time.

What should distinguish a so-

ey be Gt ee @

: the

EEE ENE ENSUE E EERE

the

cialist program from a capital-
ist party program? Not only
recognition of the class
struggle (even the capitalists
do that — but not the CCF
Draft Principles!) ‘but the pro-
jection of struggle for workers’
government. There isn’t a
whisper of such a program in

this connection by Rhiodes
scholars and high-priced labor
lawyers.

®

We are’not concerned here
with the possibility of right-
wing social democrats embrac-
ing a revolutionary workers’
program. That they will not
do. What we are concerned
about is that thousands of CCF
supporters, seeking a way to

. emancipation from capitalism,

to peace, to economic security,
are led up the garden path of
betrayal with this document.
Its end result would be to take
the workers and farmers into
the camp ‘of imperialism under
cover of phrases about “human
dignity.”

The future of the workers
depends upon tthe defeat of
U.S. imperialism, the winning
of national freedom and peace,
social emancipation achieved by
the. working class leading all
progressive people in the fight
for the people’s nation. It de-
pends upon the compulsion of

unity of the five great powers ©

‘to preserve and maintain peace,
to disarm, to ban the atomic
weapon, to take foreign troops
off other people’s territory. It
depends upon solidarity with
\the workers of all countries.
What do we find in this
program? Talk about world
government, regional pacts
(such as NATO, which the CCF
national council fully supports,
but West European peoples re-
ject), and instead of the full
support of the struggles of the
colonial peoples for national
liberation, a snide inference of
backing for the infamous Col-
ombo Plan, and the Truman
‘Point Four for Wall Street
“aid” to “underdeveloped” coun-
tries! Let a CCF rank-and-filer
think for a moment how an
Egyptian, Iranian or West In-
dian worker would regard such
“assistance.” , 4
Winston ‘Churchill would in
the main approve of the “Inter-
national Principles” with which
the CCF. program concludes..
No wonder there is not a hair
of space between the foreign
policies of Clement Attlee and
Anthony Eden—policies which

us WEBER REE

led to the invasion of Korea
and Egypt and the massacre of
Malayan toilers. Do CCF mem-
bers agree with their national
council on these @¢pointst LE
think not.

In a statement of principles
(which Lorne Ingle, CCF na-
tional secretary, is careful ‘to
point out is not an election pro-
gram, implying that you don’t
use your principles in election
campaigns) one would expect
the middle-class liberals in
charge of the»CCF, attempting
as they do to win support from
the workers, to make a flat
statement about the future of
Canadian industry.

But the Draft says that the
CCF program “does not pre-
suppose public ownership of all
the means of production.” The
emphasis is on “planning.”
Planning for whom, for what, ”
by whom, in whose interests?
Whose ox is gored? Is this
painless social dentistry design-
ed to hurt the rapacious U.S.
and Canadians corporations
who control Canadian econo-
my and prepare it for war? Not
if the national council has any-

. thing to say about it.

The Draft says that “securi-
ty” is “threatened by the ef-
forts of totalitarian commun-
ism to overthrow independent

_ States or upset their govern-

ments,” the precise. reason giv-
en by Truman for the imperial-
ist war program. It goes
straight in to talk of “collective
security” and “armed: forces” to
protect a “free world” in which
“socialism can’ flourish.”

. The logic of these statements
is to support armed attack up-
on the Soviet Union and Peo-

_ ple’s China to destroy their

states. The CCF high com-
mand dares not say so openly,
but its support of aggression
against the Korean people to
prepare a place d’armes for
the U.S.-against China, coupled
with the weasel words of this
section of ‘the Principles, indi-
cate clearly that if it came to
war the CCF leaders would be
one the side of the U.S. against
the socialist and People’s Demo-
cratic states—suitably covered
iby the U.S. masquerading as
the UN, of course, as in Korea.

True the Principles hasten to
add that “arms alone cannot
protect democracy.” But there
is no mention of controlled dis-
armament at all! Presumably
the arms must remain, pile up
and finally explode in an atomic
world wide holocaust. The CCF

is asked to do nothing about it
but to play with catchwords
and abstractions. Yet it is peo-
ple’s struggle which alone will
stop a new war. The people
must take the cause of peace
into their own hands, and de-
fend it to the end.

®

Whose “democracy” is the
CCF leadership talking about
all through this document? CCF
clubs should ask themselves
that question. Is it capitalist
democracy, the state system
historically produced to defend
the interests of capitalist pri-
vate property? Of course. The
only other democracy which can
exist is a people’s democracy,
which the CCF national council
condemns, a state system de-
signed to protect ‘the interests
of, wage workers and farmers
and which alone can build so-
cialism, a wholly new social
system.

The CCF Principles as draft-
ed by the national leaders stand
on the side of capitalist democ-
racy against people’s democ-
racy.

- Whither the CCF? Or, more
precisely, whither the hundreds
of thousands of CCF supporters °
who have broken from the old

two-party capitalist set-up and

are looking for a way .ahead?
They and their opinions are far
more important than the Draft
Principles. What of workers’
opinions about the bureaucratic
and unworkable Political Ac-
tion Committees of the CCF,
and the whole “political arm of
labor” theory of the top leaders

of the CCF?

The issues around which
labor independent political ac-
tion must crystallize are unity
for peace, against the arms
drive, for the vital needs of the
workers and farmers, against
monopoly capital and its Yan-
kee-dominated program of na-
tional treachery. Struggle on
these questions is the heart and
soul of the people’s struggle in
Canada today. They arise out
of the very “real experiences”
of the masses which the CCF
national council talks about.

The right-wing CCF jJeaders
will not change their attitude
on these “real” matters. They
have long ago proved that on
all fundamental questions they
are essentially at ione with the
capitalist class.

But the CCF supporters are
not in that position. They ‘can
and will change their attitudes,
and so can the rank-and-file of
the CCF party.

Without a doubt, in the dis-
cussion of the Draft Principles
these questions will be brought
forward. The crisis which has

overtaken the CCF is not to be

blamed, as the CCF opportun-
ists do, upon the fact that thou-

sands) of CCF voters stayed

home and did not vote in the
Ontario election, but on a ‘bank-
rupt right-wing policy. :

Why didn’t they come out to
vote? Because they thought
that there was no difference—
on these fundamental questions
—between the line of the capit-
alist parties and the line of the

- CCF. Consequently they voted

with their feet by staying home.

The Draft Principles should
‘be sharply discussed by CCF
clubs. A process of differen-
tiation is going on in the CCF
under the impact of events.
Left CCF’ers should use the
opportunity given by the new
Draft to open up the fight on
policies against the rightwing.
This is not a private matter for
the CCF. The defeat of the
right-wing social democrats is
of urgent concern to the whole
labor movement because they
are the main obstacle to the
building of labor and people's
unity for peace, democracy and
socialism.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 4, 1952 — PAGE 5