= te i Peace ——— i

Around the Slipways

By Charles Saunders

AN ARTICLE by W. A. Tutte, newly elected executive » secretary of the Vancouver Labor Council, published

tions and purposes of a trade union. I do not believe y trade unionists of today will agree with this profound ysis. : taliis to be hoped that the Congress News did not carry fei article with amy intention of making it a guide for local #2 unions. Lutte stated that labor unions are not reform *#nizations but are in fact established by wage earners for clearly defined purpose and one equally well defined fl as follows: @ “taiLabor union purpose is: The securing of immediate “jsrial personal and collective benefits for all members of §upion and for members of other unions thereto affiliated ugh some central body.” The aim: “Extension of the mtages of our form of unionism to unorganized workers.” /rogressive labor unionists have long recognized that the ipl tions of unions are constantly changing with the chang- erelationships of workers to management, and thereby of ‘:punions to management. Ss > : VO officials of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, authors of a book entitled, “The Dynamics of Industrial @iocracy which, by .the way, every progressive trade “tHinist Should have in his library, state as follows: “) Workers organize into labor unions not alone for eco- ic motives but also for equally compelling psychological social ones, so that they can participate in making the M@sions that vitally affect them in their work and com- aty life.’ So that when Mr. Tutte tries to draw a rigid between labor unionists as a body for specific purposes, the working class as a section of the general public, he

¥4e unions into being and apparently cannot see that trade “}ins are essentially the organized weapon of the working 3.

functions of trade unions are much broader than those mated by W. A. Tutte, whose Gomperish ideas belong _ the narrowest of the craft unions, something long left nd in the advance of indusirial unionism. The program adustrial unions can never be confined within narrow ets which in the past served the purpose of those whose y2 concern was to maintain an aristocracy of labor and

‘nore the needs of the working class as a whole. r)

TUTLE’S analysis there is absolutely no consideration of tremendous changes being wrought today in labor- lagement relationship. Participation of workers in man- nent, through labor-management committees brought it by the exigencies of war, has opened up a whole N° field in industrial relationships.

i@As the aforementioned CIO leaders put it: “The partici- ef OD Of Organized workers in management provides an out- for creative desires as it is essentially a creative and co- tative undertaking.” :

{ne of the compelling motives for union membership is desire of the workers to give their personalities dignity ‘their lives meaning. And although it may be true that tection of a worker’s job, raising his wages, bettering his king conditions largely satisfies economic and social aves for union membership, only when union-management lions become essentially constructive will workers find /Satisfaction for their inherent creative desires. Cooperation of labor and management in war industries Abe United States and in Great Britain have been a means #enormously stepping up the production in these indus-

24 d

Unfortunately labor-management committees have not m developed as yet to this extent in Western Canada, al-

been operating with great success. Trade union leaders | Unionists in general must recognize, as do thei brothers the United States and Great Britain, the enormous pos- 4) Uties open to them and, as progressive leaders of the or- ized workers, move forward to extend and broaden the ctions of the trade union movement rather than to keep Jonfined within such narrow limits prescribed in Tutte’s (cle. History marches on and leaves behind those who i the changes that it brings.

e IN REVIEW -

SLAVS TO ARMS !—Resolutions and addresses at the Second All-Slavonic Conference, Moscow, 1942.—Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow.—30 cents, postage 5c extra.

WHEN the Communist Party of the Soviet Union pub- lished slogans to be used in the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, there were people

whose comments showed that

they imagined Russian com-

munists had gone ‘racist.’ The slogan that caused the comment was one which read: “Oppressed brother Slavs, Rise up in the sacred peoples’ war against the Hitler imperialists—the mortal enemies.of Slavdom. Long live the fighting unity of

the Slav people.”

Had these doubting Thomases known anything of the thousand- year-old struggle going on inces- Santly between the Germans and the Slavs, with the Germans al- Ways the aggressors, they might have understood the reason of the slogan. They would recognize that it is a legitimate slogan in the} struggle against Hitler fascism and is no more ‘racist’ than the struggle to survive of a great people, a peo- ple occupying in their own right ten countries with long historic traditions behind them: Great Rus- sia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Slo- venia, Serbia, Croatia and SBul- Garia; several smaller countries, Bessarabia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, | Montenegro, Albania, covering about half the land surface of Europe. Added to these is no small part of the populations of several other countries, including Hitler’s Aryan stronghold itself, Germany.

The book under review, Slavs To Arms! is at the same time, a shrill trumpet blast calling the Slav peo- ple to battle and a resonant procla- mation to the whole world that the Slavs refuse to be exterminated, even to make ‘lebensraum’ for Hit- ler’s poor Wazis.

The Second All-Slavonic Confer- ence was held last April in Mos- cow. its purpose, in the words of the main resolution, was, “The, welding together of the Slavonic people in the struggle against Hit | ler Germany and her vassals.” The chairman, Lt-Gen. Alexander Gun- daroy of the Red Army, in his opening speech, justified the hold— ing of such a conference by one quotation from the mouth of the megalomaniac Hitler, even if a thousand years of history had not already done so.

In this quotation, Hitler says, “All means must be employed to bring about a German conquest of the world. If we want to set up our Great German Reich, we must first of al] oust and exterminate the Slavonic peoples — the Rus- Sians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bul- gars, Ukrainians, Byelorussians. There is no reason why this should not be done.”

Hitler may not yet know it, but there is one reason why it will not be done—the Slav people.

Among the Slavs who spoke at the conference and whose speeches are recorded in Slavs To Arms! were Dmitri Shostakovich, Soviet composer who wrote a great sym- phony under the guns of the Nazi vandals; Stella Blagoyeva, bio- grapher of Dmitroff; Nikola Derz- havin, member of the Soviet Academy of Science; Prof. Nejedly of Prague University and member of ‘the Czecho-Slovak Academy of Science; Wanda Wasilevska, Polish writer; Prof. Maslaric, Serbian patriot, whose speech should be listed among the world’s great ora- tions; Alexander Korniechuk, Ukrainian writer and member of the Ukrainian Academy of Scien- ces. This writer’s name has re- ceived some prominence in the world’s press during the past week for denouncing those who would break the unity of the Slav people over the question of Polish fron-

tiers. For there are Slavs, just as there are Anglo-Saxons, who fail

to see the need for undivided effort if the Nazi beast is to be destroyed.

For a thousand years German in- filtration into Slay lands has pro- ceeded apace. Their military forces Were defeated by the Slavs, Rus- Sians, Poles, Bohemians, in such battles as Lake Iimen and Grune- wald and their progress stopped in that direction. Where military force failed, they came in immi- grant civilian hordes, setting up towns and cities and establishing What they called “German order.”

They held themselves to be of a nobler clay than the people among whom they settled. In their towns they lived as merchants, traders and craftsmen and made the country around subject to them. They were ‘civilizing’ the Slavs by bringing “German order’ to them just as Hitler is by bringing his New order’ to them today.

The German intruders refused to submit to the laws of these hos- pitable countries but lived as for- eigners who were not assimilable, under the ‘Magdeburg law.’ Thus German criminals whose crimes were committed in Russia, Poland, Bohemia or any other Slay coun- try had to be tried by German judges using a code of law which had its origin in the capital city of Prussian Saxony, Magdeburg.

This “civilizing’ by German order was being carried out while the little German cabbage-junker no- bility were cutting each other's throats in continuous wars like the Thirty Years War which kept their people impoverished and uncul- tured. And of the Slav people who were supposed to benefit from this brand of “civilization,” Bohemia had established at Prague, the first university in Europe north of Paris and the Poles the second one at Cracow in Poland.

And while, in Bohemia, John Ziska and the Taborites were es- tablishing the basis for modern democracy, German mercenaries in the pay of the “Emperor,” the King of France and the Pope, were de- stroying the last vestiges of the democracy of the Italian Repub- lies.

Prussian junkerdom succeeded so well in bringing its “German or- der” into the Slav peoples’ lives that all potential and cultural de- velopment was. smothered. Even their native tongue was denied them in some places.

One result was to allow reaction to take the saddle in all the Slav lands. The Russian Tsar became the gendarme of Europe. Armies of Russians and South Slavs were used to smash the revolutionary movements of 1848-51, particularly in Buda-Pesth and Vienna where Ban Jellacie and his Croatian le- gions drowned in blood the rising of the bourgeoisie and the workers of these towns.

A hundred years ago there was a Pan-Slay movement. It had the blessing of the Tsar. It was reac- tionary.

Today there is a different Slav people, one with different ideals from the Pan-Slavs of a century ago. Under the leadership of the Soviet Union, the repressed nation- al aspirations of all the Slavs are finding new channels for expres-

sion. “Freedom of All Slavs from Nazi Domination!”

When Frederick the Great said: “Russia is the most dangerous of all the possible or potential enemies of Prussia,” he spoke of his Prus- sia, the Prussia of the jackboot and the schoolmaster drill sergeant, not the Prussia of the simple, hos- Ppitable German Michael] and his hausfrau but the Prussia of the arrogant brute who has been pro- duced by ‘German order’ and raised a stage higher in infamy by Hitler’s ‘new order.’ :

And while this order is being placed in its proper perspective by history, the unselfish bravery of the Russian people has lifted the whole race to a higher pin- nacle of nobility by the manner in which they are carrying out the task which history has called upon them to fulfill.

High notes of the Gonference were touched by Ukrainian Alex- ander Korniechuk when he de- elared: “It is easier to tear a Ukrainian’s heart out than to make him into a slave,” and again, when he called upon the UWkrainians to “Let the roads of the Ukraine be- come roads of death for the Ger- man highwaymen.’”

Of the Slavs in exile One contri- bution cannot be passed over, Nik- ola Tesla, the 86-year-old Yugoslav inventor died in the U.S a few weeks ago. He was one of the world’s greatest electrical experts, if mot the greatest. On his death little mention was made of his scientific accomplishments and nothing whatever of his political opinions. The letter of greeting he sent to the Second All-Slav Gon- ference may explain why.

“I have unbounded admiration for the Russians, primarily be- cause they are the most enlightened people in the world, contributing to all departments of human know- ledge, more than all other na- tions combined. They will quickly. annihilate the German usurpers and their companions-in-crime.

“The WNazis battle under com- pulsion, the Russians for their holy, beloved, limitless Russia. In this struggle the practical genius of Stalin will be the decisive fac- tor. Long live Russia and her great: inspiring leader, Stalin!”

—wW. Bennett.

CANADA IN THE COMING OFFENSIVE —By Tim Buck — 10 cents—Dominion Communist- Labor Total War Committee. Tim Buck has spoken again. This

little pamphlet tells the Canadian

people who do not already know, _

just what is the communist atti- tude to the war and the part they. are playing and must play in it.

“This war for us in Canada,” says Buck, “is a war for the survival of Canada as a nation, free to determine its own destiny, through the exercise of the will of the ma- jority of its people.

“The everyday task of the work ing class movement in Canada to- day is to help strengthen and ex tend national unity for the win- ing of the war.

“We can leave to the post-war world the choice of the exact path which Canada will take.”

That is the keynote of the book— that is the program of the com- munists, the fulminations of Hon. St. Laurent notwithstanding.

Buck deals with Labor’s contri- bution to total war in the realistic programs of the trade union con- 8resses and the production achieve- ments of Canadian workers, with the magnificent part played by: Canada’s “forgotten man” the far- mer in providing the foodstuffs for total war effort.

Every Canadian should have this book.

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