INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Bribery where Ff new imperialist

N last week’s column I indicated the real political motiv- ation of Pearson’s statement that Canada will recog-

nize the All-China People’s government before the U.S. does, As is the studied practice of the capitalist press, Pearson’s statement is reported to Canadians in such a

manner as to create the illusion that his opinions have been

modified by democratic considerations. The truth is ex- actly the opposite.

The Labor-Progressive party and the Pacific Tribune advocate Canadian recognition of people’s China and we welcome Pearson’s declaration in favor of recognition. We know that friendly relations, trade and intercourse between our country and the New Democracies is one of the most , important means of avoiding the catas- trophe of an atomic world war. At the Same time it must be pointed out that the | considerations reflected in Pear- sons new position are sinister, not

€mocratic.

According to press reports, Pearson told Newspapermen that Canada’s’ re- Cognition of People’s China would be determined partly in the light of what the Canadian delegation learned at

Olombo, ‘‘where there was frank dis- cussion on the recognition problem.”

In other words, Nehru and Bevin and those who support their position Convinced Pearson that the present policy of the U.S. to- wards China, and in Asia generally, cannot succeed.

Their attitude is that today, imperialist interests m Asia can be defended by a system of bribery better than by a policy of hostility to the popular demand for national freedom and threats of war. They toy with the idea that

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

‘HEN statesmen, brasshats and bishops preach that

; it is all right to use atomic bombs—weapons that Could cause violent annihilation of millions—then the Spirit of violence spreads among young and old, into books, films and human relationships. ' If we search the minds of the atomaniacs we find a mixture of Malthus, who thought of wars, famines and epidemics as desirable because mankind allegedly in- creased faster than food supplies, and Hitler, who exter- Minated millions to create German ‘Jebensraum”’.

Quoted at the World Peace Congress in Paris, as a Warning to humanity, was a book called The Road to Survival, by William Vogt, an American, head of the Committee for Conservation of Natural Resources of the

-American Union.

A main point about this book is that Bernard Baruch, Wall Street banker, holder of key administrative and adr visory posts in Washington in the past, and still a roving acters) for Washington and Wall Street, wrote an

Pproving foreword. - aehne eae Baruch is the original author of the Amer- ican “atomic control” plan—a racket under which Amer- te would dominate not only atomic enérgy but uranium resources, throughout the world.

Page 121 of The Road to Survival says: “Everything We do to increase the population is to the detriment of the continent and ourselves, The s' on follawed. by & decrease in the number of Europeans would be be Hai Valuable contribution to peace and gen well-

_ There are not only too many continentals, but too _ Many Englishmen: “tt we ao not want to seat 25 million lishmen at our table, we shall once more S€© hunger Marches through the streets of London.” The atomic philosophers have no inten 25 million Englishmen at their table. Of China, the 4,000-year-old nation

tion of seating

of inventors, art-

ists, poets and patient toilers, The Road to Survival says: “The worst tragedy that

could befall China at the

By TIM BUCK

orce has failed

policy in Asi unlimited promises of U.S. dollars might possibly develop a “Tito” in Asia. e

The carefully elaborated policy of bribery, deceit, and anticipated national betrayals that the Bevin-Nehru coterie oppose to the policy pursued by the U.S. until now, is appalling in its cynicism, The swashbuckling policy of the U.S. warmongers looks crude and, almost, honest by comparison.

The fact that this ‘new’’ policy of imperialism in Asia has been developed and fought for by Nehru with the help of right-wing British Laborites is a striking illus- tration of the manner in which the right-wing social demo- crats are seeking to make themselves indispensable to inter- national finance-capitalism—even to the extent of working out policies to help save finance-capitalist imperialism from its own contradictions and from the consequences of its crimes. In Asia, as in Europe and Canada, the right-wing social democrats are now the “brain trusters’”’ of the im- perialist interests against the democratic forward march of the people.

Some readers will be inclined to ask whether, in the light of the facts, Canadian recognition of the All-China People’s government will be of any advantage to the peo-

ple of Canada or to the people of China. Some may be.

tempted to take the position that it would be better if there were no recognition—‘‘at least,”’ said one comrade to me, “the mask is off.”

Both these points of view are wrong. Canadian recog- nition added to the imperialist advantages that earlier recognition will give to Bnitain, will tend to speed up US. recognition—in fact it will be a sign that top opinion in the U.S. favors recognition already. With adequate demo- cratic pressure, recognition will be followed by trade and will, thereby, strengthen still further the possibility of avoiding a third world war. :

By RUPERT LOCKWOOD

Theories of Malthus, Hitler

| : dominate thinking of atomaniacs

present time would be a fall in the death rate ... From the point of view of all humanity, famine in China is not only desirable but necessary.”

They just love death. “One of the great, and perhaps the greatest, advantages for Chile is its high death rate,” the book tells us.

If we are to have less people, we should have less doctors,

“Doctors,” declares the Vogt-Baruch policy statement, “concentrate all their efforts on a single problem—saving men from death ... by improving medical aid and sani-

tary conditions they bear the responsibility for prolonging :

the lives of millions of wretches.” The Red Army drive extinguished the crematoria fires of Auschwitz and Maidanek too soon for the atomic

- philosophers.

“Unfortunately,” complains the Vogt-Baruch book, ‘in spite of war, the German atrocities and starvation, the popylation of Europe, not counting Russia, increased between 1939 and 1946 by 11 million.” :

And the people of Eastern Europe persist in building child nurseries, pre-natal clinics, hospitals and expanding maternity benefits, to make the bearing and bringing up of children easier.

No wonder the atomists hate their regime.

What effect does atomic philosophy, the preaching of reduced populations, or radio-active exterminations, have on the American people? ;

The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S.A, in its annual report for 1948, showed that every 18.7 seconds a serious crime was committed. Every day in the US., an average of 36 people are murdered, and 255 women are raped. 3

Rape increased in 1948 by 49.9 percent, tHefts by 16.7, murders by 14.1 percent.

All this should help to prove that the fight for peace is the fight against crime, against disease, against famine, against corruption of young and old, against death and decay; it is the fight for life.

LABOR FOCUS J. B. SALSBERG

Tim Buck--

best union leader

6s¢PY his theoretical and practical work Marx won

such a position for himself that the best elements of all the labor movements in the various countries have full confidence in him. They come to him for advice in decisive moments and as a rule find that his advice is best.... Thus it is not Marx who foists his opinion, not to speak of his will, upon people, but these people themselves come to him of their own ac- cord. It is precisely upon this that Marx’s peculiar in- fluence, so extremely important for the movement, is based.”

—Engels, in a letter to E. Bernstein, October 25, 1881.

HAVE quoted the above lines from Frederick Engels seores of times when speaking to LPP groups and

classes about the oft-repeated calumny ‘that “Communists seek to dominate the trade unions.” It was natural, there- fore, that it should first come to my mind when thinking of Tim Buck, whose twenty years of leadership of the Marxist movement in Canada is being celebrated this week,

It was natural to think about that quotation because it applies so aptly to Tim’s role in this country and, yes, beyond the borders of this country. In fact that was how I first got to know Tim more than a quarter century ago —when, as a young trade unionist, I came to him for advice. That was before I became a Communist. I have since had the privilege of working closely with Tim in the party of Canadian Communists for a great many years and I go to him “for advice in decisive moments” with increasing frequency because I have found “that his advice is the best.”

By the very nature of the duties which I hold in the

LPP, I find myself compelled to encroach very often on Tim’s time for talks about large and small problems which the nation-wide trade union struggle forces to the surface. Often the answer to a problem seems obvious but in order to remove the last vestige of doubt I seek Tim’s opinion. This happens oftener, than you might think. Yet I continue to be amazed by him during such informal talks. It isn’t only because Tim draws from an incomparably rich source of personal knowledge and ex- perience in the trade union movement but because of his ability to quickly recognize the key, the essence of a problem and to see it in relation to the overall problem which faces the working class as a whole.

It is in such conversations that Tim, the Marxist leader, towers over the “ordinary,” the “pure and simple” trade union leaders—even the best of them—like the man in the watchtower would over the fellow below in the thick of the forest. Tim senses the swamp ahead and the dead-end of’ a path when the “pure and simple” trade union leader, lacking the Marxist compass, is blind to those dangers. And he sees the way out, the road ahead. e

Many trade union burocrats who will look at the heading of this column may snicker. Aren’t they the big shots? Don’t they hold high offices in Congresses, fed- erations, councils and local unions with thousands of members while Tim Buck doesn’t hold a single office in a trade union? How then can I say that Tim is Canada’s

best trade union leader? Yet my claim is right and any of the burocrats who might deny it would be dead wrong.

This very day there are more rank and file trade unionists as well as more honest, independent thinking and progressive minded leaders who look to Tim Buck for advice and guidance than to any single trade union office-holder in the country. As for the historian—the honest, objective historian — of Canada’s trade union movement, he will place Tim’s leadership position in ‘the unions of his time on the highest pedestal, while those who seem to loom high at the moment will hardly earn mention.

It was Tim who led the fight for trade union unity

after the split which followed after the first world war.

It was Tim who inspired the struggle for the autonomy of the Canadian trade unions and for the casting off of U.S. dictation on matters which concern Canada and Can- adian workers. Tim led the fight against the speedup sys- tem which the union burocracy helped the employers to introduce in the twenties. It was Tim who led the early movement for amalgamation of craft unions and for industrial unionism. It was he, too, who gave leadership to the unemployed as well as employed workers during the great crisis of the thirties. It was under his guidance and with his active participation that the foundations for the great industrial unions of today were laid.

It was Tim who predicted the economic crisis which is now upon us, when the official union leaders laughed at it. Tim Buck’s sound advice led to the organization of our unemployed and to the unfolding of the current struggle for jobs and cash relief. It is Tim who is now indicating the path which the unions must take at once in order to meet and defeat the effects of the crisis which big business will seek to unload on the workers,

Trade unionists and all workers have cause to be thankful for Tim’s great contributions to their struggles. Tim Buck is beyond question Canada’s best trade union leader, for Tim is Canada’s leading Marxist. _

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 10, 1950—PAGE 9%