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LABOR’S VOICE FOR VICTORY

|. WH. No. 29.

<>

5 Cents

Vancouver, B.C., Saturday, July 24, 1943

fanada Needs

Ommunists .

following is the full: report
\the address delivered by Tim
tk to the Initiative Confer-
je in the Georgia Hotel on
ty 17, at which plans were
‘| for the setting up of a new
ty of Communists in Brif-

Columbia. The report was
ly endorsed by the more than
|) trade union and labor lead-
« atiending the conference.

; arades:

THANK YOU very much
or the reception given me
iy, but I am-very anxious
I should be able to pre-
- the case that I jwant to
tent te you in the mosi

fclal and the least propa-
ist Manner possible. I want
flank Mr. McKean and Mr.
wart for officiating at this
tng, and I want to also thank
ef you for coming. At the
€ time I want to emphasize

im the final analysis, the

'as from this point of view
and on the basis of this con-
ition that we are prdposing the
anization of a new party. It
10t because T>-or any others
»elated with me have changed
opinions concerning the need
Communist policies: it is not
ause we have decided that
fone Way or other, Lenin was
we or Stalin was wrong, or
© the teachings of Marx were
Mg; it is because the path of
ory has developed very sharp-
Tom the path that seemed to
‘open before the working peo-
‘of the world in 1919 arid 1920.
‘t path has developed as a re-
| of the character of this war;
a result of the fact that the
“hope of reaction and organ-
l fascism as a barrier to social
Stess is now in the process
being destroyed, and in the
iggle to desiroy that the dem-

atic people of the world are -

hg thrown together and unit-
in a way in which they were
er united before, united on a
is Of the struggle for national
dom.

conference is not a conference for
me or for any other person; it
is a conference on which the
leading members of the left-wing
movement in Vancouver and vic-
inity meet to consider a newly
developing situation and what the
working people of Canada should
do about it.

My proposal is, of course, that
to meet this situation in the most
effective manner, we should or-
ganize a new party, a new lefi-
wing political party: a party of
which the core, the main basis of
the initiative force, will be those
i5 to 18 thousand Canadians who
have been members of the GCom-
munist Party of Canada for the
Past 10 or 15 years: who have
stood with the fight for Commun-
ist policies through thick and
thin m spite of all threats and
persecution, and who are con-
yinced that the example of the
Soviet Union, the example of the
Red Army, has created a growing
desire for freedom on the part of
all people merged into one tre-
mendous line of historical devel-
opment, a development towards
greater democracy, greater free-
dom, to be brought about by the
organization of the working class.

he Path of History Changes

Faced with this situation, we
who were chosen by the national
movement which we call the
Communist - Labor Total War
Committee movement, were com-
pelled to determine as to how
we can best serve the interests
of the working class movement
of this country; whether we
should continue the struggle for
the lifting of the ban on the
Communist Party, rallying all
possible trade union support and
all possible support from the left-
wing labor political movement
aS a means of putting pressure
en the King government and -at
ihe same time developing an un-
derstanding of what is involved
in this fight; or whether we
should actually accept the posi-

= tion of the King government for

the time being—that they are de-
termined not to lift the ban on
the Communist Party, and go to
work to organize an entirely new
party which will be free from
any legislation or any restrictions
placed at present on the Com-
munist Party by the Defense of
Canada Regulations.

The Comintern
Dissolution

Acree very careful considera-
tion of this, which incidental-
ly we have been for a long period
of time considering, and in the
midst of our discussions, the Ex-
ecutive Committee of the Com-
munist International proposed
that the Comintern should be dis-
solved. A careful examination of
the terms under which the Ex-
ecutive Committee of the Com-
munist International put forward
this proposal, showed very clear-
ly that the decision of the ECCI
reflected changes of an almost
historical character; they reflect-
ed the fact that the Part of hu-
man progress today has been ma-
terially changed and “materially
conditioned by the war and that
the defeat of Hitlerism in Eur-
ope and Japan in Asia will open
up an entirely new epoch in hu-
™man history, =
In short, the proposal of the
Comintern reflects the fact that
the epoch of history which op-
ened in 1919 has come to a close
and that a new period is open-
ing; a period of which the char-
acter may be decided by the fact
that whereas in the years from
1919 to 1939 the first Socialist
State in the world stood isolated
among capitalist states, an align-
ment apparently based upen the
idea of eventually destroying the
Socialist state — today we are
faced with the situation in which
we may be sure that when peace
Comes with the defeat of Hit-
ler, Mussolini and Hirohito, one
of the three most Powerful, one
of the three greatest, and one
of the three states upon which
the entire peace of the world de-
pends will be the first Socialist

_ State. the Soviet Union.

USSR Position

ND while I don’t want to dwell

too much on the question of
the greatness of the Socialist
State and the power of the So-
Cialist state, it is absolutely ne-
cessary that we as realistic people
concerned with social progress
should frasp very clearly the
changed character of World poli-
tics brought about by that de-
velopment. IT make no boasts as
a Communist when I point out
that following the war, the only
other state which will be com-
parable to the Soviet Union in
military strength and prestige
will be the United States: no,
not even England.

For with all the tremendous
Sacrifices the people of Britain
ere making, with the fact that
the British people including the
Capitalist class are putting every-
thing they have into this War; the
fact remains that after this war
is won the people of Britain will
be in a position of having given
everything fhey have to win a
war in which one of the main
results will be to set their col-
onies free and destroy colonial
markets in the Far East. | don’t
Say that in any sense of con-
tempt; I state it as a fact brought
about by history, by events be-
yond the contro! of man or gov-
ernment.

On the other hand, hundreds
of millions of people today real-
ize that the only nation in the
whole world which was able to
Stand up against itler’s war
machine when it was at the peak
of its power was the one and only
Socialist State, the USSR, previ-
ously held in contempt by mil-
lions of misinformed people.
With this change in the attitude
of fhe great majority of people
in the world there is a growing
realization that the policies which
were epitomized by the attitude
towards China have been proven
wrong and harmful not only for
Britain hersélf but for all man-

(Continued on Page 10)

KARL MARX |

“. . . What sort of a party should it be? First of all

_its policies should be a continuation under the changed

conditions of the present party policies, policies that
were advocated by Marx and Lenin—unity of the work-
ing class with the farmers in the struggle for socialism
and everything the working people need today.

“lt has got to be a policy in which no struggle is
too small for us, and of unity with all sections of pro-
gressive people to achieve it. It has to be a policy in
which no struggle is too big for the workers to win if
we can gef unity and united effort on their part. It has
got fo be a policy of defending the interests of the work-
ing people today, but,-as Marx pointed out 80 years
ago, in defending the working people today we must
also fight for the working class of the future.”