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EDITORIAL BOARD
Nigel Morgan Maurice Rush Mimerva Cooper Al Parkin
TOM McEWEN ._. Editor
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No Diversion!

(ees are any number of comments that could be made
on the reasons for the current press hysteria over espi-

onage in Canada. The whole affair could be attributed to
an attempt to divert the public from the very tight spot that
Canada, Britain and the U.S. find’ themselves through their
dirty work in Greece, Indonesia and Iran. It might also cor-
rectly be laid to an attempt by Canadian reaction to side-
track public attention from such critical domestic issues as
housing and the need for wage increases.

For 1i we examine for a moment the substance of the al-
most unprecedented speculation and wild rumor that has
flooded the pages of the press, its very hollowness is appar-
ent for all to see. Take the charge that the search for tht
atom bomb “secret’’ was one reason for the alleged espionage.
Well, this week Dyson Carter, the science writer, reminded
B.C. audiences that Nels Bohr, the great Danish scientist who
was one of the five or six key men in the world who possessed
the facts of the atom bomb, left America last fall for the Soviet
Union, where he has since been working with the equally
famous Russian nuclear scientist, Peter Kapitsa. It was these
two men who recently announced from Moscow some new
discoveries from their joint researches in atomic energy.

Since Nels Bohr knows more about the atom bomb than
any Canadian or British scientist, it is simply absurd to claim
that the alleged espionage ring had as its object the capturing
of the atom “‘secret.”’

But espionage or not, it is quite clear that the current
“Red scare’ will divert many people’s attention unless the
labor movement reacts quickly to dispel the confusion and
keep the public gaze focussed on the real questions at issue—
housing, wages, and the winning of the peace.

“Operation Shaughnessy’

Eo press reports we learn that General Hotimeister has
inaugurated a new force—the ‘Veterans’ Patrol and In-

vestigation Service, Ltd.,’’ and has turned its supervision
over to R. I. Morgan, former army captain.

The first operation of the new force is to patrol Shaugh-
nessey Heights, the palatial residential area of Vancouyer’s
upper crust. The patrolmen will wear uniforms and will be
armed with hefty night-sicks.

Mr. Hoffmeister describes the new force as “a constructive
enterprise, and will provide employment for returned vet-
€tans,-and is in every way worthy of the support of all Van-
couver citizens.’ It is rumored that the directorate of the
mew force are contacting Vancouver’s big industrialists and
“selling” them the idea of the new force.

Organized labor is fully in accord with the proper and
efficient policing of Vancouver and environs. The regular pol-
ice force could well be augmented by two hundred or so re-
turned veterans. But organized labor can only view with
suspicion the creation of a uniformed force which, with its
“semi-status of police authority, lends itself readily to the
possibility of a strike-breaking anti-labor vigilante movement.

_, General Hoffmeister has the record of a very gallant sol-
_dier; this is why veterans look to him for leadership in their
many problems of rehabilitation—jobs, homes, decent Wages,
etc. Since his return to Canada, however, he has manifested
an attitude of hostility to organized labor, which has not
been conducive to good veteran-labor relations. His statements
regarding foreign-speaking communities have come under a
good deal of criticism by community papers, Most of his racist
theories smack of “Mein Kampf.” Labor is therefore justified
in looking upon the General’s latest creation with some sus-
picion. :
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4

“Zinoviev Letter’ Ghost —
OF 1924 Intrigue 2% tom mewer

qo history of the “incident” of the infamous
“Finoviey letter’—one of many tory in-
trigues to.foment hostility against the USSR,
and at the same time clamp down on labor at
home, has a special significance at this time.

In 1924 the first Labor Government, under
the leadership of the late Ramsay McDonald,
came to power. It had es- Ee
tablished — under pressure
from the British workers,
diplomatic and trade rela-
tions with the USSR. The
McDonald government was
moving very carefully “in
office,” and the main pleas
of its personnel and sup-
porters, when under fire for
net getting things done was,
“Give us a -chance, we
haven’t got a sufficient majority.”

Its chance came in October of 1924; the
tories, under the leadership of the arch-con-
spirators, Baldwin, Chamberlain and Churchill,
were whooping it up for “empire preference,
and. presenting “socialism,” i.e., La or, as the
main stumbling block to “prosperity.” McDon-
ald, the social democrat, instead of rallying the
nation against these tory intrigues, whined and
whimpered about “British fair play,’ as if any
tory ever worried about fair play where their
partisan and class interests were involved?

The tories remembering the “Guy Fawkes
Plot” to blow up Parliament, conceived an eyen
more deadly plot—to blow up the Labor goyern-
ment.

Gregory Zinoviev, at that time general
secretary of the Communist International (and
since executed by a Soviet People’s Tribunal for
conspiring with the enemies of the USSR in
Berlin, Paris, and London) was alleged to have
written a letter to Arthur McManus, leader of
the British (Communist Party. This fake letter
was supposed to have fallen into the hands of
the Rothermere press, and subsequently (and
all in the scheme of things) into the hands of
the British Foreign Office. The létter was pur-
ported to be (also quite ney ray ) subversive
of British institutions, government, etc., and
could only be construed (also quite in the scheme
of things) as being an “unwarranted interfer-
ence in internal affairs by a foreign pcewer.’

The tories and their spineless bootblacks in
the ranks of the social-democrats could never
adjust themselves to the realization that the
Communist International and the Soviet Govern-
ment were totally unrelated te each other. It
suited their purpose ... and still does (in spite
of the fact that the C.I. has been dissolved), to
regard the Communist parties as the “agents
of Moscow.”

A committee of the government was set up
to investigate the authenticity of the Zinoviev
letter.

The Soviet Government and the USSR
plenipotentiary in London, M. Rakovsky, de-
clared the “letter” a clumsy forgery, calculated
to provoke a break in Anglo-Soviet relations.

The British Foreign Office, with McDon-

_ald’s authorization, forwarded a sharp note to

the Soviet Government, charging “internal in-
terference,” even before the Committee of In-
vestigation had made its report, and even when
large sections of the Labor Party were demand-
ing that McDonald repudiate this tory censpir-

FROM YESTERDAY’S FILES

AFTER listening to Bevin’s blast on “Russian
propaganda” during the sessions of the UNO,

Andrei WVishinsky said the Soviet delegates

“felt the cold breath of an unhappy past.”

How cold-this “cold breath’ was we can see
from the press files of yesterday.

OTTAWA, March 2, 1939 (CP) —“The Prime
Minister’s office said last night that it is not
considered an offense under the Foreign Enlist-
ments’ Act of 1937 for any person in Canada to
volunteer for service with the Finnish forces.”

It was considered an offense under the same
Act, and by the same Prime Minister’s office,
for any person in Canada to volunteer to serve
with the democratic forces of Republican Spain
to fight Franco = Mussolini - Hitler fascism in
1936-37.

NEW YORK, March 2, 1942 (CP). —“‘The
Daily News said today the Finnish War Veter-
ans in America hope to be able to send to
Finland through Canada more than 9,000 citi-_
zens who have volunteered to fight for the little
republic (Finland) against Russia.”

“The first detachment that eventually may
place thousands of American citizens behind the
fighting lines of Finland will sail today as mem-
bers of the crew of an unidentified freighter.
The News added that these volunteers “will be

acy as a crude forgery which later it w
itely established to be. : |
McDonald, wheedling for tory an
votes in a probable forced election, d)
“resign” rather than fight the issue.
Parliament. His government had just
a judicial defeat in the court case a
C. Campbell, editor of the British Gi
paper “The Worker.” He knew the alls”
ter” was in the hands of the tory ~
October -10, 1924. He knew his governi
set up a committee to investigate the ;
Yet he prepared a note for the Horeieg
to be presented to M. Rakovsky ,if a:
the “authenticity” of the. “letter” We.
lished. He was pictured as a very “=
Prime Minister,” when he learned that
phalange in the Foreign Office had! |
forwarded the note to Rakovsky, but ~
“coneurred” in the publication of the —
Mr. McDonald “couldn’t understand:

of confidence in his integrity, and th
haste with which the tories moved in #
spiracy. On Oct. 28 he bleated: i
“Tf the Zinoviey letter is a forgery ij

the amount of scounderliness with wh
are surrounded. I am bound to say
experience has made it impossible {-
not te be suspicicus. If it is genuir
then you can depend upon it—this nati.
depend upon it; Liberals and Tories €
pend upon it—that so longs as then
‘Labor government in office, so lon, |
am responsible for that government, —
handle with firmness and determinatior
attempt by an outside power te inter |
our internal affairs.” a0

How the tory conspirators must hay |
at this social-democrat putty in their hay
the tories of today must gloat to see ¢
of McDonald standing at Bevin’s side. |

yen the “Daily Herald,” organ of th
Labor Party bitterly scored McDonald.
stupid naivete and his procrastination —
on the offensive against the arch-cor
in the tory camp. “The allesed commun
would have done little harm if it had”
ence denounced as a fergery ... had t
Minister made his speech (on the le-
Saturday mstead of on the Monday, }
could have been countered,’ wrote Thi |

The result of McDonald’s cowardice j
a erude forgery by the tories resulted in
ing victory exactly what the 4
forged the “Zinoviey letter” to do. Th
provided a diversion, with a dusl pu.
throw the burden of the war (1914-1)
onto the backs of the British people |
foment further provocations against 4) |
which, on the basis of a planned Socis
omy, and against insuperable difficu:
lifting the standards of its people to ne
while the standards of life in working’
tain were going into eclipse, in the ¢
vast industrial derelict areas, mass — |
ment, and suffering. The victory of r
1924, achieved on the basis of a prove
enabled the monopolists to maintain ~
profits at the expense of the comm:
and first an foremost, at the expense of
labor.

History has a knack of repeating —
always along parallel paths, but in ou ;
society, almost always with a parallel
—to keep labor, in what reaction deen
“its place.” if

paid by a group of wealthy. nobleme }

New York.”
OTTAWA, March 8, 1946——No x3
have been imposed upon the issue of |}
to Canadians who have volunteered = ht
in the Finnish forces.”—(Montreal St}
PARIS, Jan. 9, 1946.—In weichin;
vangtages and risks of outright All
vention to help Finland, the military }
“Le Temps” today arrived at the conel ;*
it would be all advantage and no risk t
Murmansk in the Russian north, and
action in the Black Sea. : :

“Then the French-British land ‘fc
but well-trained and equipped for, :
campaign, could land not far from ~
and co-ordinate their efforts with thc
Finns to chase the Reds out of the EF

“The Allied fleet could also give ch:
ment to all states bordering on the _
that might produce far-reaching cons | ©
Le Temps’ expert concludes that the fh
would cost no more “than a few battle} h
cruisers, and a small number of land
to cooperate with the armies of certs
powers.” : a Bs

Verily the “cold breath of an u at :
is surely blowing now. al