25 years ago...
TARZAN FIGHTS
’ GORKY, TOLSTOY.

For Tarzan, no doubt, ‘this
represents a new and somewhat
unforseen adventure. He has
been hurled into the ideological
war. He has gone to fight Soviet

} propaganda in Palestine. The

facts are these: it was recently
announced in Tel Aviv that
19,000 boxes of Russian books

t were arriving by sea; they had

» been shipped from Odessa to
Haifa.

As soon as the news was out,
the American Information Ser-

« vice mobilized every printing

. of . . .

i combat the Russian invasion.
For this crusade of intellectual.
_ defence, twelve volumes of Tar-

ress available in Israel. All-were
turned to the mass production
publications designed to

zan’s adventures were chosen.
Most of the Soviet books were by
Tolstoy and Gorky. Tribune

December 28, 1953.

50 years ago...

MINE WORKERS
ORGANIZER ARRESTED

While he was in Timmins or-
ganizing for the Mine Workers
Union of Canada, the immigra-
tion authorities arrested Joseph
Gilbert and ordered him de-
ported to the United States. The
charge against Gilbert is that: he
entered the country from the
United States illegally:

This charge is flimsy and is no-
thing more than a cloak to hide

the attack the King Government

is making on the efforts to or-
ganize the metal miners of
Northern Ontario.

Gilbert was arrested despite
the fact thousands of people go
to and fro unmolested.

The Worker
December 29, 1928.

Profiteer of the week:

landior

Who says rents are too high? Who says |
mortgage rates are outrageous? Ask Victoria
and Grey Trust Co., mortgage people and

is from a Way back. They had a beauti-
ful $13,259,000 profit for the year ended Oct.
31, to put with their previous year’s $12-mil-
lion. Let’s hear it for all those little people out

there who helped them accumulate it.

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

PACIFIC

RIiBUN

f

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR
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EDITORIAL

COMMENT

The working class in ’79

As we move into 1979 with substantial
examples of labor solidarity to chalk up,
the Canadian working class faces sharp
challenges — first'to defend its gains and
standards of living.

‘Everywhere in Canada they are faced
with carrying on a second struggle; for a
united Canada in which the guarantees

' of self-determination are equally valid

for French Canadians and English-
speaking Canadians.
Workers are called upon, together
with all democratic people, to fight on a
third front, that is to defend, in their own

, Surroundings, the world-wide advances

of détente, in the face of efforts at a new
cold war and efforts to roll back the lib-
eration movements. and malign and

‘threaten the socialist countries.

In these three areas, workers are
locked in combat with the bosses, includ-
ing the multi-nationals and monopoly
corporations, including the military-
industrial complex. This is clearly evi-
dent in the day-to-day economic assault
on the trade unions, their members and
families.

Perhaps not as clear is the battle
against the same reactionary seats of
power, which refuse to recognize the
two-nation character of Canada, refuse
to acknowledge the rights of the Native
Peoples, and-stubbornly fight against ef-
forts to create a made-in-Canada con-

stitution. Their motto of divideand-rule™

— divide and profit — is the same as in
the trade union field. .

On the third front, Canadian workers
are called upon in 1979 to step up actions
for solidarity with the world’s liberation
forces, against imperialism and racism,

exemplified by the USA, South Africa,

Israel, NATO and other aggressive
forces. The global thrust of govern-
ments, organizations and people for dis-
armament, détente, sovereign develop-
ment, and peaceful co-existence needs
unflinching support.

Over the past year the world has seena
see-saw battle marked by advances, but
also by attempts at a phoney peace in the
Middle East, NATO’s move into Africa,
Maoist China’s alliance with all reactio-
nary and fascist forces, and NATO’s de-

cision to escalate the arms race to historic

highs. This emphasizes the importance.

of the involvement of trade unions, labor
councils, federations and individual
workers in the various solidarity move-
ments.

He

A strategy for bringing about real
changes to benefit Canadian workers
and the wage-earning majority, was ad-
vanced by the Communist Party at its
Central Committee meeting in October
1978. It said then: “The so-called recov-
ery and end of the crisis is. . .a myth.”
And that truth has been borne out.

In calling for a 32-hour work week at
no loss in take-home pay, a minimum
wage of $4.50 an hour, unemployment
insurance at 90% of previous pay for the
full period of joblessness, Communists

also champion public ownership of .

Canadian resources and enterprises, in-
dependent Canadian development free
of foreign domination and_profit-

siphoning, and the building of secon- j

dary industry.on-our resource base. —
1979 will be a year of contract bargain-

ing. But it should also be th }
mine Vase Tabor erica CoD ReTe

as one to defend. past gains and make

advances, and to join hands with the

werful world-wide labor movement
in upholding workers’ rights every-
where. vis ;

But most vital to our future, a united
labor movement can move forward in
1979 both through a-hard-fought fed-
eral election battle carrying the working
class into parliament, and through
extra-parliamentary actions to defend
democracy, create jobs and build a pros-
perous and independent Canada.

Alternative to arms race

The demand for an end to the arms
race continues to grow on a world scale,

| while the deadly race itself has reached

unprecedented proportions. In the
capitalist world, corporations which
produce armaments want no lag in pro-
duction of their most highly-profitable
products. The victims are not only those
directly threatened by the mass murder
weapons — the liberation forces and the
socialist countries — but also workers in

the capitalist countries, whose standards.
of life are pulled down by the costly arms:

escalation.

While no one'in socialist countries
profits from arms manufacture, the
Western governments, multi-nationals
and corporations, utilize their media
networks to create the myth of a threat
from the socialist world.

More people every day see through |

this myth. What many still do not see is a

way out of the arms race without disrupt--

ing jobs in an arms-oriented economy.
But a recent seminar in London, Eng-
land began to point such a way — the
International Seminar on Alternatives to
Arms Production. With trade unionists,

scientists, political persons, from some
15 countries participating, it began to get
at the real potential for conversion from

armaments production.

One British proposal, perhaps as
timely for Canada, was for schemes for
alternative products to be linked to the
labor movement’s overall strategy to re-
generate British industry, to deal with

the regional question, and to ensure a

much greater degree of public and polit-
ical control over industry....

The same paper reported that in
1976-77 Britain spent six times as much
money on defence research and de-

velopment as on medical. Or another.

figure: while 1.2% of the GNP goes to
research and development, 46.4% of
that goes to armaments R and D.

With Canada tied militarily?economi-
cally and often politically, to the USA,
the working class and the labor move-
ment as a whole would be well served to
begin serious study of conversion from
arms, and arms-related, production to
production for Canadian growth in an

era of détente.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 5, 1979—Page 3