12 ERITREA ATT FRLETTES TYPOS vos OPT FOUN Pt) Peat Fd Books and People By KAY GREGORY CST TT ATT NTT Wt the Red Army already on its way towards liberation of the people of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, publica- tion just now of The Baltic Riddle by George Meiksins, a Latvian democrat now in exile in the United States, is par- ticularly timely. Meiksins is the son of the Deputy Mayor of Dvinsk whom the pro-Nazi government threw into a concentration camp. He participated in the Latvian demo- cratic movement in 1934 which was later driven underground, and has since maintained close eantact with this movement, edit- ing the Latvian Paper, “Briviba” (Freedom), until the outbreak of War. His book has naturally been received with very mixed cvm- ments from American reviewers, since he is obviously pro-soviet in his conclusions. Will Henry Chamberlain of the New York Times, who goes out of his way te pan anything in- disputably in favor of Russia, de- clares the book is full of ~“dog- mnatic generalizations” and has ‘Jack of perspective’ and “de- ficient objectivity” Chamber- jain apparently prefers to take the word of an ‘anti-Nazi Ger- juan emigre, Joachim Joesten, who reported that in 1941, “the German armies were greeted as liberators by a large section of the population ‘of the Baltic countries.) ” Ghamberlain declares that the desires of the Baltic population eculd only be decided “by a free plebiscite, held without Red Army occupation.” ~ Meiksins in his book points out that after Soviet occupation in 1940 “in all three countries ... elections were held on the basis of universal, direct, secret Dallot- ing. . .’ What could be freer than that? ‘A DRAMATIZED story of Vitus Bering, commander of the first expedition to explore what are now called the Bering Straits and Bering Sea, has just been written by Cornelia Donuhue, published by Doubleday Doran, entitled Journey into the Fog. Miss Donuhue says she has only taken liberties in dramatiz- ation with time and place, that “sn all essential matters” she has “followed the facts.” The long and absorbing story of the first known expedition to approach the North American continent from the west, the struggle of Bering and his crew against storms, scurvy, starvation and cold, background pictures of Russia at the time of Peter the Great, are all here. The story Gi its original discovery and his- torical background are par- ticularly interesting now ‘that this part of the world is so much in the news. e@ NNUMERABLE books are now being written advocating poli- cies for dealing with defeated Germany. Three new ones are slated for publication this spring. Sigrid Schultz, a correspondent in Berlin and colleague of Wil- liam Lk. Shirer of Berlin Diary fame, has written Germany Will iry It Again, presumably along Vansittart lines. Penguin Books has a new title for next month, The New Ger- many, by an anonymous group of anti-Nazi Germans resident in Bngland. : ae 5 Paul Hagin, German exile, re- search director of the American friends of German Freedom, has a book finishea, Germany After Hitler, published py Farrar and Rinehart, which is reported to “advocate encouragement of democratic revolution in Ger- many.” Take your choice.~ But in any ease, read the proposals of the Free Germany Committee, mem- bers of which have a better und- erstanding of the forces to be dealt with in Germany now and after the war. UNEVERSAL NEWS STAND 138 EAST HASTINGS STREET Mail your Order for all PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE MOSCOW NEWS WEEKLY mf THE SEVENTH CROSS FRENCH CANADA 105 Shelly Building HAVE YOU READ THESE YET? THE PROBLEM OF INDIA by R. Palme Duit $2.00 by Anna Seghers 1.39 by Stanley B. Ryerson $1.00 THE PEOPLE BOOKSHOP Vancouver, B.C. 119 West Pender Forum Series Popular (G2. open forum meetings, first initiated last fall by Mount Pleasant and Kitsilano branches of the Labor - Progressive Party under the direction of Wil- liam Rigby, editor of The Fisherman and provincial LPP director of education, are proving so popular that other LPP branches are organizing similar series of meetings with equal success. Burrard Open Forum, sponsor- ed by the Kitsilano and Mount Pleasant ILL.PP branches, has be- gun the second half of its series on The Soviet Union—Our Ally. The series, illustrated by mov- ing pictures, is held every second Sunday at 8 p.m. in Foresters Hall. Lectures scheduled for the coming two months are: The Soviet Monetary System, Pro- fessor G. F. Drummond, Depart- ment of Economics, UBC, Janu- ary 23; Women and Children in the USSR, Hilary Brown, author, Women Must Choose, February 6: Soviet Trade Unions, Nigel Aforgan, International Board Member, PDWA, February 20. Soviet MWiterature, Professor Hunter C€. Lewis, Department of English, UBC, March 5; Incent- ives to Work in the USSR, Thom- as McEwen, Provincial LPP organizer, March 19. Each lecture is followed by an Gpen question and discussion period. The Downtown Forum, spon- sored by Victory Square LPP Branch, is held every Sunday at 3 p.m. in Fishermen’s Hall. Meetings scheduled, with speakers, are: What is Behind the Indian Famine, Darshan Singh Sangha, January 30; To- wards a Labor-Farmer Govern- ment, Minerva Cooper, LPP Pro- vineial Secretary, February 6; Post-War Employment, William Stewart, Boilermakers Union President, February 13; French Canada, Bert Marcuse, director of Vancouver Office, Pacific Coast Labor Bureau, February 20; Canada’s Status in World Af- fairs, Fergus McKean, LPP Pro- vineial Leader, February 27; Canada’s Future in the North, Hal Griffin, editor of The People, Mareh 5; What Labor Unity Means to Canada, Nigel Morgan, Mareh 12; Canada’s Constitution: Welp or Hindrance, John Stan- ten, March 19; The World Trade Union Movement, Thomas Mc- Fwen, March 26; The Soviet Wnion—Our Ally, Thomas Barn- ard, April 2; Socialism: What? How? When? by William Rigby, April 9. Hastings East LPP Branch is also sponsoring an open forum secies for the east end of the city, full schedule of which has not yet been announced, while, in Victoria, the LPP braneh re- eently started which is arousing wide interest in the capital city. WAND STUDIO “Anything With a Gamera” 8 E. Hastings St. PAcific 7644 VANCOUVER, B.C. OO a 0 ne renew OD ~~ ¢ an open forum - Reviewed This Week > . Frontline Stories From Hell to Breakfast—by Garl Olsson—Macmillan T HAS taken a few dozen books I and will take a library more to detail the epic accounts of the war against fascism; and even then only a handful will stand out as permanent contributions for future generations to study. In the long and growing list of volumes giving the step-by-step struggle from the blighted days of Munich, the fall of France, the peak of Nazi conquest to the first turn of the tide made by the Red Army and to the final invasion and conquest of Hitler’s Festung Europa, the personal achieve- ments of foot soldiers, the hero- ism of pilots, the unheraided but powerful blows of Allied sub- marines — all these may become tiny footnotes in the climatic chapter of the war. So it’s good to haye books that tell the stories of men and Wwo- menu in every branch of service; to read of plain heroes who do their job without pomp or fiour- ish, killing Nazis, destroying the Japanese enemy—just winning the war day by day. Such 2 book is From Hell to Breakfast. Carl Olsson, noted war corre- spondent, has put together a series of short stories of the war, each a picture of the kind of ac- tion and devotion to duty which add up to total victory. The civil- Labor Parties 1827-1834 — Alden Whitman — Publishers—40 cents. OW that most of our large trade union bodies have en- dorsed direct political action, it is interesting to go back into history and find that this turn- International ing to political aetion was a very early instinct in the working class movement on this continent. As early as 1828, in Philadel- phia, working men were banding together “for procuring a nom- ination of candidates for legis- lative and other public offices, who will support the interest of the working class... The Me- ehanics and Working Men of the City and County of Philadelphia are determined henceforth to take the management of their Q@wn interests as a class. into their own immediate keeping.” A People’s Poet The Fourth Decade and other poems — by Norman Rosten — Farrar and Rinehart. N° long ago, radio audiences warmly greeted the stirring Ballad of Bataan, in which Norman MRosten, its author, thundered that “History is a branding iron.’ The Fourth De- cade, his second yolume of poems, shows that this young working poet, perhaps more clearly and powerfully than any other American poet, has learned the history of our times and its meaning to the working people he sings about. Rosten has a punch like the Blacksmith’s hammer and the ob- scurantists and self-intoxicated word-slingers will get little com- fort from his writings. For his conviction is simple and direct: “I do not belong to that schoo! which holds to the curious belief that poetry is written for poets, and should be as difficult and ob- scure as possible. Poetry is not en intellectual puzzle, nor a bout with language. It should neither exhaust nor confuse, but in- vigorate and clarify.” U.S. Labor Parties - sis of the ecenomic, political | ‘social relationships in Ame jan will learn (though much ¢: not be told as yet) of the sp : tacular and the routine, of wi) Iy publicized and little kno; accounts of the men in vate branches of operation. ae The stocies mainly are told F the men who participated in «7 action. An RAF captain of Stirling night bomber tells the great 1,000 bomber raid Cologne—that. black night Hitler on May 30, 1942. His pressions of the 90-minute b its concentrated havoc, its de stating fires, its first portent things to come over Germ make for absorbing reading. A test pilot tells how he wor, an anti-aireaft officer paints picture of an enemy raid. Ol; brings you a night “intrud over Wazi-occupied eountr) How does he feel, what does do, how does he do it? Its ex ing to learn. Tales of subm ine commanders and of rest ships who scour the seas Sav pailed-out airmen; the magni ent work of the Atlantic fe bombers and of the flying wee er prognosticators —. these — some of the men Olsson ta into your home. : is Youll find them all hen all the kind of people that m | victory inevitable. From Hell” Breakfast is another good b~ about the war and the men 1_ fight it—Michael Singer. 7 ere 3 z Si iat SD “History,” says Alden Whitr- in this excellent little -pampli “that is good history, is neve study of the past for its own s but is a guide to illuminate present. . The reasons wi the workers gave one hunc years ago for action, their an form a background against w action can effectively be tz today.” : They were split and hind by utopians like Owen agrarians like Skidmore. they started in the right d tion and their experiences a great heritage ... Ww, gathers force and significane it is put to work by a mo: labor movement in the ests of the nation as a whol Kay Gregory. That vigor and clarity- 1 | like a drum in every pagi¢ this volume. It pounds in ( ballad of the Filipino and At | can fighting on Bataan: they st Brown and white, together under the blazing sun and hot winds, and the sun burns them -one color and their blood is of the si color as long as there’s eno ground and guns theyll fight for their kine world. In the Bataan defeat, Hk the temporary defeat in Sf Rosten can still hear the m ing beat of victory: We are marching over (#5 and water f to strike with our conti} of power j and smash them to earth, th , ll and clear the earth i forever of its hate, its kil) once and for all time and ever!” :