STAC TTT

The
PEOPLE

Phone MA 6929

EDTA TTT TTT TTT TU TTT

Published every Saturday by the People Publishing Com-
pany, Room 104, Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia, and printed at Broadway @
Printers Lid., 151 East 8th Ave., Vancouver British Golum-
bia. Subscription Rates: One year $2.00, six months $1.00.

Editor
HAL GRIFFIN

Associate Editor
A. GC. CAMPBELL

A Shameful Record

Fo many months and particularly since the
Teheran Conference, Mrs. Dorothy Steeves,
€CF member of the legislature for North Van-
eouver, has been conducting a virulent cam-
paign against national and international unity
through the columns of the CCF News, where
fortunately for the working people in whose
Tame she presumes to speak she -is able to
reach only a very limited audience. But her
presence on the platform at Vancouver’s May
Day rally gave her an opportunity to spread

her poisonous propaganda among an audience ~

far larger than she herself could ever hope to
attract and she did not hestitate to make the
most of it.

Calling upon all her demagogic skill, she
contrived to inject into the proceedings a dis=
cordant note of mistrust of the very unity
demonstrated by the parade itself and reflected
in its slogans.

Stripped of its pretensions, its simulated
sincerity, Mrs. Steeves’ appeal to the huge gath-
ering not to put its faith in leaders—and by that
she meant Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin and
not, as she might fitly have implied, the bitterly
partisan, anti-unity, red-baiting CCF leadership
she herself represents—was only a more subtle
way of placing what she has long stated braz-
enly in the ©CE News without the slightest
regard for the facts. And that record of her
writings in the official CCF organ is a clear
indictment of her as an unprincipled individual
who abuses the confidence the working people
have placed in her to create division out of
every difference, whether in the ranks of labor,
among all the classes and sections of the nation
united in support of thé war, or among the
United Nations.

The record in the CCF News speaks for
itself: :

__ “We are gratified to learn that the chiefs
of the principal Allies are once more bestirring
themselves and coming from the ends of the
earth for a meeting, but we could be more
satisfied if we knew that they came with a
mandate from the people whom they are sup-
posed to represent in the vital matters te be
considered. The actual fact is that the future
organization ef world affairs will depend on
decisions taken by four individuals (Chur-
chill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Chiang Kaishek) and
that it is highly doubtful whether these per-
“sons reflect the views held by the majority of
the people in the nations of which they are
the mouthpieces.”—December 2, 1943.
“The Cairo and Teheran conferences have

come and gone, the pictures of the leaders of
‘the Big Four have been flashed around the
world and have shown them seated in friend-
ly conclave, and yet another announcement
(the Teheran Declaration) adorns the press
headlines. It is interesting to speculate what_
these leaders would proceed to do if they
were intent on carrying out the full implica-
tions of the Teheran Declaration. Mr. Stalin
might announce plans for the abolition of the
dictatorship of the Communist hierarchy, Mr.
Churchill might call a conference to formu-
late ways and means for the democratization
of the colonial areas and Mr. Roosevelt might
give his attention to the solution of the negro
problem. It is safe to say that these statesmen
will do nothing of the sort and will not do so
until a determined public demand has been
created for these and similar measures to form

reels of a genuine peace.”—December 9,

“.. The armies of the United Nations are

supposed to be coming to Europe as ‘libera-
tors,’ not as conquerors. In order to be a lib-
erator, one has to be actuated by certain prin-
ciples, moral, economic and social, and to be
agreed with one’s partners on certain practi-
cal steps to put these principles into opera-
tion. This column has frequently pointed out
that it is all very well for leaders to meet
ia secret conclave and to utter high-minded
formulae, but these meetings have little sig-
nificance if no attempt is made to arrive at
practical conclusions . . .’—January 20, 1944.
“We are sobering up after the intoxication
induced by the heady spirits of Teheran and.
Cairo, and realizing that the ornate formulae
conceived by personal contact between our
leaders, are of little practical use because all
the basic social and economie issues remain
untouched.”—March 30, 1944.

The record is endless in its ealumny, its
vituperation, its hatred of the Soviet Union and
its feigned regard for “international working
class unity” while raising every issue calculated
to obstruct and prevent that unity being
achieved. I’ is a record in which a quisling
in Mrs. Steeves’ native Holland, of whose
workers she spoke with such assumed pride
on May Day, might conceivably find pervert-
ed pleasure. But it is a record to which those
members and supporters of the CCF who sin-
cerely believe in the program of their party
can refer only with a deep sense of shame
that such defeatist slanders can be uttered in

their name and represented as reflecting their
aspirations.

FREE FRANCE

Unseen Army

A France is a vast invisible
arm ready to stage a na-
tional Sasa ction when the AI-
lied invasion begins.

After Hitler disbanded the
Vichy army in November, 1942,
hundreds of thousands hid their
weapons and waited for further
instructions. #alse generals may
have surrendered to the Nazis at
Compiegne, but the French nation
would never surrender. ;

It is important to remember, in
estimating the strength of French
resistance, that the old French
army was a people’s
Frenchmen had had at least a

year’s military training. The sol-
diers mobilized in September,
1939, were not members of any

small military sect or Class.

On June 18, 1940, they were be-
trayed. Bewildered, overwhelmeg,
they ceased to fight on the open
battlefield. But the day of the
armistice was also the day which
galvanized them anew to action.
General de Gaulle made his stir-
ring call from london: “Rrench-
men! Resist!”

Shortly thereafter, the under-
ground movement inside France
was born. The Gommunists
were the first to take up the

fight against the occupation.
L’Humanite, their great daily
newspaper began to appear

illegally- : :

Then other parties, trade unions,
and societies of doctors, lawyers,
students, began to emerge from
the defeat. The Socialist Party's
Le Populaire brought out its
undersround editions Liberation,
Coq Enchaine, Le Pere Puchesne
began to appear:

On October 5, 1940 Nazi terror
against the resistance movement
began in grim earnest. Three hun-
dred -Communists were arrested
during that night—deputies, la-
bor leaders, mayors. Some were
to be shot a year later at the
prison of Chateaubriant.

From then on all sections of the
French people, in the provinces
as well as in Paris have carried
on a heroic fight, little of which

has been told in the outside
world.

_ After June 22, 1941, resistance
became more powertul. The
French people concluded, and

rightly, that Germany had signed
its death warrant.

Confident that the Soviet
Union’s participation would guar-
antee victory to the entire civil-
ized world, the French people
began to demonstrate openly. “La
Marseillaise” was heard again:
“To arms, citizens.”

The Gestapo responded with an
orgy of executions. to no avail.
Von Stuelpnagel, its chief, de-
ereed the death penalty in July,
1941, for any editor, printer or
distributor of Communist litera-
ture.

Jean Catelas, from Amiens. a
Communist Deputy, went to his
death at the guillotine, crying
“Courage, les gars!”

His comrades replied, fittingly. -

A few weeks later the first
group of “Francs-Tireurs et
Partisans’—snipers in the- tra-

dition of 1789—was formed, and
it was named “Jean CGatelas.”

The Franes-Tireurs and Parti-
sans has grown into an extensive
and powerful guerrilla organiza-
tion- Its members, often inne-
cent-appearing citizens by day,
strike hard at the Gestapo and
its Vichy minions by night.

Large numbers of young men,
escaping from the forced labor
draft, went into the hills and be-
came full-time partisans, support
ed by the surrounding popula-
tion. Guns, hidden in June, 1940,
again made their appearance.

Layal was impelled to create a
special anti-partisan militia.

This militia, with German aid,
went hunting the underground
warriors in the Haute Savoie
(Alps section) recently. Swiss
correspondents

wrote that they

could see the bat

were killed and i164

army. All

border. The Fren
hard, and withdr
tions. All France i
for the people are

Six months of th
year accounted
tion otf 1,698 railr
locomotives, many.
mobiles, trucks. In
their operations, 95(

The Allies -have:
weapons by air, big
Tireurs and Parti |
ported to be in \|
of all Brittany be’
Nazi key points, a:
more. — i
In a letter to t_
leader, Fernand fen
cember, 1943, the
Command warned
were falling too fi§
enemy hands.
When Grenier |
Billoux entered the }

}
mittee of National @
commissioners earl &
main plank in thei
arms for the Fren
out uniform

The Francs-Tire q

tisans is represen #1
tional Resistance
unites all the mi

groups in France
as “The Secret —
meets each time [|
locality: ee
This Council in |
cialist, Communist %
ties which have r }
Germany and the &
federation of Lak —
more representat.
French Committe’
Liberation, which :
the rightful govern |

The French pei
tient, awaiting the
harry the enemy §
they realize they > &
main forces intac |
insurrection which |
te coincide with t %
ings. And invasic
lieve, is not far o @

BRIT}

Postwar Plan

HE “closest 1

American-Russic
was urged last wi fi
tienal executive ct
British Labor Par
on international (7
ment, to be sug@n
party's annual com #i
29. The report ex
significance in yviel@e
possibility that a
ment will be el
war. ‘ At its 1943
Labor Party reve
ship of 2,500,000; 0
were trade unienit
in” to pay dues to

The central at
war settlement, th
must be: 4
@ To prevent fult #

moving the ca

ing preventatl

ageression; —