Real

By L. kL. SHARKEY
President: Australia Communist
Party

E propagandists of capital-
: ism, especially Anglo-Ameri-
can imperialism, these days
babble much of the “Western
way of life.”

This “Western way of life” it
appears, must be defended
against other ways of life in the
South, and the North and par-
ticularly the Hast! The “West-
ern” countries of Hurope where
this sacrosanct way of life
existS are Britain, France, Bel-
gium, Holland, Scandinavia,
Switzerland perhaps Germany,
Italy and formerly Spain and
Portugal

INo one would deny: that this
West Hurope on the basis of a
high development of capitalist
industry and technique, has
made great contributions to cul-
ture and science, and has wit
messed the highest development
of capitalist democracy.

Let us, however, look a little
more closely at Western Europe.
It was precisely here, in “civil-
ized” Western Hurope that the
two world wars were originated
out of the insane rivalries of
monpoly capitalist gentlemen. It
is the stronghold .of monoply—

capitalism with its ruthless ex- _

ploitation of the working class.
it was these capitalist gentle-
men, and not “barbarous” Asia
nor the Russians and Poles of
Hastern Hurope, who were pri-

tured” Western
fascism came

- Hurope, that
into being, and
not in the “Mast.” Germany,
Italy, France, Spain, all experi-
enced fascism, a barbarism

worse than even Asia has known.
y»
ee

————___

kL. LL. SHARKEY

President, Communist Party
of Australia

Belgium and Holland and Nor-
Way each developed its own
powerful local-srown fascist
party, just as did France and
Spain even if these fascist
movements did not capture pow-
er up to the time of the Hitler-
ite invasion.

Se
ODERN imperialism of the
purely capitalist variety, too,
had its origin precisely in ‘“cul-

meaning of western culture

Slave-owners

efforts of the German and
italian “eultures” to conquer 2
world slaye empire for them-—
selves are too recent to need
comment,

Western “culture,” to, has
produced such monuments to

itself as the London slums and
mass armies of unemployed and
doles. The working class in
“Western democracy” has only
been able to keep itself from
complete slavery at the cost of
ceaseless

And it is American “Western
democracy” which today threat-
ens the world with its atom
bombs and lynches its unfor-
tunate Negro citizens.

The apologists of monoply

capitalism rant about this ‘“Wes-
tern culture’ in order to hide
from the gaze of the masses the
real, hideous features of mono-
poly-capital, which seeks to hide

itself behind the masks of “de-
mocracy”’ and “culture.”

Only when monopoly-capital-
ism, the root of fascism, war

and imperialism, has been up-
rooted can “Western democracy”
become truly civilized, cultured
and democratic.

Until then, we will not allow
ourselves to be bluffed by the
cant phrases of the hired apolo-
gists of capitalism but realize
that their hypocritical slogans
of “democracy” and “culture”
are meant to deceive the masses
into supporting war against
“Bast Europe” which is sup-

marily responsible for the two tured? Europe, the British, the posed to be thirsting to destroy
world catastrophies. French, the Dutch, the Belgians, “Western culture and democ-
it was precisely here, in “cul- are today the biggest colonial racy.”
aS PDD PPP

@ #$£~But daily radio programs cost money.
labor news broadcast is in real danger of being forced off the air.
antee its continuance until at least the end of the year, and to extend the
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the foothold it has won in radio broadcasting.

Tribune.

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ow

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| KEEP LABOR’S VOICE
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AWN OPEN LETTER TO
ALL RADIO LISTENERS

DEAR FRIENDS:

This

daily

As you know, my program has been supported up to now by the Pacific
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wo

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 12

@ For several months now I have been
speaking to you nightly at 6 p.m. over Van- '
couyer’s Station CKW2X on a radio program
that I believe is unique in North America,
and certainly has no counterpart in Canada.

radio program — “Labor
BEHIND the Headlines’ — is Canada’s only
labor news commentary.
the thousands of commercial programs, it is
the only one that attempts to go behind the
‘“Sron curtain” of confusion to bring the labor
and progressive angle on national and world
eyents to radio listeners. (

And I must warn you that my ;

But I am unwilling to take any step that
might place me in a position of haying to leave out certain stories and “tone

Se eee

Looks

Among all

To guar-

1 could, of course,

JO

same station, beginning

eS

in the world. The ~

struggle and sacrifice ~

_ They

Problem - is a slab of
granite hard or soft?

By PROF. J. B. S. HALDANE

M:* FRIENDS who do not agree with Marxism but
know enough about it to be able to discusSs it some-

times argue as follows:

“You say that various material

systems are Unions of opposites, or have internal contra-

dictions.

Is this not just an expression of our ignorance?

Won’t these apparent contradictions disappear when we

know more?”
There is, of course, an ele-
ment of truth in this criticism.
We often make contradictory
statements because we use our
words wrongly.

PROE. J. B. S. HALDANE
“. . . suggest the direction”

Wevertheless our minds are
part of nature, and mirror the
rest to fit however imperfectly.
And whén we form two contra-
dictory ideas about the same
thing, this often points to 2 real
conflict between two tendencies
or forces within it.

Let us take a simple example.
We say that a chair is hard, or
it would not support us, and
also soft, or the carpenter could
not have cut it. The common-
sense reply is that it has a cer-
tain measurable hardness, and
that is all there is to it.

Nevertheless the contradiction
in our thought does agree with
certain facts in nature, and it is
worth seeing what hardness and
softness mean from the point of
view of modern physics.

Matter consists of atoms. Fach
atom has a positively charged
nucleus in the middle, surround-
ed by a swarm of negatively
charged electrons moving round

it. e

e
In a chemical compound the
neighboring atoms share some
of the electrons surrounding
them |

When we press an iron tool

~into the wood, some of the elec-

trons in the one come close to
those in the other; and having
the same electric charge, they
repel one another. The force
Soon becomes enough to remove
some of the atoms from their
original positions.

Now if we press the iron into
water, very little force is needed.
The water consists of molecules
of one oxygen and two hydrogen
atoms with a swarm of eight
electrons round their nuclei.
slide ower other similar
molecules without difficulty.

Water is completely soft in the
sense that it offers no perman-
ent resistance to penetration. On
the other hand the iron atoms
are arranged in small crystals,
in each of which the atoms have
a very regular arrangement, and

this arrangement is hard to
break up.

Se
In wood the atoms are ar-

ranged in large molecules, each
containing, several hundred atoms
each of oxygen, carbon and hy-
drogen. it is fairly easy to
separate one such molecule from

another, but a good deal harder
to. break it up into atoms.

ey FACT, hardness is a mea-

sure of the forces which hold
each atom of a solid in its
place. :

These forces are being cal-
Culated with a constantly - in-
creasing accuracy, and on the
basis of such calculations we
can design new types of ma-
terial, such as synthetic plastics.

Most solids get softer as we
heat them.

In the exceptional eases, such
as bread and bricks, heating
usually drives off water which
was holding other substances
apart and preventing them from

settling down into Stable, pat
terns.
The softening process which

oceurs for example in butter or
iron when heated is simply due
to the fact that heat is irresu-
lar movement of atoms, and the
atoms in motion tend to leave
their places in the structure, so
that some of the work of an
external body cutting into it has
already been done.

In fact in any solid body
there is a perpetual conflict be-
tween the chemical forces which
make for hardness by holding
the atoms in their places and
the irregular heat motion which
tends to dislodge them.

If we héat iron it becomes
soft enough to hammer into 2
new shape, unless elements such
as tungsten are added which
hold the iron atoms together.
Finally it melts which means
that it has lost all its hardness. —

@

TUS the contradiction

thought between hardness
and softness does express, al-
though very imperfectly, a real
conflict which is going on with-
in solid bodies.

Thistconflict is not usually of
the kind which leads to any real
development. But it may do so
when, for example, heating al-
lows a chemical change to go :
forward.

in our

Marxist principles do not, by
themselves, give the answers to
Scientific questions, But they do
suggest the direction along
which an answer may be sought.
and they make it easier to un-
derstand the answers which
have already been given.

British army
forbids unity

BERLIN—British military au-
thorities in Germany, discon-
certed at the growing movement
toward working class unity are
stepping up their efforts to pre-
vent fusion of the Social Demo-
cratic and Communist parties in
their zone.

A letter from a high British
authority to a Social Democratic ©
leader points out sharply that
“it is not in line with the policy
of the Military Government te
permit an amalgamation of the
Social-Demecratic and Commun-
ist parties. No meeting aimed
at such amalgamation will be al
lowed to take place.”

The British authorities have
recently cut off a large part of
the newsprint allotted to Gom-
munist papers in their zone.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1946