SD Te Ad et

OD i EP ie Sa NO 3) NO NO, iii alle

his book does very little to

widen the knowledge of those who followed the press fairly closely through the Diefenbaker years, although it is useful in refreshing one’s memory about many of the dramatic develop- ments that took shape in that period,

What is added is mainly poli- tical gossip picked up by New- man on the Ottawa cocktail cir- cuit when he was the Ottawa editor for MacLean’s Magazine. There are many working report- ers who would have hesitated to so repeat the ‘‘off the record”’ tales that Newman commits to print, if for no other reason than that one who so little respects the confidence placed in him, can hardly expect to be entrus- ted in the future with anything but official hand-outs,

Newman worships The Estab- lishment. He is FOR, whatever is officially most respectable. Heis for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he is for more Snuggling up to the United States, he is for ‘‘sound” finan- cial policies, with just the right

dose of liberalism as adminis- tered by John Maynard Keynes (spend more when times are bad, tighten up when times are good, etc,)

He sneers at the search for peaceful solutions with which External Affairs Minister How- ard Green became identified, His line on the nuclear arms issue is the official Liberal line that Canada was committed to take these arms,

ee eer

Any suggestion that some in the Tory cabinet might have honestly changed their minds in light of changing conditions is brushed aside. He is contemptu- ous of the statement of Diefen- baker that his mail was running two or three to one against nu- clear weapons,

“Until the end of his term in power,’’. says Newman, ‘John Diefenbaker acted as if ‘the peo- ple’ and not he and his govern- ment, were charged with the task of deciding whether or not to ac- cept nuclear weapons,’’

Here, Newman reveals his idea of government, The people are incapable of making decisions even when they affect their very lives, They must be governed by their betters.

* * *

There are many questions that need to be answered about the Diefenbaker government. But Newman does not supply the answers, He devotes a chapter to trying to prove that the Dief- enbaker government . ruled for Six years without any support from big business in this coun- try. It is impossible to accept such a viewpoint of Canadian Politics,

What is true is that during the time of the Diefenbaker govern- ment, differences within the capi- talist class came more and more to the fore with respect to the future of this country and our relations with the United States, These found expression in the Diefenbaker government, but they also continue to find ex- Pression in the Pearson govern- ment,

Clearly, we are dealing here with a complicated process

which cuts across the two old parties,

PSN AT TE Ft a) We 5 ee

W hy oO S & Cs X e Lease th paleo 3) ddibi den Saesald e eee ia d ° co is Newman grinding: RENEGADE IN POWER: THE DIEFENBAKER YEARS, by Peter C. Newman. Published by McClel-

land and Stewart. Price $7.50 at People’s Co-op Book Store.

It is a process to which the working class and its organiza- tions need to give deep study. Newman, however, views the working of history not in terms of classes, but of individuals,

* * *

The relationship between mem- bers of the Diefenbaker cabinet is explained in terms of personal rivalries and of Diefenbaker’s at- titude towards his colleagues, some of whom he trusted and some of whom he distrusted.

Again, the many vacillations of the government are explained not as a reflection of conflicting in- terests, and forces, but almost solely as a reflection of the in- ability of the Prime Minister to make up his own mind,

But Newman’s book is some-

‘thing more sinister than simply

a superficial account of the Dief- enbaker years,

It is a book written with the undisguised intention of discre- ditting John Diefenbaker and destroying him politically, of both preventing a possible come- back by the former Prime Min- ister and of speeding his de-

thronement as chief of the Pro-.

gressive Conservative Party.

One does not have to be a de- fender of John Diefenbaker to raise the question: for whom is Peter Newman doing this job?

This reviewer can come to no other conclusion than that New- man is enthusiastically and to- tally in the service of those in this country who are working for the complete sell-out of Can- ada to United States big busi- ness, and that he is out to ‘‘get’’ not only John Diefenbaker but every other public figure who in any way, and however feebly and haltingly, has stood for the in- dependent development of Can- ada,

I am strengthened in this Opinion by the fact that in re-| cent months, while finishing his book on Diefenbaker, he has un- dertaken in MacLeans to deve- lop the same type of biased and belittling attack on the present Liberal Minister of Finance, Walter Gordon.

Newman set out to prove that John Diefenbaker was a ‘‘rene- gade in power.’’ He - succeeds

“much better in convincing his

readers that he himself is a renegade from all the ideals which inspired those who built Canada as an independent na- tion, —N.C.

Pete Seeger on world tour

Dp ete Seeger (who’s not con- sidered good enough for national television in his own country— because he’ll un-. dermine ’em, you know) is currently on a world tour do- ing concerts, television and radio appearances in 28 coun- tries,

In September, he did five television shows in Austra- lia plus a.one-hour solo spe- cial for Australian TV Net- work plus two TV appearances in Japan.

Next, Seeger appears on All-India Radio, followed by visits to six African countries, London, Amsterdam, Brus- sels and Milan. He returns home in June, 1964,

Seeger, always in demand, last performed in Vancouver several months ago,

* ray

Loe To a a a Bo

obody — not even Rembrandt N:: Velazquez — is so much a painter’s painter as Goya, and artists, aware that the 1963-64 Winter Exhibition at Burlington House (London) was to be devoted to his work, have been looking forward to it with excitement and curiosity.

With excitement, because an exhibition on the usual scale of the winter exhibition means the’ opportunity to see a collection of his work such as we may see only once in a lifetime.

With curiosity, because, in addition to being the supreme painter’s painter, Goya is also the supreme people’s painter— not the same thing at all as being a popular painter.

* * * :

And yet Goya is not here in his complete and _ terrifying wholeness, :

The two great paintings in which he celebrated the rising of his countrymen against Napol- eon’s puppet-brother Joseph, and their terrible defeat—the Dos de Mayo and the Tres de Mayo —

have not left Spain.

Nor has that most unflattering ' of official paintings, the group portrait of Charles IV and his Family; nor the great picture of, the meeting of the Junta of the

Philippines, Nor are there any of the ‘*plack’? paintings — black in

spirit as in appearance, the hor- rifying decorations from the walls of the Quinta del Sordo—the House of the Deaf Man,

Here, self-exiled from his own country, completely deaf, suffer- ing from nightmares andhalluci- nations, tormented by the tragedy

-of art,

of man’s inhumanity, Goya spent his last years and, at the age of 80, opened up new worlds of technique and imagination,

~ It cannot be said too strongly that the omission of works like these is to be regretted, and not simply on social or political

grounds, eee

It is because he was a great and powerful, an original and sensitive painter, that Goyaholds his unique place,

It is not merely by recorded fact, but in their quality as works that his drawings and paintings both reveal and con- demn the horrors of war, oppres- sion, and superstition.

Without those paintings that

‘give his moral indignation its fullest expression, we do not see the full extent to which he created a new kind of painting, how he foreshadowed so much of the century and a half that would follow him, —_

Realist and Romantic, Impres- sionist, Expressionist, Sur- realist have all drawn from this tremendous source.

It is above all as a realist that Goya is to be considered, I do not now use this as a stylistic term. I speak of Goya’s vision,

* * *

If realism means only the faith- ful account of the visible features of people and things, a cata- loguing of mere likeness, then Goya has been surpassed,

But if it means — as it must.

ae

“Perhaps they are of another breed,” one of Goya’s etchings from “The Horrors of War.”

Goya—a people’s painter

mean if it is really to compre- hend human experience as well as making records — the capa- city to look steadily and with com-

- passion at life as it truly is, then

Goya is not only the supreme realist, but the very cornerstone of possible painting for the world in which we live,

If he shows’ us less of what is possible in the world we hope to make, this is a matter of history.

His greatest works were pain- ted in a decade of despair and torment and disillusion, under the cruel shadow of political and religious reaction. ©

But he made no compromise with either fashion or tradition in finding equivalents in paint and print for what he had seen and experienced,

To speak of Goya like this is not to prescribe imitation as the condition of excellence in paint- ing. The work of half a dozen of his followers shows how great a gap there may be between the original artist and his most convinced follower.

* * *

Painting, for this toughest of individuals, became in the latter half of his life, implicity, a social matter,

It would be wrong to go to this exhibition and shut our eyes to the social implications of Goya’s art; but it would be as wrong not to go seeking experience of the wonderful power of painting from the hand of a master,

—Charles M orris (Br. Daily Worker)

‘Dekadas’ growing

he proposal to bring the

unions of Soviet writers, artists, actors, composers and other workers in the fields ofthe arts and literature together in a closely cooperating federation, with joint club rooms where they can meet and discuss what are, after all, common problems, has not yet been carried into life, But practical steps in that direc- tion are already being taken,

Last week, together with a group of other correspondents, I. listened to a group of 10 pro- minent figures in arts and let- ters describe their 10-day visit in the Asian Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, They were among the 250 Russian ‘‘stars’? who went to present concerts, give readings, show films, organize art exhibits, and to hold talks during the ‘‘dekada’’(10 days) dedicated to popularization of Russian literature and arts in the fraternal eastern republic.

Such ‘‘dekadas’? of cultural fraternization between the vari- ous national republic and nation- alities in the USSR are not new. Recently, for example, there was. a very warmly welcomed festival

of Lithuanian-Ukrainian literary exchange, At one time annual dekadas of the various republics

.in Moscow brought the finest

Centennial Target 1967

There is a land

Where wealth is naught The land that bred

The Cosmonaut

Where Valya soars Her people’s pride _And every girl

Is starry eyed,

We have a land

As good as theirs

Make it a land

That dreams and dares,

—J.S. Wallace

in USSR

talents fr6m each of the Soviet nations to the capital in what was a truly glorious display,

What is new is that in the present dekadas, such as the Russian one in Uzbekistan, a regular *‘army’’ of workers is sent to what we sometimes hear disdainfully and insultingly called **the sticks’’,

They are gathered together from all branches of literary and artistic pursuits, and for 10days they go to every nook and cranny _ of the republic they are visiting,

-meeting personally with and ‘‘de-

livering’’ to practically the entire population (they split up in three groups to do it), and at the same time learning about those people’s life and work—yes, and what they want to read and to see in movies, on the stagé or on canvas,

Other dekadas are being plan- ned for 1964, They are an excel- lent means for the drawing together, and for cultural exchange, which enriches both visitors and hosts between the various nations that make up this vast country.

—John Weir

January 10, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9.