WILLIAM KASHTAN’S ADDRESS AT MEMORIAL MEETING

Tim Buck A great and

fearless voice is no longer with us

Comrades and friends, Fraternal guests, Members of the family:

On Sunday, March 11th, Com- rade Tim Buck, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Com- munist Party of Canada, its long-time leader and spokesman, and an outstanding’veteran and prominent leader of the inter- national Communist movement, passed away in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he was resting under doctor’s care. He was 82 years of age when he passed away. Death was due to a series of severe strokes from which he could not recover.

A great and fearless voice is not with us any more. But Com- rade Buck left us a lasting leg- acy — a lifetime of selfless, de- voted work on behalf of the working class and the cause of socialism, the cause of peace and friendship amongst peoples, and the brotherhood of man on a worldwide scale.

Comrade Buck was born in Beccles, East Anglia, in 1891. He went to work at the age of 11 as an apprentice machinist in the steel workers and before too long became an active member of the Society of Amalgamated Engineers and of the British labor movement. When he came to Toronto in 1912 at the age of 21 he was already a confirmed Marxist. Here he went to work at the Rumley plant which pro- duced agricultural machinery and continued his membership in the Toronto local of the So- city of Amalgamated Engineers. Later he transferred into the Machinists Union from which he .and some other militants were expelled in 1928 for advo- cating industrial unionism and class struggle policies.

Comrade Buck was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Canada in 1921. He was Secretary of the Trade

Union Educational League for a number of years and as such performed outstanding service in advancing the struggle for industrial unionism, class strug- gle policies, political action and friendship with the Soviet Union.

In 1929, at the 6th Convention of the Communist Party, he was elected General Secretary and served in that capacity up to 1962. He held that high post with honor, with courage, with passion and with confidence. Since 1962 he had acted as Chairman of the Central Com- mittee of the Party.

Comrade Buck was a member of the Executive Committee of

the Communist International from 1935 to 1943 at which time the Communist — International

was dissolved. In the recent publication called the Outline History of the Communist Inter- national, Tim is among those few who were credited with as- sisting in the compiling of this History. Tim enjoyed great pres- tige in the international Com- munist movement.

On his 80th birthday the Pre- sidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decorated Comrade Buck with the Order of the Oc- tober Revolution for his selfless struggle on behalf of the work- ing class and for peace and so- cialism.

Tim was an outstanding poli- tical leader and organizer, a creative Marxist and writer, a warm personality who was close to people and to whom people were close. He had a personal magnetism which immediately attracted others to him. His warm personality, his charm, his patience, his ability to listen

‘and to pick out what is most

important and useful in a dis- cussion, were a great source of strength to the Party and streng- thened its collectivity.

- Tim had that quality of speak- ing which enabled him to ex- plain .in simple terms, clear to everyone: who heard. him, the most complicated problems call- ing for solution. Tim embodied in himself what Lenin called a “public tribune’—he was an outstanding propagandist and agitator, the Party’s greatest popularizer of socialism and of the achievements. of the first socialist land — the Soviet Union. For Tim words were weapons of the class struggle

-which he used effectively and

well.

Tim was also one of those rare men—a worker intellec- tual. It is often assumed that it is only the intellectuals coming from the middle class who bring the science of socialism into the working class. The working class, however, advances its own intellectuals. Tim was one of those who came from the working class and used their talents as organizers, speakers and writers, not to separate themselves from. their class but to help the working class be- come conscious of itself as a class so that it could perform its historic mission, the replace- ment of capitalism by socialism.

Tim’s entire life has been de- voted to that lofty aim.

Comrade Buck’s name _ is bound up with every stage of the struggle of the working class in Canada, to which he made a signal contribution. He is an integral part of the living history of our country.

He helped found a new type of party of the working class, the Communist: Party, so that the working class would have a political instrument with which and through which to advance its immediate and long-term aims.

Tim always saw the Party, not as a debating society, or as

PHOTO — EDYA WEIR

Communist Party general secretary William Kashtan speaking at the memorial meeting in Toronto for Tim Buck. On the platform were members of the Party's Central Executive Committee, provincial lead- ers, Mme. Jeannette Walsh, national organizer, Communist Party of Quebec, Elizabeth Hill, general sec- retary of the Young Communist League, A. T. Hill, veteran Communist and Peter Kerrigan representing the Communist Party of Great Britain.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1973—PAGE 6

a propaganda sect divorced from the real life of the work- ing people, but as a party of action, and he used his talents to integrate Marxism-Leninism with the working-class struggle and thereby raise the political consciousness of the working class. The Party gave Tim strength and he in turn gave strength to the Party and in- spired it to ever greater effort.

As a machinist and later as Labor Secretary of the Com- munist Party, Tim fought against narrow craft unionism and class collaborationism, and for the organization of the un- organized in the mass produc- tion industries. He linked this up with the struggle for one union in every industry and for the autonomy of the trade union movement. It was this which laid the groundwork for the eventual emergence of the in- dustrial unions, the organization of the mass production indus- tries, the merger of the two trade union centres in Canada and today, the upsurge in the demand for a fully autonomous, Sovereign and independent trade union movement in Canada. Comrade Buck. fought for the autonomy and independence of the trade union movement but he always combined it with the call for close fraternal ties be- tween the Canadian and Ameri- can working class.

_In the late 20’s when growing signs of an impending economic crisis appeared on the horizon, Tim fought the revisionist and opportunist theory of ‘“Ameri- can exceptionalism” whose pro- ponents in the Canadian Party claimed that North American capitalism had overcome its in- ner contradictions and was im- mune from capitalist crisis. That struggle prepared the Party for the economic crisis when it broke out in 1929 and orientated it on a course which helped it become the centre of Opposition, the leading organiz- ing force of working-class, farm, women and youth action.

At the same time Tim led the fight against Trotskyism and de- feated its supporters in the Party. :

This Struggle against oppor- tunism from the right and from the left, against reformism, na- tionalism and bourgeois ideology and for a consistent revolution- ary Position based on Marxism- Leninism, has been typical of Tim’s work and leadership throughout his lifetime.

It Was precisely the uncom- promising and clear-cut class position of Tim in defense of the interests of the working peo- ple, his firm ideological position which made him the main target of the attack of monopoly im- mediately following the out-

saat break of the economic criss ys Tim Ontario Tory Governmer 4 it Rene

Section 98 to arrest % oo prison him and other eat he # the Party and to deC@ iimo,

2 f Communist Party illegal 1 col Mely

alleged crime of seditious ie

Po} spiracy when in fact i; w Itivis “crime” was that the ~, tit tllan

cies of monopoly and its a an ments. While in Kings was 1c was shot at. The alm. nad silence Tim by killing ee thi Athy,

Reaction thought that nal

way it would eliminate 4 ag Ne political force opposing pois M's people’s policies. The COM i+, jb Mnal

ite

Party however, grew, desplt gp? tel conditions of illegalitY’ | oy emerged as an ever stro? ‘od of #ten litical force in this Pe Wma its history. rticul ¥

Comrade Buck gave P@ of Of t attention to the problem action ‘Bs dependent labor politica ys fp Ab always seeking for W which to help the wo wink ent to free itself from the 1” jaié and support of capitalist r yo and capitalist ideology: trae er derstood very well that ou! | union struggle by itselE out ith not take the working © side the confines of ©. jh politics and would result © gph hug working class tailing fore tt talist parties. He thet@™ ig al 8 th voted considerable timé for™ On tention to working out the (is hy, through which the working ac by through its own e¥PC., iif by, would begin to break W' fol Oy, capitalist parties. He 8 the concept of a federal

of the process of help working class become 0 ott ( of itself as a class. In ned for this approach he at He vit? time linked it up with © vit iy task of the Communist F self — to bring soci@ 5 kill i sciousness into the Weg I class movement. He did ® of? Om any contradiction betWe, dif Tat and the other but rathe? a’ lectical unity. - jou”, Vi Bringing socialist cons igs al ness into the working Mm meant strengthening the ff Ad nist. Party, establishi0® off Mn links between it and the oie ‘ ing people and, above all, wor i thening the Party in fos I ing class as the decis'Y sn6? iP for fundamental social © 0 | A particular contribu tic be comrade Buck was his ich a of the Abbott Plan word | the first open turn Of cot monopoly to a policy a wy nentalism, of integratlO’ ved U.S. imperialism, This miro significant change of ©. ‘ for Canadian capitalism aio? ‘ related to its subordin’ ca the drive of U.S. imperi@ toh ©) world hegemony, in ps | hoped to get a fe