SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1961 MilliN/IT /tEl/lEW VOL. XVIII (181) TORONTO, CANADA 25 CENTS THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION - Leslie Morr;is 3 SAVE THE COLUMBIA RIVER FOR CANADA - Bruce Yor1?e... 11 THE SHEVCHENKO JUBILEE AND THE COLD WAR-John Weir 17 A NAZI-LIKE EDICT - C.P. of the U.S.A :............................. 21 COMMENTS ON LAST ECONOMIC NOTES - L. and F.P. 25 A NEW STAGE IN THE CUBAN REVOLUTION-Anibal Escalante 27 OF THE POOR, By THE POOR, FOR THE PooR-Fidel Castro...... 30 DREAMS AND REALITIES - Y. Abramov. 32 THE MORAL UN-NEUTRALITY OF SCIENCE - C. P. Snow............ 43 LEADERSHIP - Dr. Norman Bethune . 51 REVIEWS 67 THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION -Page3- Look for Your Sub Number MARXIST REVIEW has a system of obtaining renewals of subscriptions which should again be drawn to the attention of our readers. This issue is No. 181, as you will see on the front cover. If you look at your address label you will see a number alongside your address. 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I Il.ddress _. ,I ----------------------------I MARXIST REVIEW is published as a non·profit-making party journal by the National Committee of the Communist Party of Canada, 24 Cecil St., Toronto 2B, Onto Send subscriptions and payment to Marxist Review, 24 Cecil St., Toronto 2B, Ontario, Canada. Editorial Board: Tim Buck, Stanley B. Ryerson, leslie Morris. Editor: leslie Morris. Successor to National Affairs Monthly. Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa. Annual subscription $1.50. Single copies: 25¢ 2 The New Democratic Party Convention By LESLIE MORRIS TWO WEEKS after the founding con­ nuclear warheads? Will they make vention of the New Democratic Party this issue the centre of their political had concluded its work and the dele­ activity? It remains to be seen. gates were back in their homes, the Whatever they do, it is already clear prime minister announced in a speech that the equivocation on Canada's at Halifax that he was on favor of sup­ membership in NATO which marked plying our troops under NATO com­ the NDP convention, and the success mand with nuclear weapons. This was of the platform in defeating the advo­ a snide way of saying that he was in cates of Canada's withdrawal from favor of arming the Bomarc missiles NATO, which was the political high­ on Canadian territory with nuclear war­ light of the convention, have been al­ heads, ,as well as the new interceptor ready exposed as, to say the least, aircraft which the RCAF will receive shortsightedness and a complete under­ from the U.S.A. estimation of the determination o.f the The Berlin crisis will no doubt be Tory government to do the bidding of used by the government to whip up the U.S.A. support for Canadian nuclear arma­ Had the organizers of the NDP con­ :ment. vention given a clear-cut lead on NATO, Is the NDP prepared by its foreign and advocated an independent Canadian policy program for -action to help to foreign policy based squarely on dis­ stop war over Berlin? It seems not-for entangling Canada from the American it is still tied to NATO. military bloc (even if this was not Diefenbaker's statement has con­ spelled out as neutrality, at the fronted the leaders of the NDP with present) DO doubt that they could have their first big policy problem~ because won the support of the majority of their platform advocates continued delegates. membership in the North Atlantic Why didn't they do it? Because Treaty Organiaztion so long as no Douglas. Knowles, Lewis and the chiefs more of its members are given nuclear of the Canadian Labour Congress stand arms. In another platform statement, by the basic NATO policy of the capit­ the NDP convention took the position alist governments of the U.S.A., Bri­ that no nuclear arms should be present tain and Canada. on Canadian soil. That is why they invited Mr. Hugh Will national leader T. C. Douglas Gaitskell, leader of the British Labour and the national committee of the new Party, to address the convention. Mr. party now undertake a national cam­ Gaitskell is now busily trying to turn paign to prevent Canada from joining the tide in his own party away from the "nuclear club" and to withdraw the famous 1960 Scarborough decisions from NATO if the Bomarcs are given supporting British nuclear disarma- September-October, 1961 3 ment, and towards the American­ to take a position. The NDP will be no British war alliance. He and his col­ exception. leagues in the leadership of the British What many of the delegates to the Labour Party publicly flouted the Scar­ convention, ·and most certainly the lead­ borough decision 'and declared that ers of the convention, did not grasp, they would not abide by them, just as was that they haven't got all the time Andrew Brewin and other CCF leaders in the world, certainly not as much openly condemned the August, 1960 de­ time as the British workers had when cision of the CCF national convention they organized the Labour Party half which advocated Canada's withdrawal a century ago; and that in the course from NATO. They are undisciplined of the next few years massive world men who do not hesitate to defy the issues will be decided one way or the opinions of their own members. other, in the course of which Canada's Those delegates at the NDP conven­ fate also will be decided. 'These are ticm, and there was a large number of not "ordinary" times, but times of them, who fought for a consistent peace world crisis, of national crisis, in which policy for Canada, already have been the very survival of Canada is at issue. proved correct by Diefenbaker's Halifax The possibility that the affiliates to statement, and the leaders of the con­ the NDP, its clubs, and some of its vention, who are now the leaders of the leaders, will wake up to this and act NDP, have been proved wrong - all in a resolute manner to make sure that within a few days of the founding of the issues are decided, as far as Cana­ the party. dians can influence it, in a progressive • • • way, in a way that will preserve world IT SEEMS to us that this episode at peace, is a very real one indeed. Here­ once reveals the actual weakness and in lies the positive achievement of the the potential strength of the NDP, its fact of the formation of the NDP; one founding convention, and its election could not for a moment conceive of the platform. The actual weakness lies in Liberal or Conservative parties going hesitation to adopt consistently inde­ through any such inner change, for pendent, progressive and militant poli­ they are the creatures of monopoly cies different than those of the capitalist capital, paid by it and expressing its parties, policies that would arouse Can­ interests. The NDP is the property of adians, tap their inherent progressive­ the workers and farmers who organized ness and give the NDP that crusading it, not the right-wing leaders who dom­ spirit, that power of attraction, without inated the convention and who suc­ which it cannot sweep the country b:}:': ceeded in taking the whole leadership providing a realistic alternative to the (because the radical elements in the Conservative, Liberal and Social Cre­ conventicm, several hundreds of them, dit parties. are not represented in the leadership of The potential strength of the NDP lies the NDP, which in itself was a non­ in the possibility that the members of democratic outcome, masked of course the NDP can learn from fast-moving by the "democratic" fiction of simple events to enter into the political struggle majorities in the balloting). in a way that the party's leaders are • • • not prepared to do. The NATO-Bomarc WE HAVE chosen the NATO Bomarc warhead episode is an example of how missile and Berlin episodes to'illustrate contemporary history confronts politi­ the y.-eakness and strength of the con­ cal parties with issues that force them ventIOn, but there are other aspects of 4 Marxist Review policy which, while not so immediately of peace and Canadian foreign policy) and dramatically as NATO, neverthe­ and failed to create an "image" to its less just as. effectively in the coming potential supporters of a party of demo­ days will show to the members and cratic, progressive, patriotic Canadian­ supporters of the NDP the necessity of ism.