Just as there are as yet no serious moves toward actual reduction of arms, so also is there no sign of easing the restrictions on American-Soviet trade.

Last June, Premier Khrushchev made a bid for the purchase of $100,000,000 worth of American chemical and other industrial equipment, an offer he repeated during his visit. The offer was rejected by Eisenhower when it was first made, and again after Khrushchev's visit.

Rockefeller has chimed in with a demand that the Soviet Union be required to "comply with Western trading rules" as a condition for trade to pay in hard currencies and to "stop dumping goods" abroad. In November the Commerce Department refused export licences for the sale of $15.6 million worth of stainless steel to the Soviet Union, as well as nearly $177,000 worth of chemicals. The Manufacturing Chemists Association flatly rejected the Soviet bid to buy chemical plants and processes, part of the $100 million offer, because this would allegedly give the Soviet Union the advantage of valuable technological shortcuts.

Clearly, here too the cold-war mentality prevails. The fight for restoration of trade, like that for disarmement, is yet to be won.

FIGHT FOR PEACE AND DISARMAMENT

If any real advance is to be made in the direction of disarmament, therefore, the extensive sentiment for it among the American people must find organized expression, reflecting the widest unity of all who desire peace and an end to the arme race. Above all, the main leadership of organized labor must be brought to abandon its present suicidal policy of aggressive promotion of cold-war policies and repeated demands for bigger arms budgets.

At the same time, it is necessary to expose the hoax so long perpetrated on American workers, that arms production is the answer to unemployment, and to launch a fight for economic alternatives to the arms economy. Of primary importance is lifting the embargo on trade with the socialist countries and the widest expansion of such trade. It is also essential to project now a program calling for tax reductions for those in the low income brackets, for plans for a vast expansion of social welfare of those subjected to loss of jobs and income in the process of reducing arms production, and especially of the Negro, Puerto Rican and Mexican-American workers. Finally, it is necessary to project the perspective of an economy of total disarmament--an economy directed toward the realization of the vast potential which peace and disarmament would make possible.

To be sure, the full realization of this potential requires more than the ending of war; it requires the victory of socialism. But the fight for peace and total disarmament can lead to very substantial improvements in the lot of the working class. And the grand vista of total, universal disarmament in the space of four years, opened up by Khrushchev in his United Nations speech, offers a shining goal for which to fight. In such a fight, we Communists must be found in the very front ranks.

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COMMITTEE EXHIBIT NO. 25

PRECONVENTION DISCUSSION

(We reproduce here a number of discussion articles which it has not possible to include in the printed material issued. In the case of some articles which were very lengthy, excerpts are presented; National Educational Department.)

THE DEFENSE OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

By R. B.

Despite the easing of tensions in world affairs, there is no sign of a comparable let-up in the domestic cold war against the constitutional rights of the American people. A basic estimate of this attack, its source and direction is a necessary foundation for effective leadership in the defense of our liberties:

The trend toward destruction of traditional bourgeois democratic rights in the U.S. began to unfold, in the main, at the end of World War II. It is a reflection of the deepening crisis of the capitalist world, and the isoluble contradictions faced by the ruling monopoly circles in the U.S. as a result of the growth of socialism, the national liberation movement of colonial countries and the inner contradictions of capitalist economy.

IMPERIALIST DILEMMA - U.S. imperialism faces a dilemma. On the one hand it seeks to drastically curb the rights of the people--workers, Negroes, intellectuals -- in order to increase its rate of economic exploitation and stifle opposition to its pro-war policies. On the other hand, it tries to utilise the prestige of American democratic traditions as major ideological weapons in its struggle for world domination. This dilemma has led to splits in the ruling class and inner conflicts within the state apparatus.

Moreover, the special historic features of American constitutional government and democratic tradition have helped determine the forms and tactics of domestic reaction. The U.S. bourgeois state, now the instrument of the monopoly oligarchy, despite its surface democratic forms, has proved to be an effective instrument for suppression of popular opposition movements. Its "two party system" has served to thwart the will of the people and block the development of a genuine anti-monopoly coalition in the Northern states; its open fascist-like dictatorship in the deep South further butresses the power of monopoly and its allies.

"Creeping Fascism" - American reaction has in the main followed a course of gradualism in sharpening its instruments of repression and attempting to gut the elements of popular democracy embodied in the Bill of Rights. While avoiding the appearance of a sharp break with the traditional methods of rule, it has gone a long way in altering the form of government. The new repressive apparatus includes a vastly expanded political police and espionage force, the SACB, the investment of new dictatorial powers in the Department of Labor, the Congressional standing committes with permanent staffs, and other agencies linked to the huge military bureaucracy. These are closely meshed with unofficial adjuncts of state power control of press, radio and TV, employer black-lists, "Americanization" committes of veterans organizations and the like.

American reaction has tried to masquerade as the defender of our Constitutional "way of life" and our "national security". Using "legality" to cover its violence to the Bill of Rights, it has forged a formidable arsenal of laws--the Smith Act, McCarran Act and Communist Control Act, McCarran-Walter Law, the TaftHarley Law and the new labor control law.

Over the last six or seven years, the one partial (and temporary) governmental barrier to this "creeping fascism" has been the U.S. Supreme Court. Even this limited resistance by the Court, which always avoided direct assertion of First Amendment principles, led to a major treat to alter the Constitution and limit the traditionally defined role of the Court. Under this pressure, centered in Congress, the court majority retreated from its earlier libertarian stand.

Threat To First Amendment - The current struggle to preserve the First Amendment, which embodies the basic principles of the Bill of Rights, hinges on the defense of the rights of Communists. On this issue, reaction came close to victory in the era of McCarthyism, and once again threatens to break at this point the dam of Constitutional protections for all trends of dissenting opinion.

Civil libertarians must meet the challenge on this ground, or suffer serious and possibly fatal defeat in their effort to preserve the First Amendment. The bulk of the Common people, never wholeheartedly favorable to the tide of reaction, are showing growing understanding as the anti-union offensive tends to merge the economic struggles with defense of the Bill of Rights.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the AFL-CIO and other basic mass organizations of the people have eagerly adopted and still cling to the big lies of the "Communist melace", and have so far prevented the emergence of an effective pro-Bill-of-Rights coalition. This weakness, in turn, is reflected in Congress, which laoks even a minority bloc--especially in the House--which stands squarely in defense of the First Amendment.

THREAT OF FASCISM?

With two basic tests--the membership provision of the Smith Act and the McCarran Act--now pending before the Supreme Court, and a flood of new repressive laws awaiting final action in Congress, the basic principles of the First Amendment are facing a crisis. The ultimate danger of a qualitative change in the substance of the state apparatus (1.e. fascism) cannot be minimized, even though the preparatory process is far from completed.

The Communist Party and those whom it influences can play a decisive role in helping to build a national resistance movement. They alone can fully expose the big lie of the "Communist Menace", the nature of reaction and the fascist threat. Through support to and initiation of united front movements, they can help concentrate the democratic forces upon the defense of the basic principles of the First Amendment. Today, the potentials for a powerful coalition in defense of the Bill of Rights are greater than they have been at any time since the cold war began in earnest. Given effective leadership, the people can preserve and extend their freedoms.

CHANGE NEEDED It must be said self-critically that there has been a serious underestimation of the extent of the erosion of the Bill of Rights. The lack of this basic estimate has fed ideological unclarity and disunity. It has fostered complacency, on the one hand, and narrow, one-sided approaches to alliances, without perspectives of continuing growth and development, on the other. The defense of democratic rights has not been a main element in the mass work of the Party in many major areas of its work. It must now become one of the central tasks of the Communist Party as set forth in policies of the XVIIth Convention.

PEACEFUL TRADE AND SHIPYARDS JOBS IN BROOKLYN ARE ELECTORAL ISSUES

Since last December there has been a good deal of legislative and political activity on the part of 26 metal trades unions at Brooklyn Navy Yard to prevent further layoffs of shipyards workers caused by the shifting of "defense" work elsewhere. Trips to Washington, D. C. to see Serators Keating and Javits and the Brooklyn delegation in Congress, visits to City Hall and Albany and delegations to New York political leaders ---- all with one aim in view: More "Befense" contracts for Brooklyn Navy Yard. Dozens of other examples could be cited where union leaders and large numbers of workers see no other solution to the problem of unemployment except through more and more contracts for armaments.

Obviously, with this kind of lobbying and legislative activity--for more war shipbuilding and repair work legislators whether in New York or Washington will feel little compunction about voting for multi-billion dollar military budgets.

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Last spring Governor Freeman of Minnesota made a trip to New York City to discuss peaceful foreign trade and to tell of expanded inland shipping facilities of the Port of Duluth. There has been much excitment and activity in the last year over the now-realized St. Lawrence Waterway which a whole generation of high school debating socities once orated about across the land.

Big shipping executives right here in our own bailiwick have spoken out about the desirability of more peaceful trade. Bankers and capitalists wined and dined Mikoyan last winter to stir up commerce overseas. As long ago as 1954 the American Labor Party showed exactly where there were 175,000 more jobs for New Yorkers if trade with China and other countries were opened up. Harry Bridges once estimated that some 3,000,000 more jobs in the United States would result if we established trade with China.

Bethlehem Steel Company recently announced the merger of its two Brooklyn shipyards "because of the depressed state of ship repairing activities in New York Harbor." This merger involves the loss of some 90 jobs unless they are absorbed somewhere else. Last winter Bethlehem as well as Todd Shipyard officials in the New York-New Jersey area pointed to the world shipping slump as the cause of layoffs at local shipyards in the past year or so.

In August of this year our Party conducted a number or fine meetings on the subject of peace, and some leaflets were issued. But to the best of my knowledge none of these leaflets were directed to workers--unemployed or about to be unesployed--who would gain tangible benefits by world peace AND world trade--shipbuilding and waterfront workers. None of these leaflets, as far as I know, listed specific PEACE-TIME industries which would benefit in terms of more jobs if peaceful trade were expanded. None of these leaflets gave any hint of the thousands of jobs which would result on the waterfront if the huge surpluses of food now costing millions of dollars in storage fees were shipped out to a world which, it has been conservatively estimated, has two-thirds of its population ill-fed.

Longshoremen would prefer shipping food and clothing and useful machinery and tools to the loading of dangerous explosives and other armaments. Shipyard workers would feel much happier were the ships they build and repair destined for peaceful commerce, the tourist trade and cultural, educational and scientific exchanges--the things that help create lasting peace.

Communist Party Clubs and committees need to issue this type of leaflets. Workers desperately trying to rescue their jobs, ultimately can be convinced that contracts for more war ships is not the solution for their employment problems.

It is getting on toward the time when voters must not be boxed in at each primary test or at convention time with the choice of nominating a person who is not so bad as opposed to one who is bad. Sooner or later there have to be same candidates who can be supported for the simple reason that they are good candidates who will fight in the people's interest. However, that time will not be reached until Commmists and other advanced workers in the political arena take some of the issues out by the nape of the neck, and place them where the voters can see them and measure the various candidates in relation to their stand on these issues.

The issue on which there is quite universal agreement is the desirability of peace, but there are few legislators who will be pinned down on exactly what they will do to achieve it. All candidates say they want full employment. Working people need both peace and job security. Our Communist Party must give leadership in the struggle of the people to achieve these ends. Here are a few suggestions which may helps

* The Industrial Division of the New York State Communist Party to issus a four page educational folder containing the Party's program for peacetime jobs for shipyards and waterfront workers.

* ▲ WORKER flyer by ace correspondents and reporters on what opening up of trade with China and other Socialist nations will mean in jobs for New York maritime workers; to show that peaceful foreign trade can actually mean MORE jobs than can contracts in war industries and the building and repair of war ships.

▲ Party County Committee could issue a leaflet calling upon the New York delegation in Congress to campaign for an honest to God Federal housing and school construction program. Workers in the shipbuilding trades can also build fine schools and low rent housing projects.

*Communist Party Clubs with the help of their county Committees to make sure there are weekly leaflets for the next several months -- until primaries and nominating convention time -- on the issue of foreign trade and peacetime jobs.

All this will run up our printing and mimeographing bills, of course, but it will pay off in terms of a better informed electorate. I am quite sure it will stimulate some workers in their unions and in their shops and in their AssemblyDistricts to discuss alternatives to jobs in war industries. It may interest some of the more class conscious shipyards and waterfront workers in the full program of our Party.

But more than that

I believe trade union delegations seeking an end to layoffs in the shipyards can be persuaded to change their pleas for more "defense"

contracts into a demand for a vast building program which will put the skills and talents of the metals trades and other construction workers to work at building ships which will ply the trade routes the world over with food and clothing instead of the guns and other weapons of war now making up so much of our ships' cargo.

Congressmen faced with this type of delegation would feel a little more encouraged to favor housing and school construction bills over our $46,000,000 military budget.

Candidates for district leadership and nomination in coming primaries and conventions would be put to the test were this type of trade union and voter delegation to ask of them assurances that they would legislate and act for jobs and not for war, cold or otherwise.

And out of such constructive pre-election voter activity there may develop candidates and other political leaders from the ranks of labor. It may appear to be starry-eyed and visionary to suggest that some of these things may be accomplished in time for the 1960 and 1961 elections, but it is not starry-eyed and visionary to state that unless we do help develop these legislative and political "movements in depth", election campaigns will continue to offer the voters only "lesser evil" choices.

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALISM
By Tom Nabried

The recent visit of Soviet Premier Khrushchev to our country has opened up new opportunities for easing world tensions. The Draft Political Resolution of our Party correctly points out: "As we approach a new decade, the decade of the sixties, mankind stands at the threshold of a potential era of peace and plenty for all."

Khrushchev dealt with those issues that in one way or another touched upon the vital interests of all the people in the United States, irrespective of economic status, religious creed or political views and affiliation.

were:

The main core of his speeches to various groups and to the people generally, Let us work for peace and learn to live together irrespective of the differences in our economic and political systems. Let us work toward total disarmament over a period of four years. Let us trade those things that each country can use without discrimination. Let us have peaceful competition between our two different social systems, capitalism and socialism.

He stated that socialism in the next 10 to 15 years will outstrip capitalism in production and in raising the living standard of the Soviet people to the highest ever attained by any social system.

Never in the history of our country has the leader of another nation challenged the United States government and its people to meet such a noble and just cause, not just for ourselves, not just for the Soviet Union and its people but for the sake of world's humanity. Khrushchev pleaded to mankind everywhere through his visit here, "Let us study war no more," which causes destruction, death and carnage. Do away with armaments races and relieve the heavy tax burden upon the national resources and spend the money for human welfare. Let us have peaceful competition in the economic welfare of our respective peoples, let us compete in culture, science and education.

The reaction to the Khrushchev challenge is not the same among all groups in our country. Among the average responsible clear-minded citizens there is still some skepticism, but a willingness to give it a try. There have been many different reactions in various fields to different aspects of the question. For example in the field of science it has become increasingly clear to most Americans that socialism has been able to make its tremendous achievements by its planned economic system. It is further recognized that in education as well, America is being outstripped by leaps and bounds. Culturally the interchange between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A. has opened many doors for further growth of peaceful relations between the two great nations. The American working class and people for the first time have been able to get first-hand information of the development