Tell Them WhatnThey Want to Hearnby Kenneth McDonaldnPeace With Freedomnby Maurice TugwellnToronto: Key Porter Books; 249 pp.,n$24.95nUnremarked by commentators onnCanada’s federal election last Novembernwas the performance of candidatesnfor the Communist Party of Canada.nTo qualify for national status, anparty must field candidates in 50 ridings,nwhich the CPC manages to dondespite a singular lack of voter support.nOut of some 13 million votes cast, thenCPC garnered 6,782, its average of 135nranging from a high of 310 in a Montrealnriding to a low of 54 in VancouvernSouth. Yet the party’s influence is undeniable.nSolitary amidst the mass of partisannpleas to embrace or shun freer tradenwith the United States during the electionncampaign was a five-column-widenadvertisement bearing the headlinen”Wouldn’t you like to hand this downnto your kids?” Below it, and held betweenna thumb and forefinger, was antiny replica of the Earth; home, readersnwere reminded, to 60,000 nuclear warheads.nInstead of providing a world thatnkids could grow up in, Canadians werensaid to be “spending billions of dollarsnon aggressive military hardware. Moneynthat could be spent insuring that childrennget adequate childcare, or buildingnaffordable homes, or feeding the hungrynpeople lined up at foodbanks fromnVictoria to St. John’s.”nElectors were urged to “vote Canadanout of the arms race” and to sign thenCanadian Peace Pledge that wouldn”make Canada a nuclear weapons freenzone and make Canada an internationalnvoice for peace.” The Canadian PeacenPledge Campaign, one learned, wasnsponsored by 180 organizations fromncoast to coast and facilitated by thenCanadian Peace Alliance, for which thenREVIEWSnelection was the stage. Wherever PrimenMinister Brian Mulroney appeared henwas beset by hecklers linking free tradento loss of Canada’s sovereignty andnentanglement in US militarism.nTo both players and plot in thisnenduring item of Canadian theaternMaurice Tugwell’s Peace With Freedomnnow supplies a guide. The authornhas considerable qualifications: Britishnarmy service in Europe, India, Palestine,nMalaya, Cyprus, Bahrain, Iran,nand Northern Ireland (where he initiatednthe function of countering propaganda);nand a doctorate from King’snCollege, London, for his thesis onnrevolutionary propaganda and possiblencountermeasures. After some years asndirector of the University of NewnBrunswick’s Centre for Conflict Studies,nhe formed and is now the directornof Toronto’s Mackenzie Institute fornthe Study of Terrorism, Revolutionnand Propaganda.nTugwell notes that “The Canadiannpeace movement consists of threenmain components: the churches; thenbroad mainstream, including variousnradical groups that are not directly ornindirectly allied to Moscow; and thenCommunists and close allies who are.”nSeparately and together, they exertnunrelenting influence upon academicsnand schoolteachers, politicians andnmandarins, artists, clerics, journalists,nretired generals, and union leaders whonconstitute Canada’s New Class.nBaldly stated, Canada’s “peace”nmovement makes two assertions: thatnnuclear weapons threaten the peace,nand that the Soviet Union doesn’t.nConsequenfly, it is the NATO countries,nthrough their expressed intentionnto use nuclear weapons if attacked, thatnendanger the peace and even thenEarth’s survival. Ignored is the inconvenientnSoviet record of unparalleledndomestic massacres and external aggression.nThe forty-three-year-longnforced occupation of Eastern Europe,nthe calculated savagery and genocidenin Afghanistan, the continuing supportnof armed conflict in Africa, CentralnAmerica, and the Far East — all this isnnnignored. So is the Soviet Union’s massive,nand still continuing, accumulationnof land, air, and sea forces far beyondnany possible “defensive” justification.nIndeed, in the period of MikhailnGorbachev’s “new political thinking,”nthe Soviet embassy in Ottawa put outnpropaganda claiming that “the Sovietntroops in Afghanistan are defending •npeace, justice, freedom, and a lifenworthy of human beings.” The authornobserves: “Not one demonstrationnagainst these barbarities has beennmounted by the Canadian churches ornthe peace movement, in remarkablencontrast to their reactions to the Vietnamesenwar.”nIn all this, the movement is faithfulnto the advice that Lenin gave FelixnDzerzhinsky, creator of the Soviet secretnpolice. When Dzerzhinsky askednhow he should approach his targetnaudience in the West,’Lenin said: “Tellnthem what they want to hear.” Whatnthe Canadian peace movement doesn’tnwant its audience to hear is that thennuclear deterrent has kept the peace innEurope since 1945, and that the obviousnresult of abandoning it would be tonexpose NATO to the overwhelmingn”conventional” forces of the SovietnUnion and its captive states. Marshal ofnthe Soviet Union N.V. Ogarkov hasnargued for years that a war in Europencould be won and won quickly withoutnnuclear weapons, provided the Westndid not resort to their use. Moreover,nSoviet senior staff exercises show theirndivisions advancing westward: a “defensive”nbattle is one started by themnand fought entirely on NATO territory.nDoggedly, the peace movementnurges Canadians to opt out of alliancesnand any defense or resistance to thenimagined Soviet threat by seekingn”neutrality” and by abandoning thenconcept of peace with freedom asnbeing altogether too dangerous. “Thenonly Western equipment acceptable tonthe peace movements,” the authorncomments, “is a white flag. This maynseem a drastic oversimplification, but itnis only by pursuing the internal logic ofnthe movement to its end that its ab-nAPRIL n989/35n