6 A Review of the European Battlefronts Soviet Welcomes Allied Offensive In Africa q Even ruins of Stalingrad beyond Germans’ grasp as winter sets in all along Eastern battlefront FIGHTING | SFRENCH f= AFRICA ae successful British and American operations in North Africa haye evoked tremenc } interest among the Soviet people. All along the two thousand mile front, from the Awe Ocean to the Black Sea, where fighting has been in progress uninterruptedly almost for I months, the Soviet troops are watching the Allied operations with great interest. 4 But operations in Africa, the Red Army is still faced with 240 divisions of German and vassal troops and it would haye been incorrect to think that the setting in of cold weather on a number of sectors has brought operations to a standstill. Experi- ence of the past 16 months has shown that in most unfavorable weather the Red Army has suc- ceeded in inflicting telling blows on the enemy. : In this respect, Stalin’s statement in his Order of the Day on Nov. 7 that “the day is not far off when the enemy will learn the strength of new blows by the Red Army,” is particularly noteworthy today. Pointing to the gravity of the situation at Stalingrad and to the danger threatening the Black Sea eoast, Grozny -and the approaches to the Transcaucasus, Red Star British. Soviet Unions Greet CIO Convention BOSTON. ABOR is determined to allow no obstacle to bar the road to victory. This is the spirit—the spirit that impelled their comrades forward to the offensive in Africa—in which more than 500 delegates to the fifth CIO convention here pledged ‘themselves “to give everything ... in fighting men, in production, in money and in patriotism to enable the United Nations to smash forward into Europe until our drive ends in the heart of Germany and the military destruc- tion of the fascist axis.” In a salute to those who had already made the supreme sacrifice on the side of the United Nations, the delegates pledged also “as soldiers of the home front we shall continue to provide an avalanche of materials of war to our armed forces so that they, with the armed forces of our United Nations, may succe “the % The assembly condemned ssfully terminate this war as quickly as possible.” lean and Soviet labor unions, the disruptive and appeaser line pur~|CIO convention received a cable sections and urged the sued by certain press and radio,” Office of War Information to “un- dertake a vigorous educational drive to spread understanding of the na- ture of the war and of our enemies based on the fundamental aims” outlined by President Roosevelt and Vice-President Henry Wallace. ~ Declaring -that “victory in the war against the enemies of Ameri- can democracy” required the full- est use of all available war produc- tion resources, the convention de- manded a “nation-wide planning and utilization of all the material and manpower resources of the na- tion” in a centralized plan covering all phases of the war effort. Taking this recommendation to heart, delegates unanimously went on record for unity of action with the American Federation of Labor, declaring that “unity of program and action on the part of the en- tire labor movement is indispen- sable for an all-out war effort to defeat Hitlerism,” e 4S CIO rejected AFL proposals that the latter should act as sole liason between American and British labor, as falling “far short of labor's responsibilities in this erucial period.” Instead, the CIO felt that international labor cooper- ation should be established by dir- ect participation by British and Soviet unions, AFL, CIO and Rail- way labor, and unions of other Unit- ed Wations, including our Latin- American allies.’ Marking an outstanding develop- ment in relations between Ameri- ithe All-Union Central or the |from Nikolai Shvernik, secretary of Council of | Trade TWnions of the USSR, declar- jing that “solidarity of the workers jof democratic nations, particularly the workers of the Soviet Union, |the United States and Britain, is more needed than ever before.” First direct communication ever addressed to a CIO gathering by Soviet labor representatives, the cable ended an era of almost com- plete isolation between official labor circles in the United States and the Soviet Union. : i Another precedent was broken when Bryn Roberts, British labor leader and a delegate from the British Trades Union Congress -to the recent AFI convention, ad- dressed the CIO gathering, declar- ing the hope that the Anglo-Soviet Labor Committee would be a prel- ude to a movement “embracing the organized workers of all the other democratie countries.” Breaking a British trade union tradition of dealing exclusively with the American Federation of Labor, Roberts told CIO delegates: “British labor is proud to be asso- ciated with the gallant Russian people We can, through the machinery of the Anzglo-Russian Joint Committee, do much to es- tablish real cooperation between the two nations, which is so essential to the successful prosecution of the war and in the period of reconstruc- tion that will follow it.” @ FTER hearing charges of in- efficiency and .blundering in the production field, CIO delegates endorsed the Tolan Committee recommendations for drastic reor- ganization of U.S. war agencies. Lashing out against “lack of cen- tral planning” in the shipping pro- gram, both Joseph Curran, presi- dent of the National Martime Union And Harry Bridges, leader of the West Coast longshoremen, declared there were “more than 20 government agencies dealing with maritime problems.” Curran charg- ed that merchant seamen were los- ing their lives as a result of the confusion. “Tt is no longer a military secret,” he stated, “that eight ships leaving East Coast ports recently were forced to return because of faulty loading or repair work,” Curran said. “Four never got back and one broke’ in half.” Bridges also charged that ships full of tanks, planes, and munitions had reached their destination “in record time,” but were not unload- ed after arrival for many days, be- cause shipping interests employed only native longshoremen at low wages who did not know how to unload cargoes. Sidney Hillman, Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ president, de- seribed a 14-point program submit- ted by labor, which included pro- posals for an inventory of skilled labor, establishment of a_ single hiring agency; provisions for order- ly transfer of workers and protec- tion of seniority, gearing of war contracts to labor supply and crea- tion of a central board to allocate manpower between the armed forces and industry. despite development of the? states that it depends on the Red Army in the south to carry through its tasks successfully in this theater, which will strongly influence the subsequent course of the struggle. The comparative lull at Stalin- grad, caused to a certain extent by the advent of winter, can mis- lead no one, In a recent dispatch, Red Star’s correspondent at Stal- ingrad indicates that the enemy may be expected to concentrate fresh forces for ancther blow. (Since this was cabled, the Red Army has launched its continu- ing successful offensive). Nev- ertheless, the assurances of Hitler and his clique that the situation at Stalingrad is almost satisfactory cannot lend warmth to the Ger- man soldiers, whose conditions are far worse than those of their ‘winter predecessors” near Mos- cow. e Des last year’s offensive on Moscow, the German hordes op- erated on densely populated and forested territory where protection could be found against*the biting winds. In this sense, the situation in the Stalingrad region is much worse. Situated on territory of some 154,000 square miles are a mere 1,060 towns, villages and ham- lets with a population of 2,300,000. In addition, there is the open steppe which is swept by cold winds from the Volga. And if in the past ‘the Hitler strategists have placed full blame ‘ting, on the Moscow winter, it is | that they will now be com to strain every effort to son overcome the difficulties prese by the Stalingrad winter. ‘ In this respect, even the ruiz j# Stalingrad are beyond the reac iffe the freezins Germans. The ques | Me of winter quarters, with the pi:y ise of which the German comm | grad as far back as August is most acute. ; The German hordes are static mainly in the open field. Their ter quarters in the rear are away while in the front of 4 are the unyielding defenders Stalingrad. id The thermometer drops e f day. Despite the fact that the § still shines brightly in the ¢ §} sky, the thermometer at Stalinge | registers eight to ten degrees low zero in the daytime and dj # to fifteen below at night. A §& cold wind blows from JF Volga and the small lakes §& streams are already ice-boj The Volga banks are gradually §& quiring an icy crust and small floes now and then appear in ~ center of the river, heralding ~ approach of the floating ice sea” The Germans at Stalingrad — already acquiring an appeara familiar to the whole world ~ the “winter Germans at Moser A prisoner recently taken F wrapped in a stolen woolen sh and blanket. Shivering, he ce only mutter, “It’s cold.” Z In Demand enough to have maps—it is bought out. house. Maps Of North Africa I was in a bookshop for about five minutes a few days ago and during that time at least ten people must have asked for a map showing the Mediterranean Basin, only to be told that they were out of stock. Pravda carries dispatches from New York, London and Geneva on the latest developments in North Africa, and as a Russian friend whom I met on the street said, “Sogrevayet —it warms you up—to hear such news. No compromise is possible. must be crushed at whatever cost.” - In USSR By JANET WEAVER | MOSCOW. AWA EES like Casablanca, Algiers and Rabat are be ing tossed back and forth in Moscow as people dis- cuss the American landing in North Africa and speculate on what is likely to happen there. Maps are being studiec carefully—that is, by those people who are fortunate practically impossible to get one in the bookshops néw because they have all been LONDON. | ae Allied drive to sweep the Axis from North Africa is an important stepping stone to victory, but not yet the second front which “the Soviet people had in mind,” Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador told an International Yquth Conference meeting here. Maisky asserted that if Hitler’s Russian campaign had succeeded, the Germans, instead of the Allies, now would be pouring into Africa, and warned that Hitler still has strong armies, “capable of inflicting heavy losses.” “We should discard all illusions about an easy, com- fortable victory,’ he added. “There can be no halfway Hitlerite Germany.