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a  __LABOR’S VOICE FOR VICTORY

‘IL. No.1

VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 1943

= MOSCOW,

HE Soviet Union entered
1942 confident of victory,
very difficult

insiderable part of her ter-
“cy. A large number of
its from enemy-occupied
q@ itory, as well as a consid-

Qole number of plants from
front zone were still being
mpSported to the East beyond
Volga, to the Urals, Siberia
f§ other districts of the Soviet
+ dJNot only machines, factory
pmient and raw materials were
= evacuated, hut also people.
gsctive and state farms, the
[gilation of towns were being
uated. With the production
temporarily contracted, pro-
jon of arms and munitions
insufficient and in certain
[}s of armaments the enemy
_the upperhand.
ilitary operations last winter
ved that the Red Army and
x sifective forces were capable
4 only of withstanding the on-
sht of Hitler’s armies, but
-# of routing them in open bat-
and driving them westwards.
( it the Red Army still had no
i@ Mumber of units that had
yet been in action. its arma-
ts, its military equipment
dily improved, but the men
had to learn to handle this
4 -class equipment, to master
J art of conducting modern war-
+, to get to know the enemy
his tactics, to master to per-
jon the art of leading troops,
nild up still greater confidence
sheir forces, to learn to hate
enemy more vehemently in
jer to exterminate him ruth-
ly. <
he Red Army had to bear the
' brunt of the German war
thine at the time. There was
‘indication of a second front
Hurope ,and the Nazis, not
ing to combat attack in the
@st, were able to hurl all their

)

te against the Red Army.
rertheless, their plans col-
sed.

e

oa Germans miscalculated in
1941. They miscalculated even
re in 1942. The plunderers and
cutioners dreaming of easy
ture of the Volga, Caucasus,
scow and Leningrad, were
icked by battles at Sevastopol,
arkoyv, Voronezh, by battles on
Kalinin and Central Fronts.

‘hey were stemmed by Red
mymen, by Guards Units at
ungred, by the workers of
dingrad, who more than 20
its ago held Tsaritsyn under
ilin’s leadership. And now they

have again taken to arms, to-
gether with their sons, to drive
the enemy from the city of Stalin,
which has become the symbol of
unsurpassed courage and firm-
ness.

Im 1942, the whole Soviet coun-
try, men and commanders, the
Red Army at the front and the
working people in the rear, show-
ed the world the invincible force
represented bY. the peoples of the
USSR.

In the grim conditions of war,
the Soviet people marked the 25th
anniversary of the October Revo-
lution, in 1942. Precisely, the war
had proved to be the most serious
all round test of the-great histori-
cal significance of this revolution,
of the stability of the Soviet
State brought into being by it.

‘I think,” said Stalin in No-
vember, 1942, “that no other coun-
try and no other army could have
withstood such an onslaught of
the bestial bands of the German
fascist brigands and their allies.
Only cur Soviet country and only
our Red Army are capable of
withstanding such an onslaught.
And not only withstanding it, but
also overpowering it.”

7E; close of 1942 was marked

by splendid new events. The

rout of the Germans at Stalingrad,
Viadikavkaz (QOrjonikidze), WNal-
chik, in the Middle Don area and
on the Central Front began, So-
viet troops are entering the dis-
tricts and regions of the Don
Basin, the Ukraine and Byelorus-
sla. :

This Ret Army offensive is
procyeding under entirely dif-
ferent circumstances than was
the ease at the end of 1941 and
the beginning of 1942. The So-
viet Union has reorganized the
whole of its economy on a war
footing. Plants evacuated to the
hinterlands are working at full
capacity on their new sites.
Hundreds of new enterprises
have been built. There is a
steadily growing stream of more
and better armaments going to
the front.

The Soviet people are consoli-
dated as never before. The be-
ginning of the rout of the Ger-
mans has evoked a mighty up-
surge of patriotism throughout
the country. A wonderful example,
a vivid expression of the deep
patriotism of the people, is the
wide popular movement of Soviet
people to help the front with their
contributions. The movement
started by the collective farmers
of Tambov has spread throughout
the country. Ferapont Golovaty’s
Patriotic act in contributing 100,-
000 rubles for the construction of
a plane has met with warm re-

—

The Red Army
Takes To The

sponse pPADAS all sections of the
people and all nationalities of
the USSR.

.)

ERMAWWY’S strength is now at

the breaking point. Her re-
serves on the foreign scene and
on the home front are daily weak-
ening, her economy failing. Ger-
many has been driven out of
Egypt and Libya. She is being
driven out of Tripolitania and
Tunis.

There is still no second front
in Europe. But the landing of
Anglo-American troops in North
Africa and their successful oper-
ations provide the prerequisites

~ for such a front being opened in

Europe. In Churchill’s words, this
operation serves as a springboard
for Allied troops in 1943.
History will underline the fact
that the battles fought by the Red

Army in the summer of 1942 en-
sured this big military campaign
and helped the mobilization and
strengthening of the anti-Hitler-
ite forces throughout the world.
We are on the eve of 1943. It
is being ushered in at a time of
a successful (Red Army offensive,
when the enemys forces have
weakened and ours strengthened.

We know that final victory over
the enemy will not be easy. The
people will have to strain all their
forces to achieve this victory.
~ But we see how Stalin’s words
are coming true “The day is not
far distant when the enemy will
feel the impact of new blows of
the Red Army. ,The sun will yet
shine on our street.”

--- Alongs The Don

MOSCOW.

ik IS NOT easy to walk

along the Don roads with
a heavy army kit slung across
your shoulders, nor is it easy
to drive an ioverlonded car
which skids on the ice and
sinks imto unexpected snow-
drifts. Nonetheless, the war
on the Don was at its height.
An endless stream of men and
trucks moved along the roads;
low over the hills zoomed planes,
“diving into the clouds like strange,
noisy birds. The artillery roared
and the rat-a-tat of the machine
guns was incessant.

There was not a single dwell
ing in the bend of the Don where
the Germans had recently held
sway. In the Cossack villages the
fences were encircled by groups
of charred trees — all that was
left of the former orchards. The
only reminders of the village and
its houses are the foundations of
a yellowish grey tone and the oc-
casional tall ovens with pot-bellied
ecauldrons in them. And that is
about all.

Sometimes you come across a
forgotten oven fork lying in the
snow or a cracked iron pot to
indicate that at one time people
lived here and that they were
engaged in humdrum activities.

Why is there no sign of a human
dwelling? Even if a big village
is shelled day and night, one house
is sure not to be hit. If the big-
gest bomb load is dropped on a

village, some building ‘would
surely escape damage. If a vil-
lage is set afire from one end to

the other, ‘traces of the fire
would be left — heaps of ashes
and cinder, charred logs, clay,
glass, nails.
e
HY is all this missing? The
Germans were here. They

settled down to winter on the Don.
They considered themselves con-
querors, but feared to live» in a
house inhabited by people.

Like a troglodyte the German
burrowed into the ground. He
built himself a dugout next to the
house, which he broke up, taking
the logs to make a thick cover
over his burrow. The German
took out the window panes and
fitted them into his dugout,
which he furnished with beds,
ovens laundry utensils, a sramo-
phone and children’s blankets
taken from a house.

The rayines surrounding the
village he turned into caves, using
them as supply depots, stables
and electric power stations. All
this was done with the property
of the village. The bricks of
schools, logs of Cossack houses
and timber of collective farm
granaries — all of this was used
by the German to build his under-
ground town, which he encircled
with barbed wire .

Wumerous passages ana deep
trenches ran from dugout to dug-
out, from subterranean electric
power station to upright subterr-

anean hospital, for the German
was afraid to rig it up on this
land which he proudly claimed to
have conquered.
@

Alpes wind rose to a high pitch.

Our car rushed through a
dense snow curtain which made
it impossible to see the road two
steps ahead.

It was when the snowstorm
subsided for an instant that we
saw the overturned German
trucks cluttering the road, the
tanks with®torn caterpillars and
twisted turrets, the guns with
their muzzles jutting skywards,
the corpses of Germans in their
prey-ereen egreatcoats, the Ccar-
ecasses of horses blown to pieces
by shelis, and the countless num-
ber of steel helmets filled with
snow. All this was the landmarks
of the German retreat.

The road wound its way uphill
into the impenetrable snow dust.
Just a little off the road in the
snow sat German prisoners in
summer caps with earlaps,
bundled up in all kinds of rags.
They were guarded by three merry
looking tommygunners.

Towards dawn the snow storm
subsided. The sky cleared and the
men again emerged on the bank
of the Don. The sun shone blind-
ingly on the fresh snow, covering
the elevations on the right bank
and the frozen meadows on the
left side. The ravine at the
crossing blown up by the Ger-
mans was congested with cars,

Gontinued on Page 12