FAD EL en tis i hi ||

John Stewart interviews Beckie Buhay on return from Soviet Union

: geo this year Beckie Buhay,
national educational director
‘of the Labor-Progressive party,
went to the Soviet Union for
medical treatment. On her return
to Canada last month she gave
the following ‘interview to John
Stewart, managing editor of the
Canadian Tribune.

sania Buhay ‘is back home

after four months in the
Soviet Union and she looks the
picture of health .

When I called at her Toronto

home last week she was literally

- brimming over with what was
happening in the land that is ad-
vancing to the world’s first Com-
munist state. “I’ve actually run
out of superlatives,” she said as
we sat down to discuss her ex-
periences.

Beckie Buhay had not been to
the Soviet Union for 20 years.
She was astonished by the ad-
vances made since then — not
only in terms of construction, but

in the new people that have .

grown up under a socialist so-
ciety. ;

“Twenty years ago there was
the heroic struggle of the Stakha-
novite workers,” she said. “Today

the most common thing is that
workers are technicians and sci-
entists and inventors.”

Since 1949 no less than 2,500,-
000 inventions have been accept-
ed from workers. At the Stalin
Auto Plant which she visited,
where one lorry comes off the
assembly line every five minutes,
worker-invéntors have saved the
plant hundreds of thousands of
rubles and produced better qual-
ity cars and trucks at the same
time.

“There is an entirely new con-
cept of labor. The worker now
is, also a creator. Socialist emu-
lation in which workers constant-
ly strive to raise the living stand-
ards and cultural level of the en-
tire community, has brought into
being a new concept of Jabor that
is wonderful to behold.”

e i :

But because she herself spent
over three months in Soviet
sanatoria and hospitals, she re-
served her’ greatest enthusiasm
for what is happening in the field
of health and socialist medicine.

“Tn the Soviet Union,” she told
me,

JEAN PAUL SARTRE WRITES TO U.S. PEOPLE

“doctors, nurses and hos-.
 Pitals staffs don’t think in terms

of dollars. They don’t ask if you.
can. pay for a room if you need
hospital treatment: And with 20
beds for every 1,000 people in
the country, no one ever waits
for a bed.

‘Over there| you are treated
with every modern~ device and
technique known to medicine un-
til you are well. And I ean as-
sure you, they are very stern with
patients who don’t cooperate
fully.” 2

She said there was complete

unity among all branches of me-. |
dicine — and they treated the |
human being in a certain en- .

vironment.

Nurses i in the Soviet Union also
play a very important role in
the battle against sickness and
disease. “Most of them are
studying to become doctors, and

_by far the great -percentage of

doctors are women,”

What was the incidence of dis,

ease in the USSR? ;

‘J have no statistics,’ she re-
plied, “but doctors told me that
the rate of heart disease was
falling rapidly and that the TB
rate, which had gone up greatly

‘Legal lynching of Rosenbergs

smears whole nation with blood’

~ an angry article written the
day after the execution of
Ethel and Jusius Rosenberg in
Sing Sing prison, Jean Paul Sar-
tre, wellknown French anti-Com-
munist philosopher and author,
told the American people: ~

“You are collectively respons-
ible for the death of the Rosen-
bergs, some for having sponsor-
ed this murder, the rest™for

. having permitted it. . You allow-

ed the U.S. to become the cradle

of a new fascism.”

Published in the Paris news- .
paper Liberation on June 20, the
article described the execution
as “a legal lynching. which
smears with blood the whole na-
tion and which brings to light
once and for all unequivocally
the bankruptcy of the Atlantic
Pact and your inahility to lead
the Western world.”

Sartre wrote: %

Do you understand now why
we have begged you to grant
them a new trial? When we ask-
ed for justice for the Rosen-
bergs we meant also: Make the
defense of justice your own
cause,

When we begged you to spare
their lives, it meant also: Spare
yourselves. Now that we have
been ‘coerced into becoming your
ailies, the fate of the Rosenbergs
could be a preview of our own
future.

You say you are the masters

of the world, this offered you -

the opportunity to prove that
you were masters of your own
souls. But if.you gaye in to your
criminal folly, this’ very folly

might tomorrow throw us head-°

long into a war of extermination.

@ :
-No one in Europe ‘was duped:
Whether you granted life to the
Rosenbergs or precipitated their
_ death, you were accordingly pre-
- paring for peace or world war.

_ There were the sinister buf-
fooneries of MacArthur, the
bombi of the Yalu, McCar-
ran’s

Each time you dou-

ble-crossed Europe. And yet your
friends kept a-small hope.

If our governments were not
able to put their points of view
across it was because they dis-
agreed among themselves, it was
because France had not stood by
England, it was because they
were not backed by the people.

But yesterday,
whole of Europe, in one great
sweeping movement, with its
masses, its priests, its ministers,
“its. chiefs-of-state, who asked
your president to make a simple
gesture of humanity.

We were not asking for your
dollars, we were not asking for
your armaments, we were not
asking for your soldiers — we
were simply asking for the pre-
servation of two lives, two in-
nocent lives. °

Have you ever understood the
scope of this extraordinary
event?

aside: the Rosenbergs had made
European unity .

e ‘
One word from you and you
would have reaped, you too, the
benefits of this unification. The
whole “of Europe would have
honored you, You answered:
“The hell with Europe.” Okay.
But don’t talk to us of an al-
liance any longer. Allies consult
one another talk matters over,
make mutual concessions.

If you answer “No” when all
we ask you is not to bring dis-
honor upon yourselves to no
purpose, how can we believe that
you will allow us to speak out
when other great issues will be
at stake?

Us, your allies. Gonle on. Our
governments are today at your
service. Tomorrow our people

will be your victims. It’s as
‘simple as that. Doubtless you will
come out with shameful excuses:

Your president couldn’t grant
clemency to the Rosenbergs, he
had to yield ground so that he
could impose his view about

it was the

Class warfare no longer.
existed, the oldest feuds were set —

Korea? Come on. He is being
mocked every day there by his
own generals and by old Syng-
man Rhee.

And what country (is this,
whose statesmen are obliged to
commit ritual murders so that

they should be forgiven for put-

ting an end to a war? We know
now what we amount to in your
estimation. i

On one side you put the world
— on the other, McCarthy. When
the Rosenbergs sat on the elec-
tric chair, the scales were in

favor of McCarthy.
Do you believe we are going ©

to die for McCarthy? Bleed our-
selves to give him a European
army! Do you believe we are
going to stand for McCarthy’s
culture! McCarthy’s justice! That
we shall let Europe be turned
into a battlefield so that this
blood-stained imbecile can. Pe
books?

Let the innocent be Brooutedl
and the dissident judges jailed?
Please understand this right
now:
leadership of the Western world
to the assassins of the Rosen-

‘ bergs. .

By killing the Rosenbergs you

_ have simply attempted to halt

the progress of science by hu-
man sacrifice. Witchcraft, witch-
hunts, human pyres. We are here
getting to the point; your coun-
try is sick with: fear.

}

You are afraid of everything: :

of the Soviets; of the Chinese, of
the Europeans; you are afraid of
the shadow of your own bomb.
Some allies we have!

e@
After all, the Rosenbergs were

Americans and if some hope is
to be left in our hearts, it stems

from the fact that your country |

gave birth to such a man and\wo-
man, whom you have killed.

' One day, perhaps, this simple
faith will cure you. of your fears.
We hope so, for we have loved

you.

Never shall we hand: the

rooms —

as a result of the war, had been

“cut by .70 percent.

“Something that has to be re-
membered about the Soviet: Un-
ion is the complete absence’ of
tensions, pressure and hysteria.
This is very important and the
doctors are constantly talking

about the patient’s environment. |

They told me, for instance, when
I became impatient to get back
to my work in Canada,| that I
must remain until I was fully

well for,’ they said, ‘While we’re

changing the environment for
the better here every day, we can-
not export it to Canada.’ ”

* Soviet life literally breathes
that air of quiet confidence. No
blaring war scare headlines; no
violent comic books; no: whooped

_up scandals and high-speed liv-

ing; no chasing elusive dollars to
pay. next month’s Fen no worry
about layoffs. _

“They’re so S aboraunbly con-

vinced that the peace forces of
the world will win that there’s
no tension created by Yankee
war threats. As a matter of fact
I found a far stronger anti-U.g.
expression in Britain than I did
in the Soviet Union. There’s no

ion.

“Mind you, it would be the
worst mistake anyone could make |

to look on this as a sign of weak-

ness or lack of interest. The av-.
erage Soviet citizen is very well '

informed about what’s going on
in the world. But they have a
hew secret weapon that is their

pride and which instils a superb’

confidence. That secret weapon

is the construction of commun-

ism. :
“They. are a warm and won-

derful people,” she said, her
eyes glowing. “They work hard

‘because they love their work.
' There is not a trace of arrog-

ance among them, but there is
that confidence that comes of a

‘happy and secure people.

“How could they feel other-
wise? I was there during the
May Day price cuts. Why today,
the Soviet housewife knows that
the ruble buys 60 percent more
than it did in 1940 and it will be
100 percent more by 1955.

_ Beckie Buhay underwent treat-
ment at the famous Gagri Sani-
tarium in the Caucasus and she
raved about its great beauty.

“nf was unbelievably beauti-

ful, with flowers everywhere, ar-
tificial lakes and at the foot of
the mountainside, the . blue
waters of the Black Sea. And the
suite I had —-which was one of
many — was decorated and fur-
nished with a view to giving the

patient the greatest opportunity

for relaxation and rest.”

In another Sanitarium near
Moscow, patients were entertain-
ed frequently by stars from the
Bolshoi Theatre there was ‘TV,
regular movi showing, recrea-
tion. rooms, special diet dining

able to anyone.”
At the Stalin auto plant where

there are about 40,000 workers,

there is a whole network of hos-
pitals as well as a sanitarium
located at Riga.

108 doctors with 150 assistants
and nurses. ‘When I went there,

~I asked myself, what kind of a

different world is this?”
©

‘It’s the same at the collective

. farm she visited at Macharadze,

hate campaign in the Soviet Un-

“and all this is. ane

The plant has -

Revisiting the Soviet 4
after 20 years, Beckie BU ay
astonished by the advances |
— “not only in terms ©
tion, but in the new peoP ‘el
have grown up under @
society.”

the “Nitanevels in the
area, where the main crops
tea and citrus fruits. ot hil
saw the results of the alit
Lysenko science in full ré

a whole mountainside _ ae
with tea plantations aD
after acre of citrus f

tell you that in Moscow
there is a veritable
anges.”’)

This was a highly § suet
collective farm which 15 ale
the current year’s 14 lai
bles surplus into the b
a magnificent agro-cit wns
plete with theatres, oe aries!
era houses, parks, li iro-lee
entific institutions, hydro
development and hous! “

oly
“T found here thet as
closest unity hewn
and scientist — indec™> |,
entists meet in conferent
the field workers and
their observations.”

young en ar
farms. What about.

Union?

jz
“They stay — ante in 4 a i
often the other way @
from the city come 1? sone? :
farm work. Young Pe gull pol
sent to college and get
while they’re away. ee i
back as agronomists.”

But what Beckie ne
say in two hours only §
the surface; it would nee”
to: tel what she saw
to tell what she saw yer
whole people marching: “vend
‘ly along the road ' t
peace and the frien ap wit

‘mankind, and an end t0
economic crisis,
“and premature dea

bee!

be hoped she will eit

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 17,1