‘NEW SOVIET FIVE YEAR PLAN

Economic advance, people s |

needs come first in USSR

MOSCOW — 1975 is drawing
to a close. For some people in
Canada it will encourage the
hope that 1976 will bring:a job
and some security, while for
others it will bring the hope that
they won’t join the growing list
of Canadians who are now out
of work.

1976 in the Soviet Union how-
ever as well as in Poland, Cuba,
and the German Democratic Re-
public will entail embarking
upon a new five-year program of
planned economic development.

February 24, 1976 is
scheduled date of the next Con-
gress, Communist Party of the
Soviet Union where plans for
the political, economic and So-
cial development of the country
are to be hammered out while
the advances and lessons of the
last five year period will be ap-
preciated and drawn.

The Supreme Soviet of the

f USSR has recently passed the

Cooperation between socialist states in the economic sphere is

the’

law on the country’s economic
development plans for 1976,
which attaches top priority to
four tasks:

e Consolidation of the mate-
rial and technical basis in all the
economic sectors, especially
agriculture;

e Raising of the technical
standards of production and of
the quality of products;

e Growth of labor productiv-
ity;

e Improvement of
standards.

Improving the standard of liv-
ing will be the main focus of
the new plan. A number of
measures are envisioned in this
direction.

Maintaining high degree of
purchasing power and an in-
crease in the production of con-
sumer goods are both projected
for the next five year period.
This is possible, unlike in capi-
talist countries, because under

living

; rapidly developing throygh the Council for Mutual Economic Assist-
~ ance (CMEA). Photo shows Soviet Lada cars on their way to one
, of the European countries of the socialist community.

A 4% rise in net

By FILS DELISLE
BERLIN — The onward march
Of socialism in the German
Democratic Republic, with its
Suarantee of steady progress for

‘all sections of the people, has

been confirmed once again.

While the advanced capitalist
World does not attempt to hide
its inability to plan-even full em-
ployment, the GDR’s Volkskam-
mer (Parliament) met here in its
year-end session and with no
fanfare whatsoever decreed a
better life for everyone in 1976
aS a routine part of the next
five-year plan.

The GDR has the advantage

_ that 70% of its foreign trade is

_ With the Soviet Union and the.

Other ‘members of Comecon
Ouncil for Mutual Economic

; Cooperation) and that thereby

it

is guaranteed export and im-
Port positions.
Thus in 1976, at a time when
€ capitalist countries cannot
€ven predict what their foreign
trade balance will be like, the
R plans to raise its foreign
ae turnover by a substantial

In contrast to the disorganiza-

income seen in GDR

tion in the economies of the
capitalist countries, including
the USA and Canada, the people
of the GDR will continue to en-
joy a 4% rise in net income in
1976, with prices remaining
stable. Balancing this off, as
only a planned socialist oe:
my can, there will be a 4% in-
crease in retail trade, that is to
say, in*the production and sale
of consumer goods. es

The entire national income
will rise by 5.3%. Industrial
production will rise by almost
7%. Labor productivity will rise

5.5%.
tS ie to75, more schools will be
built, more kindergartens, more
hospitals and clinics, more
creches, more new homes for a
substantial section of the popul-
ation.

All of these successes of the
outgoing five-year plan and of
the first year, 1976, of the next
five-year plan, do not mean that
there are no problems confront-
ing the GDR or the other social-
ist. countries. What they do
show is that socialism is coping
with all the problems that keep
arising in a manner unknown to

contemporary capitalism.

socialism the state has control
over retail prices. Again, unlike
capitalist economies, in the
‘Soviet Union prices have re-
mained stable for a number of
years while incomes are steadily
growing.

More money will be channel-
led into the public consumption
funds which are used to subsidize
free public education and health
services, as well as pensions,
scholarships and other benefits.
This isin sharp contrast to
Canada where the major head-
lines.in the news forecast harsh
measures by penny - pinching
provincial and federal govern-
ments through budget slashing
in these same areas of social
services and education.

The plan for 1976 calls for the
building of 111-million square
meters of housing. In addition
to the allocation of 4,700-million
rubles to increase minimum
wages and for raising.the wages
and salaries of workers in the
medium wage bracket, employed
in the productive sector of the
economy, the state also plans to
reduce income taxes for the
Soviet people.

The 1976 plan also takes into
account allocation of 1,700-mil-
lion rubles for environmental
protection and the rational use
of the country’s mineral res-
ources.

Another feature of life under
socialism is that the extent of
rational planning extends be-
yond economic considerations to
include expectations with regard
to the development of foreign
policy.

The plan for the upcoming
period is to elaborate the “Peace
Program” which emerged from
the 24th Congress five years ago.
In the words of CPSU General
Secretary, Leonid Brezhnev, a
very important place in the

work of the 25th Congress “will ~

be occupied by mapping out the
tasks of the further struggle for
diminishing the threat of war,
for strengthening peace and the
development of peaceful co-ope-
ration among states.”

The main provisions of the
Peace Program — to eliminate
the hotbeds of war, ensure col-
lective measures designed to
strengthen peace in Europe and
other regions, take practical
steps towards curbing the arms
race, eradicate colonialism and
racism, and development mutu-
ally. advantageous co-operation
among states — cover the major
preblems of world politics.

Though success has _ been
achieved to some degree in
many of the areas’ outlined,

SYRIAN-GDR
COOPERATION

DAMASCUS (ADN) — ‘The
Syrian Ministry of Industry and
the GDR foreign trade firm In-
vestexport have signed an agree-
ment on the enlargement of six
GDR-built cement plants.

Under the agreement Invest-
export will finance and assemble
another eight furnaces in the ce-
ment factories of Damascus,
Aleppo, Homs and Tartus under
construction.

By 1980, Syria will be able to
produce some six million tons of
cement and thus cover home de-
mands.

The. new five year plan for economic development will channel
more funds into public education, health services, pensions, scholar-
ships and other benefits. It also calls for 1,700-rubles for environ-
mental protection and the rational use of the country’s natural
resourées. Prices in the USSR have remained stable for years while
incomes and other benefits grow steadily.

much remains to be done. The
leading and public circles of the
Soviet Union are convinced that
the correct course taken in the
implementation of the Peace
Program must be steadily con-
tinued farther.

This optimism and resolve to
continue is based on the signific-
ant foreign policy results which
have marked 1975.

The successful conclusion of
the Helsinki Conference on Sec-
urity and Co-operation in Eu-
rope ‘stands out as one of the
most impcrtant achievements
along. the road to detente.

The conference was able to
evolve a code of peace expres-
sed in the last act which forms
the basis for the development
of inter-European relations and
the joint search for ways to en-
sure more reliable security. If
strictly observed by all states,
it will guarantee that the Euro-

“pean people will be free from

the threat of war on that con-
tinent.

The basis of detente was also
strengthened by the elimination
of one of the most dangerous
hotbeds of war with the cessa-
tion of hostilities in Indochina.

The basis for expanding the
zone of detente between the
U.S. and the USSR was made
possible as: well as the possibil-
ity for strengthening security in
Asia.

As an initiative towards af-
fecting a settlement in the Mid-
dle East, Moscow appealed to
Washington last November to
convene the Geneva Conference

with the participation of all in-
terested countries including the
representatives of thé Palestine
Liberation Organization.

1975 also saw the end of the
last colonial empire in Africa
when Mozambique, the Cape
Verde Islands, Angola, and
Guinea Bissau won their inde-
pendence from Portugal.

In Angola however, the alli-
ance of old and new colonialists
and other imperialist agents
have been trying to make this
year a year of revenge for for-
mer defeats. South Africa,
NATO mercenaries, and other
accomplices of imperialism have
openly intervened in the coun-
try’s struggle, in an attempt to
destroy the republic of Angola.

By offering concrete steps to
curb the arms race and deepen
detente, the Soviet Union and
all other fraternal countries of
the Socialist community are up-
holding the only alternative cap-
able of frustrating the intrigues
of the reactionary forces.

Towards this aim the Soviet
Union has launched recent ini-
tiatives in the United Nations,
calling for a halt to the arms
race in nuclear weapons, and to
prevent the development of new
systems of mass destruction. At
the same time the USSR con-
tinues to work for constructive
solutions.at the Vienna talks on
the reduction of armed forces
and armaments in Central Eu-
rope, and also within the frame-
work of Soviet-American nego-
tiations on containing the strate-
gic arms race.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 9, 1976—Page 5