‘Strikes rock

UNREST WIDESPREAD

PARIS

The fascist government of Spain is being rocked by a
strike of industrial workers throughout the northern part of
- the country. ;

Now, as in 1951, there are two centres of the strike
movement — the steel-producing industrial area of the Basque

country in the north, and the
Catalonian port of Barcelona,
Spain’s chief industrial centre.

Thousands struck in Barcelona
last week and remained out de-
Spite the arrest of many of their
leaders.

The strike movement started
in Pamplona, where the indus-
trial unrest that has been grow-
ing for a long time flared into
Open action on Wednesday last
week and spread to neighboring
towns.

In Barcelona, most of the sev-
eral thousand workers at Ma-

—

Scientists
Stand by

theories

: MOSCOW

The world-famous Soviet agri-
cultural scientist Academician
Lysenko, at his own request has
been relieved of his position as
President of the USSR Academy
of Agricultural Sciences, which
he had held since 1948.

His place has been taken by
Pavel Labanov, hitherto a deputy
bremier in the Soviet government,
Where he was in general charge
of agricultural affairs.

Agriculture Minister Matske-
vitch, who recently visited the
U.S. takes Lobanov’s place as
deputy premier, while retaining
his position of minister of agri-
Culture,

_It is pointed out here that re-
lieving of Lysenko from his ad-
Ministrative duties as president
Sf the Agricultural Academy
does not mean that his theories
have been discarded.

_But in view of the great exten-
Slon of the academy’s work it was
thought necessary to have some-
©ne with: more administrative
Xperience, enabling Lysenko to
€vote more time to research
Work,

Lysenko was the only non-
barty scientist who addressed the
recent 20th Congress of the Soviet

Ommunist party, which gave him
& great ovation for his work in
@dvancing Soviet agricultural
Stlence and in increasing crop
yields,

Soviet scientists stand by their
Ylews on genetics which they

&ve maintained against Western
Diclogists since 1948.

This was made clear by Profes-
Sor Nesmeyanov, president of the

Viet Academy of Sciences, an-
SWering questions on the future
development of agricultural
Science,

But Nesmeyanov said that
8enetics, as in other sciences,
Soviet scientists did not take a
Osmatic view and considered
t development of various

Sthools of scientific thought

Should - be possible, provided
Y were really scientific. —
for wy, Only correct way, he said,
. the development of science
q 48 freedom of thought and free-

®M of scientific research.
f “Smeyanov said that the works
bei Cademician Vavilov were
‘Ng republished by the acad-
Ys Cause there was no doubt
aS One of the Soviet Union’s
Steatest botanists.

quinistra Terestre Maritima, one
of the city’s big engineering
plants, stopped work.

General Acedo, governor of
Barcelona, immediately arrested
a number of, leaders and closed
the plant. But workers at another
plant struck and after that the
strike continued to spread.

General Acedo was sent to
Barcelona as a “strong man”
after the strikes in 1951 when
300,000 workers struck against
rising living costs.

On that occasion, Franco sent
troops to Barcelona and ordered
warships into the harbor in an
attempt to intimidate the strik-
ers. ;

In 1951 there were also fierce
demonstrations at San Sebastian
and other northern towns, only
quelled eventually by troops and
armed police.

The present strike is for high-
er wages, but is also closely
’ connected with the rising gen-
eral unrest and hatred of Fran-
co’s government.

Conscious of this, the govern-
ment recently granted a 20 per-

‘cent increase in the starvation

basic wage. Workers reported
that the increase did not com-
pensate for the rapid rise in the
cost of living which has pushed
thousands to the edge of starva-
tion. :

The situation is complicated
for the government by a rising
movement of protest, among
students and intellectuals. Be-
hind the protest is deep resent-
ment against restriction of free
expression by the fascists. ‘

A student strike threatened for
last week at Madrid University
did not take place, but there is
general unrest among students.

Last week three young men of
well-known families were ar-
rested for distributing illegal
leaflets. One was Manuel Monte-
sinos Garcia Lorca, a nephew of
Federico Garcia Loca, the poet
who was murdered during the

civil war.

British punish
silent village
by fine, curfew

A NICOSIA
Because they refused to be-
tray their fellow Cypriots who
ambushed a small British con-
voy, villagers of Kalopsida have
been punished with a $2700 fine
curfew.
Me village, which is 30 miles
east of Nicosia, was \ringed by
nearly 1,000 British troops at
dawn on Friday last week. They
searched every house and in-
itant. :
ae the British district com-
missioner distributed blank sheets
of paper and envelopes and
threatened the village with
punishment unless its. inhabi-
tants provided information. —
Later, declaring that the replies
were not satisfactory, he an-
nounced the collective fine and
that a complete curfew, under
which no one could move from
their houses, ws be maintained
il it was paid.
a ce ardered three places,
including a store, to be destroyed.

7,

? g

Franco’s troops have failed to daunt Spanish ‘workers

Franco’s regime is also faced, strikes and demonstrations in {called Ifni.

with mounting unrest in its North

Its African inhabi-

Spanish Morocco earlies this year.| tants have revolted and attacked
: : : In the far south of Morocco| the Spanish garrisons in Sid Ifni,
African colonies, following the| there is a small Spanish colony / the capital.

Bulgarian premier relieved of post

Communists in Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria act on personality cult

In a denunciation of ‘the cult of the indi-
vidual, published here last week, A. Novotny,
first secretary of the Czechoslovak Commun-
ist party, said that crude breaches of Socialist
legality in the Soviet Union, due to the wrong
and one-sided thesis of Stalin and ‘the activity _

of Beria, were also reflected in
Czechoslovakia.

Some workers in security and
justice departments got the wrong
idea that only they were the
main power in the class struggle,
and not the working class, led
by the Communist party, Novot-
ny said. They tried to get above
the party and this led to mistakes
and arbitrary. actions and
breaches of Socialist legality,
which were put into effect step
by step from 1948.

This resulted in the security
organs considering themselves the
superior body in the state, not
subject to control but with the
right to control the activity of
the Communist party.

He said that in the fight against
the personality cult it was not
only the criticism of one person
which was important but the
whole conception of the work
which acted as a brake and caus-
ed much harm. ,

Novotny said there were too
many examples of immodesty
and snobbishness in the public
and personal life of party func-
tionaries, many of whom forgot
too soon that they were respon-
sible for their work to the party
and the people.

“With all the great merits’

which Comrade Gottwald gained
in the fight for the overthrow of
capitalism, for the victory of so-
cialism about which nobody
doubts, it is necessary to say that
even with his well-known mod-
esty, there were often attributed
to him merits which belong to
the party and the masses,” he
added. ey

In concluding his report, Nov-
otny said:

“There are voices, even if soli-
tary voices, which ask if while
we are fighting against the cult
of personality created round Stal-
in, we are not at the same time
creating a new cult — the cult
of Lenin.”

This objection, he commented,
could not be upheld.

With the growth of socialist

PRAGUE

construction, the foundations of
reaction were diminished and “the
forms of the class struggle that
have been associated with sup-
pression and the use of force
change their weight with changes
of conditions and situations.

“From this we can deduce that,
step by step, the extent of these
organs which have a suppressing
function will be’ diminished and
their methods of action will
change, even though their task is
still very important and should
not be underestimated.”

Automation does”

not mean robots

LONDON

The factory of the future will
not be run by robots. Though
machines are stronger, man with
his judgment and imagination is
irreplaceable.

Landon Goodman, speaking to
the Electrical Development As-
sociation’s annual conference in
London last week, said this in
criticising “confused thinking and
writing” on automation.

Mechanisation was the answer
to repetitive work, but jobs must
be so arranged to make use of
the high and unique qualities of
the human being.

The fact that in “many situa-
tions men are paced by mach-
ines,” Goodman claimed, was a
major factor in “industrial un-
rest.” 5

He warned that the amount
of research into automation in
Britain was “lamentably small.

The output of scientists and
technologists in the Soviet Union,
where a Minister of Automation
existed, had caused “alarm” in
Britain and the United States.

“Russian graduates are not
narrowly specialist although their
quality has been found to be of
a higher order than is customary
in any British university,” he de-
clared.

APRIL 20, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 3 |

SOFIA

The Bulgarian Communist party’s central
committee has criticised Prime Minister Vulko
Chervenkov for instituting a “cult of person-
_ality” harmful to the state, ‘the Bulgarian
News Agency reported last week.

(It was reported this week that Chervenkov

had asked the National Assembly
to release him from the premier-
ship, that the assembly had un-
animously approved his request
and that Anton Yugov, a first
deputy premier, had been elected
premier.)

A communique on the recent
central committee meeting said:
“The cult of the personality of
Comrade Vulko Chervenkov push-
ed into the background to a
great extent the traditional and
tested methods of the work of
the Bulgarian Communisty party,
of inner-party democracy and of
collective leadership.

“As a result of this cult, one-
sided decisions were taken which
caused harm to the organization-
al, ideological and economic work
of party and state.”

After surveying achievements
in mobilising the people and
successfully building socialism,
the Bulgarian Communist party’s
central committee concluded:

“These successes would have
been even greater if the cult of
personality from which harm re-
sulted, and non-Marxist methods
had not found a large place in
the work of the Bulgarian Com-
munist party and in public life
during the past years.

“The plenum of the central
committee has worked out cer-
tain measures for the final liqui- .
dation of the cult of personality
in our party and the wrong and
harmful. methods linked with it.

“The plenum insisted on the
introduction of Leninist principles
into party life, of collective lead-
ership and the establishment of
inner-party democracy, criticism
and self-criticism on all levels
of party organization.

“The plenum of the- central
committee deems it necessary to
adopt appropriate measures to
strengthen socialist legality in
the country.” a