SOCIALISM — AND

“SOCIALISM’

How does economic and social progress in Britain under a Labor
government compare with that in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
under a Communict govemment?» Each government has published its
review of 1949, the British government in its “Economic Survey for

1950” and the Soviet government,
for 1949,

Overall industrial production in
Britain increased: by 6.6 percent
while that of the Soviet [Union in-
creased by 20 percent or a rate of
increase three times as much.

Industrial productivity in Britain
(output per man-year) was roughly
5% percent better in 1949 than the
previous years. In the Soviet Union
it was 13 percent.

The amount of capita] investment
in Britain last year was 1.7 per-
cent greater than in 1948, while in
the Soviet Union it was 20 percent
greater.

In these various figures lie the
secret of the superiority of a So-
cialist system over a capitalist
system. :

British workers are as good as
the Soviet workérs any day. Yet
Soviet industry forges ahead three
times as quickly as Britain’s and
productivity per worker increases
at a rate more than double that of
Britain. Why?

With abolition of capitalist pro-
fits the full product of industry
Can be devoted to expanding indus-
try, improving technique and at the
same time rapidly improve stand-
ards of life.

In Labor Britain, on the other
hand, the profit of the capitalists
takes away about four tenths of
the total national products in rent,
interest and profit. Of this stag-
gering amount only one-half is re-
invested in industry, mainly for de-
preciation, despite all the capitalist
propaganda to the contrary.

This is the main single reason
why industry in a real Socialist
country develops so much faster
than in a capitalist country.

Not only this. Because produc-
tion is for use in a Socialist coun-
try and not for profit, working-

class consumption increases as pro-
duction increases.

The opposite is true in Labor
Britain, :

Look at the facts. The govern-
ment “Economic Survey” gives us
the picture for Britain.

It states: “During the course of
1949 the amount which consumers
were willing or able to spend did
not increase so quickly as supplies
available.” ;

The Soviet “Report on the State
Plan—1949,” on the other hand, re-
cords: “In the course of 1949 the
amount of goods sold to the popu-
lation was (in comparable prices)

Soviet,-British —
postwaradvance
shows contrast

By JOHN GOLLAN

with “Report on the State Plan’’

20 percent more than in 1948.”

This was ten times the increase
in Britain, where personal con-
sumption in real terms was only
2 percent greater than in 1948.

In Britain in 1949, purchases of

food went up four percent and
clothing six percent, compared with
1948, and those of drink went down
five percent and tobacco three per-
cent.
. In the Soviet Union, on the other
hand, food purchases in 1949 in-
creased 17 percent and clothing 29
percent, and the purchases of drink
and tobacco also rose.

But there is more to it than that.
Britain is a class society and these
totals of national expenditure on
consumption hide the fact that
those with the money could buy
more, while those without could
not.

There are more eggs, for &x-
ample, but how many British
working class families can afford
more?

During 1949 in Britain, according
to the latest data of the labor min-
istry, average earnings of all work-
ers (allowing for increased prices)
rose by 2 cents per week. This was
the wage-freeze in action.

Here was the reward of the
Labor government for increasing
productivity by 5% percent for
the benefit of big business.

In the Soviet Union prices were
slashed. As a result, the Soviet
“Report on the State. Plan—1950”
reports: “The incomes of factory
and office workers, in comparable
prices, calculated on the basis of an
individual worker wag 12 percent
higher in 1949 than jn 1948.”

That was the reward of a Com-
munist government for increasing

productivity by 18 percent.

These are the facts based on the
official reports of both governments.

Soviet workers know they will
do just as well again in 1951. The
guarantee of this already was the
great price reductions of Febru-
ary which increased the real value
of his wages by one-quarter.

The only hope held out to Brit-
ish workers in the “Economic Sur-
vey” is more frozen wages and fur-
ther price increases, even # al
slump doesn’t come. And in every
other line of the “Survey” the dang-

er of the slump haunts its authors.

Peace picket -

This woman spoke for millions
of British workers when she pic-
ketted London’s swank Savoy
Hotel during the recent visit of
Dean Acheson, U.S. Secretary of
State, for “Big Three” talks. The.
sign she carried was brief and to
the point: “Acheson—Clear Out.
Take Your War Plans With You.

Would deprive
Communists of
seats in France

PARIS
The very existence of the repub-
lican regime in France is imperil-
led by the new step towards intro-
duction of electoral “reform,” taken
on the eve of the Christian Demo-
cratic MRP national congress at
Nantes.

All parties from the Socialists
to the De Gaullists are agreed on
the necessity of a voting method
depriving the Communists—strong-
est single party in France—of their
seats in parliament. The only dis-
agreement is on the best way to
ensure this.

Several] different methods—a 11
based On suppressing the present
system of proportional representa-
tion, and pooling votes for reac-
tionary parties to eliminate Com-
munist candidates—are under heat-
ed discussion in the parliamentary
lobbies.

1,500,000 sign
peace petition
in Czechoslovakia

PRAGUE

The day after the opening of the peace petition campaign in Czecho-
slovakia more than 1,400,000 people had signed the appeal launched

by the Stockholm Peace Conference

for banning of the atom bomb and

branding as a war criminal the government that uses it first. Hundreds

of thousands of new signatures are

being collected every day, in fac-

tories and schools, streets and villages, and at public meetings in a cam-
paign organized by the Czechoslovak Committee of Defenders of Peace.

Public meetings are being held
throughout the country. Factory
meetings are being called. Country
people gather to hear shockwork-
ers tell about their contribution to
the maintenance of peace. News-
papers print hundreds of letters ex-
pressing the resolve of mothers,
workers, scientists, priests, peas-
ants and students not only to de-
mand peace but also fight for peace.

In a joint declaration the
churches have urged all true
Christians to sign the appeal
without delay. The appéal is sign-

ed by leaders of the Catholic,

Orthodox, Czech

Brethren, fei and Un-

_ itarian and Jewish churches: It

Says: “Do not underestimate your
signature, You are not alone. Mil-
lions of signatures for the Stock-
holm resolution are a real force.”

, Sermons from hundreds of pul-
pits on the Sunday the campaign
began were devoted to explaining
the Christian significance of tthe
signing of the great petition as a
positive act in defence of peace.

Everywhere the signature assum-
ed the character of a conscious and
deliberate act by people who knew
and often got up and spoke about
why they were signing. Artists and
cultural workers took a full part
in the campaign.

When the workers of the Tesla
factory had signed, members of the
Academy of Music gave a special
performance in the factory of Sme-
tana’s symphonic poem “My Coun-
try’? On the completed petition
sheets that poured back from the
factories there are many greasy
marks and smears, left there by
the workers who came straight)
from the bench and lathe to sign
the appeal.

As they sign the petition, Czecho-
slovak workers think not only of
the threat to peace, but of the pre-
war days of unemployment and in-
security, and of the better life
which they have built up by their
own arduous and self-sacrificing ef-
fort in the years since liberation:
Letters to the papers express their
consciousness of how much they
now have to lose and their deter-
mination to make every necessary
effort to defend their own and their
children’s future.

“We fight for peace by our work,”
a Kladno worker writes. “We do
not want war. We love our towns
and villages, fields and woods, fac-

tories, houses and theaters which

Let’s make tractors,
not arms, say French

see! despite the
housing problem and lack of
equipment for industry and agri-
culture are responsible for the

;
gi §

a

the people built with their own
hands to serve their welfare. It is
not possible to seare us either by
threats or by frauds.”

The campaign has shown that
mone and more working people
clearly understand the close inter-
connection of the fight for peace
and the defense of their own stan-
dard of living. The pessimists who
here as elsewhere ask the question
“how can, One prevent war by sig-
natures?” have had a crushing re-
buff in the active and enthusiastic
response that the organizers of the
petition campaign have everywhere

met.

They know that, in the words
used by the Dean of Canterbury
speaking on this question recently,
“Millions of signatures cause dis-
quiet among the warmongers, tens
of millions of signatures cause pan-
ic in their ranks, and hundreds of

VILLAGE WHERE ‘1937 INCIDENT’ TOUCHED OFF

ANTI-JAPANESE WAR

Changhsientien

CHANGHSIENTIEN

People in and around this little’

township south of Peking have spe
cial reasons to know what war
means, Just nearby is the famous
Marco Polo Bridge, scene of the
1987 incident which touched off
the long Anti-Japanese War. The
local people remember the corpses
lying in the brooks and the dead,
blown-up horses on the roads, as
thousands of Peking citizens fled
from the Japanese to the com-
parative safety of Paoting.

I came here today for the fair,
but mainly because this traditional
annual event was also the occasion
for people from remote villages to
sign the Stockholm peace appeal.

I walked from the Marco Polo
Bridge, and the carts loaded with
whole peasant familes in their new
clothes shouted cheerily, offering
me lifts, Others, pushing big-wheel-

ed barrows loaded with produce
hurried along between the fields
of wheat, which, the old hands tell
me, is a more promising crop than
the district has seen for years.
At the entrance to the historic
townlet, a bright scarlet streamer
hung across the road, bearing in
big characters of gold, the words:
“Come and sign here, all lovers of
peace!” Below it was a station for
signing, surrounded by an eager
crowd, busily signing their names.
I noticed how many people, even
middle-aged peasants, could at any
rate manage to write their own
names now, and this included wom-
en, too.
Formerly, the fair ground had
been the temple of a goddess whose
speciality was said to be making
barren women fertile. Women
would go there and burn incense
or paper money to the “child-grant-

signs peace petition

ing goddess,” but now the place
is a primary school and being used
by the local health authorities dur-
ing the four-day fair.
Women were still lining uy
but this, time many of them were
mothers or pregnant and waiting
their turn to get into an ex-
hibition of modern methods of
maternity and child welfare

As though to sharpen the con-
trast between the old and the new,

ha team of brilliantly dressed school

children came into the open space
with waist drums and went through
the militant steps of drum dance.

And stil! another contrast was
provided by an old peasant wom-

signed, Then she went off and

came back with the whole fam-

I watched a healthy young peas-
ant with his new pitchfork in his,
hand making a tour of the busiest
section of the whole fair, the part
where shining farm implements
were on sale, With their new-found
prosperity after land reform, the
farmers were crowding round buy-
ing for wheat harvest in a few
weeks’ time. :

After pondering some further
purchase this young peasant went
away, apparently to think about
it, listened to the appeal from a
signature station and then, push-
ing his way to the table, said:
“Here, let me sign this. How can
we have better days without
peace?” Then off he went back to
look once more at the reapers,
harrows, drills and ploughs.

At the evening entertainment ar-

ranged

As I watched the attentive faces

of the peasants in the yellow lights, as

I reflected on the millions of peace- _
ful people in all townships of China
and the world who are playing their
part in this struggle to keep world

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 9, 1950 — PAGE 3