Rodney Arismendi (left), first Secretary of the Uruguayan Communist

Party expressed great joy at the release of three Communists from
-: Paraguayan prisons. He is pictured here being given the Playa Giron
Award by Osvaldo Torrado, member of the political bureau of the Com-

munist Party of Cuba.

Who pays for ‘acts of |
God’ under socialism?

MOSCOW — “Who paid for
the damage caused by the
drought?” is the question posed
and answered in this article by

APN commentator Lev
Voskresensky.
* * *

In the Report of the USSR
Central Statistics Board summing
up the economic development of
the Soviet Union in 1976, which
covered two. newspaper pages,
were three lines among all the in-
dices which did not gladden the
eye: Meat production dropped
from 15.2 million tons a year to
13.3 million tons. Milk dropped
from 90.8 million tons to 88.7 mill-
ion tons. Eggs dropped from
57,700 million to 55,100 million.
At the same time the USSR’s
population grew from 255.5 mill-
ion to 257.9 million. :

The drought of 1975, which was
more severe than ‘‘the climatic
disaster of the century’’ experi-
enced by Western Europe last
year, caused heavy damage to
Soviet agriculture and reduced
the head of cattle produced. A
westem farmer will understand
that such a result is inevitable be-
cause in some regions in Western
Europe last year the rainfall for
six months was below the 110 mm
mark.

But in 1975 for 8 months, rain-”

fall was as little as 33 mm in some
districts along the banks of the
Volga River. Cattle don’t thrive
without fodder, irrespective to
whom they belong — a Soviet col-
lective farm-or a Western indi-
vidual farmer. In short, the 1975
drought led to a reduction of cattle
and cattle produce. :

But does the consumption of
these foodstuffs drop by the same
amount? According to statistics,
the amount of meat sold in the
USSR decreased by only .01%,
sales of milk remained the same
and consumption of eggs, butter
and cheese actually rose.

We see the picture is not quite
as deplorable as it appeared at
first sight. Considering the

drought damage as an inevitable
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 4, 1977—Page 8

evil, the USSR maintained its
targets set by the Five Year Plan:
to continue to improve the coun-
try’s diet. The drought, we can
now say, only temporarily slowed
this process. :

The record grain harvest of
1976 (224 million tons) will help to
quickly restore cattle herds and
step up the production of animal
produce.

How did the USSR keep con-
sumption at a high level while
production dropped? Like any
drought-stricken country, the
USSR imported foodstuffs. But
imports alone could not be the
answer. The country mobilized
its internal resources — agricul-
tural enterprises raised their out-
put and state purchases of animal
produce topped the usual
amounts. Procurement prices
paid to the farms were higher than
‘usual’? and collective farm in-
comes rose 6% that year.

Now the most delicate ques-

tion: who paid the bill for the

dtought?

We all know that: the damage
caused by drought in Western
Europe was paid for by higher
prices to the consumer. In the
USSR prices didn’t rise and the
cost of overcoming the conse-
quences of the drought was paid
for by the state. In fact, the vol-
ume of retail trade rose in 1976.

- No social plans under the Five
Year Plan were curtailed —
wages keep rising, the system of
public education is developing
and medical services expanding.
Eleven million Soviet citizens im-

proved their housing conditions ~

last year.

Obviously, the money spent by
the state didn’t fall from the sky
like an autumn rain after a sum-
mer drought. The Central Statis-
tical Board figures give us the
source: The costs were paid out
of an annual increase in USSR
production of 18,000 million rou-
bles — for a total of 380,000 mill-
ion roubles last year. And
four-fifths of this total sum were
spent on increasing people’s liv-
ing standards. : :

An interview with Rodney Arismendi

Freedom for all political
orisoners in Latin America

MOSCOW — Rodney Aris-
mendi, First Secretary of the
Communist Party of Uruguay,
greeted the freeing of a group of
Communists from the torture

‘chambers of Paraguay.

Interviewed by APN corres-

| pondent, Vadim Nizsky, Aris-

mendi noted the new interna-
tional situation for the forces of
peace, and said:

“First of all I want, on my own
behalf and on behalf of all
Uruguayan Communists who
now work underground or are in
banishment, who languish in
prisons and are tortured there day
and night, to express great joy in
connection with a victory — the
release of Antonio Maidana,
Rojas, Alcorta and Ananian
Maidana.

These comrades, Communists,
who spent many years in the
tortore-chambers of the Stroess-
ner dictatorship which has been
serving imperialism for nearly a
quarter of a century now, have
become a symbol of the heroism
and resistance of Latin American
revolutionaries and patriots.
Their staunchness and infinite
loyalty to the ideals of Com-
munism, the ideals of the democ-
racy and freedom of the Para-
guayan people were not broken in
the course of 19 years of theirstay
in the cramped and dark cells of a
police station in Asuncion. '

Their lives were in danger and
nevertheless, we constantly re-
ceived, in one way of another,
courageous, firm and highly op-
timistic messages from these
comrades, first of all messages,
permeated with unbending
revolutionary spirit, from Para-
guayan Communist Party Chair-
man Antonio Maidana, an old
friend and a veteran fighter,
whom I’ve known for a very long
time.

I think that the release of the
Paraguayan comrades, which fol-
lowed the release of Luis Cor-
valan and other Chilean leaders,
is a victory of all peoples over
fascism and imperialism, a vic-
tory which convincingly showed
that, as a result of the struggle of
our peoples backed by great
international solidarity, we shall
be able to wrest away from pris-
ons and torture chambers hun-

dreds of comrades, Communists,
fighters for democracy, patriots,
prisoners of the fascist regimes of
Chile, Uruguay, Paragyay,
Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala,
Nicaragua and Haiti.

Nowadays we witness the bes-
tialities of Latin American fas-
cism and the desperate attempts
of U.S. imperialism and the most
regressive regimes, using the ultra
right-wing elements and the ar-
my, to check the Latin American
liberation movement that since
the triumphant Cuban revolution,
which brought socialism to the
continent, continues to develop,
winning great victories and,
naturally, suffering setbacks.

The onslaught of U.S. imperial-
ism, which began in the 1970s and
which led to the overthrow first of
the Torres government in Bolivia
and then to the coups in Uruguay
and Chile has nevertheless, failed
either to break the resistance of
the patriots of our countries or
solve the key problems put on the
agenda by our continent’s
economic and social reality rais-
ing our peoples to the struggle for
political and economic self-
determination.

This weakness of fascism, par-
ticularly clear against the back-
ground of changes-in the interna-
tional arena, and the great role of
the Soviet Union, the socialist
community as a whole, the
peoples of the third world and the
non-alignment movement, all
democratic forces in the struggle
for peace and independence and
the deepening of détente, have
become closely interwoven with
the great world-wide campaign of
solidarity. :

This is an example of the force
of proletarian internationalism,

the force of the international pub-

lic opinion.

When we learned the great

news about the release of Cor-
valan, we said that the release of
Corvalan is a great defeat for Chi-
lean fascism, Latin American fas-
cism and imperialism, predeter-
mined, among other factors, by
the consistent internationalist ac-
tivities of the Soviet Union and
the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, which made a tre-
mendous.contribution to the vic-
tory of the international move-

PHOTO — TASS.

the largest in Europe.

OLYMPIC SPORTS CENTRE

A model of the new sports centre including a
universal in-door stadium for the Olympic boxing and basketball
competitions and q 10 thousand seat swimming pool for the
swimming and high diving competitions, will be constructed near
Mir (Peace) Avenue, Moscow. After completion the centre will be

ment of solidarity and the saving
of the priceless life of Corvalan.

We now say that the impending
task is to save other prisoners in
Latin America. After the release
of Antonio Maidana and his com-
rades it is necessary to wrest
away from Jaime Perez’s torture
chambers General Seregni and
other progressive military lead-
ers, Jose Luis Massera, Jerardo
Cuesta, Mazzarovich, Rita Ibar-
buru, Alberto Altesor and other —
leaders of our party who head the
struggle for democracy and
against imperialism in Uruguay
and other Latin American coun-
tries, who nowadays are bestially
tortured in prisons and whose
lives hang by a thread.

The release of Paraguayan
Communists shows that this is re-
al, that in the new international
situation for the forces of peace,
our peoples will be able to win this
victory:

Rents are a mere1% of the aver-
age family, budget 3% to 4% when
you add services such as electrici-
ty, heat, etc. E

These are the achievements of
the socialist system, established
by the working class — a system
the Canadian ruling class still tries
to hide from Canadian workers
behind a campaign of slander.

USSR marks
GOyearsof
social progress —

- In 1977 the Soviet Union will ©
mark the 60th anniversary of the —
Great October Socialist Revolu- |
tion in which the old order was ©

overthrown and the more than ©

120 nations and nationalities of ©
the Soviet Union began the build- —
ing of socialism.”
Sixty years is a relatively short _
historical period and is well within —
a single lifetime. Yet, in 1976 the |
USSR’s national income was 65 —
times greater than before the ©
revolution.
Now, in two and a half days,
industry produces as much as it ©
did in the whole of 1913 — the
year of the best economic indices
of tsarist Russia. It accounted
then for just over 4% of world —
industrial production. Today it ©
accounts for 20% — one-fifth.
The USSR is firmly leading the
world in the output of pigiron and ~

- steel, in the produciton of oil, co-

al, iron ore, cement, mineral fer-
tilizers, cotton and many other
products. That is even more ©
significant when one remembers ©
that of the six decades two were ©
taken up by wars and rehabilita-
tion of the economy.

In those years of socialism
workers’ incomes have risen 10-
fold and those of farmers, 14-
fold. For about 50 years there has

. been no unemployment. Mainte-

nance in old age, medicare and
education are free. Women. re-
ceive pensions at 55 and men at
60. -
Today the Soviet’ Union has
800,000 doctors — one quarter of
the global medical community..
While Soviet spokesmen say
not all their people have adequate |
dwellings, this situation is being
improved without soaring rents.