EER Pecan

g ities Thorez, president of

died oi Communist Party,

While fy a heart attack July 11

ae € was on his way to ahol-
Yin the Soviet Union.

be Was 64 and had been suf-
PS from the effects of a
€ in 1950 which partly par-
me him, His wife, Jeanette
a €rsch, was with him when
), 1€d on board the Soviet ship
Bi as it was passing the Bul-
@ Coast, His body was taken
ana and later flown to Paris
4 Special Soviet plane,

Messages of condolences from
: Countries of the world flood-
ne © French Communist Party
_ darters in Paris, :

The Communist Party of Can-
tl sc a message which said:
— you our fraternal con-
Th — On the death of Maurice
» Son of the French work-

i “ass and indomitable champ-
tial aed democracy and so-
‘ae Hisname symbolized the
€st traditions not only of

the
°mmunists of France but of
Countries”

une 22 and grandson of coal
cae the area of. Pas-
d ir, Maurice Thorez went
of Bue Pit himself at the tender
a 2 and from then his life
tevotion of struggle and complete

to the working people
&,

rf Franc

Ih
re autobiography, Son of the
Bray, ? J horez’ opening para-

«
tey -tMember the dreary clus-
trace jompany houses, the en-
t me © the pit, the long files
‘Uhdreg Worn out from working
toy , > Of feet undergound, and
“lace . then the accordion, the
Shri) the ‘timbers,’ or the
this pilsic of the fairs, Against
Moun ei -monotonous back-

,.- Stand out, poignant and
Nse

stretoy,

» the processions of
€rs covered with sin-

; bag ident Nkrumah of Ghana
7 by Bicrated his call for a
tates of Africa, Address-
; Organization for African
es ,, Said: “If we allow our-

tj. be Balkanized, we shall
Nizeg,»

Beall «.
"i; Situation in Africa is so
© will be the first to

ies, tells of his ealiest mem-

Maurice Thorez
SE ——EE———E

ew

isterly stained, tarpaulins and
then the long rows of dead cof-
fins set out in the sheds, I see
men, women and children hur-
rying from every direction, run-
ning into each other, pushing
and shoving, Police are stand-
ing against the gates against
which the screaming crowd
breaks into a wave...”

That was the terrible mining
disaster in the Mericourt pit at
Courrieres when 1,300 miners
lost their lives,

Thorez was a foundation mem-
ber of the French Communist
Party and was elected to its
central committee in 1924, The
following year he was elected to
the party’s political bureau; in
1930 he became general secre-
tary.

The 34 years in which he held
this post, until his retirement
last May andhis election as pres-
ident, saw the growth of the
French Communist Party to be-
come the country’s largest rerty,

In the 1930’s Thorez played a
leading role in the creation of
the Popular Front and the fight
against fascism. He was at the
head of the fight in France to
save Republican Spain during the
years 1936-39, .

In the dark years of nazi oc-
cupation it was the French Com-
munist Party under the leader-
ship of Thorez that took the lead
in the fight against the nazis;

in the first postwar election
the Communists elected 154 Dep-
uties out of 545, and Thorez
became a Deputy Premier when
the Communists joined the goy-
ernment,

‘His death will be mourned by
millions of people in all coun-
tries who saw in him the em-
bodiment of the revolutionary
traditions of the country which
gave the world the great slogan
of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,

MAURICE THGREZ

Aftican union called for

suffer should an economic crisis
set in in Europe,,.”

Nkrumah explained that he was
not suggesting a relinquishing of
sovereignty by individual African
states, He proposed a union form
of government with a president,
an executive council of ministers
led by a Prime Minister, aSenate
and a House of Representatives,

‘DRIVERLESS TRAINS’

World-famous Metro
utilizes automation

By PETER TEMPEST

For cleanliness and comfort
the Moscow Metro is hard to
rival, Every night the stations
are scrubbed, washed down
and wiped dry by an array
of specially designed
machines,

The powerful ventilation
system changes the air sev-
eral times a day, and “you
breathe purer air underground
than you do at street level,”
said chief engineer Igor Fyal-
kovsky,

At present the Metro car-
ries one-third of all passen-
gers using city transport,
buses, trams and trolley-
buses, But the Metro has the
task of raising its share to
45 per cent with no increase
in its staff, It plans to do this
by running longer trains of up
to eight carriages and by in-
creasing their rush hour fre-
quency — reducing the inter-
val between trains from 90
to 75 seconds,

Moscow Metro claims to
have the highest traffic densi-
ty inthe world, carrying 3,500,
000 passengers daily, whichis
21 million passengers per
year every mile of the track,
Chief operating engineer
Fyalkovsky reports progress
with fully automatic trains
which have been running suc-
cessfully now for two yearson
the circle line,

These so-called “driver-
less” trains follow a pre-set
program of acceleration and
braking for every interstation
journey, Now much simpler
and cheaper equipment has
been devised to do the same
job and more trains are to go
“automatic,” This is a big aid
to increasing train frequency,

As Faylkovsky pointed out,
running trains close behind
each other puts great strain
on the drivers,

“They are almost all the
time seeing the signals at red

Engineer A. Kovalsky checks the ‘‘automatic driver’’ panel of Moscow
Metro's new driverless trains. All gradients and stations are ‘program
med”, and there is only a button to press for ‘‘Go’’.

because each section of line
clears to green at the very
last minute, Automatic trains
can read the signals without
strain and also work double
shifts every day without
tiring,”

New, lightweight carriages
are also helping to boosttrain
speeds to 60 miles per hour,
At present you may travel any
distance for a flat five kopek
(five cents) fare, °

But by 1980, according tothe
Soviet Communist Party pro-
gram, municipal transport is
to become a free service to

the community and fares will
be abolished altogether,

Moscow’s Metro engineers
and builders have a nation
wide reputation andtheir fame
is spreading abroad, Tunnel-
ling teams trained in Moscow

have gone to drive road tunnels

in Afghanistan and to blast

rock passages for the sluices
of the Aswan Dam on the Nile..

If you’ve failed everywhere

else you can always be sure
that at the Metro station you'll
find the fliptop refrigerator
boxes from which white coated
ladies sell Moscow’s no less
fabulous ice cream,

Nazi General met Dulles,
Pius XIl to damage Allies

Accused of complicity in mass
murders, former S,S, General
Karl Wolff told a Munich court
recently that he had discussed a
possible German surrender to
the West secretly with Pope Pius
XII and U.S, Secret Service chief
Allen Dulles in May, 1944, He
also admitted similar discus-
sions with U.S, General Lemnit-
zer, now NatoSupreme Comman-
der, in March, 1945,

Wolff, who is 64, asserted that
by expediting a capitulation in
Italy he had saved the lives of
thousands of Allied soldiers.
Field Marshal Alexander of Tunis
has said so, Wolff declared,

He pleaded not guilty to char-
ges of taking part in the murder
of 100 neople, mainly Jews, exe-
cuted in Minsk, Byelorussia, in.

1941, and complicity in the mur-.

der of 300,000. people sent tonazi
death camps by helping to ar-
range transport,

He said that as early as 1942
he was worried that Germany
would lose the war and he later
sought to negotiate a surrender
to the West so that the war would
end in stalemate and prevent a
Communist takeover in Northern
Italy,

A capitulition to the Western
Allies was discussed when Pope
Pius received him for an hour
in May 1944, he said,

It did not lead to anything im-
mediately but ‘fopened the door
_for me with Mr, Dulles,”

July 24, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 11

He did not tell Hitler and Him-
mler all about his negotiations
but he had the backing of other
German commanders in Italy
when he went toSwitzerland three
times in March 1945 for talks
with the Americans,

He asserted that Sir Winston
Churchill in his memoirs had re-
vealed that Stalin was furious
about these negotiations, which,
Wolff said “unfortunately” didnot
bring about a breach between
Russia and the Western allies,

The West insisted on uncondi-
tional surrender,

He had contacts in Zurich with

spy chief Dulles and other agents,
Wolff blandly admitted,

The trial is continuing,