By SAM RUSSELL MOSCOW Automation is being introduced on a large scale at the first Mos- cow ball-bearing plant, which: employs over 12,000 workers, 5% percent of whom are women. |: Already a number of lines has been fully automised and in the ‘coming period more than 30 con- tinuous production lines will be installed on full automation. This plant is one of the most famous in the Soviet Union. To find out just how automa- tion is working there I went along and interviewed the direc- tor, Victor Retivoy, the assistant director, Alexander Mashkov, and others. : When the first. automatic line was introduced many trades were done away with and many work- ers released from their jobs. But not a single one has left the plant. ‘Where did these people go to?” I asked Alexander Mashkov, who is in charge of personnel ques- tions at the factory. To find the answer to this ques- tion I visited different parts of the factory and in particular the automatic lathes, where I met Vasily Makarov. i -He is in charge of the first section of the automatic line, which machines the external and internal rings for the ball races. In his office he showed me the old list of workers who were employed in this section before the automatic line was put into operation. Now the number of workers has been reduced by 30. What happened to those 30?” I asked. 3 “Well,” he said, “let’s take Nadezhda Gridneva, for instance. Before she used to be an ordinary turner. ; “Now this trade no’ longer exists in this shop, Gridneva has become an automatic lathe setter and her monthly pay has risen by 400 rubles. The same thing has happened to others.” Vasily Makarov added: “You see, this is the situation. When ordinary turners become setters, that doesn’t mean that the people who were setters before have nothing to do. “There’s Elizabeta Snegova for example. Before the auto- matic line went into operation, she was a setter on semi-auto- matic lathes, and now she has > become foreman of the auto- matic lathe section. Dmitry Lushechkin, is now chief engin- eer of the entire automatic turning shop. ; “And take myself,’ Vasily Makarov continued. “Not long ago I was only foreman of the : . governme, . tonl-malsing vshopy, Then ict half the members of the legisla- to an engineering technical schoo after working hours, and when I finished I was put in charge of the automatic line section. : “And so it goes on,” Vasily Makarov said. “As our entire production moves along the path of technical progress, people go forward too.” \ - A special. school has been set up at the Moscow ball-bearing plant where turners can learn new trades and acquire new skills, thus making the switch over to automation possible. ‘ _ Foremen are also given special courses to improve their quali- fications. Apart from the plant increasing productivity by 70 percent, it runs an enormous tech- nical college that» ensures auto- mation will not result in redund- ancy and dismissal but increases in the workers’ qualifications and salaries: No one is redundant Automation in USSR leads to promotions * Bitter over the British government’s refusal to give Singapore full self-govern- ment, David Marshall (above), chief minister of Singapore, left London with the question, “How long do you think you can ' keep Singapore with the bayo- net and the bullet ?” In a press conference held after the break- down of constitutional talks he described the Eden govern- ment’s colonial policies as “fascism in its international state.” i e : ‘ e Guiana unity | GEORGETOWN | A call for unity with other par- I ties in British Guiana to fight for ‘a more democratic constitution di Jagan, deposed premier and leader of the People’s Progressive party. ; The call, if responded to, could heal the breaches created in the advance for the people. was. seeking unity with other parties to demand a more ad- Jagan seeks : was made last week by Dr. Ched- | Guiana national movement under |. British repression and win a great | » Dr. Jagan said that his party |‘ | vanced constitution than the one 'recently proposed by the British nt, under which only tive and executive councils would be elected. ; / In 1953 Dr. Jagan, the coun-'® try’s first elected premier, was ‘deposed by the British govern- ment for demanding more powers for elected ministers than granted ‘under the 1951 constitution. Since “" ‘then the constitution has been ‘suspended and Guiana has been |ruled by the governor. Under this brutal pressure a section of the People’s Progres- sive party, led by Forbes Burn- ‘ham, a former minister, broke away, but it has now condemned the new official proposals. — The other political party in the ; country is the right-wing United Democratic party which in the past was a supporter of British rule, but has been driven to op- | pose the new British proposals and | to announce it is considering a LABOR MMP’s RESPOND Soviet arms cut challenges West LONDON The Soviet government's dramatic announcement of a 1,200,000 cut in military manpower has touched off a series of developments, among them a. declaration by 55 British Labor MPs that the Eden government should now cut its $7,650-a-minute arms program and a Moscow Radio a its armed strength. The Soviet announcement that armed forces would be cut by 1,200,000 men before May 1 next year (63 division to be disbanded, include three air force divisions, and 375 naval vessels to be put into reserve) brought these de- velopments: Soviet troops began to move out of East Germany, as the -|Soviet government began to give effect to its promise that 30,000 will leave the country. Demobilised Soviet soldiers were asked to take up con- struction jobs in Central Asia — a refutation of the U.S. allegation that they would be transferred to arms work. An appeal asked for 500,000 pioneers. The British and U.S. govern- ments were compelled to an- Reports that Archbishop Makarios (above) of Cyp- rus and. three bishops exiled with him by the British govern- ment were conducting a hunger strike touched off new demon- strations in Cyprus this week. In the British House of Com- mons last week a Labor spokes- man, James Griffiths, asked the government to bring Makarios to London for talks and a Con- servative MP, Sir Robert Booth- by, warned his government that “there is no heart in this country Altogether some 5,000 men and boycott if an election is. held| for this business” of repressing “women are attending courses. . under them. Cyprus. ppeal to Britain’ to follow. the Soviet example in reducing nounce sops to the growing pub- lic demand that they follow the Soviet example. Britain announced that no more grade three men would be called up for national service — a cut of 5,000 to 7,000 medically |° unfit men in the annual military intake. The United States announced it would cut its army by five percent’— about 65,000 to 70,000 men. The U.S. army strength will be 1,034,100. Air force and navy are untouched, and the total U.S. armed strength remains about 2,800,000. 4. Harold Stassen, President Ei- senhower’s special adviser on disarmament, said in Washing- ton: “It is our interpretation that the text of the Soviet announce- ment as a whole indicates a wish on their part to continue serious negotiations in an endeavour to reach a comprehensive agree- ment on the control of arma- ments.” Fifty-five British Labor MPs declared last week that the time had come for Britain to end con- scription and cut expenditure on arms. The MPs declaration said that the Soviet measures taken in con- .|junction with the whole recent t|development of Soviet policy, “have created a new situation of | vital importance to the future of mankind. “For they make it clear that the challenge of Communism is economic, social and political, not military, and that the Soviet Union wants peace as much as jany country in the world. “We believe the time has now céme for this country to end con- scription, to cut the defense bud- get and release for productive employment the men, materials and machinery engaged in pre- paring for war, on a scale suffi- cient to enable us to pay our way in the world, preserve our stan- dard of living and play our part in intefnational economic cooper- ation. “We should also revise our ‘cold war’ aims so as to make them consistent with European and Asian settlements, based on peaceful coexistence and the United Nations. “Such action would meet our urgent economic needs and re- cognize that our first line of de- fence is our standard of living and ability to help others, “It would also enable Britain to give a lead in the Disarma- ment Commission of the UN and at a new Four Power con- ference, and so to rise to the Fr > “I would like to shout so that the whole of Ivanov- sky could hear that the military budgets of all countries should be used to restore monuments and relics of the past such as these cannons and not to build new weapons of mass destruc- tion.” This is what French Premier Guy Mollet (above) said last week when the Kremlin palaces. At Ivanovsky Square guides told him that once tsarist decrees were read there, giving rise to the Rus- sian saying, “To shout so that the whole of Ivanoysky should hear.” opportunity the Soviet initia- “tive has given to all in every country who want peace.” In the Moscow radio appeal a commentator said: ~ “Why doesn’t Britain follow the Soviet example, since so much is being said and written about the crippling effects of the military burden on Brit- ain’s economy ? “It is not accidental that in the _ House of Commons, and outside it, the demand that Britain fol- low the Soviet example is being voiced with increasing insis- tence.” The broadcast added that the Soviet decision to cut its forces “shows a great confidence in the people of Europe, in the people of Britain, who will fight to prevent war, to stop the arms race.” The Soviet decision left it “up to the West to show by deeds, not words, that it stands for peace.” May 25, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 3