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