J LL 0 | TA au n oe 2 || Te JUL IRL IL Lh USSR INVESTS IN YOUTH Soviets now leading world in training scientists, technicians 47@HE EARTH satellite is one of the results of the Rus- sian educational system,” wrote the Manchester Guard- ian the day after Sputnik I was. launched. The e daily success, acknowledged press of all West- took the world surprise; but immediately ed a question in the mihd of all thinking people which the same daily press has so far not shown any eagerness to take up. The question is, if the Sov- let educational system has achieved such an outstanding success, what is lacking in the éducational system of the U.S., Britain, Canada and other Western countries? £ Spokesmen of the West say that the Soviet Union was able to launch.the satellite first be- eause it had devoted itself to military development, which facilitated production of the earth satellite. But isn’t the contrary true? Ever since Britain and the U.S. ‘acquired their early suprem- acy with the production of the “A-bomb they _have concen-: trated their science’ research on military projects. Further, the British and Am- erican ruling classes have done much to hold back the de- velopment of science and tech- nology. They have viewed the discoveries of science as a com- bined source of profit. By contrast, the Soviet Union has carried through a vast program .of planned ex- pansion in education at the ex- pense of immediate consump- tion requirements. In the current Five-Year Plan the USSR will turn out approximately four million specialists from its universities and technical colleges. This number will include 650,000 engineers for manufacturing industry, transport, civil en- gineering and agriculture. But the response of British and American ruling circles to Soviet achievements show how far they are from a proper understanding of educational requirements and how little they have grasped the method of planned development of which the Soviet Union has given the world a tremendous practical example. Planning involves changing people. The Soviet Union put up a tremendous struggle in the early thirties to train its young people so that they could handle modern machin- ery — expressed so vividly at the time in Stalin’s phrase: “Cadres decide everything.” The younger generation is not regarded as a -source of These verses last November. long years. something. jaces; ‘Remembrance Day were written by Vancouver worker- poet Edward Drake as part of a Plea for Peace circulated With all the pomp and circumstance, The glitter and the glistening We honor soldiers fallen in two wars. How the notable congregate To swank a bit and of course to remember Men, many of whom never even had a proper meal or decent clothes, or life... For years before the sullen guns Boomed,out their hymn of death. These once called derelicts, now derelicts no longer, But much desired; the ladies even kissed them! But all too soon they sought the gaping grisly jaws Of Hell, and died their hero-deaths for us. How ironic — they died for their country — yes A land that never loved or cared for them; But starved or worked them at the lowest rates for ten Then the Great Ones said they owed their country 2 And so they suffered and so they died. I; one of these dead could stand before us here, So he could cast the truth full in our smug, complacent What long, sgnorous speeches would we utter then? What recompense hold out for forty years — And for the wife and children that can never be? EDWARD DRAKE labor power trained according to current needs. For one thing, you cannot utilize science in such an ex- pedient manner. It takes years to train scientists, and the sup- ply cannot be turned on at will. A higher education is re- garded as something essential for the advance of Soviet society and the hallmark of the new. rising generations. The USSR knows the mean- ing of planning. Its educa- tional system is based upon the teaching of science—that is to say, it is based on modern knowledge. * * & The Soviet Union needs en- gineers and, therefore, it ‘en- courages young people to be engineers. It gives them the intellectual equipment at school. Unlike the Western coun- tries, it regards the whole of the young people as potenti- ally capable of doing special- ized work—it has no intelli- gence testing. Secondly, it has succeeded in making science and tech- nology as equally attractive to girls as to boys—how many girls in Western countries are studying engineering, for in- stance? Approximately half of the students in the USSR are girls; they form between one-quar- ter and one-third of the engin- eering and about three-quarters of the medical school of the USSR. faculties Thirdly, planning in educa- tion is related to the planning of the whole economy. Stud- ents are not trained if there are no jobs for them; hence the relatively small propor- tion in socio-economic sub- jects. Soviet students all receive jobs where they can further develop their skill. As one British commentator, K. Men- dlesohn, wrote recéntly: “The value of the Soviet scientist to the community is expressed also in his salary. . . . Count- ing up numbers, salaries and equipment, Russia spends pos- sibly more on science than the rest of the world put together.” COLIN SWEET x * paar The epoch-making events of the Socialist Revolution x what is now the Soviet Union are recalled by these 'picy — tures. Top picture shows the room — Apartment 31 in House No. 34 on Leningrad’s Kappovka River embankment — where on Occober 23 (old style (October 10), 1917, the central com mittee of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Bol- sheviks) made its historic decision to seize power. Centre picture shows soldiers of the Keksholm Regiment who occupl the Petrograd telephone exchange during the October uprising: Bottom picture shows soldiers and workers at Smolny. ‘No accident Soviet Uniol led in scientific advance OVIET Academician Peter Kapitsa, former Cambridge University research worker, does not consider it accidental that the two outstanding scien- tific achievements of recent years, the peaceful application of atomic energy and the launching of the first artificial satellite, have been made by the Soviet Union. In a broadcast over Moscow Radio he said: “I do not believe the fact that these advances have been made in our country, a social- ist country, can be considered to be accidental. It is no ac- cident but the result of sound November 8, 1957 — principles of organization cc science and of the relation ® science and practice. “That we are not as rich as the United States is no sect for us, but why was it possible for us to solve these difficul® scientific and technical prob lems of prime importance e fore they were able to do $° “The solution .of each © these problems necessitate com the overcoming of very 559 plicated scientific and techn! cal obstacles. The solution © such problems is only feas! if they are undertaken be large and talented group - scientists and engineers. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—3AG= PO ae, * Mgt ta '