By FILS DELISLE

BERLIN — For four unforget-
table days the German Democra-
tic Republic has resounded to
the festivities and celebrations
of the Republic’s 25th anniver-
sary, its huge economic, political
and cultural successes, and its
program of never-ending pro-
gress in all fields of human life.

Veterans of the Marxist move-
ment agreed that this has been
an event that touched greater
sections of the population more
deeply than ever before. That
was evident at meetings all over
country at which workers, farm-
ers, intellectuals, writers, scient-
ists and others assessed the dif-
ficult road traversed here in the
past quarter century and the
prosperity, the good life, the
secure life which all the sacri-
fices and strenuous work have
now brought. |

For four days the streets, con-
cert halls, open air stages, the-
atres, ballrooms and auditoriums
were turned over, night and day,
to symphony . concerts, recitals,
plays, folk and dance music, the-
atre ensembles, choirs and solo-
ists from the GDR and other
countries. When Leonid Brezh-
nev, CPSU General Secretary,
and the Soviet delegation to fes-
tivities arrived, people filled the
streets of Berlin to cheer them.

The entire nation heard and
saw, via television and radio, the
Berlin anniversary meeting at
which Erich Honecker, First Sec-
retary of the Socialist Unity
Party, declared that no capitalist
country could provide its people

with same security, social ser-

vices and guaranteed progress
as the GDR. Later that evening
‘a vast torchlight procession of
100,000 young people filed
through the centre of Berlin pas-
sing for hours before the review-
ing stand of -government and
party leaders. The procession in-
cluded a dance program by 750
young dancers. It ended with an

unprecedented performance of ‘

Beethoven’s music by massed
bands of another 700 exclusively
young musicians.

The next day, the military
preparedness of GDR was shown
by parade of detachments of the
National People’s Army: bearing
the most modern weapons and
rockets and by a naval display
in the Baltic Sea that was also
televised all over the country.

. All declarations during the
festivities made it clear that the
military displays were not a
show of belligerence but a de-

monstration of preparedness in:

pursuit of peace and collective
security.

As Neues Deutschland, Social-
ist Unity Party newspaper, de-
clared. “the parade of the Na-
tional. People’s Aarmy and the
broad participation of the popul-
ation (in the festivities) showed
how very much the desire to
defend socialism, to guarantee
peace and at same time to re-
main on guard against the impe-
rialist forces of aggression and

war is rooted in the hearts of

our people.”

At a government and Party
sponsored celebration, Honecker
told a cheering audience that
poverty, insecurity, fear of the:
future Have been banished for-
ever in the GDR. He said that
the ills of capitalism “are un-
thinkable in the GDR.” He added:

This article on the GDR’s
25th Anniversary celebration
was prepared by our Berlin
correspondent for last week's
issue. Unfortunately, _ trans-
Atlantic cable difficulties ‘de-
layed its arrival here.

“We have a developed social-
ist national economy in the tru-
est sense of the word, with a
modern industry and agriculture
which in their social quality and
their work for the people repre-
sent a completely new type of
production, a type of production
which capitalism cannot match.
That is so not only with regard
to the scope and constancy of
the rate of growth of production,
or with regard to the continuity
and planned nature of our pro-
duction, in contrast to the ups
end downs of capitalist crises; it

‘is true above all in terms of the

fact that the economy of our
country is developing ever more
powerfully as part of the mighty
socialist world economic system.
Our system is devoted complete-
ly to satisfying the material and
cultural needs of society and
every one of its members.”

In agriculture too everything
has changed. ‘‘Occupational qua-
lifications and cultural life of
cooperative farmers have reach-
ed a level which is unthinkable
on the land under capitalism.”
Honecker pointed out that
though the GDR had started out

with nothing, though it was only:
96th in the world in terms of its _

territory, and 63rd in terms of
its population, it was neverthe-
less now among the worlds ten
leading industrial countries. To-
day the GDR produces in a mere
six weeks what is produced in
all twelve months of 1949, It is
building new homes at such a
rate that in 16 years, the hous-
ing shortage first created by
capitalism and then made into a
mass phenomena by the ruinous
last war, will be fully solved.
At the same time, differences
between life in the village and
in large cities are being system-
atically set aside.”

-Honecker declared: “‘We have
never said that the course we
have chosen is a smooth road.
We have had difficulties to
master in the past and have
others now. New problems have
had to be solved and will con-
tinue to arise. But what counts
is that our Republic has grown
‘as a good and secure bastion of
the nation in which working
people can feel at home and
lead meaningful lives. The rise
of our Republic fits into the suc-
cessful development of the fa-
mily of socialist states. Jubilee
celebrations and the successes of
other fraternal states this year
shows with special clarity that
socialism is the road to happi-

- ness for peoples, not only under

conditions found here or there,
but._under all conditions.”

Honecker also dealt with an-
other element of the contrasting
situation in the socialist and
capitalist worlds. “In capitalist
countries,” he pointed out, “the
future is dark, beset by inflation
and crisis phenomena.. Insecurity
prevails there for tomorrow. But
the economic and social plans of
socialism are expanding to ever-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1974—Page 6

apid growth in
spheres marks
> years of GDR

greater time periods and increas-
ingly deal with broader social
developments.”

Thus in the GDR the next Five
Year Plan is now being prepared
to continue current growth.
There are development plans, as
with housing, running until
1990. And it is possible to state
with complete certainty that life
in the GDR will continue to
improve visibly on every level
between now and the year 2000.

At the same time, Honecker
said, the problem of energy, in
constrast to the situation in the
capitalist world, will continue to
be solved in the framework of
long-range programs entered
into with the Soviet Union and
Comecon.

Announcing that industry and
agriculture will constantly be
renewed, modernized and auto-
mated in a manner no private
profit system will be able to
imitate, Honecker declared:
“Thus it will become constantly
clearer that, socialist forms of
life in all fields are * different
from the forms of existence of
working people under capital-
ism. It ‘will become constantly
clearer that only socialism has
answered to the questions of our
day and only socialism can give
people what they need for a
meaningful life.” CPSU Secre-
tary Leonid Brezhnev told the
government and Party celebra-
tion: “Every people, every coun-
try, could bé proud of such a
record as yours.”

No observer or foreign corres-
pondent here was able to report
anything but substantial pro-
gress in all fields in this first
quarter of. a century. of the
GRD’s existence. It was interest-
ing to note that even West Ger-
man television and other media
by and large gave up any at-
tempt to paint the GDR as impo-
verished or backward, but ad-

Andes Pact condemns Chile's junt#)

An event that was little heral-”
ded in the big business press
took place in Lima, Peru during
the month of September, Mem-
ber countries of the Andes Pact
held a conference and condemn-
ed fascist Chile’s “gross viola-
tion” of the Pact’s agreement on
joint policies toward foreign in-
vestment and control. (Chile, at
the time of the Popular Unity
Government of Allende, was an
active contributor to Andes Pact
plans for repatriating the mem-
ber countries’ economies from
U.S. domination.)

Soviet economic fanalyst, V.
Andrianov pointed out in an ar-
ticle. in the newspaper. Izvestia
that the privileges “the Chilean
junta has extended. to foreign
companies not only deprive
Chile of its independence, They
also. aim to undermine the
Andes Pact which is an effective
Instrument for protecting the
national wéalth of a number of
countries in South America.” (It
appears the CIA had bigger
stakes in mind when it engineer-
ed the Chilean bloodbath.)

_ The Cartagena Agreement,
Signed in 1969 by the Andes
froup including Peru, Equador,
Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela

twelve months in 1949.

mitted its formidable advance.
One lonely U.S. correspondent
did indeed cable a leading Ame-
rican papér that the GDR was
progressing but its living stand-
ards is still 309% below that of
the FRG. This tired old propa-
ganda lie, first launched in the
1960’s in Bonn, and sometimes
used with a straight face by
Time Magazine, now embarras-
ses even its inventors.

In the FRG there is now great
apprehension and public debate
over the fact that unemployment
has gone over the half million
mark, that more than 250,000
workers are on a. short work
week, that inflation is over seven
percent, that one million unem-
ployed are predicted for the near
future, that a series of bank
failures have triggered a further
wave of business bankruptcies,

and Chile, determined the com-
mon policy under which direct
foreign investments are prohi-
bited, and existing foreign enter-
prises, such as utilities, insur-
ance companies, banks, etc., are
to be closed in the next few
years.

As early as 1971 the Council
of Americas, an association of
U.S. companies with Western
Hemisphere investments de-
manded an end to the limita-
tions on foreign capital. But: the
multi-national could not dent
the Andes Pact; foreign capital
has been greatly limited in Pact
countries, enabling them to use
their natural wealth for econo-
mic development.

‘With the fascist coup in Chile,
the monopolies found “a faithful
ally in the military junta,” as
Andrianov puts it. ‘

The junta not only opened
their own doors wide to the
monopolies but also acts like the

Trojan horse in the Andes Pact.
pro-:

The junta’s ° ring-leaders
mised 168 owners of Business
International a considerable in-
Crease in the proportion of pro-
fits to be withdrawn from Chile.
The monopoly magnates de-
manded that Pinochet promise

Cranes from the German Democratic Republic on di ding indy |
Leipzig Spring Fair attest to the country’s rapidly-expan in terms
trial output. Ranking 96th in terms of territory and 63rd istrial PS |
population, the GDR is today among the top ten in ind ig it
duction. It produces now in a mere six weeks ‘what it Pl

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and that neither governmen fg
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: In Cankda also, people od
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Speech from the Throne,
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to secure increased prot ‘4 |
foreign capital also va pact
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Set Up Court :
. Pinochet obediently “pogi!')
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