8. WHAT THE KUZNETSOVS READ IN THEIR PAPERS

Soviet press draws its color
from work of people

(What does the typical Moscow Worker read in his newspapers? Ralph Parker, Moscow
correspondent of the London Daily Worker, tells us in this eighth instalment of his series on the

Kuznetsoy family—the ‘Smiths’

* of Moscow.)

By RALPH PARKER

MOSCOW

Vladimir Kuznetsov likes to leave for work early in the morning so that he can take a look at the
morning newspapers pasted up in the ‘park near the trolley stop. He likes to be able to start the day with
an idea of what’s going on in the world. During the dinner break he has time for more careful reading

in the factory's Red Corner. When he gets home after work he finds the Evening Moscow has been de-

livered.,

His favorite morming paper is Trud (Labor), organized labor's own , newspaper, edited, printed
and published by the trade union movement.

More than any other Soviet
newspaper it concerns itself with
what goes on inside the factories.

The newspapers provide Kuz-
netsoy with a steady picture of
what is continuous and enduring
in Soviet life and with news of
those events in the world beyond
the USSR which chiefly concern
the cause of peace-loving working
humanity.

_ Accidental, exceptional or mere-
ly curious happenings find little
Space in Soviet newspapers.

I cannot help thinking that the
absence of sensationalism and the
Way their newspapers strike to
the roots of the underlying cause

of events are among the most
important reasons for the steady
nerves of Kuznetsov and his ¢om-
rades.

The entire Soviet press is edit-
ed on the assumption that its
readers are keenly interested in
every principal aspect of the
country’s advance towards “pros-
perity.

And because people are con-
vineced they are getting the share
they deserve of the country’s
Srowing wealth, this interest is
forthcoming.

-How else can you explain the
ctose attention with which Vlad-
imir Kuznetsov, turner in a Mos-
cow factory, reads about the meas-
ures being taken to raise cotton
production in Central Asia?

Take the newspapers on a typi-
cal Sunday. 2

A two-column leading article on
the front page of Pravda re-
minds its readers there is no
room for racial prejudice or ex-
cesses of nationalist spirit in the
Soviet Union, where peoples of
all races and nationalities are en-
titled to equal rights in economic,
Social and cultural life.

Reading this, Kuznetsov can-
Rot help thinking of the bestial
behavior of American racialists
Whose attempts to lynch Paul
Robeson have recently stirred pub-
lic opinion in the Soviet Union

88 no recent news from the USS.

has,

Frieda Kononenka, a member of
the staff of Pravda, reads the day’s
mail in which factory and farm
workers tell of their achieve-
ments and level their criticisms.

Since his visit last June, Robe-
son has been immensely popular
in the USSR.

Izvestia’s leading article stresses
their importance of the new cam-

paign to raise the quality of
service in shops, restaurants and
canteens.

It says that during the second
quarter of this year trade re-
turns were 19 percent up on 1948,
with half as much more meat and

over a quarter as much more
non-food products being sold.

Trud appeals to the workers
to keep quality up, costs down,
during their drive to raise pro-
duction. ore

What a breadth of country is
covered by a few short para-
graphs on Pravda’s front page!

Whether it’s Georgian miners
buying the thousandth private car
to be sold in the district, workers
in Leningrad’s Kirov plant build-
ing a conservatory for winter
flowers, the opening of new elec-
tric power plants on Moldavian

collective farms, or 4 report on

SCOTTISH TUC RESOLUTION .

government to appeal to the
nations to ban the H-bomb.

ority which, given loyal and
lution says:

with the passion and energy
manufacture of the hydrogen

_ Purposes.”
Saree

‘Seek H-bomb ban

An important section of the British union’ movement—
the Scottish Trades Union Congress—is preparing to ask the

members of the Scottish TUC
council to pass a resolution declaring
palled at the destructive possibilities of

After reaffirming support to the
nations, will provide the bulwark for

’
“We urge the British government to appeal to the UN
secure agreement between East

ing stocks of atomic weapons
the sources of atomic power and its utilization for peaceful

LONDON

UN for agreement among all
At a meeting early in April,
will be asked by its general
“mankind must be ap-
the hydrogen bomb.”
UN “as the world auth-
unswerving adherence by the
world peace,” the reso-

which the danger demands to
and West for a ban on the
destruction of all exist-

bomb,
international control of

and

; tains,

progress in Esthonia’s Krenholm
textile mills, the spirit of hope
and purposefulness breathes eag-
erly in all.

Izvestia gives prominence to
awards to four milkmaids of Mos-
cow province, to tea and tanger-
ine farmers in Georgia.

A message from the Altai moun-
one of the oldest cattle-
breeding areas in the world, tells
how new well-equipped mountain
villages are being built to house

herdsmen so that they can keep |

their cattle in mountain valleys
19,000 feet above sea level during
the winter. ;

There is news in Trud of the
vintage on the Caspian coast, of
documentary films being made at
Baku, of a meeting of the five-
year-old Uzbec Academy of Sci-
ences to consider irrigation prob-
lems.

Twelve thousand farmers in
the Poltava region of Ukraine
are taking part in a song-festival.
Buryat Mongolians are devising
a new ,way of drying grain, and
there is a report on travelling
libraries in “the Hindu Kush
range bordering on Afghanistan.

Who could say that the front
pages of the newspaper on this
not exceptional Sunday lack

drama and color? Yet they draw)

it from what is constant and
abiding in Soviet life, from the
routine development of a Socialist
economy. :

As for foreign news, usually
one-third to a half of a news-
paper's space is devoted to it.

On the particular day of which
I’m writing, Kuznetsov could read
about preparations for the Brit-
ish Trades Union ‘Congress, the
struggle of the Latin-American
peoples, the possibility of General
Omar Bradley being appointed
American C-in-C, and a report of
proceedings in the UN Committee
on Non-Self-Governing Territories.

I’ve always been struck with
the way Kuznetsov and his
friends ponder over what they
have read.

And they read a lot; in street
cars, in dinner intervals, in the
parks you see them deeply en-
grossed in long, solid articles.

You can’t expect a man of
Kuznetsov’s. age and experience
not to have been influenced by
the effect of years of intrigue,
slander and open _ intervention
against the Soviet [Union on the
part of a hostile capitalist world.

But there is this important dif-
ference between the way he thinks
now and in prewar times.

Then he was far from being
convinced that the organizing of
peace forces in a single camp
could prevent war, though he felt
they could win ‘one against the
fascists and Nazis.

Now you cannot shake his con-
viction that these peace forces are
potentially strong enough to pre-
vent a war, ie SHON ;

In those days there was a
popular song: “If War Comes
Tomorrow.’ Nowadays all Mos-
cow is humming Shostakovich’s
“Wymn of Peace.”

French workers forming a peace committee at a factory gate
to stop the “dirty war’ in’ Viet Nam.

French police, with shouts of
“Down with American aid; down
with Bao Dai, long live Ho Chi
Minh.” :

The denunciation of American
support of the Bao Dai regime
was especially significant because
it occurred in the capital of the
French puppet ruler. French
troops, estimated at more than
100,000, have been able to main-
tain Bao Dai’s rule over the prin-
cipal cities, but the greater part
of Viet Nam is controlled by the
independent people’s government
led by Ho Chi Minh, veteran lead-

er of the struggle for freedom
from French rule.
Before the American vessels

left the area, three persons had
been killed and more than 60 in-
jured. With 15 persons already
under arrest, the Bao Dai police
announced that “further arrests
are expected.” Among the dead
was a child, run over by a truck
during the demonstrations.

The incidents ‘began quietly
when a students’ delegation asked
to see the Saigon mayor to pro-
test the visit of the American
vessels, After being told he was
not available, the students ripped
dowy the flags. Shortly after, sev-
eral simultaneous anti-American
demonstrations broke out around
the city.

When 4,000 workers and_ stu-
dents marched toward the docks
where the destroyers were moor-
ed, police tried to head them off.
During the course of the struggle,
the market place became a key
center of resistance as barricades
of vegetable trucks were erected.
Using stones and bricks, the en-

against bullets and teargas bombs.

This protest climaxes a_ series
of demonstrations in Saigon. The
Viet Nam Labor Federation has
accused the French of killing 30
,}students and wounding 1,000 in
a recent attack.

‘The French, who control key
posts in Bao Dai’s supposedly in-
dependent regime, took action
against “a strike of students in all
Saigon schools” to protest against
police suppression of the first
demonstration by making many
arrests and warning parents that
“they would be held accountable
for the acts of their children.”

Ho Chi Minh’s government has

raged Viet Namese fought back

U.S. destroyers
forced toend |
‘goodwill mission’

SAIGON

Following mass protests by thousands of Viet Namese workers
and students, two American destroyers ended their goodwill mission here -
March 20. Demonstrators tore down French and U.S. flags which
had been raised in honor of the warships’ arrival, defying bullets from

won the support of dockers in
several French ports. Strikes
and demonstrations have been
the weapons of maritime work-
ers against orders to load arms
and ammunition for Viet Nam
The French General Confedera-
tion of Labor has backed the
walkouts and denounced govern-

ment measures against the
strikers.

Chinese ‘famine’
claims exposed
by grain plan

—PRAGUE.

A “horror story” put out by a Bri-
tish News Agency from Hong Kong
alleging widespread famine in Chi-
na in which “millions are expected
to perish” was rendered ridiculous
by a simultaneous despatch from a
New China News Agency’s special
correspondent in Peking, deécrib-
ing the gigantic plan of the Peo-
ple’s government for nationwide
distribution of surplus grain. (Ca-
nadian newspapers played up the
British report.)

The British agency's report de-
picted “threatening disaster,” the
“worst in China’s modern history,”
in which “millions” are already
“existing” on grass, leaves and on
clay: :

The NCNA despatch, however;
reported that there will be a large
grain surpluses this year in Man-
churia, Inner Mongolia, Central
and south China, and Southwest
China which will be more than
enough to supplement supplies in
areas where there is a deficiency
of grain.

Purpose of the great plan to
spread out the grain supplies is,
NCNA states, that “China will never
again fall into the position of im-

grain while at the same time huge
quantities of homegrown grain rot
in the hinterlands.”
Although operation
shuffle” will not be fully function-
ing until after the next harvest,
it is already under way. Sixty
thousand tons of grain from Man-
churia have reached Hopei, one of
the places “famine-ridden” accord-
ing to the British agency. Great
quantities of rice from Manchuria
and the Yangtse basin are now flow-

ing into Shanghai.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 31, 195@ — PAGE 3

“Grain Re-—

porting millions of tons of foreign -