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READERS’. QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Do Soviet workers punch clocks?

Flow do they spend their evenings?

By MARK FRANK

“MOSCOW — A number of
questions have come my way
from Canedian readers. I will
try to answer: them as I get
replies from people who know
here. Here are a few:

De workers punch in and oui?
Beexes and no, I’ve been
through plants where the
familiar time clock and card

slots are present. Others where

simpler form of check-up are

used — either simple tags or
the foreman or’ team-leader
‘checking his personnel.

Absenteeism, ‘‘swinging the

dead,” inefficiency on the job,

coming in late, are all sharp-

Ty lampooned in colored car-

toons prominently displayed in
bulletin boards,

plant grounds.
There is no bull-whip type

‘of discipline. It is developed

by focussing attention on the
anti-social results that come
from being late or irrrespon-
sible on the job. For more ser-
ious breaches of discipline,
are the ‘“comradely
courts” where workers judge
their fellows in a public man-
ner,
* * *

Whai sori of groups do or-
dinary people belong to? Are
there things like  Parent-
‘Teachers Associations or Home
and.School groups?

On the last — all schools
hhave them. There are general
‘school and class meetings with
parents, special talks given,
‘consultation, parents commit-
tees.

Teachers

make quarterly

and annual reports on. their
work with children.

Parents
help with out-of-school activ-
Two booklets on educa-
available at Progress
Books in Toronto, should be
studied for further details:
Foriy Years of Public Educa-

tion in the USSR by M. Dein-
eko -and Education in the
USSR by F. Korolev.

Most popular and biggest-
roots “club” is the trade union
—over 50 million members. It
is the centre that invites peo-
ple to join all kinds of activity-
groups from ballet to people’s
universities.

A ‘popular place is the
‘*kloob”’ (club) attached to each
plant. There are also all ‘man-
ner of- sports organizations,
which ordinary people belong
to. Participation is really mas-

sive. Glider clubs, hunting
and fishing, track and field,
chess, parachutting, wood-

craft, radio and TV. There are
pensioner groups, meetings in
given blocks, house commit-
tee meetings. Ordinary people
can take part in the ‘‘people’s
detachments” to preserve pub-
lie order. ©

You can see many young-
sters in organized groups going
off on cycling tours. Or again
on weekends young people
form camping groups and are
off to the country to “rough
it?

Sunday nights, you can see
them tired but happy, a
healthy glow on their faces,
tramping through the streets
singing at the top os their
voices.

Ordinary people ong to
hundreds of choirs and dance
groups, at every level of life
from the plant to the school
and the community. The num-
ber of public organizations for

-ordinary people is legion —

and there is a growing interest
in people joining these, as the
role of public organizations
grows under socialist democ-
racy. A case in point is the
sports organization — which
recently took over complete
handling of its affairs. Prior
to this it was directly run by
a’ government ministry.

The first automatic transfer line to machine the housings

_of electric motors was installed last November at the Baku

Electric Machinery Plant. At the control desk is team

leader T. Mustafayev. Three workers operate transfer line.

How do people spend their

evenings?

Let’s have a look at the
daily newspaper Evening Mos-

cOw, one of the most avidly-

read papers in town. The one
I’m looking at has a big photo
of a fleet of sailboats. In the
foreground is a lovely girl in

a bathing suit and a handsome |}

young man — lazily drifting
along, somewhere . . . That’s
how some people spend their
warm evenings after a shift.

I saw this among the stelwork- |;

ers at Zaporozhye . . . Here
in Moscow there is plenty of

water, ponds and the Moscow

River, to boat on.

Parks are crowded, so are|_

the dance floors there. Thea-
tres are a massive world of

‘entertainment—so much going
on that you require a close

study of the printed booklets
and program’ materials appear-
ing in the dailies to make
your selection.

Football is one of the biggest
box-office . attractions. Those
who want to see it at home,
use TV — now in Soviet
homes on an ever-larger scale.
You can often see first-run
movies or live stage perform-
ances over your home TV. Nor
are the TV audiences a quiet
lot. They are demanding better
programming, better shows.

Many people go for walks on
evenings or just sit in the park
and talk. There are some big
games going on in the parks—
chess and dominos, the latter
played with a vigor and en-
thusiasm that surprises the
watcher from the West. There
are many adults playing out-
door ping-pong and, tennis.

Most .interesting sight I’ve
seen everywhere in the parks
are the scores’ and scores of
people who sit ‘reading a book
or magazine. Reading is the
great Soviet pasttime. At
Gorky Park, they even have
shady nooks with comfortable
garden deck chairs to sit in,

and special shady, roofed,
quiet reading. rooms.
The libraries are always

wide-open, and: always filled.
Cafes are crowded after the
theatre with heated debates on

‘|pros and. cons-of the movie,

stage play, ballet, film or con-
cert people have just seen. Or
just plain family or friends
getting together for pop, ice-
cream or a bowl of.fruit. The
circus is also very popular.
There are lectures going on
in many buildings across town
every night. One I saw adver-
tised on an apartment build-

ing wall was about the Hima-

layan snow-man by a leading
Soviet. scientist:
‘So how do people spend

Boating is a popular sport in the Soviet Union, writes
Moscow correspondent Mark Frank in the accompanying
article on this page. Photo shows a couple of pretty Saky
girls enjoying a sail on the Black Sea.

Will man-on-moon he
the next Soviet step?

LONDON—The latest Soviet moon rocket is “cieurly
a big step forward in the Russian program of putting a
man on the moon,” Kenneth Gatland, vice-chairman of
the British Interplanetary Society, said this week.

He thought the next step
‘might be to put a man in the

‘|nose-cone of a ballistic rocket,

fire it from about 200 miles
and bring it back to earth, and
then to put a man: into orbit
round the moon and recover
him. .

Dr; DiC; Martin, assistant
secretary of the Royal Society,
agreed with Russian reports
that it was more difficult to
put a rocket into orbit round
the moon .than to make one
land there.

Dr. John Davies, 34-year-old
senior. lecturer on radio astro-

their evenings here? Much
like people everywhere, excepi
that the entertainments offer-
ed are richer and healthier in
both a cultural and physical
sense than anything in tke
capitalist world. And with the
added difference that people's
free time is spent more pur-
posefully, with citizens adding
to their knowledge, improving
their technical, political and
aesthetic understanding in
studies and courses.

nomy at Jodrell Bank, deserib-
ed the Russian attempt as
“rather. amazing” coming so
soon after their last success on
September 12 when they plant-
ed a rocket on the moon.

This is Russia’s third suc-
cessful cosmic rocket. The first,
on January 2, passed the moon
at a distance of 4,000 miles and
went into orbit around the sun.
The second hit the moon in
September.

The United States, after four
failures, also put a rocket past
the moon and into orbit around
the sun on March 3.

In radio interviews com-«
memorating the second anni-
versary of the first sputnik,
commentators said the era of
manned space flight had moved
from the realm of fantasy inte
the realm of reality.

‘In Tokyo, Dr, Seiji Miyaji,
head of the astronomical ob-
servatory, Said the feat of the
Russian cosmic station promis
ed an epoch-making leap for-
ward in-astronomy as well as
in other fields of SP ERERS ak

October 16, 1959_—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3 3

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