Do seam

Nigel Morgan (third from left) and other visitors inspect a Soviet plant.

~ GEORGIA AND AZERBAIJAN

Automation in USSR plants —
means better life, not less jobs

By NIGEL MORGAN

In addition to attending the historic 21st Congress of the CPSU in Moscow, which
sounded the call for the building of communism on an all-out scale, Bill Ross (LPP Manitoba
leader) and I had the opportunity of visiting some of the formerly backward parts of the
USSR—Republics like Georgia—where Stalin was born and educated— and Azerbaijan, where
before the October Revolution in 1917 some 90 percent of the people could neither read or
write, and women were not allowed to show their faces from behind the veil.

Here was to be seen in sharp
focus the OLD and the NEW—
the real measurement of what
socialism has meant to the
people of this vast land.

Here we saw, alongside an-
cient and picturesque cities
like Tbilisis and the beautiful
old city Baku on the shore of
the Caspian Sea, new, modern,
specially - planned _ socialist
cities such as Rustavi and
Sumgaid.: Cities where, be-
cause of planning, automation
and modern techniques it will
be possible to increase produc-
tion three and four times com-
pared with the over-all claim
of 70 percent under the new
Seven Year Plan. :

Automation, of course, is the
most important single factor
in making it possible for the
Soviet people to increase their
over-all production by three-
quarters.

Automation in the Soviet
Union, where private owner-
ship of the factories and capit-
alist accumulation has been re-
placed by public, socialist own-
ership in which the benefits
are shared by all the people,
has: very different results from
automation under capitalism.

In the socialist countries, un-
employment cannot result from
automation because its advan-
tages are not used to increase
the profits of private capitalists
but are passed on to those who

own the factories and industries
—the people—in the form of
lower prices, higher wages,
and the shortest working day.
mankind has yet known.

Thus the socialist economy
grows in balanced relationship
to the needs of the people.
Industries are built and oper-
ated solely to increase the sup-
ply of goods to the people.

To realize the full meaning
of the way the Soviet people
are transforming their vast
land from what used to be the
most backward of the great
states into the most advanced
of all countries, it is necessary
to remember that they started
their first Five Year Plan only
30 years ago. Thus, in 40 years
they will surpass what it re-
quired 150 years for capitalism
to accomplish in the United
States.

Illiteracy has been eliminated
in the span of half a lifetime
under socialism, the first sec-
retary of the Communist Party
of Azerbaijan proudly explain-
ed to Bill Ross and I over the
dinner table. He told us how he
himself had been raised an
orphan, illiterate, and had
worked in the hills as.a shep-
herd boy until he was 20 years
of age, Today, he is not only
Prime Minister of his Republic,
but (as one of his colleagues
later confided to us) he has won
recognition as one of the lead-

ing geologists of the world for
his work in the Baku oilfields,

Socialism is providing full
opportunity for education and
a career for every young man
and women in a way that can-
not even be imagined in a
capitalist country.

Illiteracy is gone. And so
rave the veils. Women have
established their right to
equality. :

Talking about equality and
opportunity for all in the Soviet
Union, it is interesting to note
what opportunities socialism
has provided for Soviet women.
Did you know that 70 percent
of ali those working in the field
of education in the USSR are
women? That 85 percent of the
doctors and those engaged in
public health services are wo-
men? That 49 percent of those
working in administrative
bodies and public organizations
are women? That there is not

“a single Republic in the USSR

that doesn’t have at least one
woman cabinet minister and
there are over 2,000 women
deputies in the Supreme
Soviets of the Union and
Autonomous Republics?

What better measure can one
find of what socialist democ-

racy means? €

@ This is the second of a series
of five articles by Nigel Mor-

gan on his recent trip abroad..

Longshoremen to figh
for automation fund —

SEATTLE—West Coast longshoremen “will seek a
necessary, fight” for a unique pioneering plan to “secure a
just share of the fruits of mechanization.” Such was the decision
-of the Coast Longshore, Shipclerks and Walking Bosses caucu
of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen$
Union, which met here following the union’s recent convention

The ILWU is calling for “a
funded plan which would help
provide the currently register-
ed men with a share in the
benefits of mechanization and
other improved methods of
cargo handling.”

The plan will be subject to
negotiations soon to begin for
a new agreement to replace
the coast longshore contract
that expires June 15.

“Our investigation,” said the
committee report, “shows that
other unions, while attempting
to meet the impact of mechan-
ization or automation in differ-
ing ways, invariably wind up
with a decimated union mem-
bership and thus a weakened
union structure. Usually the
manpower which remains re-
ceives an improved wage fac-
tor but the improvments in-
variably total considerably less
than what might have resulted
if the total original work force

-had received adequate consid-

eration and protection.”

The ILWU convention itself
took actions ranging from a
resounding demand for trade
with China to a scathing de-
nunciation of official U. S.
policy on Germany.

ILWU’s new global look was
dramatized in two last-day
convention actions:

@ Election of six delegates to
an All Pacific Asian Dock-

Chaplin's birthday call:

workers Trade Union Confer-
ence in Toyko May 11-13
(Craig Pritchett of Vancouver
is one of the delegates).

@ Approval for submission to}
referendum establishment of 8}
fund to finance rank and file
delegations to foreign countries,
The action calls for a $1 assess-
ment, half to be paid this year
and half next year.

The convention’s sharpest
words were directed to the
“Berlin crisis.”

“Seldom in recent years has
our politically slanted press
poured out such a mess of
distortion to mislead and con-
fuse the American public in
the so-called Berlin crisis,” said
a policy statement.

The statement recalled the!
avowed intention of the Yalta
conference in 1945 “to destroy
German militarism and to en
sure that Germany will nevel
again be able to disturb the
peace of the world.

“Yet just 14 years after this
declaration was made, we fini
American generals and chiefs
of staff, led by President Bisen-
hower, publicly stating that
the American people woull
willingly go to war—even al
atomic war— to defend Berlin.’

A separate statement of
foreign policy urged ‘“negotia
tions as the means for settling
the German question and
Berlin dispute.”

ban nuclear weapons

GENVA—Charlie Chaplin issued an appeal for a world
ban on nuclear weapons on his 70th birthday April 16, “My
hope is that we shall abolish all atomic and hydrogen weapons
before they, abolish us,” he said. “We must have peace and
settle all our problems around the conference table,”

The famous comedian was
in excellent health and high
spirits for his birthday cele-
brations.

“I don’t feel a day over 69,”
he told reporters. “My 70th
birthday comes as a complete
surprise.”

Chaplin said: “The future
of the world calls for modern
thinking. We must use the
full force of our intelligence
and stop thinking in terms of
homicidal methods for settl-
ing our differences.”

Thousands of telegrams and

messages of congratulations
from all over the world po

ed into Chaplain’s palatial villt
of Manoir de Bain, in the
hills overlooking the Lake a
Geneva. a

Later Chaplin told report
ers he had already finished
about 400 pages of his mem
oirs and had only reached the
time when he was 29,

“I reekon I am nearly halt
way through,’ he said, “wher
you reach my age and have
any sort of memory, you hav
something to tell people.” ””

April 24, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE !