new skyline

asunnasnnnonecnnsennenanBy ARCHIE JOHNSTONE**«+2000

AS far as I can see, Moscow has ho particular wish to out-sky- Scraper New York, but it is ac- quiring quite a skyline of its own, and some comparison between it and the fathers of skylines can’t

o any harm either way.

Like most visiting firemen, ! think that the Manhattan skyline is the most impressive bit of man- made scenery in the world. It beats me how New Yorkers man- aged to get that effect of airy lightness out of millions of tons of masonry.

And when you have seen that Skyline from the deck of a 4,000- tonner after a crossing in a con- Voy that lost seven of its hundred Ships, you don’t need to be a New Yorker, or even an American, to Set all gooey-eyed about it.

But the Moscow skyline has its boints, too.

_ I think you would have to be in the picture postcard business to make any effective comparison between the Manhattan and the

Oscow manscapes. If you had bought up all: the views of the New York skyline 10 or 20 or 30 years ago you could still sell them ‘O the average postcard buyer.

or many months the news- Paper Evening Moscow has been running a daily feature with the Unchanging and not very sensa- tional headline: “Moscow Today” —a daily photograph £ some big building or row of houses nearing Completion and all cluttered up With cranes and other things that don’t help to beautify the pic- ture, f A different site every day, but the same old general subject, with othing to break the monotony. ever, for instance, a snappy cheesecake” picture of a blonde Welder perched nonchalantly on & 20-storey girder eating her unch and showing a bit of leg.

And they’ve kept this series Tunning for month after month.

_.. Let’s put it another way: BUT they’ve kept it running for month after month, without running short of subjects.

*

This building business, is, in fact, everybody’s business. It somehow comes into every con- versation. Either someone has just moved into a new home and is throwing a housewarming party, or young Boris or Olga is entering one of the construction- al or architectural institutes, or somebody in the family is con- nected with this mighty job of building, directly or indiréctly.

It seems to me that the front- line troops, the workers on the actual construction sites, are only 4 small fraction of the huge army of builders. The biggest number are employed in the great new plants that are turning out pre- fabbed walls, floors, and so on at a rate that would, I imagine, overstock the United States mar- ket in no time. :

* And if you happen to ask some bright 10-year-old Muscovite, “What’s that big new building over there?” he’ll probably reply with the eatch-phrase, “Otkooda snayoo? Vehera nebeelo! “Where from should I know. It wasn’t there yesterday!” : ‘That doesn’t mean that the housing situation in the Soviet Union at this moment is all that could be desired. Far from it. In fact, I should say that in heavy industry, electrification, mechan- ization of agriculture and, more recently, consumer goods pro- duction, the “situation” at the moment is well ahead of the hous- ing “situation.” But that is what someone has described as & “glass-eyed view of frozen phen- omena,” so let’s de-freeze_ ite

The backlog in housing is some- thing that beggars description. The last pre-Revolution census showed that in the workers’ dis-

tricts' of Moscow 313,000 people were crowded into 24,500 rooms —that is, about a dozen to a room. Even in the towns, only 10 per- cent of the houses had piped water; only 2% percent had drain- age; less than one percent had central heating. There was little rehousing dur- ing the Civil War years; and even by 1923 the annual building rate was only one million square meters of floor’ space (about enough for 100,000 persons).

Then there was a new prob- lem. In every country at every period there is, of course, a na- tural shift of population from

country to town. This shift was .

accentuated in. the USSR by the unparalleled leap forward in in- dustrialization. :

The total urban population in 1926 was only 26 million; by 1940 it was 61 million; today it is 80 million. This shift is still going on, mainly because of the new machinery and methods that mean bigger crops with fewer rural workers. bs

As if that weren’t troubles enough, came the Second World War and the destruction of the houses of eight million people. But that huge deficit was prac- tically wiped out by the fourth Five Year Plan; and from the end ot the war up to last year the total of floor space built was 183 million square meters — exactly 183 times as much as the 1923 figure.

Last year the state allocation for housing was four times the figure for the peak pre-war year, 1940, The present Five Year Plan doubles the ambitious figures of the first post war plan; and judg- ing by what was achieved in 1951, 1952 and 1953, the present plan will certainly be over-fulfilled by at least 10 percent.

And what are the visible signs of all this full-scale war for houses? There is one northern district of Moscow that I have visited many times in the last two or three years.

First it was simply workers’ al- lotments with a few rows of single-story wooden houses. Now it is built over with tall, beauti- fully architectured blocks of ap- artments. In fact, it is a complete town, about the size of Oshkosh, Wisconsin — but only one of sev- eral of its kind within the grow- ing boundaries of Moscow. And it is not a town, but a city, that is springing up on the Lenin Hills around the new university.

A word about rents. To me, at least, rents in the Soviet Union are a joke. How else could you describe it when a worker pays only four or five percent of his wages for his home — about a fifth or a sixth of what a worker

ULI O M Mt aT OEUe O LLy

When will Peurifoy

tml ee

in most capitalist countries has to pay?

The housing figures listed here are concerned onlv.with govern- ment dwellilng house plans. Here are some of the things they do NOT include: houses built by dif- ferent organizations for their per- scnnel; sanatoriums, hotels, coun- try villas for town dwellers built at their own expense (a long story in itself!); offices, factories and so on. :

The rate of increase in these - items is about the same as that . for the government construction::

Here is one stray item as an ex- - ample: During the vears 1951, 1952 and 1953 an average of 26 new schools. per' year were built in Moscow; this year 42 new - schools will be built. :

It would be tidy to round off - this by quoting, say, figures of - - rew school buildings in New York, by way of comparison; but I haven’t got the figures.

’ Is any comparison possible?

IB EEDE

trial?

Biiuue

By ARTHUR CLEGG

WHEN is John Peurifoy, the gun-

packing U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, to be brought to trial for spying and subversion on such a grand scale as to destroy the elected government of another country?

President Eisenhower and Sen- ator McCarthy love nothing better than to get on the trail of “spies” and “subversives.” Here is a clear Case for them to act upon.

Peurifoy is not a citizen of Guatemala, but a foreign diplo- Mat accredited. to another coun- try which, like the United States, is a member of the United Na- tions,

And yet it is openly admitted that he had “done much to over-

throw” the government elected ,

by 70 percent of the people of that country.

When in Czechoslovakia a few years ago, an elected majority in Parliament took action to prevent a minority staging a coup, the

British and American press Screamed for days that it was @ Red coup.” :

Now when an elected goverbD- Ment is overthrown and an elect- €d parliament suppressed by 2

RIL

coL. CASTILLO ARMAS U.S. ambassador, they applaud or

: observe a cool indifference. This, according to the New York | Times correspondent in how American am- ‘bassadors behave!

On Sunaay, Minister Toriello of Guatemala

v

phoned U.S. Ambassador Peuri- foy about forming a new govern-

ment to end the war, but hoping »

that President Arbenz could re- main.

Peurifoy replied that he “felt the’ only solution was a clean sweep of the Arbenz ment.”

Peurifoy then talked to army

- officers and the result of his Wis-

cussions was that Colonel Diaz,

"the Army Chief of Staff, suggest-

ed he form a military junta. ' “Colonel Diaz,” reported the New York Times correspondent, “promised that if he were suc- cessful he would abolish the Com- munist party.

“Peurifoy insisted, however, on even stronger measures. ‘Com- munism must go,’ he told Colonel Diaz.”

Peurifoy thereupon got in touch with Col» Armas, the U.S.- backed invader of the country. And then, says the U.S. corres- pondent: e

“Im the dramatic climax of the negotiations, Col. Diaz announc- ed that he and Col. Sanchez were resigning for the peace of the country. Col. Monzon and two other army officers strode in.

“According to eyewitnesses,

govern-

ae Peurifoy Jeaned back and crossed

his arms over his chest — where —

he had a shoulder holster. A U.S. Marine aide in civilian clothes edged nearer the envoy, fearing bullets might fly.

“Col. Monzon announced the formation of a new junta with himself as President.”

Immediately not -only the Workers Party but ail parliament- ary activities were declared il-

_ legal and the order went out to

hunt down the democrats.

Once this was done, Peurifoy arranged that the bombings of Guatemala city should stop, that Col. Armas and Col. Monzon should meet, and persuaded Col. Armas to become a member of the Monzon junta.

“Ambassador Peurifoy arbitrat- ed the talks” between Armas and Monzon in Salvador, the New York Herald-Tribune wrote, and when they were concluded:

“Col. Armas and Col. Monzon

flew from San Salvador in the ©

plane of the American Ambassa- dor John E. Peurifoy.

“Before the two leaders of the junta arrived in triumph, a firing squad already started working.”

When will Ambassador Peuri- foy be brought to trial?

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“Merida YUCATAN

MEXICO

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BRITISH HONDURAS

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PACIFIC

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 16, 1954 — PAGE 9

PACIFIC TRIBUNE

— JULY 16, 1954 — PAGE iB)