326

Industrialisation of European
People’s Democracies

p In the years of people’s government the socialist countries have shown a remarkable advance.

p Capitalism has been the source of incalculable suffering and misery for the peoples of these countries, and the Second World War—a particularly vile product of the capitalist system—brought them to the brink of disaster on a national scale. In Poland and Hungary, for instance, the total damage caused by the war was five times the size of their national income for the pre-war year 1938.

After taking over state power and becoming masters of their lands and their industrial establishments the working people of the People’s Democracies applied themselves to the task of socialist construction. Most of the countries under consideration had been industrially backward before the war. The reorganisation and development of their industries after the war were planned in a manner to assure industry a leading role. As soon as the reconstruction of their war-ravaged economies was completed the countries of Central and Southeast Europe embarked on a programme of socialist industrialisation, financed primarily out of the accumulations of the state sector in industry, trade and agriculture, a part of the personal savings of the population as represented by state bonds, an4 the proceeds of the graded taxation of the income of persons employing labour. Economic development was governed by state economic plans drawn up in accordance with a given economy’s requirements and possibilities.

Bulgaria

p Far-reaching changes have occurred in Bulgaria during the period under review. Under the fascist monarchy the country had no metallurgy, lacked many other modern branches of industry, and produced less electric energy than practically any of the other 327 countries of Europe. There were no industrial plants capable of supplying agriculture with machinery and artificial fertilisers.

p The First Five-Year Plan (1949-53), which may be said to have charted the course of the country’s economic development, stressed the building up of a heavy industry, that is to say, mining, metallurgical, engineering, chemical and power.

p Bulgaria’s socialist industrialisation continued under the Second Five-Year Plan (1953-57), which saw the completion of many new construction projects, such as the Iskur hydropower complex, the initial stage of the Batak project and other hydropower facilities, the V. I. Lenin Metallurgical Works, a lead and zinc works, a superphosphate fertiliser plant, a penicillin factory, etc.

p Bulgaria was like a vast construction site during this time. Plants and factories were springing up, high-voltage transmission lines built and roads and railways laid throughout the length and breadth of the country. The Batak string of power plants in the Western Rhodope mountains was completed, comprising reservoirs, power stations, tunnels and canals stretched out over a route 600 kilometres long. Bulgaria’s 1965 industrial output was 328 21.6 times greater than that of 1939. Her engineering, metalworking and chemical industries grew at an average annual rate of 21.7 per cent over the period 1956-64, which would have been out of the question under any system other than a people’s democracy.

In Bulgaria, as in other socialist countries of Europe, 1966 marked a new stage in the development of the national economy, associated with the introduction of an improved system of planning and economic management. Overall output showed a 12.2 per cent increase for that year. Improvement of planning and management methods continued, with particular emphasis on economic levers; and in 1967 industrial production showed a 13.4 per cent increase, while that in selected important kinds of goods was even greater.

German Democratic Republic

p This part of Germany, industrially lagging in the past, now ranked fifth among the countries of Europe in respect of industrial output, thanks to the effort of its people.

p When they took up the task of laying the foundations of socialism on German soil the working people of the German Democratic Republic encountered many difficult problems. With Germany split in two, East Germany found itself without a mining and metallurgical industry, inasmuch as both were practically entirely confined to the country’s western areas. To be more precise, when the GDR was established in Eastern Germany it had at its disposal only five old low-efficiency blast-furnaces as against West Germany’s 120 modern high-efficiency furnaces. It should be recalled, moreover, that the frontier with West Germany remained open until 1961, so that the GDR had to develop its national economy in the teeth of continuous sabotage on the part of the FRG.

Nevertheless, with the help of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other socialist countries the Republic’s working people soon created a heavy industry of their own, including such branches as shipbuilding, chemical engineering, petro-chemistry, electronics, etc. The old metallurgical works at Brandenburg, Honningsdorf and Riesa were reconstructed and considerably expanded to provide industry with metal; and two giant new metallurgical combines Ost and West, were built at the same time. The GDR does have sizable supplies of brown coal, but its low calorific value lessens its usefulness as raw material for metallurgy; or did so, rather, until GDR scientists and workers joined forces to discover a method of making it quite fit to serve as such.

329 This discovery led to a rapid expansion of brown coal mining m the Republic, which now ranks first in the world in this field.

p While expanding the coal-mining industry, the GDR Government also acted to step up the production of electric power, and great new power stations had been commissioned at Trattendorf, Benzdorf and Fokkeroide. Thermal power stations, the biggest 330 in Central Europe, were constructed at Lubbenau and Fetchau to use brown coal. The GDR ranked first in the sixties among the socialist countries and second in Europe in respect of per caput electric energy production.

p By the end of 1964 the Republic’s aggregate industrial output equalled that of the whole of Germany in 1936, though its area is hardly one-fourth that of the former Germany. This achievement is the result of the joint effort of the Republic’s workers, engineers and scientists, directed by the party of the working class and the government. In the German Democratic Republic the accomplishments in the field of industrial development may justly be viewed as a genuine economic miracle, inasmuch as they were attained under incomparably more difficult conditions than those of the post-war economic reconstruction of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was based on an economic structure developed over scores of years and on a wealth of natural resources of a kind practically non-existent in the GDR.

p Under the 1966-70 national economic development plan the GDR made a new increase in the industrial production all of which was achieved by raising the productivity of labour. This was attained through a more rational combination of planning and economic levers. Within the socialist community of states it was one of the first to initiate economic reform, and it succeeded in raising the productivity of industrial production to a substantially higher level.

p New important enterprises were commissioned one after another, such, for instance, as the Schwarze Pumpe brown coal works. Soviet petroleum supplied to GDR industrial plants over a pipeline ensured their uninterrupted work; the Schwedt-Merseburg section constructed by the end of the sixties brought the pipeline as far as the Leuna-Werke chemical plant at Leuna.

On August 13, 1961, the Government of the GDR implemented certain measures designed to strengthen its West Berlin frontier. The authorities now established full control of the Republic’s frontiers. The Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic, signed in June 1964, came as a serious check to the West German militarists’ schemes of revenge. This treaty made an important contribution to the strengthening of peace and security on the continent of Europe.

Hungary

p Within a short space of time old Hungary’s industrial backwardness became a thing of the past: new industrial towns and areas emerged, such as Dunaujvaros, Bekevaros, Komlo, 331 Borsod industrial area. The V. I. Lenin Metallurgical Works at Diosgyor, the country’s biggest, was reconstructed and improved. Dozens of big new industrial plants and mines were commissioned. New branches of industry appeared, such as instrument-making, motor-car construction, ball-bearing manufacture, etc. As a result, the industrial output of 1965 was 6.1 times greater than that of 1938.

p Hungarian diesel locomotives, electric trains, river craft, cranes, autobuses, wireless equipment and electrical instruments have made a name for themselves in many foreign markets. In line with the recommendations of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (among the socialist countries) Hungary made a decision to concentrate on the development of industries involving limited raw material consumption but requiring extensive industrial plant and highly trained labour, such, notably, as the production of certain kinds of electronic, radio and electrical equipment, agricultural machine-building, and the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations. The development of these branches of industry was particularly fruitful. A considerable share of their output was meant for export.

While the annual rate of increase of industrial production may be said to be high, having reached 9 per cent in 1967 as against 6 per cent in 1966, the Hungarians were certain that they could do even better. During 1966 the groundwork began to be carefully laid for an economic reform designed to improve the economic machinery as a whole, accelerate plant modernisation, and make the best possible use of all production facilities.

Poland

p The people of Poland built a gigantic metallurgical works at Nova Huta. The construction of the 1st Polish aluminium works at Skavin started Poland in the non-ferrous metallurgical industry. Coal mining was reconstructed and expanded. New power stations were built, providing the country with a mighty power system. Engineering, the nucleus of Poland’s industry, was restored and its production 20 times surpassed that of pre-war years.

p Poland’s industrial output in 1965 was 11.2 times that of prewar years. The Polish United Workers’ Party and the Government of the Polish People’s Republic stressed the special importance of a rational distribution of capital investments, accelerated technological advance, higher productivity of labour, and personnel training.

Before the war, Polish exports comprised mainly raw materials and foods; machinery and equipment never exceeded one per cent 332 of the total. By the early 1960s, however, machinery and equipment accounted for practically one-third of the country’s exports, including such goods as railway rolling stock, sea-going ships, electrical equipment, machine tools and motor-cars Of growing importance in Poland’s exports were complete sets of industrial machinery and equipment for Polish-design plants constructed abroad with the aid of Polish experts.

Rumania

p In pre-war Rumania, the most important industry used to be the extraction of petroleum. With the establishment of a people’s democracy Rumania became a country with a highly-developed petroleum-processing industry, as well as an exporter of petroleum. Engineering, ferrous metallurgy and a metal-working industry were reconstructed and substantially expanded, and a thriving and developing chemical industry was created.

Rumania’s particular pride, however, is ship-building. The country borders on the Black Sea and has a navigable river, the Danube. Yet under the monarchy she built practically no ships of her own, her few small shipyards being used mainly for repair and refitting, so that ship-building may be said to have been introduced in Rumania only with the establishment of a people’s democracy. In May 1958, the Galati shipyard launched Rumania’s first motorship, with a displacement of 2,000 tons. A great number of river craft and ocean-going ships has been built since then. In 1965 the country’s aggregate industrial output was 9.5 times greater than in 1938, the average annual increment between 1951 and 1965 being somewhat over 13 per cent. In the machine-building industry the average annual rate of growth was more than 20 per cent, which played a decisive role in re-equipping and expanding all branches of the country’s industry. Further industrialisation was an important aspect of the domestic policy laid down by the Rumanian Communist Party headed by N. Ceausescu.

Czechoslovakia

p In Czechoslovakia, which was already a highly industrialised country, further industrial development meant chiefly adjusting the existing disproportions between the various branches and introducing technological improvements. In pre-war Czechoslovakia, light industry (e.g., textile, tanning, footwear, glass, ceramics) accounted for a major share of the national economy; and with the establishment of a people’s democracy the government therefore concentrated on the development of a heavy industry, especially machine- 333 building. By 1965 the country’s industry as a whole had increased by a factor of 5.1 as compared with 1937. Better utilisation of natural and economic conditions considerably expanded the rawmaterials base of the production and raised its technical level. Ten new blast-furnaces, 21 open-hearth furnaces, a number of rollingmills and several power stations with an aggregate capacity of 5 million kw had been built between 1945 and 1965 in Czechoslovakia.

334

p Radical changes have been made under the new government in Slovakia, formerly a backward region that furnished raw materials and cheap labour to the Czech and Slovak bourgeoisie. With Czech assistance Slovakia has been able to develop an industry of its own.

p Selfless efforts of the working class and developing co-operation with the other members of the world socialist community have raised the country’s economy to a substantially higher level. Producing more steel per caput of population than France, England or Italy, more electric locomotives than England, France or the FRG, and more chemical equipment than the USA, Czechoslovakia is now one of the most highly industrialised countries in the world.

At the same time certain disturbing signs began to appear in the early 1960s: undue delay in the introduction of modern industrial equipment caused certain Czechoslovak manufactured goods to fall below internationally accepted quality standards. This prompted the Czechoslovak Communist Party and government to reject certain now obsolete methods of industrial management, especially its excessive centralisation. Serious thought was given to increasing production efficiency and improving the quality of output. The economic reform was applied to all branches of the national economy. In 1967 the national output showed a 7.1 per cent increase.

Yugoslavia

p In Yugoslavia, the pace of economic development in the postwar period was set by the metallurgical, machine-tool construction and chemical industries, and electrification.

p The rapid advance made by the metallurgical industry is illustrated by the following comparison. The few existing blastfurnaces (at Zenica, Jesenice, Sisak and Vares) produced in the year 1945 a total of 84,000 tons of metal: in 1960 the same quantity was being produced monthly. Manufactured goods imported in pre-war times from abroad are now being produced at home. These include motor-cars, tractors, harvesting combines, internal-combustion engines, turbines, film-projectors, refrigerators, etc. Yugoslav-built passenger and cargo vessels, tankers and floating docks are known far and wide.

By dint of sustained, concentrated effort her people turned Yugoslavia, formerly a backward, agrarian country, into a highly developed industrial state with excellent prospects for the development of its productive forces. By the end of 1965 Yugoslavia’s industrial output and national income had reached a level 7.5 and 3 times higher, respectively, than that of the pre-war years.

335

p This high rate of growth of her national income was highly illustrative of Yugoslavia’s achievements in socialist construction. The annual rate of growth over the period 1947-63 averaged 7 per cent, as compared with only 2 per cent for the period between the First and Second World wars.

p The government set to rectifying the extremely haphazard distribution of industry characteristic of pre-war Yugoslavia, when Serbia, Slovenia and northern Croatia used to constitute the country’s industrial region. Many industrial enterprises were commissioned in such regions as Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro. The new distribution pattern helped develop the previously backward regions, and this was one of the major achievements of the peoples of Yugoslavia in the field of socialist construction.

p Numerous new industrial plants were built after the war equipped with modern machinery, and many of the old factories were largely reconstructed. Obsolete equipment still existed, however, in many of the country’s textile mills, tanneries, and foodprocessing plants, ruling out the possibility of any substantial increase of their output.

336

In the sixties both the Yugoslav Government and the League of Communists were giving particular attention to improvements in economic management methods. However, these efforts had produced no tangible results. In fact the volume of industrial production was 0.4 per cent lower in 1967 than for the year before.

New Attitude Towards Work.
Industrialisation Picks Up Speed

p As the people’s democracy form of government took deeper and deeper root, people began to revise their attitude toward work as such. Two movements became popular: one was socialist emulation, the other—improvement of technology and technique. In the sixties, following the example of Soviet teams of communist labour, teams of socialist labour were organised in increasing numbers in the socialist countries of Europe.

The high rates of industrial development shown by the socialist countries speak convincingly of the advantages of socialism over capitalism. Compared with the history of mankind, ten or fifteen years are a negligible span of time, yet they were enough for the socialist countries to multiply their industrial output many times as against the pre-war level. Thus, 1964 data indicate that since 1938 production multiplied as follows:

Electricity—over 10 times Steel— nearly 5 „ Petroleum— “ 7 „ Cement— over 9 „ Cotton textiles—over 2 „

p A certain faltering in the rate of growth of industrial production over the first half of the 1960s, resulting from the inadequacy of the old methods of management in conditions of the current scientific and technological revolution, was overcome by the implementation of the economic reform and a consequent substantial increase in productivity. A very high increase in industrial production was reached in 1967, exceeding 13 per cent in Bulgaria and Rumania, for instance.

p Nearly all the People’s Democracies of Europe became industrial-agrarian states capable of both meeting the requirements of their domestic markets in manufactured goods and exporting a varied line of domestically manufactured goods to foreign markets. Gone forever were the times when these countries were mere suppliers of primary products to the big imperialist powers.

Rapid industrialisation banished the scourge of unemployment and with it the enforced yearly migration of millions to foreign 337 lands in search of work, characteristic of the past. Industrialisation laid the basis for a better life for the people. Heavy industry had developed at a particularly rapid rate over a number of years in the socialist countries of Europe and had thus been able to overcome its perennial backwardness in a short space of time. In the second half of the sixties light industry was developing at a faster rate to narrow the gap between the rates of growth of heavy and light industries in these countries and as a result there was a substantial expansion of the output of consumer goods, notably durables.

Socialist Reforms in Agriculture

p Agriculture in the European People’s Democracies also underwent far-reaching changes. The early anti-feudal agrarian reforms served to throw into greater relief the disparity between individual peasant farming and large-scale socialised industrial production. The small peasant holdings prevalent in agriculture were unable to meet growing requirements in raw materials and farm produce. Kulak activities also interfered with the establishment 338 of normal relations between town and country, for the kulaks, that is, rich peasants, dealt in food products exclusively with an eye to profits, in utter disregard of industrial or consumer needs.

p Solution of these contradictions lay in the voluntary association of individual peasant holdings in collective agricultural co-operatives organised on socialist principles. This presupposed the isolation of the kulaks as a class and the termination of their subversive activities.

p Bulgaria was one of the first to organise individual peasant proprietors into co-operatives. 3,500 co-operative farms were set up in that country by mid-1958, whose membership comprised roughly 90 per cent of the peasantry. Subsequently, the trend was towards fewer but bigger co-operatives.

p Participating peasants were required to pool their holdings, which, however, while used in common, remained their personal property. This form of organisation was necessitated by the strong traditions of private ownership prevailing among the Bulgarian peasantry. And therein lay the difference between the Bulgarian co-operative farm and the Soviet collective farm where the land granted by the state to the members of the farm artel in perpetual ownership becomes public property. Under the Bulgarian system earnings were computed on the basis of both the individual contribution in labour and the size and quality of the land made over to the co-operative on admission.

p 1967 saw the adoption of a new set of rules for co-operatives, which brought their activities in line with the principles of the new system of economic planning and management, and made the amount of work done the sole criterion for the distribution of income among the members.

p Collectivisation of Bulgarian agriculture ended the exploitation of the peasantry by the rural bourgeoisie, the kulaks, Bulgaria’s last remaining exploiting class. The Bulgarian society was hence composed basically of two friendly classes: workers and co-operative peasants, together with the intelligentsia elements they produce.

p The farm co-operatives assured the Bulgarian peasantry higher living standards, as well as higher productivity of labour. The gross agricultural output of 1964 was 1.7 times greater than that of 1939, which had been considered one of the best in old Bulgaria. In 1967 the overall agricultural output showed a 15 per cent increase. And there was a marked increase in the yields of the most important crops. The new government headed by T. Zhivkov contributed in various ways to the further development of the socialist agriculture.

In Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, the GDR and Albania the vast majority of peasants also adopted the collective form of 339 farming. The consequences were most beneficial. Hungary, for instance, was able—for the first time in her history—to solve her grain problem. In Poland and Yugoslavia the collective form of farming was not so far predominant. Both the Polish United Workers’ Party and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, however, were working to spread the idea of farming co-operatives among the peasantry.

Strengthening the System of Government

p The development of industry and agriculture was paralleled by efforts to strengthen the system of government in the People’s Democracies. To begin with, personnel loyal to the former ruling classes were dismissed from the staff of ministries and other administrative bodies wherever this action had not been taken earlier. Constitutions are now in effect in all of the socialist countries, which have legalised those rights and freedoms won by the working people that contribute to socialist construction. The Constitution of the Hungarian People’s Republic, adopted in August 1949, following discussion of its draft on a national scale, may serve as a good example.

p This Constitution reflects the democratic character of the Hungarian state, in which state power belongs to the working people as personified by the local Soviets and the State Assembly (or parliament). The Constitution states that the preponderant share of the means of production belongs to the society as public, state or co-operative property. Building up and safeguarding socialist property is one of the essential duties of all citizens. Private ownership is allowed by the Constitution within certain limits.

p The Constitution grants and guarantees the working people broad social rights and freedoms, such as the right to elect and be elected to government bodies; the right to work, recreation and education; freedom of speech, press and assembly; freedom of conscience and worship. Any manifestation of racial or national discrimination is a grave offence against the law.

p Having legalised the basic principles governing the country’s state and social system and the rights and duties of the citizens, the Constitution outlined a programme of further development for Hungary, which provided for a gradual elimination of capitalist elements and the creation of a socialist economy. In accordance with the Constitution the principle applied in Hungary is that of socialism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

p The constitutions adopted by certain socialist countries, as in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic, for 340 instance, reflected already in the 1960s the vast changes that had taken place since the Second World War. They are based on the fact that exploitation of man by man has been ended and that socialist production relations now prevail. Political power, in its entirety, belongs to the working people. The 1968 Constitution of the GDR describes the fundamental principles of the socialist system as "a lasting alliance of the working class, the co-operative peasantry, the intellectuals, and other population strata; socialist ownership of the means of production, production planning and management based on the most modern achievements of science... .”

In the process of building a socialist society working people see for themselves the advantages of socialism over capitalism.

Higher Living Standards

p In the old Bulgaria, the average span of life used to be 48 years for men and 49 for women. In Socialist Bulgaria it rose to 64 and 68 years, respectively. Four times as many beds were provided in hospitals which were adequately staffed with medical personnel; and medical care became free of charge. An old-age pension system was introduced. Numerous rest homes and sanatoria for working people were established in the pleasantest localities of the Balkan mountains and the Black Sea coast. A large-scale housing programme was launched in the sixties, and some 135-140 new modern flats were being provided daily for the population.

p In the old Poland, the wealth and luxury enjoyed by bankers, industrialists and leading merchants had co-existed with incredible poverty. Such contrasts were banished forever. There was no more unemployment. People were considerably better fed, both in town and country. In the sixties the consumption of meet, fats and sugar, for instance, more than doubled in Poland as compared with pre-war times. Housing construction was being carried on on an ambitious scale. Secondary and higher education became available free to the children of workers, peasants and the working intelligentsia. A great many other facilities, besides schools, were established by the state to provide recreation and training for children, such as had never been known in pre-war Poland.

p Towns in the socialist countries began taking on a new look. The sharp contrast between modern central districts and dirty dilapidated outskirts was gradually disappearing, as streets were paved and modern shops and comfortable residential buildings went up all over the country.

p The countryside also changed. The number of tiny individually owned plots was dwindling, ceding ground to extensive solid blocks of co-operatively owned fields worked by modern farm 341 machinery. And the villages looked different, for homes provided with modern amenities, including electricity and radio, ceased to be a novelty.

This continuously rising level of prosperity and culture was characteristic of the development of the socialist countries. Despite the devastation caused by the Second World War, the national income had reached by 1950 the pre-war level in all of these countries and even surpassed it in several cases, and continued to grow, so that by 1967 it had increased as against 1950 as follows:

Countries Bulgaria Hungary GDR KPDR Poland Rumania Czechoslovakia Increase (by a factor 4.6 over 2.5 3.4 over 5 over 3 4.8 2.7 of)

p A rapid growth of the national income meant a steady rate of extended reproduction, which in turn meant a steady growth of the public and personal consumption funds.

p Common to all of the socialist countries was an expanding network of schools of all kinds and a correspondingly increasing student body. Vocational and technical training was increasingly emphasised. With illiteracy now practically non-existent, it is useful to recall that under the old regimes illiteracy had stood at around 25 per cent of the population in Poland and Bulgaria, 50 per cent in Rumania, over 80 per cent in Albania and practically 100 per cent in Mongolia.

An important element of the new way of life was a developing socialist consciousness. The working people became convinced that socialism was conducive to a combination of personal prosperity and personal interests with the interests of the society as a whole. And this conviction engendered enthusiasm in personal contribution to the common effort and promoted general progress.

Counter-Revolution

p The nascency of this new way of life was not a process altogether smooth and unobstructed. On the contrary, the socialist system was taking root in sharp conflict with the old order. The capitalists and landowners, now shorn of the political power they wielded, the entrepreneurs, merchants, profiteers and kulaks, now divested of their wealth, still clung to the hope that the capitalist 342 system would be re-established and missed no opportunity to injure the new society in their anticipation of that event. And they invariably received moral and financial support, in their pernicious activities, from foreign quarters.

p A particularly illustrative instance of the class conflict going on in the socialist countries since the end of the war were the events of 1956 in Hungary, where, in late October and early November, counter-revolutionary forces, directly incited and aided by aggressive elements in Western states, attempted a coup d’etat. The aim was to destroy the country’s socialist achievements, pluck it out of the socialist commonwealth and turn it into a staging ground for a war against the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies.

p The counter-revolutionary coup was staged by former capitalists and landowners, urban petty bourgeois, vacillating intellectuals, certain strata of university students, and declasse elements. Some working-class elements had been inveigled by false pretences. The reactionary forces used to good advantage the understandable dissatisfaction among the population caused by the errors of Rakosi and certain other Hungarian leaders, who had been guilty of serious infractions of the fundamental principles of socialist democracy.

p On balance, however, the great majority of workers and peasants did not support the counter-revolution. The Hungarian people proved capable of defending its socialist achievements. A Revolutionary Workers’ and Peasants’ Government set up on November 4, 1956, headed by Janos Kadar, a prominent leader of the Hungarian communist movement, announced a programme envisaging rectification of the errors and abuses of power made by the former leadership and further progress towards socialism.

The Revolutionary Workers’ and Peasants’ Government further requested the Soviet Union’s aid in putting down the counter-revolution; and that request was granted by the Soviet Government in fulfilment of its international duty. The joint effort of the Hungarian revolutionary forces and units of the Soviet Army resulted in the defeat of the counter-revolution. And the Hungarian people, after repairing the damage inflicted by the counter-revolution, went on with their work of socialist construction.

Mongolian People’s Republic

The Mongolian People’s Republic became the second state to follow the example of the Soviet Union and embark on a programme of socialist construction. Her experience proves that a direct transition from feudalism to socialism is possible today, without an intermediate capitalist stage of development.

343

p Durng the Second World War the Mongolian people, under the leadership of the People’s Revolutionary Party headed by Choibalsan, made their contribution to the struggle against the fascist aggressors. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, Mongolian troops helped crush Japan’s Kwantung army.

p In the post-war period the Republic achieved continued success in its political, economic and cultural development, notably in the field of state and co-operative industry.

p Numerous industrial enterprises were built in the sixties, with Soviet assistance, and equipped with modern machinery; and industry, completely non-existent before the revolution, now accounted for 40 per cent of the gross national output. It should be noted that the industrial output of 1964 was ten times higher than of 1940. In 1967 the overall industrial output rose by 7.7 per cent.

p New branches of industry including mining (coal and ores), petroleum and construction were built. A large hide- and woolprocessing plant was built at Ulan Bator, the nation’s capital; and a wood-working plant was commissioned.

344

p Numerous settlements appeared in the formerly uninhabited steppes. Highways and railways now traversed the country where anything like a road had once been a rarity. The Gobi desert was being explored for petroleum.

p By 1960 most of the cattle-breeders joined socialist-type cooperatives, and this led to an increase of the stock of cattle. State farms and numerous mechanised hay-mowing stations gave the co-operatives valuable aid. A veterinary network served to cut drastically loss of cattle due to disease. Special plants at Songi and Arahangae produced biological preparations for treating cattle, horses, camels and sheep.

p The government encouraged the shift from nomadism to a sedentary way of life, which implied the development of agriculture. Lamaism, the religion formerly dominant in Mongolia, forbade tilling the soil in order not to "disturb the peace of the earth”. Now, however, state and co-operative farms were ploughing up extensive tracts of virgin land to grow wheat, barley, oats and corn.

p Over one-third of the country’s rural population was engaged in farming. Some 8,000 tractors were at work in the fields in 1964.

p Most Mongols still lived in their old-style felt-covered transportable yurts; but fashions changed: the yurts were now furnished with modern furniture; and open fires in the middle of the yurts were replaced with iron stoves formerly seen only in the yurts of princes and lamas.

p In towns and workers’ settlements housing construction was along modern lines.

p Much was achieved in the cultural sphere after the revolution. Hundreds of general and technical schools, institutes and a university were opened. While the country now had a university of its own, many young men and women were enrolled in higher educational institutions in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In 1961 a Mongolian Academy of Sciences was created, comprising five research institutes devoted to the basic branches of modern science. National arts flourished. Theatrical repertoires included plays by Mongolian playwrights as well as Russian and Western classics.

p Mongolian women, formerly resigned and treated as inferiors, now enjoyed a standing in the society on a par with the men and took an active part in building a new way of life. Women now constituted one-fifth of the membership of the Great People’s Khural, the country’s supreme organ of state power.

Under the People’s Revolutionary Party headed by Y. Tsedenbal, and with the aid of the socialist countries, the Mongolian people laid the base of socialism in the country.

345

Albanian People’s Republic

p Following Lenin’s path the peoples of Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, the GDR and the MPR have built the foundations of socialism and entered the period of completing socialist construction.

p The development of the Albanian People’s Republic has been marked by very specific features. The Albanian people may be said to have skipped the capitalist stage, having achieved a transition from a state of semi-feudal backwardness direct to socialist construction. Pre-war Albania was extremely backward both economically and politically. The country was governed by the feudal landed gentry and the king, who owned most of the land under cultivation. The greater part of the population were engaged in agriculture, conducted on a primitive level. Large industrial plants were non-existent. Capitalist relations were rudimentary. Relics of the tribal system were still to be found in some of the mountain fastnesses.

p The war and the Italo-German occupation left Albania in a state of prostration: many towns and villages lay in ruins, onethird of the stock of cattle had been killed off, the few industrial plants and home-industries had shut down. The First Congress of the Albanian Communist Party, meeting in November of 1948, drew up a programme of industrialisation and electrification; and adopted the name of the Albanian Party of Labour.

p Substantial aid in the country’s economic and cultural reconstruction and development was given Albania by the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries. Moved by a feeling of due sympathy for the Albanian people, the Soviet Union extended credits to the Albanian Government and supplied machinery and equipment for the industrial plants, power stations and petroleum-extracting installations under construction. Among the many industrial plants constructed with Soviet aid may be mentioned the hydropower stations on the Mat and at Tirana, the country’s capital city, a woodworking plant at Elbasani, a rice-processing plant and a cement works at Vlona, and a petroleum refinery at Tserrik.

p A fish cannery at Vlona was built with the aid of the German Democratic Republic, and fruit and vegetable processing plants were constructed with the aid of Hungarian experts at Korrce, Shkoder and elsewhere. Socialist Czechoslovakia was instrumental in expanding Albania’s iron-mining industry.

p The development of industry and transport raised the share of the one and the other in the national output, by 1959, to around 50 per cent, as compared with hardly 10 per cent prior to the war. And by 1964 the country’s industrial production had surpassed the pre-war level by a factor of 30.

346

p There were considerable changes in agriculture, too, though the rate of development here was slower. Shown the advantages of cooperative farming as compared with individual farming, most of the peasantry formed co-operative economies. These co-operatives received aid from the state, which granted them loans and supplied them with tractors and various farm machinery and implements. Extensive work was done in the field of irrigation and ploughing up virgin lands.

p There were also considerable gains in the cultural sphere. Under the people’s democracy women were emancipated and given the same rights as men. Under the monarchy only one Albanian out of five was literate, whereas now the vast majority of school-age youngsters and adults can read and write. The number of secondary (11-year) schools increased several times. There were no higher educational institutions in the country under the monarchy and therefore no chance of acquiring higher education for the Albanian youth. Here, too, there were significant changes. The capital now had a university with an enrolment of 5,000 young men and women. There were two teacher’s colleges and one agricultural institute.

However, socialist construction in Albania has run into serious difficulties. For the country’s government and Party leadership have been drifting away from the socialist commonwealth and the world communist movement. The new political line has slowed down the rate of economic development and Albania found itself in a precarious situation.

Chinese People’s Republic

p In China, the long war of liberation that her people were forced to fight had caused a complete dislocation of the national economy. And the working people of China found themselves facing the mighty task of economic reconstruction. Aid, however, came from the Soviet Union. That was at a time when the Soviet Union had just emerged, victorious, from the most disastrous war the world had ever known and itself stood in dire need of means and equipment. Nevertheless, true to its duty of proletarian internationalism, the Soviet people launched upon an extensive programme of aid to China, even at the cost of great self-denial. The aid programme included credits, equipment, construction-project blueprints, and the services of experts; in short, everything that could help the Chinese People’s Republic forge ahead. During the reconstruction period and the years that followed the Soviet Union helped China build some 200 industrial plants and supply them with modern equipment.

347

p On February 14, 1950, the Chinese People’s Republic and the Soviet Union signed a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, which was to serve the Chinese people as a mighty shield and which, in fact, broke up the plans of the international reaction to overthrow the people’s government by direct intervention in China’s domestic affairs.

p The heroic all-out effort of the Chinese people and the aid of the entire socialist commonwealth worked important changes in China. By the end of 1952 an agrarian reform had been implemented over the greater part of the country, bringing to a term the oppression of the peasants by the landed gentry. Over 47 million hectares of landed estates were distributed among the landless and land-poor peasants.

p Foreign capitalists in China were shorn of all the privileges they enjoyed. Stringent measures were enforced against "bureaucratic capital”, or the comprador bourgeoisie, which had been closely linked with foreign capital, chiefly American, and with the feudal landed gentry. Most of the "bureaucratic capital" had been held by the Kuomintang clique. The government expropriated their capital and enterprises, including those belonging to Chiang Kaishek, Kung Hsiang-hsi, Sung Tze-wen and the Chen brothers, that is to say, to China’s wealthiest "four families”. The banks, industrial plants, shipping, and commercial business thus expropriated were constituted as the state sector of the national economy, which accounted, as early as 1952, for around 56 per cent of the aggregate industrial output. Thus ended the despoliation and exploitation of the Chinese people by the imperialists and their immediate local factors.

p By 1952 the output of industry and agriculture had surpassed that of the best years before the war with Japan; and in 1953 China initiated its First Five-Year Plan, thereby launching the country on a course of socialist industrialisation. With the aid of the Soviet Union entire new industries were created, such as aircraft, automobile, tractor, energetics, heavy and precision engineering, instrument-making, radio-technical, and a diversified chemical industry. Some 500 industrial plants were built, including the Anshan Metallurgical Works which constitutes the nucleus of the country’s metallurgical industry. October 1957 saw the completion of the railway bridge across the Yangtze at Wuhan, the biggest in Asia. In 1956 the volume of industrial production was nearly six times that of 1949.

p The declared policy of the Chinese Government was a peaceful transition from private to socialist industry and trade.

p Changes came into the lives of the many-millioned Chinese peasantry since the victory of the revolution. There was a largescale shift in favour of collective methods of farming. By mid-1957 348 over 97 per cent of the peasant households had joined agricultural productive co-operatives. Former landlords and kulaks were admitted to these co-operatives, who like the urban bourgeoisie were subject to re-education by labour.

p There were changes in the cultural sphere as well. Schooling was inaccessible to the working people in the old China, and 90 out of 100 were illiterate in the rural areas. With the advent of the new system of government a drive to end illiteracy was begun.

p However, already at the end of the fifties the building of a socialist society in China ran into serious difficulties. Policy errors caused a lag in industrial and agricultural development in comparison with the planned rates, and even a net loss in gains.

p The "great leap forward" economic policy announced in 1958, implying a manifold increase of industrial and agricultural production within a brief time-span, failed to take into sufficient account the country’s actual possibilities. While announcing that China would rely on her own resources in her economic development, her leadership made no effort to secure the maximum utilisation of these resources. At the same time the Chinese leaders started to restrict economic relations with the socialist countries. This policy caused a sharp drop in industrial production and serious dislocation in the national economy. Thus the attempt to achieve a "great leap forward" ended in failure.

p Mistakes were made in effecting the transition from agricultural production co-operatives to the so-called "people’s communes”, for socialisation was unjustifiably applied to minor equipment, down to the personal effects of the peasants. Members of the "people’s communes" were deprived of all economic incentives to higher productivity. By setting up these communes the Chinese leaders sought to effect a direct transition to communism without bothering to lay in advance an adequate material and spiritual foundation. As a consequence, the output of farm produce dropped sharply, causing difficulties in meeting consumer demand for food products and the requirements of industry in agricultural raw materials. In 1961 and 1962 food shortages brought about the resettlement of tens of millions of urban dwellers in rural areas.

In addition to their leftist experiments in the economic sphere, the Chinese leaders proclaimed, in 1966, a "great proletarian cultural revolution”, one manifestation of which was the destruction of the country’s immensely rich cultural legacy and the liquidation of all those who did not subscribe to the policies of the leadership of the CPC and the government. The chosen tool of this profoundly anti-Marxist-Leninist “revolution” was secondary school and university students, who were frequently incited to attack the 349 Party cadres. The Mao personality cult assumed unprecedented forms and proportions; Mao’s ideas were proclaimed to be the apex of modern Marxist thought. The "great cultural revolution" was accompanied by an anti-Soviet campaign that had been gathering force over a number of years. Relations with other socialist countries also deteriorated. The Chinese leaders started to speak out against the agreed action of socialist states which was aimed at rendering the Vietnamese people assistance in their just struggle.

Korean People’s Democratic Republic

p In June 1950, the troops of the South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, supported by the land and naval forces of the USA, invaded North Korea, unleashing a bloody war.

p When in October 1950 the American invaders broke through to the Chinese frontier, the Chinese people’s volunteers came to the aid of the Korean People’s Democratic Republic.

p It had been the intention of the American imperialists to intimidate the peoples of Asia and the Far East by a demonstration of military power. Moreover, the invasion of Korea served as a safety-valve for the American economy, which, at the time, stood on the brink of a crisis. For increased military appropriations and growing armaments purchases were helpful to American business. Incidentally, the imperialist American war in Korea was being waged under the flag of the United Nations.

p The attack on North Korea incensed peaceful nations the world over, and the aggressive plans of the US imperialists fell through. With the support of all the socialist countries, the Korean People’s Army succeeded in expelling the invaders, their napalm bombs and bacteriological and chemical weapons notwithstanding. In July 1953, the armistice was signed and with it came an ignominious end to the American intervention in Korea. Meanwhile, the mass heroism displayed by the Koreans served to inspire many colonial and dependent peoples to carry on their struggle for national liberation.

p The three years of war inflicted heavy damage on the North Korean economy. Many cities had been reduced to rubble; dams, dikes and other irrigation installations lay in ruins: transport facilities had been wrecked. With the aid of the socialist countries, notably the Soviet Union, and by dint of inspired and dedicated effort on the part of the people of the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, the reconstruction of the country’s industrial and agricultural plant was accomplished in record time.

p In the course of reconstruction and the years that followed, industry and trade were reorganised entirely on socialist lines. New 350 industries were established, as, for instance, engineering and automobile. North Korean industry now produces tractors, bulldozers, metal-working machine-tools, measuring and precision instruments, etc.

p Industrial development was proceeding at a rapid rate. In 1964 the volume of industrial output showed a ten-fold increase over that of the pre-war year 1949. In 1966 the volume of industrial output was twice as large as in 1960.

p Socialist production relations became predominant in the rural areas. By the summer of 1958 all of the North Korean peasantry had joined production co-operatives; land, cattle and important farm machinery were socialised; and income was being distributed according to individual labour contribution in terms of work-day units. Irrigation, an important feature of Korean agriculture, was being developed by the co-operatives with goveinment aid.

p The face of the countryside changed, what with an extensive housing programme and the electrification of many villages. And village clubs or community houses became a feature.

p Much was done by the government in the cultural field. Universal compulsory seven-year schooling was introduced for the first 351 time in Korean history, making education available to the children of workers and peasants and one out of every four Koreans went to school.

The North Koreans were working for a final peaceful settlement of the Korean problem and national unification. In this they were supported by the Soviet Union and the entire socialist community.

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

p During the first three years after the end of the war in 1954 the efforts of the Vietnamese people were directed mainly towards the reconstruction of the country’s war-ravaged economy.

p Its most urgent task was to complete the agrarian reform that had been initiated during the “dirty” war, when the Government of the DRV confiscated the estates and property of the French colonialists and those Vietnamese who had betrayed their country by throwing in their lot with the French. Such estates had been distributed among the landless and land-poor peasants. Now, after the country achieved its independence, a campaign was launched against the landed gentry. In the course of 1956 and 1957 the landlords, as a class, were liquidated in the DRV, all of their lands, cattle and buildings being turned over to the working peasants. As a result, the latter now held 98 per cent of all the arable land. This act of transferring land to those who tilled it produced a regular explosion of enthusiasm among millions of peasants. In 1956 the rice fields yielded a crop of 4,135,600 tons, as against 2,407,000 tons in 1939, which had been a record year under the old regime.

p The agrarian reform was followed by the nationalisation of mines, waters, forests and virgin lands, as well as the industrial enterprises expropriated from the French colonialists and the Vietnamese turncoats; all of which, together with the plants built by the working people and the People’s Army during the war, came to constitute the state socialist sector of the national economy.

p The people’s government facilitated the enrolment of working peasants and artisans in a variety of production co-operatives, or, rather, mutual-assistance labour-brigades initially, which only subsequently developed into production co-operatives.

p In parallel with economic reconstruction, the Republic made an important move to solve the problem of national minorities. For the population of North Vietnam is multinational, composed of several dozen minor peoples besides the Vietnamese proper who form the largest segment. Territories inhabited by these minorities have been constituted into autonomous areas, of which the 352 Thai-Meo and Viet-Bac are the most important. These national minorities are represented in the highest organs of state power. Every consideration is given to the languages and scripts of the national minorities, and those who have no script are being aided in developing one. The just policy of the government and the Working People’s Party of Vietnam in respect of the national minorities has served to wipe out former enmities, and the various tribes and peoples now live and work together in perfect accord.

p By the end of 1957 the reconstruction of the national economy was virtually completed. In terms of value, the aggregate output of agriculture, industry and handicrafts approached the level of 1939.

p In 1958 the Working People’s Party of Vietnam and the DRV Government undertook further socialist reforms. A wide movement in favour of co-operative farming developed, which resulted in the enrolment of the great majority of peasants into co-operatives of different kinds. By 1963 one-third of the population had joined co-operatives of the highest socialist type, in which the basic means of production, including land and cattle, were socialised and income was distributed according to work-days contributed. Where poverty and hunger had been the lot of the North Vietnamese peasants before the revolution, people now lived in good conditions and faced the future with confidence. Rice crops in North 353 Vietnam now surpassed anything the rice-growing lands of Southeast Asia had ever known.

p The state sector in industry, which became the leading sector of the national economy, was developed and strengthened. Practically all privately owned industrial, commercial and transport enterprises were reorganised into mixed state-private enterprises, and this led to a restriction of worker exploitation. The economy of North Vietnam was no longer the backward, lop-sided economy of colonial days. In 1964 the volume of industrial production was eight times greater than in 1955, and this rapid rate of industrial development was very justly a source of pride for the working people of the DRV.

p A nation-wide competitive movement to spur production was started on the initiative of the workers of the Xuen Hai repair workshop at Haiphong. Thousands of suggestions were received from participants in the movement, dealing with methods of increasing industrial output and improving product quality.

p Higher levels of industrial and agricultural production brought considerable improvement in living standards. Peasant incomes had doubled by 1959, as compared with colonial times. Hunger and unemployment, which stalked the land under the colonial system, were all but forgotten. People were no longer clothed in rags and tatters. The government had worked hard to solve the difficult housing problem; and rents in workers’ districts and industrial settlements were now not more than 2 or 3 per cent of a worker’s earnings, instead of around 33 per cent as in former days.

p There were signal achievements in the spheres of public health, education and culture. Dozens of new medical institutions had been opened since the revolution. Much attention had been given to maternity and child health. As a result infant mortality dropped to approximately one-tenth of the rate prevailing under the colonial regime.

p Illiteracy had been as high as 90 per cent among the Vietnamese under French colonial rule. A wide movement for general literacy developed after the formation of people’s democracy; and the results surpassed all expectations: by the end of 1958 all the population in the 12 to 50 age brackets could read, write and count.

p Elementary, secondary and higher education was being rapidly developed. Fifteen higher educational institutions and dozens of technical schools now operated in a country which used to boast but one university with an enrolment of a few hundred. Numerous libraries, clubs, etc., were opened.

p While pressing the development of its industry and agriculture, as well as the cultural sphere, in its advance towards socialism, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam consistently worked for the liberation of South Vietnam from foreign domination and 354 its unification with North Vietnam to form a united independent democratic state, in accordance with the decisions of the Geneva Conference. The demands for a cessation of imperialist interference in the affairs of the Vietnamese people acquired particular urgency in 1962, when the ruling circles of the United States launched their armed intervention in South Vietnam, intending to suppress the powerful patriotic movement against the sanguinary dictatorship which terrorised that part of the country, and for the unification of the latter with the North.

p The American war of aggression in South Vietnam continued to expand month after month as more and more American troops were thrown into a battle that was being fought to achieve aims entirely alien to their interests. The National Liberation Army struck back effectively, and guerilla forces harassed the invaders on an ever greater scale. In August 1964, the United States, while continuing its effort to subdue the people of South Vietnam, carried the war into North Vietnam. Applying the principle of escalation, the American air force carried out increasingly heavy airraids against urban centres and rural areas alike, inflicting great damage and taking a heavy toll of lives.

p Backed by the whole of progressive mankind, the heroic people of Vietnam fought back with increasing vigour, exacting a high price from the US aggressors.

355

p The war demanded an entire change of life in the DRV. Scores of thousands of men and women joined the armed forces and the special detachments formed to service transport and work on reconstruction. A considerable part of the population of those urban areas which came in for particularly vicious bombing and shelling by the American air force and warships was evacuated to rural regions. And local industries were chiefly emphasised in the country’s economic development with a view to making every province economically self-sufficient.

p Between January 1965 and November 1967 alone the US invaders unloaded over 1,600,000 tons of bombs on Vietnam, more than half of them on the DRV.

p However, the hopes of the US imperialists to bring the republic to its knees were blasted. One proof was the successful fulfilment of the two-year economic development plan, 1966-67, which was even exceeded for certain targets. Though the area of irrigated lands shrank, the total yield of rice remained the same.

The aid given by the Soviet Union to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was of the greatest importance for its resistance to US aggression. This aid included the most sophisticated types of weapons: aircraft, anti-aircraft artillery and rockets, munitions, etc., as well as industrial equipment, vehicles, petroleum products, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, chemical fertilisers, food products, and so on. In rendering this aid, entirely free, incidentally, the Soviet Union was motivated by a feeling of international solidarity. Other socialist countries, too, rendered the fighting people of Vietnam effective aid. The peoples of the socialist community were in the van of the campaign to put an end to the American war of aggression and to bring about the complete withdrawal of US and satellite forces from Vietnamese soil.

Revolutionary Reforms in Cuba

p After the cruel Batista dictatorship was toppled in Cuba, the reactionaries at home, and even more so abroad, had hoped to see the Cuban working people fail in their attempt to defend the revolution and crushed in the vice of economic difficulties. These hopes were not to come true, however. For the revolutionary government not only held out, but was able, in a relatively brief span of time, to work profound changes in Cuba’s economy, as also in the cultural sphere.

p Most important among these changes was the agrarian reform, land being Cuba’s greatest asset. Before the revolution the best lands were owned by a small clique of landlords and by foreign (chiefly North American) petroleum, mining and stock-breeding 356 concerns. The latifundia were the foundation on which the corrupt anti-democratic regimes mainly rested. Offsetting these vast estates was a multitude of small and infinitesimal peasant holdings; though most of the peasantry were landless.

p In May 1950, the revolutionary government passed a law expropriating large tracts of land belonging to big landlords and North American concerns, thereby putting a term, once and for all, to the power exercised by the local and foreign latifundists in all spheres of Cuban life. Over 100,000 landless and land-poor peasants received plots of up to 27 hectares each, as their personal property, free of charge.

p Important stock-breeding and rice-growing economies were converted into people’s estates. Many farm hands and small tenantfarmers joined to form co-operatives.

p In 1960 and 1961 there followed the nationalisation of industrial enterprises belonging to the big and middle Cuban bourgeoisie. Many private urban residences were expropriated and turned over to the working people. Thus did the age-old dream of the Cuban people come true: they had at last inherited all the wealth the Pearl of the Antilles had to offer. And having made an end of feudalism and imperialist domination and cut the ground from under the local bourgeoisie, the people of Cuba applied themselves to the task of socialist construction.

357

p Planned balanced development was programmed for Cuba’s economy. The revolutionary government took steps to end Cuba’s dependence on the cultivation and processing of a single cropsugar-cane in the given case—to the exclusion of all others However, it is precisely in an expansion of the sugar industry that the Cuban leaders saw the solution of the problem; for the increased production and sale of sugar would furnish the government with additional revenue, which could be used to set up those industries that Luba needed to assure a balanced development of its economy

p A chemical industry was developing. Agricultural machinery plants were going up. The presence of rich polymetallic ore deposits was of great significance for Cuba’s industrial development Iwo nickel-producing plants were already functioning. The republic s merchant shipping was rapidly expanding, and its merchant marine was already five times and more the size of its pre-revolutionary fleet. And a new fishing fleet was built.

p Hundreds of thousands of Cuban factory workers and peasants on peoples estates participated in labour competition in an effort to increase production. In the spring of 1963 the name of Reynaldo Castro, a machetero, became famous overnight for having set a world record in cane-cutting. Over the period 1959-61 the rate of increase of sugar production was practically double that which prevailed in the decade preceding the revolution.

p In the autumn of 1963 a law was passed on the nationalisation of privately owned landed estates larger than 67 hectares, which accounted for roughly 22 per cent of the land under cultivation. Ihis strengthened the socialist sector of agriculture, to the serious detriment of the rural bourgeoisie. This was followed by preliminary measures to expand the cultivation of food and industrial crops, such as cotton, rice, beans and corn.

p A number of revolutionary measures were introduced by the government, calculated to end certain old institutions and establish new social relations. These included the organisation of a civil service drafted from the ranks of the revolutionary army, workers, peasants and progressive intelligentsia; the creation of a people’s militia; and the reorganisation of the judicial system. A body of labour laws was enacted to protect the rights of the working people, urban and rural; and a comprehensive social security system was set up. Important advances were achieved in the sphere of public health.

p The revolution gave a powerful impetus to progress in the educational and cultural sphere. Half the island’s population could neither read nor write before the revolution. The year 1961 was designated by the government as "Literacy Year": those who were literate were urged to teach those who were not, and those who were illiterate—to learn reading and writing. Ten thousand young 358 teachers, trained for the job during the preceding two years, scattered through the countryside to teach. Study groups were organised all over the country. Many of these young teachers went even further and took up quarters with peasant families, to move only after all the members had been taught to read and write. By the end of 1961 illiteracy was a thing of the past.

p Although handicapped by having to fight off counter-revolutionary attempts by local and foreign reactionaries, the Cuban Government was continuously concerned with the expansion of elementary, secondary and higher education. Several thousand schoolhouses were built, for instance, in somewhat less than two years. "Rifle, school-book and work" was a current motto in Cuba.

p Substantial was the aid given to Cuba by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. A number of trade and credit agreements concluded by Cuba and the Soviet Union guaranteed Cuba the marketing of its traditional lines of goods in exchange for the manufactured goods it requires. The USSR supplied Cuba with petroleum products, machinery, equipment, ferrous rolled goods, fertilisers, and foods. In the sixties the Soviet Union advanced a 77,000,000 peso loan to Cuba to finance the reconstruction of its sugar industry and undertook to help it re-equip 114 sugar refineries. Cuban exports to the USSR included sugar, tobacco, and nickeliferous products.

p Czechoslovakia helped Cuba build tractor, motor-lorry and motor-cycle works. Poland furnished equipment for shipyards and ship-repair facilities, a battery plant, and a harbour grain elevator. A radio-equipment plant was built with help from the German Democratic Republic. Cuba’s participation in inter-state specialisation as practised by the members of the socialist community was contributing to its economic development.

p The aid thus extended to Cuba by the peoples of the socialist states made a major contribution to strengthening its freedom and independence.

p No sooner the government of Fidel Castro came to power than the American imperialists determined to throttle the Cuban revolution. The American monopolies had no intention to put up with the loss of their Cuban assets and, what is more important, they feared lest the Cuban example should inspire other Latin American peoples to throw off the American yoke.

p Initially, it was proposed to bring Cuba to heel through economic pressure. In July I960, the US companies refused to take delivery of Cuban sugar as provided for in the USA-Cuban trade agreement. Deliveries of petroleum products to Cuba were next suspended, while American-owned refineries were instructed to refrain from processing crude petroleum supplied to Cuba by the 359 Soviet Union. These measures were calculated to place Cuba in a very difficult situation.

p By way of retaliation the Cuban Government nationalised all American-owned sugar and petroleum refineries, mines and metallurgical works. The sugar which the United States refused to buy was purchased by the Soviet Union. In the event, the American monopolies were to suffer by losing Cuba as a market for their goods.

p Now that they became convinced that Cuba could not be bullied into obedience by economic pressure, the US aggressive circles decided to resort to arms. Supporters of the Batista regime who had fled from Cuba to Florida and Guatemala were hastily organised into mercenary bands, supplied with American instructors and financed by American money. This counter-revolutionary rabble itched to overthrow the Cuban Government.

p On the morning of April 17, 1961, some 2,000 mercenaries, supported by US air force and naval units, made a landing on the Cuban coast in the region of Playa Jiron. The expectation was that there would be a spontaneous uprising against the revolutionary government the moment a landing was effected.

p These hopes were destined to be shattered, however, for the working people of Cuba rose to a man in defence of the revolution. The invading force was crushed at the end of three days’ fighting. And this total failure of the Playa Jiron invasion showed the world that the Cuban people were united in their determination to hold what they had won.

p The position of the USSR during the invasion was that of solidarity with the heroic people of Cuba. The Soviet Government declared that the Soviet Union, like the other peaceable nations, would stand by the Cuban people in its hour of trial. The Soviet Government reserved the right to come to Cuba’s aid, together with other nations, unless the armed intervention was called off.

p Their defeat at Playa Jiron failed, however, to cool the ardour of the American imperialists. The aggressive circles in the USA went about preparations for fresh attacks against Cuba, in which US armed forces were to take part. Considerations of security forced the Cuban Government, in these circumstances, to acquire an adequate stock of weapons from the Soviet Union. This infuriated the US imperialists; especially the more reckless ones, who came to be known as the “rabids”; these called for immediate armed intervention and the destruction of the "Castro regime”. In short, the US military had drawn a bead on Cuba.

To meet the threat, Cuba and the Soviet Union concluded an agreement on the dislocation of powerful defence weapons on Cuban territory, including rockets. Bourgeois propaganda lost no

360 time in warning that these rockets were allegedly a threat to the United States. And in the autumn of 1962 the American military machine was all set for a strike against Cuba.

p The Caribbean crisis of October-November 1962, was the gravest international -crisis of the post-war period. Mankind stood on the very brink of a nuclear war, and the situation was saved only through the exercise of reason and the will to peace Faced with the determination of the Cuban people to defend their revolutionary causes and in view of the wave of protests in other countries against the aggressive moves of the US militaiy, the US imperialists did not dare to attack Cuba.

p Revolutionary Cuba came out of the trial stronger and more determined than ever and, rallied around their government and their Communist Party, the Cuban people is successfully building socialism.

The significance of the Cuban revolution is to be found in the fact that the Cuban people was the first in the Western Hemisphere to carry on the cause of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917. The socialist revolution in Cuba signalled to the world that the ideas of socialism had crossed the ocean and established a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere.