Evening star., 1932-02-11
BY ELIAS TOBENKIN.

| digging sewer.
In Alexandrovsk, half way between
Moscow and Sevastopol, in harvesting
plant. which manufactures threshing
machines. more than half the 1000
| workers were women.
One million six hundred thousand
women in the Soviet Union during 1881
left their places in the home to become
wage learners. Nearly q million of them
were absorbed by industries. principally
heavy industries, and by the railroads.
Agriculture, the collectivized and gov
ernment-owned farms run on factory
basis, absorbed the remaining 100000.
The unprecedented industrial expan-
sion Of the country. grouped under the
general head of the five-year plan, ac-
counts in part for this vast migration
must be aScribed to the war spirit brood
ing over Russia today.
The Kremlin leaders have imbued the
Russian masses with the belief that
the stability of the capitalistic world
is coming to an end" and that the sue
cess of the five-year plan is helping to
destroy this stability. They predict, as
the result of the protracted world crisis,
a sharpening of "class division" in all
bourgeois countries The upper and
middle classes. they say. will look for
way out in Fascism, while the lower
classes will turn to Communism.
Expect to Fight World.
In last effort to avert proletarian
revolution, SO the Kremlin argues, the
capitalist governments of the world"
| will unite in war upon the Soviet
Union. Red Moscow will be blamed
for all the ills of capitalism" and an
effort will be made to wipe 1t of the
map.
AS Intervention by European nations
in Soviet affairs over period of three
years. between 1918 and 1921, did not
succeed in overthrowing the Communist
regime, Kremlin leaders predict that
the next attack will be even more pro-
| longed and on vaster scale. They
maintain. therefore, that it is essential
to train the women to manage the in
| dustrieS, run the country" in foct, SO
as to release as many men as possible
! for fighting.
What Russian women must do to
| help win "the next war" was outlined
| by Climenty Voroshilov in a speech en-
titled working Women and the De-
fense Of Our Country" delivered before
the All-Union Congress of Women
Workers and Peasants.
| THE men will go to the 'front.'" the
1
women must take their places in shops
| and factories. On the work of women
trainmen, women conductors, women
| chauffeurs, women machinists, women
| traffic dispatches, women adminis-
traitors, will depend the success of mill
tary operations at the front. For in
modern warfare, success on the battle
field is dependent on the efficiency with
which the countrys industries are
operated thousands of miles away.
| Finally, many women will serve in
the ranks Of the regular army. Wom-
en- in the Soviet Union having become
the equals Of men economically, must
also share with the men the greatest
of all duties-to defend with weapons
in hand the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics"
Plans Carefully Laid.
The distribution and training OF the
newly recruited women workers are
conducted with utmost deliberation by
three of the highest governmental
bodies responsible for the industrializa-
ton of the Soviet Union-the supreme
council of national economy, the COM
missariat of labor. and the government
planning commission, the organization
directly responsible for the success Of
the five-year plan.
The chance to advance from unskilled
work into more mechanical positions
is frequently given women before they
are fully ripe for it. Their apprentice
ship IS short. From mechanical work
they are drafted into executive posi-
tions with the same rapidity. They are
compelled to attend educational and
technical classes conducted by the fac
tories in which they are employed. In
1881, nearly 100000 adult women in
the Soviet Union had "liquidated"
their illiteracy, that is, they had
| learned to read and write. The spec
| ter of war and the women's industrial
program for defense contributed in no
small measure to this educational up
lift.
Evidence that the governments pro-
gram for the industrial militarization
of women is accomplishing tangible re-
suits is becoming cumulative through
out the Soviet Union. In one Of the
government owned farms, "Gigant," +"
which puts under cultivation nearly a
million acres Of land annually, the
tractor work" on these million acres
in the last season was done almost en-
tirely by women.
Women chauffeurs operated the
tractors both for planting and har-
| VeSIlnR. women mechanics dGL6IlUeC
to the necessary repairs. and did so
competently. AS far as this particular
sector of the governments bread indus
i try is concerned. the men might 60 to
war any day; the women will attend
to the grain raising without difficulty.
In the Magnitogorsk steel works the
workers had failed to live up to GER
tain minimum of production required
by the government. A brigade of wom-
en- industrial shock troopers replaced a
particular set of male workmen. Re-
suit: The governments program was
filled out los per cent, and on time.
Many Women Officials.
Many factories throughout the Soviet
Union have women directors. The
Rubezhansk factory, very large enter
prise, has 80 women engineer Wom-
en- workers are continually sent to pull
up the quality of production when the
men workers in a particular industry
fail to live up to expectations. How
ever, this is not yet the full extent OF
the governments plans for womans
place in industry in war time.
The technical schools OF the coun-
try have recently been so re0rganized
as to make it possible for the factories
to send their most intelligent and
promising women to these institutions
for higher technical training. The
number of women students admitted to
the engineering schools Of the Soviet
Union during the last year and hall
after III.