The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-12-27
Z. S. Worker Asks Soviet Toiler
A OuestiOn--And Gets an Answer

support but increased efforts for the
still more rapid building of Social
ism, coupled with demands for the
death sentence on the murderer of
Kirov and anybody associated with
him in planning terrorist acts.
Then they came out on the streets
by the millions. Over million in
Leningrad viewed the body of Kirov
or marched behind it to the railway
station when it was brought to Mos
COW. The workers of the towns
through which 1t passed filled the
station platforms with delegations
bearing mourning banners. Kol-
khozes miles away sent their dele
cations with mourning banners and
placards pledging renewed activity;
these delegations stood by the rail-
way side as the train Numbered
past. In Moscow, 100000 marched
to view the body of Kirov during
the first day and a half, and more
than that probably m arc h d
through the Red Square on the
day of his burial in the Kremlin
Wall.
The whole Soviet Union stirred
like a swarm of bees when some
enemy kicks their hive.
That is an answer to the question
in the form: Do the workers of the
Soviet Union want to change to
capitalism?
But if one puts the question the
other way: Are the Soviet workers
striving for still further improve
ments? Then every aspect of So
Wet life answers, "Yes!"
Improving Conditions
I do not think you can find one
single thing with which they are
satisfied, which they are not en-
phatically and determinedly i'm
proving. For the first time in history
the 170,000,G00 people of the terri
tory now covered by the Soviet
Union read and write, illiteracy hav-
ing been practically abolished since
the Revolution. But now these
newly literate people demand higher
education for themselves and their
children. With primary education
covering 100000 children, the
number of technical schools and
colleges increased from 81 before
the Revolution to 900 in 1888, the
number of students in such institu-
tons increased from BOT 900 in 1929
(already huge increase over 1910
to 491 900 in 1898.
Circulation of newspapers in
creased from practically nothing
among the workers in pre-Revolu-
tionary days to 12,500,000 in 1929
and to 36,500,000 in 1888. And still
people are not satisfied. The Second
Five Year Plan proposes to increase
the number of students in all grades
of schools to 100000 in 1887. AS
for the consumption of newspapers,
L have never seen in recent months
a newsstand-and there are lots of
newsstands without at least a
short line waiting to buy papers.
During the last few days, after the
assassination of Kirov, the lines are
sometimes half block long, some
thing like little professions them
selves, in spite OF the fact that the
newsstand workers sell papers as
fast as they can grab them off the
pile and make change. 1t is the
only place, except for theatres play
ing certain plays, where you still
see lines in the street of people
waiting to buy things.
Lecture House damned
The demand for improvement
shows itself in the tremendous at
tendance at popular scientific lee
lures, such as are given at every
one of the countless workers clubs
and at central halls. One such lee
trre organization, the Ieningrad
special house for lectures, finds its
$50 seats jammed every night, and
has $50 registered students who take
whole courses of lectures in every
thing from mechanism of the brain
to the poetry of the Persian writer
Firdusi, dead these thousand years
Down in Lugansk, they have per-
fected and are manufacturing new
powerful type Of locomotive, the