GOODS FOR GERMANY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 109, 4 November 1939, Page 14

GOODS FOR GERMANY

FROM RUSSIAN PLANTS

THE PROBLEM OF TRANSPORT

Since the signature of the RussoGerman Pact, and particularly since the partition of Poland, there has been a great deal of speculation about just how much the Soviet Union can aid Germany in war supplies. Given the will to do this, and the commercial benefits of a war appear to have a strong attraction for the Russians, as witness their intervention in Spain because of the golct to be had for it, there are two major factors. Can the U.S.S.R. produce enough and can that product be shipped to Germany? The question of transport is quite as important, as that of production. It is fairly widely known that the.Russian railways are in a state of extreme disrepair; it is not so generally known that the efforts to re-equip them have not been proceeding up to programme. Because of the bad condition of these railways experts have always doubted Russia's capacity to wage a successful war. Recently Malyshev, the Commissar of Heavy Industry, revealea three main shortcomings; first, . inadequate utilisation. of the building capacity of the locomotive works, especially the principal ones; second, an almost incredible . waste .of raw material and of construction-machinery; and third, an entirely inadequate product in quality. In the past year, according to Malyshev, 1500 lathes in the main wor,ks remained idle, because they were too modern for the Soviet working force to use. The lathes used were operated only to 44 per/cent, of their capability. Automatic and semi-auto-matic lathes were often-out of action. In the production year 1938-39 spoilt work at the' Kirov works alone amounted to 20,000,000 roubles in value. The clerical work in connection with orders usually takes longer than the building of the locomotives ordered. The scrap metal lying about the Kirov works unused is estimated at 85,000 tons; the loss caused by the failure to make, proper use of equipment is put at 23,000,000 roubles. It would take 18 trains to remove the scrap iron from the yards. r i

At the great Kolomna shops the same1 thing is true. The metallurgical workshops spoilt output valued at 900,000 roubles last year. A total of 300,000 hours' work of modern lathes was wasted. This would have built 80 locomotives worth 16,000,000 roubles. Lathes were out of action for 62,000 hours,. At Kolomna there are 1867 engine-builders at work and about 1000 of them are engaged in repairing defective work from the lathes. This is a state of affairs, it is said, which would exist nowhere else' in the world. However, it is the regular procedure at the Soviet locomotive works. The Soviet designers did no see the possibilities of assembled mouldings, so they built giant moulds in which these are cast whole. The percentage of condemned castings now is very great. Rails are so bad that about 20 per cent, of them are condemned. The Commissariat for "Black Metals" calls its fails "third quality." ■■ This--state of affairs shows that it may not be as easy to ship Russian goods from the industrial areas to Germany as might be imagined.