PROGRESS OF RUSSIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21553, 26 July 1933, Page 9

PROGRESS OF RUSSIA

FIVE YEARS' PLAN CLAIMS OF THE SOVIET UNEMPLOYMENT BANISHED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received July 25, 7.35 p.m.) LONDON, July 25 Fulfilment of the Five Years' Plan, an official Soviet report published in English in London, claims that 3,500,000 unemployed at tho beginning of the plan were abolished by 1930, that the average annual wage per worker increased 103 per cent between 1028 and 1932, while the social insurance funds increased fourfold. Tho report states also that the number of workers during the period of the plan rose to 22,000,000 from 11,000,000, including many women who had freed themselves from "household drudgery" and entered skilled occupations. In the Same period, it is claimed, the population increased from 154,000,000 to 165,000,000. From a backward peasant country the Soviet had transformed Russia into a, powerful, technically advanced, industrial nation with agriculture on the largest scale in the world. TROTSKY IN FRANCE WILL MEET LITVINOFF POSSIBLE RECONCILIATION (Received July 23, 0.25 p.m.) PARIS. July 25 « When tho liner on which Trotsky is travelling to France from Constantinople was 10 miles off Marseilles tho Russian exile, who looked haggard, clambered painfully into a launch. Ho did not reveal his destination, which is believed to be Royat, a holiday resort in the mountains of Auvergne, where ho will meet the Soviet Foreign Minister, M. Litvinoff, who is undergoing a cure. The meeting of tho two men is believed to foreshadow a reconciliation and Trotsky's return to Russia to participate in building up the Soviet. Permission for Trotsky to visit Finance was given with tho approval of the Soviet.