SOVIET INDUSTRY

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22473, 7 January 1943, Page 2

SOVIET INDUSTRY

THE latest production records of 1 the Soviet Union have been encouraging. A substantial increase in output has been reported from all branches of industry. Ihe most unexpected report came from the coal mines of the Kuznetsk basin, which were recently sharply reprimanded for ‘‘lagging behind. 1 It is now slated that the Kuzbass increased its coal output by about 10 per cent during September. The supply of electricity to industrial plants is also sa’id to have increased, in some cases by from 13 to 19 per cent. The production of machine tools was 27 per eent higher during the third quarter of last year than during the second quarter. The output of tanks and aircraft is also reported to have ‘‘risen steeply.”

A special industrial drive was started throughout the country tn connection with the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution. Most factories undertook to produce for the anniversarylarge additional quotas of munitions, in excess of their normal plans. Simultaneously, a new campaign to strengthen labour discipline in industry was started. The powers of foremen in the factory have been widened. And the press urged the courts not to show any indulgence to workers tried for absenteeism. An absentee who leaves his district without permission is tried as a deserter. Only the worker who is absent from work without actually leaving the district is tried for absenteeism. Pravda has recently demanded that the deserter-clause should in cases of particular persistent absenteeism also be applied to such offenders who do not leave the district.