“confiscation of their ment subsidy to help emuela’s merchant ma- ation of coastwise oil 7ent by the unions of to send Venezuelan 0 the battlefronts. - Argentine from a six-weeks 7 America, Vicente edano, president of auion of Latin Amer- s (GTA), predicted it if the present Arg- 3rship continues, pop- ay explode in a revo- aid that Latin Ameri- problems are the re- -produced higher cost. fhat reactionaries are nie suffering to fo- mocratic conspiracies ‘rican countries. j jean labor, he added, President Roosevelt ed to guarantee con- the Good Neighbor ITAIN f the Press of Sir James Grigg, 7 of State for war in overnment, to permit Daily Worker to have jondent has raised an d storm of protest unions, cooperative members of parlia- ational daily news- last year was criti- ning the Beveridge British army camps ting distribution by Book Club of anti- ature, rejected the -s application for a ident on the grounds riding necessity to ret military informa- ndwards, chairman of fades Union Congress of the Miners Fed- €at Britain: y Worker has the ishing as a national herefore, if it wants War correspondent, ————— it should be treated in exactly the same way as its contempor- aries. Unless this is the case, where does the freedom of the Press come in?” The Central London branch of the National Union of Journalists, whose 2,000 members work on Britain’s foremost national news- Papers, resolved at-its last-meet- ing: : “The attitude of the secretary of war is an unwarranted attack on the freedom of the press. We protest against the unfounded charge of professional disloyalty brought by the secretary against members of this branch.” The London Daily Mirror, which has a circulation of over 2,000,000 and is a favorite of the armed - forces, declared in an editorial: “We have little interest in the politicis of the Daily Worker, but on a matter of principle we feel we must protest strongly on the persistent refusal of the Army authorities to allow that news- paper the same priveleges as other organs of the press. Look- ing back on Sir James Grigs’s record since he came into the limelight as secretary of state for War, one gets the impression that he is very little in touch with pub- lie feeling, and that in particular he has curious notions of what the average man, whether in uni- form or out, expects to find in the Paper which he reads.” Among other papers criticizing the ban are the London WNews Chronicle, which called Grigs’s action “indefensible,’? Reynolds News, official organ of the 8,000,000 strong cooperative movement, and the trade journals, World’s Press News and Newspaper World. Fifty members of Parliament, in- cluding 41 Labor Party representa- tives and three Conservatives, have protested to the war office that the ban “is an unjustifiable interference with the freedom of the press,” and have demanded that Grigg “should extend to the Daily Worker the normal facilities enjoyed by other newspapers in this respect.” A significatn feature of tne Protest campaign is the number of messages from members of the armed forces. Eighty-seven men in the Royal Artillery said last week in a typical message: “We strongly. protest again your _violation of the freedom of the press. We are fighting for democ- racy and your action is far from democratic. We therefore demand that the Daily Worker be given the same rights as other national newspapers.” AUSTRALIA Invitation Accepted pue Australian Council of~Trade Unions, which has over 800,000 members, last week accepted the invitation of the British Trades Union Congress to send delegates ‘to the world labor conference in London next June. While only two of the ACTU’s allotted five dele- gates have been named, it is ex- pected that the ACTU general council will comply with the de- mands being made by leaders of mass production industry unions to send a full delegation. Anxious to secure representation from all trade union bodies in all countries, the TUC had urged the Australian Workers Union, with 100,000 members, to send delegates to the London meeting. The AWU,~ which is unaffiliated, decided, however, to abstain from the con- ference, an action interpreted as further isolating it from other Aus- tralian unions. SOVIET UNION Vasili Kuznetzov ASILI KUZNETZOV, who was elected chairman of the All- Union Central Council of Trade Unions at its recent plenary ses- sion, considers his trip to the United States in 1931 an important landmark in his career, Raymond - Arthur Davies, the Canadian wri- ter and author who is now cor- respondent for Allied Labor News, reported from Moscow this week. Traveling on a research assign- ment for the Peoples’ _Commis- Sariat of Heavy Industry, Kuznet- zov' Studied the iron and steel in- dustry directly at American mills. ' He also worked at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, receiving his master’s degree there. Today, he is president of the Iron and = Steel Workers’ Union, one of the largest in the USSR. Born into a peasant family in the Gorky region on February 13, 1901, Kuznetzoy studied at the Len- ingrad Polytechnical while he worked first as an ordinary worker and later as foreman at the Kras- ny Gyozdilschchik plant. In 1926 he graduated with a metallurgical engineer’s desree. Subsequent years found him holding various posts. First he worked at the Electrostal plant and Makeyevka Iron and Steel Mull in the Donbas, then on the Peoples’ Commissariat for the iron and steel industry, where he was assistant manager and chief en= gineer of the main office for the steel industry, and finally as vice- chairman and principal advisor on questions concerning iron and steel of the State Planning Commission. Here, too, Kuznetzoy displayed his never failing energy. Upon his return from the US. in 1931, Kuznetzov plunged into research as head of the laboratory at the Electrostal plant. Although he devoted a good deal of his time to research, Kuznetzoy es- caped being the proverbial dry and abstract scientist, remaining “a man of action. All through his career he has been active in public affairs and the trade union movement. At the plants where he worked, he was head of the engineers’ and technicians’ section of the union and took part in the work of the factory trade union committee. Simultaneously with his post on the State Planning Commission, he presided over the steel founders’ section of the All-Union Scientific Engineering and Technical Society of Metallurgists, sponsored by his trade union. In 1943, Kuznetzov was elected chairman of the cen- tral committee of his union. For valuable innovations in the iron and steel industry, Kuznetzov has been decorated with four or- ders by the Soviet government. In 1941 he received the Stalin prize for devloping and introducing the production of new types of steel. Apart from being a distinguished man in his field and a prominent public figure, Kuznetzov possesses a personality that never fails to attract: Tall, broad-shouldered, well poised and confident in his actions, he is prompt and highly disciplined in his work. _-A devoted husband and affec- Kuznetzov knows - the value of-relaxation in his fam: tionate father, ily circle. He has three children— “State University, 15-year-old Bra and 19-year-old Valery study at school, while Lena is barely four years old. His wife, Zoya Igunmnova, is a history teacher On the staff of the Moscow one of Russia’s oldest universities. FREE ITALY First Since 1922 HE general council of the Trades Union Congress has ap- pointed Will Lawther, president of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, and Harry Harrison, chief industrial officer of thte National Union of General and Municipal Workers, as TUC delegates to meet Italian trade unionists and discuss future policy. _ They will be the first British unionists to visit Italy officially since Mussolini seized power in 1922. An appeal to labor in Britain, America and the Soviet Union “to help us reach a speedy solution of - our problems” was sent by the constitutional convention of the General Confederation of Wabor of Italy, which met in Naples last month. The convention, attended by delegates from the labor fed- erations of Bari and Naples, voted to merge the two groups into a single confederation embracing all the workers of liberated Italy ‘“re- gardless of their political affiilia- tions.” The message was addressed to the British Trades Union Con- gress, ClO, AFL, Railroad Broth- erhoods, International Transport Workers Federation, and All-Union Council of Soviet Trade Unions. A program drafted by the con- vention called for: © Continuation of the war against fascism, against the oppressors of liberty and the men of re- action until victory is won. @ Realization of true democracy in the field of labor, agricul- ture, industry and the protfes- sions. e Direct participation of workers in the war effort on the battle- fields and in the factories. ® Living conditions enabling the workers and their families to work efficiently. @ The speedy industries. e Direct Participation of workers in produetion planning through shop committees and labor- Management committees. © Democratic distribution of ma- chines, raw materials and fertil- izers for improyment of in- dustrial and agricultural pro- duction. © Elimination of the black mar- ket and setting up of cooper- ative stores, regulated by Allied and Italian officials.” Executive committee of the GCI, elected by the convention in- eludes: Giacomo Schirone, Action Party; Eugenio Lariechiata, Social- ist Party; Raffaele Pastore, Com- munist Party; Vito Popolizio, Lib- eral Party; Giacinto Genio, Chris- tian-Democratie Party. re-opening of The new GC includes the former Catholic, Socialist and Communist trade unions. Before suppressed by Mussolini in 1927, the General Confederation of La- bor had 2,500,000 members and the Catholic Confederation of Workers, 1,800,000. FREE FRANCE Agreement -fJWO French Communists, Fer- mand Grenier and Francois Bolloux, this week became mem- bers of the French Committee of National Liberation, ending more than six months’ negotiations be- tween General Charles De Gaulle, _head of the committee, and the — Freneh Communist Party. Short _ dads ---by OV Bill.---4 Progressive? WEROGRESSIVE CONSERVA- tive! Did ever two words in juxtaposition (as the scholars Say) cancel each other out so completely? Even using the jargon of Hegel, “interpenetration of Op- posites, ete.” one would be hard put to explain, much less justify, this combination of progress and reaction in a _ so-called party moniker, One of these self-called pro- gressives, Rodney Adamson, MLP. for West York, apparently worked himself into a lather of indigna- tion the other day and led a one- man attack on the National Film Board from the floor of the House of Commons. Adamson does not like the Na- tional Film Board’s policy of try- ing to let the people of Canada learn something of the life, politi- cal habits and economic system of our great ally, the Soviet Union. Two films particularly drew his ire, The World in Action and Our Native and. Showing of such pictures by the National Film Board, to his way of thinking which makes the first half of his party’s title €ntirely superfluous, is selling Russia to the Canadian people. Adamson may not know it, but these pictures are not necessary in the job of selling Russia to the Canadian people. The Red Army is already doing that through the magnificent victories it is scoring for civilization over Hitler’s hordes. Some time ago I commented in this column on the discussion then taking place about who would be the greatest general’ to develop out of the present war. The names of several British and German, and one American, generals were men- tioned. I advanced the contention that the question was easy to answer. Stalin would be recognized as the outstanding military genius of this war. I was not boasting because Stalin is a communist. I was writ- ing from previous knowledge of Stalin’s past military achieve- ments, achievements of which the eritics had little or no knowledge. Today that estimate of Stalin is supported in fact, by the lead- ing spokesman for the British Em- pire. Prime Minister Churchill, in his recent world broadcast, told his hearers that Russia was fortun- ate in having as its leader, Mar- shal Stalin and remarked that the army led by Marshal Stalin has “torn the guts out of the German War machine.” Yet Adamson, a most unprogres- Sive “progressive” would prevent the people of Canada from learn- ing anything about the people who have chosen Marshal Stalin, the Sreatest general of the war, as their leader. But in spite of Adamson we do get opportunities to see how the people of the Soviet Union fight under Stalin’s leadership. Start- ing April 17 in Vancouver we may see how Soviet women respond to Stalin’s leadership. The Soviet picture No Greater Love is based on the fighting spirit of the wo- men of Russia. Don’t miss seeing ite :