OCR
- page three These facts are of the greatest importance in assessing the policies and plans of the USS : it is tragic indeed that they are widely ignored in the West and not underscored by the Commentators of the press. Many other facts could be gathered from a closer study of the Fifth Five Year Plan. They will be done so at ulterior times, when corroborating facts will have begn obtained. " Bmong the news from the USSR, there are three which are interssting. The first of these is thé fact, that this year’s harvest 4s one of the best the USS, ever had. The main rise in production was obtained in grain, sugar beats and cotton. As the USSR is st%12 largely en agr icultural country, these results are indeed very ene couraging for the regime and the people. Nevertheless Moscow observers do not believe an even greater increase of plenty in these fields, especially since the Red Army has made substantially larger demands on the vailable supplies. Many of these demands for less perishable products as well as for canned goods are only explainable by the very big stocking of food carried out by the Red Army. It is noteworthy too, that these goods are stocked in a very decentralized way, with the ppt pees 4ntention at minimizing the needs for transports in case of war. Beet The second nezs is intimately connected with the forthcomin AlzUnton Party Congress on October 5th, in which the new constitution will be adopted, Ali during September, Congresses were held on a locel level, such as in Latvia, Ukraine, Azerbeidjan etc. These Congresses wére in preperation for the changes o the local level The most striking fact so far gathered is, that quite obviously this change over will be used for the express purpose at Ancreasing the centralization of the USS® and at speeding up the Russification of the diverse nationalities. The use of the Russien language will be vastly expanded, while the local languages will be eradually elimina ted even from the local services. A third point 18 perhaps much more interesting than the two first ones. It may be remembered, that in the Midsummer the Pope sent a message to the Russian people, with the express purpose of telling them that the Catholie Church bore no hatred to the Russians despite bloody Church persecution, since the Church would make a big distinetion between the Russians and their wicked masters. Now our observers point out, that this papal message has reached much larger passes of Russians than had been expected by anyone. It ts the first time thet our observers report that something coming from the outside has really interested the Russian people, and is even vommented upon in secret, How the message reached the people is something that leaves our observers guessing. In fact they found noy Russian heving the full text of the message 5 but they found numerous ones who knew in a nutshell the content and the fundamental ideas. It is interesting to note, that this is not only so among the very few 48 jéé