SOVIET WOMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 July 1943, Page 4

SOVIET WOMEN

MAGNIFICENT WAR EFFORT MANY MILLIONS ENGAGED IN INDUSTRY. THOUSANDS IN COMBATANT’ RANKS. (By J. Juscf'ovich, in “Soviet War News.”) Soviet women have always played a big part in the life of the Soviet State, participating in all fields of government and the national economy. Of 28,000,000 persons gainfully employed in 1939 in the Soviet Union, 10,773,000 were women. Even before the war 0.8 per cent of the workers employed in heavy industry were women; 18.3 per cent of all transport workers were women; 20.6 per cent of all building workers were women; 25.7 of all those engaged in agriculture were women; 34 per cent of those employed in trade were women. By October 1941, 45 per cent of all workers employed in industry were women. Thousands of Soviet women have come to work in mines, factories and oilfields, on railways and ships, to take the place of men called to the colours. Soviet women are boosting the production of aircraft, tanks, machineguns, mortars and ammunition, displaying magnificent devotion. They are learning more and more new trades and professions. There are women engine drivers, women captains of river and sea-going craft. Women are running many important State and collective farms. Before the outbreak of war, 189 women were Deputies of the Supreme Soviet and to the Supreme Councils of the Union and autonomous Republics: 422,279 women were Deputies to various Soviets. Soviet trade unions had over 9,000,000 women members on the outbreak of war. Many central, regional and factory trade union committees are led by women. Among the most popular of them are Anastasia Nikitina, chairman of the central committee of the Woolworkers’ Union, Maria Kaganovich, chairman of the central committee of the Knitted Goods Workers’ Union, Maria Simozhenkova, chairman of the central committee of the Cotton Goods Workers’ Union, Anatasia Malkova, chairman of the central committee of the Needleworkers’ Union, Julia Belyayeva, chairman of the central committee of the Printers’ Union, and Klavdia Vasilieva, chairman of the central committee of the Railway and Subway Construction Workers’ Union. Thousands of women are fighting with the Red Army and in guerilla detachments. The Soviet people love the memory of Heroes of the Soviet Union, Marina Raskova, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Elizaveta Chaikina, who died for their country. Soviet women fought as defenders of Sevastopol and Stalingrad, Leningrad, Rostov and Kharkov. Soviet women lead squadrons of war planes, serve as snipers, drive trains loaded with ammunition to the front, succour the wounded. Fearless, devoted to duty, inspired constantly by the flawless courage of such heroines as Marina Raskova and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Soviet woman will work and fight in equal comradeship with Soviet man for her country and her people.