Two kinds of treatment by the Kremlin strings attached to US-Soviet deal?

the Soviet CP in Moscow, Leningrad, the Siberian regions of Novosibirsk and Irkutsk, with the urban committees of the majority of these those responsible for the scientific centre in towns, the central council of the trade unions, nion of Journalists in Irkutsk and, surely, in this list, we have forgotten one or two exchanges.' In other words, the delegation did not meet one member of the will meet Soviet Communist Party leadership. These same capitalist leaders of all countries, but they will not meet members of the Spanish CP, many of whose members are in Franco's 1811.

Compare the welcome given to representatives of workers fighting against fascism with the garlands and receptions which greeted Castro and Angela Davis!

282%S8 There can be no doubt that the Moscow Stalinists have long since abandoned the Spanish CP and the Spanish working class In their pursuit of diplomatic and commercial ties with the Franco regime and peaceful coexistence in Europe.

At the same time as the Spanish CP'ers were emphasizing to the lower echelons of the Soviet CP and Siberian journalists 'the absolute necessity in the present situation in Spain for an intensification of international solidarity with the working class and other revolutionary and progressive forces our country which are advancing continuousiy despite extremely intense repression', Soviet offi. cials were drawing up a trade agreement with fascist Ministers in Paris and President Nixon's envoy Kissinger in Moscow.

The repression referred to by Izcaray has led recently to the murder of two Basque terrorists and new decrees on education which meant not only the witch-hunting of militant students, but also that secondary-school teachers will have to get a certificate of 'good conduct' from the police before they can be employed.

he Spanish authoritie: are articularly worried about the situation the northern of Galicia, in the towns of El Ferrol and Vigo, scene of the The El Ferrol shipyard where trouble is brewing agaln strike of shipyard February during which two workWarsaw Pact armies ers were shot by the police.

After a period of comparative Pia har come or on sake flex muscles again Vigo have come out on strike because emblovers have refused to give them the rest on Saturdays which was WARSAW Pact army agreed on in the last round of manoeuvres in Czechoslovakia collective negotiations. under the code name 'Shield Already workers in the Vul- 72' are being treated as an cano shipyards have important political event by staged one strike of solidarity. the East European bureauhese strikes come on These strikes come on the eve cracies.

military tribunal in Leading Czech CP member Ferrol which will try eight shipJosef Lenart has welcomed miliyard workers who were arrested in the February strike and have tary dignatories for the exercises.

Emphasis in his Bratislava been in jail ever since.

Spanish news agency speech last Monday was laid on the necessity for intervention of announced yesterday that in the Paris talks the Soviet Union has the Warsaw Pact armies in among interest in Spanish- expressed interest buying, August 1968. MORE FOREIGN NEWS p. 11 built ships for its merchant fleet and in return Spain would buy Soviet coastal launches. AMERICA and the Soviet Union are expected to announce their biggest-ev deal following Dr Henry Kissinger's visit to Moscow earlier this week. Ki President Nixon's foreign affairs trouble-shooter, spent three days in secret the Kremlin. Prospects for the £2,000m US-Soviet trade pact were high agenda.

Their forceful presence in Czechoslovakia once again is obviously intended as a warning that the bureaucracy is ready to use every means to maintain its rule.

It is also directed at Yugoslav workers who have criticized the manoeuvres.

A main military objective of the exercises will be to test the ability of the Warsaw Pact forces to fight under conditions in which tactical nuclear weapons would be used.

JOHN SPENCER Full details of whatever has been agreed likely to be made public before Kissinger reports to on his return to the United States this weekend. Nixon Victor Louis, the 'Evening News' Moscow correspondent, who has close contacts with the Kremlin and the KGB, filed a story on Wednesday saying the two countries were on the verge of a 'mammoth trade deal' which would be worth £2,000m by 1977.

He wrote that Kissinger's extension of his stay by one day underlined that negotiations had reached a significant stage. was obvious that the big obstacle to an agreement—Russia's repayment of war debts to the United States-had been cleared, he said.

With the lend-lease question settled, Congress. could quickly legislate most-favoured nation status for the Soviet Union on its dealings with the United States.

The 40-year-old tariff barriers against Soviet goods, which must sell if it is to buy more in the US, would be sliced by something like three-quarters.

The Soviet need • for a trade deal with the US is underlined by à recent report in the Moscow 'Economic Gazette'. The paper said there were shortfalls in production of textiles, clothes, shoes, TV sets and washing machines.

The current five-year plan, unveiled last year, promised 'saturate' the market with consumer goodunise a Breacher sumer Leonid singled out consumer goods for 'appreciable' production increases.

Increased production of these items, according to Brezhnev, depends on a rapid rise in productivity. The current envisages a rise of up to 40 per cent by 1975.

This is obstructed not only by the bureaucratic disorganization of production, but also by the absence of sufficient modern machinery and the lack of adequate service and ancillary This position is most acutely visible in agriculture, where bad weather and low crop yields have combined with mismanagement to produce the worst harvest for some years, making necessary ssinger, talks at large-scale imports of US food.

The five-year plan, described as the one which would give 'a substantial rise in living standards as the main task', represents the Kremlin's fear of the workers' growing demands for a better life.

The trade deal with the US will no doubt allow the bureaucracy to import more consumer goods in return for heavy industrial products and minerals, such as petroleum and ores.

But it is bought at a heavy political price. According to Washington journalist I. F. Stone: Nixon's trade and credit negotiations with Moscow have bought him Middle East a free hand in the explanation for the expulsion of exnianation Soviet military • advisers from Egypt. He quotes from sources close to the White House to show that the talks on trade have been closely linked with political questions notably the Middle East and Vietnam.

And he cites the opinion of 'US News and World Report Moscow correspondent that: 'Soviet determination to escape a collision with the US has been reinforced by the MoscowWashington relations evolving from President Nixon's visit to the Soviet capital.

"The Soviets have too much at stake • this relationship to allow it to be jeopardized by what Soviet leaders believe to be Egypt's reckless and futile strategy against Israel' He also points out ominously that the Peterson trade mission which visited Moscow after Nixon was accompanied by Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a key member of Kissinger's staff who has taken part in some of his secret negotiations on Vietnam.

Sonnenfeldt, Stone says, 'would hardly be needed in a commercial negotiation unless it was indeed linked with political questions like the Vietnam war'.

Nixon is certain to want as high a price as he can get for aiding the Soviet Stalinists to ease their economic problems. The price he wants is the support of the Kremlin against the Arab and Vietnamese revolution.