Industrial Latvia

Fifty years ago Riga's railway coach-works had been reduced to the status of a primitive workshop producing nails, horse-shoes and cemetery railings. Orders for other goods had fallen off more and more as the years passed.

Finally, the owner of the works sold it to Ford, the American car manufacturer. The same thing happened to many other of Latvia's industrial establishments.

All that now belongs to the past.

"After the Baltic republics, had, by the will of their peoples, joined the fraternal family of the socialist nations of the Soviet Union as equals among equals, broad prospects for economic and cultural development were opened to them. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have made great progress in the post-war period. From the predominantly agrarian lands which they were under bourgeois rule, these republics have been turned into industrially developed countries."*

Total output in Latvia in 1958 was 760 per cent greater than in 1940 and eleven times greater than in 1938, the peak year in capitalist Latvia. Latvia's increase in industrial output for 1958 alone was greater than her entire industrial output in 1939.

Heavy industry has developed particularly rapidly. In 1957 the total output of Latvia's metal-working industry was forty times greater than in 1940, while output of the engineering industry was 105 times greater.

A modern food industry producing high-grade milk, meat and fish products has been established in Latvia in the Soviet period.

In output and number of workers employed the milk-processing in-dustry is the largest branch of the food industry. Since the war Latvia has been producing more than 75 kinds of milk products, including processed cheese, condensed milk, and milk powder.

The present development of the Soviet Union's productive forces and the outstanding scientific and technical achievements of the U.S.S.R. have strengthened the might of our country and the whole socialist camp, and have permitted the Communist Party to draw up a plan for the com-prehensive building of communism in the Soviet Union.

It is common knowledge that today the Soviet Union holds first place in Europe and second place in the world in industrial output. In recent years the Soviet Union has overtaken the United States not only in rate of development but in absolute annual increase in output.

N. S. Khrushchov's report to the Twenty-First Congress of the Com-munist Party emphasised the far-reaching significance of the Seven-Year Plan as a plan for laying the material and cultural foundation of a Communist society.

Soviet Latvia will take a tremendous step forward in the coming seven years. Between 1958 and 1965 some 10,800 million roubles will be invested in the republic's economy. This is twice as much as was invested in the previous seven years.

Total industrial output will increase 65 per cent. Output of the engineering and metal-working industries will more than double as compared with the present level. The chemical industry, with capital investments twenty times greater than in the previous seven years, is scheduled for particularly rapid development.

Latvia's factories and mills will produce new types of machinery and equipment. The car-building works in Riga, for example, is to turn out electric trains capable of a speed of more than 90 miles an hour. They will be equipped with automatic devices to dr^ve the trains and regulate their speed on turns, rises and slopes. By 1965 the works will be producing half of the electric-train carriages in the Soviet Union.

This year the bus factory in Riga has begun serial production of bodies for the eight-passenger "Spriditis" buses, the smallest in the Soviet Union. These comfortable midget buses, which attain a speed of 50 miles an hour, can be used for tours and excursions, at medical establishments, and as express taxis. They can even be converted into goods carriers by simply turning up the back seats.

The Sarkhana Zvaigene (Red Star) plant has developed a very light motor scooter of original design. It will be producing 200,000 of these scooters annually by 1965.

Latvian radio sets are in great demand and have been highly praised at international exhibitions and fairs. New models include radios with remote control, automatic tuning and three-speed record players. The VEF electrical works will soon begin manufacture of combined radio, TV and automatic record-player sets, and high quality radiograms.

For Latvian industry and agriculture to develop still more rapidly the republic's power system must be enlarged. The seven-year plan period will see the construction of new electric stations and intensified development of the peat and gas industries.

The cheap natural gas that will come from Dashava (Western Ukraine) to Riga via Minsk and Vilnius will be an important factor contributing to economic progress and improvement in the everyday life of the people.

By 1964-65 Latvia will have 42,000 million cubic feet of gas as against the 630 million cubic feet produced at present. This will be enough to satisfy the needs of the population in housing and communal requirements, and transfer to gas burning a large number of industrial establishments in Riga, thereby reducing considerably the amount of coal that Latvia has to bring in.

By 1965 production of peat briquettes will have increased 16-fold. Some 350 million roubles are to be invested in the light industry between 1959 and 1965. Up to 180 million roubles will be used to enlarge the existing establishments of the meat and milk industry and to build new establishments. This is double the amount spent for the same pur-poses in the preceding seven years.

Latvia's fishing industry is also slated for rapid development. By the end of the seven-year period the catch will be at least 210 per cent of the present take, amounting to 200,000 tons a year.

This increase will be brought about by raising the herring catch in the North Atlantic and North Sea, working new perch and cod grounds off the shores of Canada and Greenland, and fishing for sardines off the coast of Africa and in the South Atlantic.

There will also be an increase in the catch of valuable varieties of fish like salmon and sea-eels.

When the seven-year plan is completed Soviet Latvia's industrial output will be more than fourteen times greater than in 1940 and eighteen times greater than in 1938, capitalist Latvia's most prosperous year.


* From a speech by N. S. Khrushchov on June 11th, 1959, delivered at a Soviet-German friendship rally on the occasion of a visit to Riga of a Party and Government delegation from the German Democratic Republic.

"Latvia—Our Dream is Coming True" was published by Soviet Booklets, London, England, in December, 1959,
as part of the series "THE FIFTEEN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS OF TODAY AND TOMMORROW."
We do not endorse the Soviet account of historical events or their circumstances contained therein as factual.
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