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NOTES OF THE MONTH           293

now preparing for a financial and commercial blockade against the Soviet Union. In the light of this situation, therefore, for the working class there remains only one task of intensifying their struggle for the defense of the Soviet Union, of making wider known the achievements of the Soviet Union to the American workers and farmers.

* * *

WHILE the economic crisis in the United States deepens day by day, President Hoover and all other agencies of the Government continue to blast the entire capitalist press with optimistic forecasts and predictions. We can understand the position of Hoover and his administration trying to conceal the fact that capitalism cannot solve its contradictions and that the bubble of American prosperity burst by the very development of the economic and industrial life of the country. On March 7, after the great historical demonstrations of the American working class took place, President Hoover predicted that in sixty days American economy and industry will come back to "normal" and unemployment will be wiped out. For us, however, it is only necessary to look into the economic developments of the country and we will find that production in the main basic industries on which capitalist prosperity depends is continuously declining. Automobile production for the first two months of 1930 declined 33%, compared with the same period of 1929. During the first week of March, automobile production was 50% less than production for the same period of 1929. Here, however, it is also necessary to note that nearly Five Million workers depend for their livelihood on the automobile industry. Steel production, which during the month of February increased a few points, is now rapidly sagging back to the 72% of capacity production. Building contracts, as reported by F. W. Dodge Corporation, showed that during the first two weeks of the month of March, building contacts were $2,800,000 less than during the same period of 1929. Freight car loading, one of the basic indicators of business conditions, is continuously on the decline. It is true the capitalists are boasting of the lower discount rate, but it was certainly long ago established that this in itself cannot be a stimulant for business conditions. The "Annalist" of March 14 had to state concerning this matter, the following:

"That it should be in any real sense a remedy of present disturbed and abnormal conditions need not be expected."

The capitalist class lies, but these lies cannot conceal the starvation and the misery of the masses and the deepening of the economic crisis of capitalism.