Soviet Woman, 31 Agustus 1962: 'We Have Many Common Grounds' (wawancara Hartini Sukarno)

=== [PDF page 1] === GOOD YEKATERINA The reception in the Em bassy of the Indonesian Re public to the U.S.S.R. held in honour of the arrival of Mrs. Hartini Soekar’no (right) in Moscow, was attended by Nina Khrush chova and Valentina Brezh neva By Y U R I WE H AV E M A N Y COMMON GROUNDS Hartini Soekarno, wife of the President of the Indonesian Republic, was on an unofficial visit to The the Soviet Union recently. A "Soviet Woman" correspondent turned to tasks and responsibilities Indonesian women are manifold. As a women's movement her with a number of questions which she kindly our task is to assist the national efforts for the agreed to answer. advancement QUESTION: What is your opinion of the devel opment of friendly relations between the women of the Soviet Union and Indonesia? ANSWER: Friendly relations between Indonesia and the Soviet Union are flourishing in all fields. Relations between our women, and especially and modernization our tion in general, and Indonesian women in par ticular. QUESTION: Soviet people deeply sympathize with the Indonesian people's fight for the libera tion of their lawful land— West Irian. What part do Indonesian women take in this fight? between our women’s movements, is actively stim ANSWER: In West Irian Indonesian women also ulated too. There are a great many bonds con have a manifold task. Their task is that of women necting us, and in our aspirations and ideals In in a country fighting for the completion of an donesian and Soviet women have many common anti-colonialist revolution. In this matter Indone grounds. sian women stand shoulder to shoulder with their In both Indonesia and the Soviet Union the women's movements further consolidate the posi men. Our young women have joined both tion of women, and facilitate and assist in the tasks military training duties and the Volunteer Corps. our women undertake. They are taking their full share of the burden in a This position, on the one hand, and our tasks, on the other, have knitted a close kinship be national emergency for defence and libera tion. tween us. This kinship is being further strength At present the liberation of West Irian is upper ened, and in its turn is strengthening the relations most in the minds of the Indonesian people, and of the international women's movement. In this matter I am happily aware of our com in this matter I wish to extend to the women of the Soviet Union strong colonialism and imperialism. which the Soviet Union has given to us. In this, of course, a healthy climate is created spirit of Bandung. support, our deepest thanks for the mon struggle for world peace, for the end of by the principles of peaceful coexistence and the both morally and materially, QUESTION: Do you have a message for the readers of "Soviet Woman”? But then the close relations which are so ac ANSWER: I wish your magazine continued suc tively developing between the women's move cess. Please accept my sincere respect for the ments of both our countries are not limited to the work your magazine is doing for furthering inter fields of politics and social welfare. W e both national understanding among women. A trestle bridge, stretched over the railway tracks, takes you to the entrance of the “Sibselmash”—short for the Siberian Agricultural Ma chine-Building Plant. From the bridge you can see the brick buildings of the shops radiating a warm red glow; flower beds and lanes oT fruit trees brighten up the grounds. Under the bridge, switch engines shunt back and forth picking up the boxcars. Seed drills, stubble ploughs and harrows, bearing the “Sibselmash” trade mark, line the station platform, soon to be loaded onto trains bound for all ends of the land. Boxcars are loaded with machines which will facilitate the work of field crop-growers, mechan ics, viticulturists, and stockbreeders. They will help the collective farmers increase their output of meat, grain, milk... Yekaterina Filippovna Shipova is on her way to the plant. She is greeted by her fellow work ers—old-timers and youngsters in the garb of trade-school apprentices, girls in vivid kerchiefs, who have just taken their places at the lathes, and habitually preoccupied-looking shop super intendents. A bridge crane passes overhead. The smiling operator cups her hands to her mouth and calls out: “Good morning, Yekaterina Filippovna!” How many years have passed since the morn ing Yekaterina first came here, fresh from in stitute, a young, slender girl dressed trimly in new sateen overalls? The. workers looked at her somewhat dubiously then. Nobody suspected that she had three years at the front to her credit, or that she was listed in the service record as a junior officer in a guards regiment and navigator of a bomber plane. Now she is the technologist of a huge plant, working for the victory of advanced technique, always on the alert for something new to help the plant raise productivity and lighten the work. Take the disks for the stubble ploughs, for instance: she had been worrying about their pro duction for a long time. The plant had to put out three million disks a year, and every disk was dipped into a lubricant by hand, which was a very unproductive and exhausting busi ness. When she mentioned it to the shop superin tendent, the answer was: “Of course, an automatic line is needed. Some day a research institute is bound to get down to it. So don’t bother your head about it, my dear.” But Yekaterina wanted to bother her head about it. There were others who felt the same way and among them the young designers Vitali Pchelintsev and Valeri Domnyshev. They busied themselves with calculations, and the first drawings appeared on crisp sheets of tracing paper. There were times, when the project seemed beyond their powers. The careful calcu lations they had made didn’t work out at all in metal. That was when the trouble started at home, too. Yekaterina’s three-year-old son Volodya came down first with measles, and then the doc tors gave the diagnosis (more like a sentence!) of polio. Yekaterina felt as though the whole world was crumbling about her. have, for instance, the gigantic task of construc tion. KRUTOGOROV