The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1950. Forced Labour In Russia

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26196, 21 August 1950, Page 6

The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1950. Forced Labour In Russia

The United Nations Economic and Social Council may get no further with the proposed investigation into forced labour in Russia than it did a year ago, when Russia not unnaturally refused to co-operate. The council (as a cable message 1 reported last week) has postponed consideration of the proposal, although the British delegate (Mr G. T. Corley-Smith) pressed for the inquiry. There is some doubt of the value of such an inquiry, because, even if the charges were proved to the hilt, confirmed Marxists everywhere would still refuse to believe them, or would refuse to believe that forced labour mattered much in any case. But there may be some among their fellow-travel-lers who would open their minds to an objective survey by the United Nations. As Mr CorleySmith pointed out, public opinion was profoundly influenced by the British White Paper on German concentration camps in 1939. There can be no doubt that many Russian prisoners do forced labour, and that they are committed to it without trial. The purpose of any inquiry should be to give some reasonably accurate estimate of their numbers, and to show whether they are treated with common humanity or, as many allege, with callous disregard of suffering. There is a large body of important, though not perhaps conclusive evidence to support the British allegation that forced labour is a fundamental part of Soviet economy and the estimate that 10,000,000 may be doing forced labour. There is so much evidence that the world is inclined to accept it unless the Russians prove it false. Even if this evidence is discarded on the ground that much of it comes from emigres hostile to the regime, there is still the weighty evidence of official Russian documents and the opinions of writers who have shown themselves sympathetic to Russia. For instance, the Russian Corrective Labour Code, in setting out “ the penal policy of “ the proletariat ”, uses in at least one instance the term “ forced “ labour ”, which may be taken as proof of its existence. There is apparently no official figure of the number kept at forced labour; but, attacking estimates published in 1948 in the “ New Statesman and “ Nation ”, Alexander Werth suggested that the number was not 7,000,000 to 12,000,000, but perhaps as high as 1,500,000 to 2,000,000. This total does not include the very large numbers deported to new settlements in the east (where they may even be as happy as the Russians say). One of the public works constructed by forced labour

was the Baltic-White Sea Canal, where anything from 100.000 to 300,000 were engaged. Yagoda, then head of the security police, was praised for this work, and it is not denied that the security police are responsible for doin£ such jobs with forced labour. It may be that these 1,500,000 (or 10,006,000) prisoners are not a “ fundamental part “of the Russian economy”; they do represent a significant proportion of Russia’s 47,000,000 adult males. It may not be true that the security police no longer find the problem how to make the best use of their prisoners, but rather how to get more of them. Still, there must be great temptations for the security police, who have power to match their responsibilities. The Corrective Labour Code explicitly states this power in clause 8: Persons are directed to corrective labour who have been sentenced thereto by: (a) Sentence in a Court of law. (b) Decree ukase of an administrative organ.

At first sight Mr Werth’s figure of 1,500,000 may not seem large in so big a country as Russia. Two comparisons put it in perspective. The total represents one in .every 133 Russians, man, woman, and child; in 1947 the average prison population in New Zealand was not much over 1000, or approximately one in every 1700 of population. Mr Werth’s figure of 1,500,000 may be compared also with Kropotkin’s estimate that in 1909 there were 181,000 prisoners doing the Tsarist equivalent of forced labour. Although the charges against Russia have not been fully proved, apologists have yet to explain why, 30 years after a revolution that was to remove the causes of crime, there are still so many criminals that they can build some, if not many, of the most important public works; and why, since the regime is said to have done so much for the proletariat, the security police still have to have powers of secret arrest and committal, without trial, to forced labour. The record of 30 years is not good, even on the most favourable interpretation; and that is not the interpretation that is invited.