PACEMAKING GANGS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 17 February 1931, Page 5

PACEMAKING GANGS

UNPOPULAR SOVIET METHOD LABOURERS SHOW HOSTILITY RIOTING AND DESTRUCTION (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) LONDON, Feb. 16. I The “Times”. Riga correspondent states that Soviet pacemaking gangs and shock brigades- were dispatched to the provincial centres to stimulate transport, the slowness of which is holding up exports. They have encountered hostility in many places, developing into riots the destruction of property, especially in the lower Volga and Caucasus reoion. Seven pace makers were killed and many persons injured during rioting at Astrakhan. Railwaymen in the Caucasus killed a pacemaker. The Economic Council has raised the wages of underground miners in the Doiietz region 20 per cent, owing to widespread restiveness and desertion due to ihe diminished purchasing power. The Soviet is introducing labour conduct- sheets in order “to enforce stricter discipline to combat disorganisers of production.” The authorities will label every worker with a record of his qualifications, earnings, conduct, and punishments. The British United Press correspondent- at Moscow says that Russian orders of millions of dollars worth of American goods will be cancelled if/ the. United States enforces the exclusion of imports of Russian timber on the ground that it is produced under prison conditions.

SOVIET WAR TALK. LEAGUE PERTURBED LONDON, Feb. 15. In view of the ultimate effect upon the disarmament conference, League of Nations officials at Geneva are perturbed to receive from a Western Power’s secret service a confidential Soviet document appealing to schools throughout Russia,: “To organise a military force of 15,000,000 trained young reservists to defend Communism against Capitalist States, which are preparing a joint attack upon Russia in the forthcoming war.”

The Soviet demands that every peasant. worker and student must have military technical training to “enable us to vanquish our enemies.” The authenticity of the documents is undoubted. It is feared that it will greatly prejudice the disarmament campaigns shortly to be opened in many countries.