CHAOTIC HARVESTING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 256, 26 September 1933, Page 8

CHAOTIC HARVESTING.

IN SOVIET GRAIN BELT. ENROLMENT OF 700,000 VOLUNTEERS. TO SECURE CONVICTIONS. MOSCOW, Aug. 3. Alarming facts and figures are published here as to tile ciiaotic state of affairs in the great grain belts of the Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Odessa districts. According to the Pravda, only 30 per centj, of the harvest has been cropped in North Caucasus at this late date. In other regions the amount is even less, while threshing is practically at a standstill. Gathering of the cropb, which are ot excollent quality, is hopelessly behindhand on some collective farms. On others it is proving practically impossible to obtain from the peasants either the State’s share of the grain or payment of the Government’s grain tax. Proof of what is taking place is provided by Chief Prosecutor Visliinsky—of the Metro-Vickers trial fame —who writes in to-day’s official Isvestia: “In all places where the harvest is being prepared, or is already under way, the help of the prosecuting authorities is necessary and inevitable.” M. Vishinsky further states that in the “R.S.F.S.R.” (the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic) alone 700,000 volunteers have been despatched to help the ordinary criminal courts in their effort to secure for the State its share of the harvest. “A CRUEL STRUGGLE.” The process of transforming collective farms into “real Bolshevik ones ; ” states M. Vishinsky, “goes on, and will go on under conditions of a cruel and desperate struggle.” • But even with the help of volunteer prosecutors, class justice is apparently not energetic or expeditious enough to please the Chief Prosecutor. Judicial authorities hesitate to convict peasants for alleged hiding of grain or understating of their crop, and their lack of skill in catching the “class enemy”—whose fabulous cunning is held responsible for all muddles j s shown by the poor harvest returns so far. Those caught red-handed must he summarily convicted. In other cases the criminal investigation must be completed within five, ten, or a maximum of fourteen days. NO MASS PUNISHMENT WARNING Even M. Vishinsky, however, realises the danger of overdoing the subjugation of those who work on the farms. He warns his subordinate prosecutors that class enemies only should be suppressed and infatuation for mass punishment shown by them in, for instance, the Lower Volga grain belt during the spring sowings, must not be repeated. Moreover, the Government to-day issued a decree reassuring the peasants, warning over-zealous officials against taking mope than the legally established amount of grain tax, and threatening the latter with criminal prosecution should they so offend. The collective farms are urged to pay the Government grain tax promptly, to lay aside seed and feed, and immediately divide the remainder among themselves according to the amount of work expended by each farm. A rumour that the Government will raise the quota to be secured from the collective farms is officially denied. THRESHING AT STANDSTILL. But bullying on the one hand and encouragement on the other cannot hide the appalling state of affairs. The State has so far succeeded in obtaining next to nothing to fill the eleva-' tors for urban supply. Atrocious stories of muddle are daily coming to light. One of the strangest of these is that harvesting has been impossible in a vast tract of Western Siberia because 300 giant reaper combines were sent there without either magnetos or carburettors. ’