Nelson Evening Mail FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1931 RUSSIA’S PLIGHT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 February 1931, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1931 RUSSIA’S PLIGHT

TIIE news, received recently, that tho Soviet Government has launched a vast scheme for militarising tho youth of Russia, whereby it is hoped to create an army-reserve of fifteen million young soldiers, ready to resist imaginary invasion by European nations, is just another method for diverting the attention of the Russian people from their deplorable conditions. No European nation, or combination of such nations, has any intention of attacking Russia, since the European nations are in the throes of industrial and financial depression, but their distress is nothing to that of the Russians. Towards the end of last year a Miss Laura Friedman, a graduate of Vassal- College, returned to the United

States from a visit to Russia, and this is how she described the condition of the Russian people, at the beginning of their long winter : There is a great shortage of food in Russia at present. This is partly due to the fact that much food is being exported in order to bring gold. People are literally dying in thestreets, and time and time again we have seen them lying in the streets or on the grass, sleeping as if they were exhausted. We have seen people so hungry that they have licked the food wo left on our plates and picked up crumbs of bread. Prices are terrific.' Shoes arc forty dollars, dresses fifty dollars, and socks four dollars—(about £B. £lO, and 16s respectively) —There is such a lack of ordinary commodities that it is appalling. Cobblers have no leather with which to mend shoes. Such things as thread are unavailable. The people go around in rags, and in the north many of them are barefoot. Linens are exhausted and the towels we had, when we were able to get them, were strips of linen from old sheets. This information receives corroboration from an official Russian publication whose title, translated into English, is “For the Cause of Industrialism,” which shows that the Leningrad Leather Industrial Co-operative had, last autumn, some 71,000 pairs of hoots which needed repair, and could mend only 1600 pairs daily, whereas the number required was 2500 pairs daily, and it added: “One has to wait three months to have a pair of socks repaired at the Leningrad Clothing and Knitting Union, and one month for the repairing of a coat or (pair of) trousers.” There is not much doubt that there is a shortage of the necessaries of life in the country.

Of course the exportation of wheat and timber was accelerated for the purpose of supplying from abroad those very articles which Miss Friedman noticed were lacking. But the exportation of wheat has largely deprived the people of food, of which they greatly stand in need, and the exportation of timber has earned for the Russian Government, under whose direction it is cut by prison labour and shipped, a most unenviable reputation. Demands, made in the British Parliament, that the Act of 1897, which provides for the exclusion of goods produced by prison-labour, have resulted in the publication of information by eye-witnesses of the conditions under which Russian timber is cut and shipped. The following extract is from a letter written to the London “Times” by the chief officer of a British ship which loaded timber at Archangel, prior to the ice forming in the White Sea:

There were berths for nine vessels at the wharf we loaded at, and there were 40,000 convicts allotted to that section alone. They worked 12-hour shifts, and marched up and down in batches of 200 and 300 like soldiers, all in a state of extx-eme destitution. These men are certainlv not convicts as civilised people understand the word, nor are they of convict tvpe. They are slaves pure and simple, and. as with slaves, 95 per cent, do not even know why thev are there. To see them hungrily watching our men going along the decks at meal times with their steaming soup, roast beef, vegetables, and duff would make a stone heart bleed. . . .If you could once see just one man hungrily disposing of a raw pickled herring and a chunk of black, filthy bread, you would hate the sight of anything produced in Russia for ever. It is a wicked, shameful, and disgusting trade, and should be ruthlessly stampout, as was the slave-trade in days gone by.

For all its militaristic bombast the Soviet Government will not make war, because it is evident that a nation in the economic condition of Russia cannot make war. The same may be said of the States of Eastern and Central Europe, because their economic condition is far from good, though no doubt they would actively resist invasion, if put to it. For the prevailing world-wide “slump,” distressing and even tragical as its effects are, at least makes for international peace. So that the Soviet Government’s warlike attitude and utterances should be taken “cum grano salis,” for they are meant io impress the people of Russia rather than the outside world. That people is suffering great hardships during the carrying out of the Five-year Economic Plan—which, in a phrase, is

‘industry by forced labour”—which is to turn Russia into an industrial nation, and the rumours of wars and the alarming forecasts, emanating from the Soviet Government, are fabricated in order that the wretched Russian p3ople may forget their miseries in their fears.