SOVIET PEASANTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 11 February 1933, Page 2

SOVIET PEASANTS

COMPULSORY LABOUR • DRASTIC DECREE ISSUED LONDON, Ist February. . The Riga correspondent of “The Times” says the "Soviet lias placed the Northern Caucasus, which contains 9,000,000 people, under tlie control of a special cropping committee, empowered mercilessly to establish compulsory labour, evict and deport recalcitrants and impose the death penalty without appeal. It is alleged that peasants are'sabotaging the Government’s plans by making the hulk of the land derelict. The decree, which is designed to terminate agricultural chaos, orders the organisation of the peasants into' laildclearing gangs. Officials who show mercy will be drastically punished. The district was proclaimed completely collectivised in 1931, but the peasants badly cultivated only half of the prescribed area, resulting in open warfare with the grain collectors, who cruelly deported many suspects to tlie northern forests.