SOVIET METHODS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21421, 20 February 1933, Page 6

SOVIET METHODS

EVICTION OF PEASANTS PUNITIVE COMMISSIONS [from our own correspondent] LONDON, Jan. 12 According to tlie Riga correspondent of the Times, the Soviet authorities in Russia have ordered the eviction and transportation of numbers of peasants from the chief regions which have resisted tho Government's grain plans to remote regions of Siberia and the European timber districts. Punitive commissions working in the Northern Caucasus have already begun the transportation. Unlike the campaign of 1930, which affected peasants officially styled kulaki (well-to-flo), tho present campaign is ~ against collectivised peasants officially designated bedniaki and sredniaki (poor and medium-poor), who are now held to have been responsible for failures to contribute the Government's gain quota by persuading their fellow-peasants that the Government t> estimate of the harvest yield was excessive, and the grain levy beyond their powers. The operations appear to be most severe in the Kuban. Another distinguishing feature of the present operations is that local Communists are being treated the same as nonCommunists. Those transported from the Kuban include riot, only the lower ranks of .othe Communists, but higher local officials and members of the village soviets who have made common cause with collectivised « peasants. , • The centrSl authorities have dissolved the majority of soviets in the Kuban, as well as the party organisations, and have appointed others acting under direction of the punitive commissions. So far as can b» ascertained those transported from the •Kuban are all destined for tho northern regions* particularly the Archangel dis-