DRASTIC DECREES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17955, 6 December 1932, Page 6

DRASTIC DECREES

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

GRAIN HAS RELAXED

(Elec. To). Copyright:—United Press Assn.) I Received Dec. 6,2 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 5.

The •Times’ Riga, correspondent states that attempts to utilise food cards which have been invalidated by dismissal, for truancy syo punishable by.death, according to At Stalin’s decree authorising tin’s directors of factories to control food supplies. Another decree permits peasants in certain areas to begin selling grain and flour oil .the open market at an unrestricted price, instead of waiting until January. The decree explains that the privilege is duo to tiio areas having supplied the (ioveriinient’s grain quota, but the truth is that the measure is necessary to correct the food scarcity, in .Moscow and Lcni ngrad, where people often are in bread queues for 10 to 12 hours, after .which .it .is not. supplied owing to the supply being exhausted.

Tlh> Riga correspondent of the Times reported last month that in order to check the drift of workers who are seeking better positions the Soviet issued a a decree ail'octiug all industrial areas, the inhumanity of which was unparalleled since the 1929 drive against the Kulaks. The decree insists upon the dismissal of a worker and the forfeiture of food cards for unauthorised absence from a factory.for a, single day and immediate' eviction from his dwelling regardless of tile season and wilholit providing another dwelling or means of transport. , Offenders cannot bo reemployed for six months, consequently starvation is certain in the event of the full enforcement of the decree. Already it is operative in Moscow and in the Donctz district, affiliating hundreds of workers. - -