PEASANTS’ GREAT VICTORY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18510, 6 March 1930, Page 9

PEASANTS’ GREAT VICTORY.

Soviet Edict Opposed,

COLLAPSE OF SOCIALISTIC SCHEME. (United Press Association —By Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, March 4. The correspondent of the “Daily Chronicle,” who is at Berlin, says that authentic statements from Warsaw confirm the reports of terrible scenes on the Russo-Polish frontier, where the stampede of peasants from Prussia is in progress. Owing to the intolerable conditions of life they declare that they would rather die than remain in Russia. In the beginning the Polish guards on the frontier had to choose between either shooting them down, or letting them pass. The Polish guards had not the heart to force them back as the unfortunates were starving and the peasants stated that their villages had been razed to the ground and most of the inhabitants killed. Only a small minority escaped. It is also reported that a large number were captured and shot by Russian Frontier Guards before they reached safety. All the peasants have been called on to hand over their private property to the Soviet and are being severely taxed if the property is not handed over in twenty-four hours. Two thousand Russians have already crossed the frontier into Poland, but the Esthonian Guards have been ordered not to let fugitives pass, and they have thus driven them back to certain death at the hands of the Soviet Guards. The correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” at Berlin says that the Russian peasants have again won a great victory over Bolshevism. M. Stalin announces that he has abandoned socialising agriculture and is substituting co-partnership in agriculture.