SAVAGE PUNISHMENTS

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3250, 3 November 1932, Page 7

SAVAGE PUNISHMENTS

“ During the first three days of September twenty sentences of death —the penalty for counter-revolution-ary activities —-have been announced in the Soviet Press,” says the Daily Telegraph. “ Who are these dangerous conspirators against the Union of Socialist Republics? These criminals condemned to be shot, of whom many are women, are poor people found guilty of stealing communal property; that is to say, stealing grain and other foodstuffs belonging to the State farms, the collective farms or the co-operatives. There is no record in modern times of a Government inflicting punishment of such incredible barbarity for even major crimes again property. In this case the offences particularly aimed at are petty thefts, committed for the most part because the pilferers and their families have not enough to eat and are too poor to buy bread for the paradox of peasants buying bread is one feature of the enormous chaos that Soviet rule has made of Russian agriculture. explanation of so savage a measure of terrorism is that the harvest has fallen so far short of what was expected that not even minor loss of this sort can be afforded.”