RAPID CHANGES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20077, 25 October 1939, Page 7

RAPID CHANGES

SQVIETISING POLAND LOWER LIVING SCALE EXPORTS TO RUSSIA GOODS AND TECHNICIANS (Reed. Oct. 25, 9 a.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 23. Rapid sovietisation and the general lowering of living standards as a result of mass exportation of all sorts of goods to Russia, are the main features of life in Poland under the Soviet, according to a Wilno professor who has arrived in Paris, states the Paris correspondent of the New York Times.

He declares that the Soviet shock troops and militia are well equipped and motorised, forming an impressive contrast to the bulk of the Soviet Army, which has made little progress since the Russian-Polish war. The soldiers behave correctly and continue to assure the population that they came in friendship. There is no looting or mass executions, no persecution of Catholic priests and ministers. The churches

are intact, but religious teaching in ' schools has been suspended. Skilled labour and technicians have been conscripted, and specialists had been sent to Russia.

The division of big estates has been decreed, but the small areas remain intact. The situation is worse in Ukrainia, where there have been many peasant raids on landowners and attacks on Polish officials.