CZECH WORKERS KICK AGAINST COMMUNIST RULE

Grey River Argus, 9 October 1948, Page 3

CZECH WORKERS KICK AGAINST COMMUNIST RULE

Terrorist Policy Of The Regime

LONDON, Ostober 7.

The diplomatic correspondent, of the “Daily Telegraph” says: Evidence -s increasing from unimpeachable sources, of growing Communist terrorism in Czechoslovakia. The sinister- nature of a new Bill —“for the protection of the Republic”—is now apparent.

Information received, coupled with statements by the Czech Minister of Justice (Dr. Cepicka) shows clearly that the ideas which are to form the basis of the new legal order in Czechoslovakia are totalitarian. The provisions of the Bill are so elastic that it will be possible to use it to convict on a treason charge anyone who participates .in any ((form of ‘anti-State activities.”

Reuter’s correspondent at Prague quotes a high Czech Government official, giving reasons for submitting the Bill for the protection of the Republic as saying: “The West is sending spies, agents, and propagandists to’ help domestic reaction. We must still reckon with the possibility of resistance by those who believe that by the new regime they lost their right to existence.” LABOUR CAMPS TO COUNTER RESISTANCE The correspondent at Vienna of the “Daily Telegraph” says: “The introduction of labour camps in Czechoslovakia is thought in Vienna to mark the beginning of a new Communist campaign against absenteeism and go-slow tactics in industry. The taoctics of the Czech workers threaten to frustrate all Moscow’s plans for the sovietisation of the Czech economy. The Czech workers are, in fact, applying against the Communists the same technique .of passive sabotage which they perfected against Hitler. They have alreadydisrupted the Communists’ two year plan, whic haimed at an increased output of 140 per cent, in heavy industry, and 50 per cent, in consumer =:oods production by the end of 1948. The Communist newspaper “Rude Bravo” has already admitted that the plan will fail because of sabotage by capitalist elements. Absenteeism in nationalised industries is reliably estimated to average half an hour a man a day. This means a loss of 750.000,000 working hours annually. Workers in many cases absent themselves to work in their own gardens and supplement their steadily diminishing rations. 1 The Communist youth movement newspaper “Mlada Fronta” has also admitted that absenteeism in the Moravska Ostrava mines, the largest m the country, is causing an output loss equivalent of £120.000 a day. The management complained that after the miners drew their pay 25 per cent, disappeared for the rest, of the week.