PRODUCTION METHODS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 April 1931, Page 5

PRODUCTION METHODS

FORCED LABOUR IN RUSSIA. BLUE BOOK DISCLOSURES. LONDON, February 20. The British Foreign Office last month published a Blue Book, consisting of a selection of documents relative to Labour legislation in force in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Special attention has been devoted in making the selection to the inclusion of the principal enactments affecting labour in Soviet Russia since the Five-year Plan was initiated A study of the Blue Book removes any doubt as to the absolute control exercised by the Soviet Government over the vast labour resources of Russia, and the determined fashion in which that control is used to stimulate produetoin, especially production for export. Particularly interesting are the decrees prescribed and regulating the use of forced labour in the cutting and transport of timber and in the haulage and loading of grain. “CORRECTIONAL CODE,” For purposes of reference, the Blue Book is divided into four parts. Part I contains extracts from the Constitution and the Criminal and Labour Codes of the federated Soviet Republics, with ait annex to the Labour Code dealing with conditions of labour in the preparation and floating of timber, and also sections on the Correctional Labour Code (principles governing the compulsory labour of law-breakers). Part II deals with penal labour camps, to which “only persons who have been sentenced by a court to deprivation of liberty for not less than three years, and persons sentenced by special decision of the United State Political Department (O.G.P.TT.) can he sent.” Those camps are under the “general control of the 0.G.P.U.” Part 111, which has the general heading “Special Legislation,” gets out a number of rules for “forced labour.” An Instruction says: “The present instructions are the first attempt to utilise on timber and improvement work the labour of persons sentenced to forced labour without detention under guard. Considering this experiment of exceptionally great importance, the Peoples Commissariat of Agriculture instructs all agricultural organisations to begin forthwith from the current season to explore all existing possibilities of utilisingThe labour of persons sentenced. to forced labour’ for forestry and improvement work of a mass character and to establish for this purpose permanent relations with the Bureau of Forced Labour.” CARTAGE OF GRAIN.

A decree authorised the enforcement, “when necessary in grain fireas,” of ••compulsory cartage of grain against payment to railway stations and steamers’ landing stages, from July .1 to Soptomlmr 15, 1020,” There Is also a decree authorising local eseoutive committees to “enforce temporarily compulsory labour in carrying out* the loading and unloading of grain - cargoes up to February 1, 1930.” Another decree which is quoted says: “Side by side with tlie immense growth in quantity of the production in State industry, there has recently been observed, in a series of cases, a falling off in the quality of goods produced not only for the open market but also for the needs of State industry and transport. Numerous enterprises are trying, by lowering the quality of the quality of the products, to solve the very important problem of how to lower costs by rationalisation and by increasing the productivity of labour. This phenomenon acts as a serious obstacle to the work of the Socialist reconstruction of the national economy, and also does great harm to the interests of workers and peasants, as consumers of goods. In order to ensure the work of Socialist construction, it is essential that there should he a definite hreak-awav in the direction, of improving and standardising the quality of production.” The Central Executive Committee and th e Council of People’s Commissars of the U.S.B.R. therefore decree il) as penalty for the systematic or mass production of inferior goods by industrial or commercial enterprises—deprivation of liberty for not more than five years, or forced labour for not more than on P Year. TIMBER FLOATING WORK. A circular dated February 13, 1930. says: “Timber-floating work during the 1930 season should he regarded as an especially important part of the nnlitico-economic campaign. The production programme of timber floating for the 1930 season lias been laid down at a figure of 91.3 million cubic metres which shows a general increase in the volume of timber floating nf more than 80 per c-eut., as compared with last year. “This increase in volume has occasioned a considerably increased demand for workers in comparison with last year, and it is thus necessary to attract to this work fresh contingeuts of workers who have never before been engaged in it. fn view of all these circumstances the state of the labour market for the forthcoming timber-floating operations promises to he especially strained, and this renders it necessary to establish the most rigorous discipline in tlit? labour market. and the observance of a ‘shock tempo’ in all work of the labour organisations connected with the preparation and carrying through of the timber floating campaign.”