SOVIET METHODS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 February 1933, Page 7

SOVIET METHODS

EVICTION OF PEASANTS,

PUNITIVE COMMISSIONS

LONDON, February 18. According to the Riga correspondent of the “Times,” the Soviet authorities in Russia have ordered the eviction and transportation of numbers of peasants from the chief regions which have resisted the Government’s grain plans to remote regions of Siberia and the European timber districts. Punitive commissions working in the Northern -Caucasus! have already begun the transportation. Unlike the campaign of 1930, which affected peasants officially styled kulalci (well-to-do), the present campaign is against collectivised officially designated bedniaki and sredniald (poor and medium-poor), who are now held to have been responsible for failures to l contribute the Government’s grain quota by persuading their fellow-peasants that the Government’s estimate of the harvest yield was excessive, and the grain levy beyond their powers. The operations appear to be most severe in the Kuban.

Another distinguishing feature of the present operations is that local Communists are’ being treated the same as non-Communists. Those transported from the Kuban include not only the lower ranks of the Communists, but higher local officials and members of the village soviets who have made common cause with collectivised peasants. The central authorities have dissolved the majority of soviets in the Kuban, a s well as the party organisations, and have appointed others acting under the direction of the punitive commissions. So far as can be ascertained those transported, from the Kuban are all destined for the northern, regions, particularly the Archangel district.