"RED" OBJECTORS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 689, 15 November 1933, Page 3

"RED" OBJECTORS

CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES AT COST OF TWO YEARS HARD LABOUR. Moscow, Octiber 1. By a decree rectntly promulgated, conscientious objectors exempted from military service on religious grounds •must henceforth under go two years special service in a labour corps. Men of "bourgeois" or kulak (well-to-do peasant) origin have hitherto been debarred from serving in the combatant hranches of the Red army, on the ground that they are "unhealthy" in their mental outlook. Now they must suffer three ysars' service . in the army's "rear fbattalions." as labourers. In the event of war both categories up to the age of 40 whl be called out. The right of exemption from military service for members of certain sects of passive resisters has existed ever since the Red army came into being. This may seem weird in the Soviet Union, where tolerance is not exactly the fashion. But the probable explanation is the fact that the Tsarist regime gave no such exemption, persecuting the Dukhobors and other passive resisters until they fled to the wllds of Asia and elsewhere for conscience sake.. "Conscientious Objection" is therefore a fashionahle item in the -programmes of many of the revolutionaries of those days. How many persons will now really avail themselves of this privilege is quite another matter.