The Connecticut labor news., 1923-03-23

tndt the towns became unaDle to sup ply the demands of the peasants. As paper money, which was rapidly los ing its value, was all that could be obtained in exchange for agricultural produce, the peasant endeavored to hold back his grain for his own use and lost any incentive to grow more quirements. They, therefore, ceased to bring their supplies to market and ceased to cultivate more land than was necessary to satisfy local needs.
 }. "The Bolsheviks began to carry out acquisitions of produce in the vil- lages on a large scale. In this way town and country became divorced the effect of which was that towards the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919, starvation began in the great cities. Large numbers of Russian workmen who had maintained their ties with the country deserted the towns for the villages. Thus, the population i'll the large towns all over Russia became greatly reduced, and in the case of Petrograd, fell from 2,3oo,ooo in 1917 to 7oo,ooo in IoIo" League Report Deals With Economic
 Facts.
 The League of Nations report is concerned wholly with economic data and neglects to describe how these acquisitions were made. Soviet re- ports, which have been often quoted in this country, show how bloody they were, admitting that many thou sands of Soviet soldiers were killed by the peasantry-and this implies, undoubtedly, that several times that number of unarmed and pauperized peasants were executed for refusing to surrender their Surplus" pigs, chickens and grain, to their brutal oppressors.-
 But let us continue with our list of the brilliant and humane policies which the Soviet leaders seem to be- lfeve entitle them not only to con tinue their strangle hold upon the Russian people, but to apply for for eign political and financial support the financial support being in the machinery, to be put in the hands of worthy Communist dictators!
 How Soviet Failure Affected Agri-
 culture.
 The next point brought out by the League of Nations shows the effect upon agriculture which the collapse of the Soviets produced in industry a collapse characterized in the fol- lowing sentence:
 4. "The assumption by Soviets of the workpeople of control over in dustrial enterprises continued after the coup d'Etat, with continually dim finishing output, and before long the Communist leaders were compelled to face what Krassin describes in the case of the railways as a condition of complete ruin"
 The next blundering crime of the Bolshevist saviours was in trying to force upon the peasantry a commit nistic land system.
 ,. "A long struggle ensued between the passive resistance of the, peasant against the abolition of his right to property and the attempts of the Sow jet government to introduce an entire ly new land system.
 "The results of this struggle can best be judged from the speech made by Lenine to the representatives of organizations for political education, in October, 1921. The defeat we have suffered on the economic front at the beginning of 1921, in our attempt to make a transition to communism, has DGCu lIluCll llIOlE SCllO IlldlI cIly WS have suffered at the hands of Kol chak, Denikin or Pilsudski. This de feat means to us that the economic policy of our leaders had got, entirely out of touch with it's base and has ut terly failed to effect revival of pro- duction- (which. the program of our party regards as it's most urgent and fundamental task The acquisitions in the villages and the direct application of communist principles in the towns have hindered the revival of produc tion and become the main cause of the tremendous economic and politi- cal crisis which descended upon us in the spring of 1921"
 Several other policies of insane de- struction, which could have been in vented by none but a communist mind, are summarized in a single paragraph in the report:
 Apart from the Soviet govern