The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-11-11
SOVIET REGIME SOFTENS LIFE
 OF SPECIALISTS
Move Wins Intellectnals Over to Communists
 Side
By EUGENE LYONS

lU01te0 FreSS COfFeSpOu0eutJ
 Moscow. (UP)-An eminent en- gineer showed the writer docu- ment recently presented to him in recognition of his usefulness to the Soviet regime. The paper was drawn up in the names of the Gen. tral Executive Committee, the Council of Peoples Commissars and the State Trust, where he is employed. It bore half a dozen sig natures and 8 huge rubber stamp ed seal.
 The document attested that the engineer was doing responsible work and was therefore entitled to the same treatment as a factory laborer. Ouch is the highest boon within the gift of the Communist government. Translated into mate- rial terms, 1t means larger food ration, schooling for his children and priority in receiving shoes, or an overcoat.
 Thousands of other intellectuals of the pre-revolutionary epoch have received this boon recently. It is the supreme gesture of friend ship by the Kremlin in its express ed desire of gathering the old tech- nical intelligentsia into their fold.
 Cruel Struggle Ended
 The reconciliation ends cruel struggle, with sabotage and hatred on one side and merciless puntsh- ments on the other. It wipes out one of the most disheartening blots on the Soviet scene and augurs well for the fifteenth year of the revolu- tion.
 A great many other measures to placate the old intelligentsia fol- lowed the Kremlin's offer of peace. Arrests of members of this class ceased almost entirely. Hundreds were released from poisons. labor camps or distasteful surveillance.
 Orders were issued to halt the batting of specialists and persecu- ton of the educated. Revised wage schedules are arranged to encour- age old specialists to work harder. Now that the breach is healing, it is easier to estimate the struggle dispassioiiately. The government, no doubt, carried It's attack on the old intelligentsia to an unnecessary extreme. In hundreds of individual cases there was palpable injustice and the innocent suffered with the guilty.
 Fears Not Gr0undIess
 But 1t must be recognized that the governments fears and suspi- cions were not groundless. A large proportion of the old intelligentsia regarded itself as q prisoner of the revolution and waited impatiently for dellverance through internal revolts or foreign intervention.
 The several large trials against specialists lacked much from the viewpoint of western judicial meth- ods. But they did. beyond all doubt. disclose extensive sabotage at stra- logically important points in the Soviets economic structure.
 on ly in the period of NEP (New Economic Pollcy), when 1t looked as though some compromise with capitalism would be develop ed, did the technically educated personnel work Loyalty under the Soviots. When the launching Of the Five-Year Plan and the suppress slon of NIP ended that possibility, tho intelIiGentsla, for the most pnrt, reverted to the hostility with which it had greeted the Rolshevik revolution tn 1917.
 The new attitude towards it on tho part of the governmeft is one of the outstanding faofor4 in the Soviet situation as the couHtry en- Gers its fifteenth c0mmuniazic gear.
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