The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1940-05-09
COMMENT ON WORLD
EVENTS

Light on cOndltlOnS IN roland unOer
the rule of what the international Fed
Grafton of Trade Unions we'll charac-
terizes as "Poland's two barbarian op-
pressors". is given in recent issue of
the IFTU bulletin. Information in the
report can hardly help but shake the
faith of "fellow travellers" and all ex-
cept the most fanatical Communists
here in the righteousness of Russian
Communism.
The IFTU reveals both Nazi and
Red rulers of Poland as guilty of
crimes comparable to the best efforts
of ancient and medieval conquerors.
The world labor organization says:
According to reports from relia-
BILE trade unionists from Poland, the
Nazi oppressors are prosecuting in
Vulnerable men, women and children
in an unheard of manner, for the sole
crime of being Polish. The country
is terrorized by means of mass ma
chine guns executives. The people are
living under a police regime of terri
rible severity which every day finds
further excuses for it's cruelty.
x x X
"The Nazi oppressors," the IFTU
continues, "are Systematically destroy
ing Polish culture. instruction has
been discontinued in the Polish schools,
and the country's art treasures are
being plundered. The Nazi are trying
to Germanize by force large sections
of the country. Whole regions are be-
ing cleared of the Polish population,
who are driven away like a cattle,
without having been warned before
hand, and have to leave all their pos
sions behind, even their clothes.
Nazi rule aims at the complete en-
slavement of what remains of the Pol
ish people by destroying all the in
dustry in the regions which are to be
Polish reservations The Polls h
workers are completely serfs; wages
are only half the wages, or even less,
Of the Germans working in Poland,
and hours of work are extended to the
uttermost. Numbers of Polish work.
ers have been deported to the Reich
in order to work as forced laborers,
and this is the fate reserved for all
Polish Jewish workers."
X X X
Telling of conditions in the part of
Poland occupied by Dictator Stalin's
troops, the IFTU says:
"The Russian conquerors have COM
pletely disorganized economic life in
the occupied regions. All stocks of
goods have been taken away and not
replaced. The official organizations
for supplying the population can only
meet a fraction of the requirements /;
illegal trading is thus fourishing and
is giving rise to tremendous increase
in prices.
"Such factories and farms as can
continue to work are subjected to a
despotic tyranny which aims in par
ticular at depriving anti-Bolshevist
workers of their livelihood. All So
cial legislation, including the laws
concerning hours of work, has been
done away with as capitalist rem
nantS!
"a terrible speed-up is carried on
in the factories. Any resistance on
the part of the workers entails 'sa-
botage trials which are held in cam
era and lead to the PRONUNCIATION of
heavy S SEN tences of Imprisonment.
Death sentences have already been
promulgated in the oilfields.
"The Soviet police have taken to
unknown destinations in Russia the
leaders and officials of the dissolved
free trade unions and labor organiza-
tions of all kinds. There has been
an immense increase in the number of
unemployed. Unemployed manual and
professional workers are taken away
to Russia on the pretext that they will
find employment there, but no news is
received of these people"