Dirva = Field. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1915-current, 1948-05-14
DISPLACED LITHUANIANS APPEAL
TO THE WORLD
Appeal of Displaced Lithuanian Craftsmen and Workers

in 1940-41. Anyone who thinks that
Bolshevism has changed is mistaken.
Why should the Iron Curtain be
needed if freedom, as proclaimed
by the Bolsheviks, exists behind
that curtain? News reaches us that
arrests, murders, and deportations
even now are taking place in Lith-
uania.
When the Russians occupied Lith-
uania in 1910, the destruction of
the state, as we'll as of the econo-
mic, political, religious, and private
life Of the individual, was gradual
ly and systematically begun. The
"People's Seimas" formed by the
Bolshevik government in occupation
and the Bolshevik Party did not
represent the will of the people.
With violence the voters were driv-
en- to the polls by the militia, the
NKVD, the Red Army, and the Boil
shevik Party. Although the Boil
shevik occupants used cruel methods
to intimidate the voters, those who
went to the polls numbered no more
than 20 percent of the population,
and in some towns the percentage
was even lower. Nevertheless, the
Bolsheviks proclaimed to the world
that 998 percent of the electorate
had voted. In this way the "peo-
pies government" of Lit h u n a
came into the control, not of the
people, but of a handful Of moral
degenerates ready to dance to the
tune of Moscow's orders for one
kopek.
Instead of the promised freedoms
of speech, press, religion, and assem-
bly,, we experienced even during the
first days of the occupation mass
arrests, tortures, and murders, to
which the cemetery of Petrasiunai
and the forests of Telsiai, Pazais-
lis, and Kretinga bear witness. In
stead Of the promised 20 percent
increase in workers pay, prices were
raised 400 percent for industrial and
from 200 to 800 percent for food
products. The standard of living
declined nearly fourfold.
To further the increased exploi-
tation Of the workers, work quotas
and 'stakhanovist competition were
introduced, resulting in malnutri
ton and the decline in health of
most of the workers. The shops
and implements of the craftsmen,
the fruits of many years Of hard
labor, were taken from them, and
the craftsmen themselves were for
cibly driven into the kolhoz artela.
At the head of the artela were pla-
ced Communists who had never had
anything in common with labor or
who were otherwise completely unfit
for the task. In a short time the
Lithuanian saw his country change
beyond recognition. Under the Boil
sheviks, who turned the country up
side down economically, shortages
became prevalent in food, footwear,
clothing, and other products which
Lithuania had previously manufac-
tured in quantities and had even ex-
ported.
The climax of all the hardships
and misfortune brought by the Boil
sheviks to Lithuania occurred June
14-17, 1941, when about sixty thou
sand Lithuanians we're deported to
the depths of Russia. This mis-
fortune affected men, women, old
people, and children, without con-
sideration of their age or state of
health! Many ailing people sventy
and eighty years of age were de-
ported. Invalids were deported, and
hundreds of mothers with newborn
infants were snatched from their
beds. Among the deportees were