The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-07-14
Comment On
World Events

While the United Nations ap-
proves resolutions forbidding gen.
ocide-the murder Of nations
genocide is at this moment being
practised in the sight Of the whole
world. Three Of Europe's oldest
nation--the Estonians, Latvians
and Lithuanians-are being torn
up from the lands they have own
ed and inhabited for thousands of
years and deported to slow death
in the deserts and wilds Of the
Soviet Union.
Not the least tragic feature of
this determination Of three peoples
is the fact that the free world
hardly reacts at all TO this Boil
shevik crime. The mass deporta-
tions in the Baltic area get little
paragraph here and there in the
press but neither in Western Eu-
rope nor overseas do the civilized
nations react at least by protests
against this monstrous outrage of
Stalin's Asiatic hordes. This atti-
tude is all the more inexplicable
in view Of the evidence that the
Kremlin is preparing the same fate
for every civilized nation which
may fall under Communist rule and
that the West is aiding and abet-
ting Stain in these endeavours by
its preparedness to appease the
Soviet dictator at almost any price.
4 4 +
Information on the deportations
in the Baltic area began penetrat-
ing to the West in the beginning
of April. The first to bring these
gruesome tidings were German
soldiers detained in POW camps in
the Baltic area, who were liberated
this spring. They came from many
different parts of the three coun-
tries and their statements coincid-
ed to such an extent that doubt
was out of the question. Now their
accounts have been confirmed by
clandestine letters and direct re-
ports from all the Baltic republics.
In all the mass deportations took
place at the end of March and the
beginning of April and although,
for obvious reasons, it is not pos
sible to give the exact figure, it is
believed that about 10000 per-
sons have been deported from the
Baltic area. Among them are
young and old people, men and
women and children, both from the
towns and the country.
According to the latest reports,
in some Of the purely agrarian
districts of Estonia the deporta-
tions had been less sweeping. 1t is
believed that the farmers there
have been left to complete the
works of the spring season in the
fields and they are expected to be
deported at a later date.
4 4 i
I What is the reason for these
mass deportations? AS is known. a
forcible collectivization of Baltic
is at present under
way. No economic motive to raise
production is underlying thi s
action. Collectivization is a purely
political measure to break the re-
sistance of the population.
The Estonian, Latvian and Lith-
uanian farmers are robbed of all
their property and turned into un-
dernourished and overw worked
slaves of the States. Needless tol
say, the still remaining independ-
ent farmers opposed collectiviza-
ton to the utmost Of their ability
and this class of the population is
now being destroyed by deporta-
ton.
In its issue of May II, Rahva
Taal, the organ of Estonia's Com
Party, says verbatim: AT
the end of April the Club of the
League of Communist Youth at the
Electromechanical College in Tartu
realized a great undertaking, a |
conference on the policy |
Of the Bolshevik Party in the
countryside. IL teachers and ad-
vanced pupils of the college read
papers at the conference. One of
these was devoted to the transit
ion from the policy of structure of
he kulaks to the policy of liquidat-
ng the kulaks as a class" This
of the kulaks" is now
n progress under the guise of de-