In the Liberated Regions of USSR
Schwarz, Solomon M.
In the Liberated Regions of USSR By Solomon M. Schwarz ii IN tbc last issue of The New Leader I tried to present to the reader a picture ot the ruin of Soviet cities recently liberated after two...
...The restoration of agriculture is the chiet preoc-rupstion of the authorities in the liberated territories...
...Yet in almost sll reports—referring both to areas slready restored, snd to those which are only now starting to recover after their terrible predicament—one common feature is outstanding: the tremendous activity of the peasants carried on in a lofty social spirit...
...But now that the same authorities have murdered Socialism itself, snd Communism too—or rather expressly called it oR, for they've been dsncing on its csdaver for years—Mike can not be so glib...
...If he had heeded the teaching, he would never have entered the path of lying to himself about facts out of loyalty to an ideal...
...Among the urban population this feeling is less comnton and less vigorous...
...Still more frequent are reports about harvesting by hand through the labor of women, sged persons (often very old women) and youths...
...The unfavorable outlook for industrial reconstruction is another factor hampering the urban areas...
...Women took spades, and went to the fields...
...When the Germans appeared "the operators drove the tractors into rivers, sank them into ravines, and hid them in mountain caverns...
...Everywhere, together with the Red Army, old chairmen of the local Soviets snd old party secretaries make their appearance...
...During the occupstion some of them remained near-by and took-active part in guerilla warfare which from the socisl point of view is naturally creditable...
...Before the war in that district there were 202 tractors, 73 combines and 3 Machine and Tractor Service Stations...
...of the vsst majority of the population in the libersted areas, and the policy of the local authorities is another characteristic feature of present day life in the liberated territories...
...The number of horses, csttle, sheep, snd goats to be re-evacuated to eight provinces reached 600,000...
...His cry of psin is really worth quoting: "Those who have invested a lifetime of hope, and swest, blood snd tears in the Communist idesls of Shelley, Msrx, Bsbeuf, and Lenin, cannot so easily give up the old dream...
...In the Liberated Regions of USSR By Solomon M. Schwarz ii IN tbc last issue of The New Leader I tried to present to the reader a picture ot the ruin of Soviet cities recently liberated after two years of Nasi domination...
...And it will bring every idealist, Shelleysn, Marxian, Babeuflan, Leninist—every one, no mstter how hard-headed, how 'dialectic," hew eager to be practical —it will bring him to the same sterile and mean!ngless end...
...30, 1043...
...In lines of 40 to 50, women snd girls dug the earth with their spades, and sowed wheat by hand...
...The decree of August 21 foresees the restitution of tractors and sgriculturai equipment also, but in this case, too, the figures set forth in the decree are comparatively modest...
...Of the total that existed in 1938, the percentage of re-evacuated rattle varies in different provinces between 0.3 and 6.0 per rent for cattle, between 0.0 and 10 per cent for sheep snd gosts and between 0.3 and 8.6 per cent for horses...
...Yet they were not always able to do their job thoroughly because the peasants, at the risk of their own lives, tried to hide their belongings...
...Which places him certainly in a subhuman species, but whether exsctly the equine is not so sure...
...When the Germans left, it seemed that nothing was available...
...The cows could not patch up the boles torn by the enemy...
...According to this decree, the most important task is the restitution to the libersted provinces of the cattle thst hsd been evsrusted...
...Poor Erwin Granich...
...Thst is what b as brought him to this shameful sbssement, this empty, unillumined, and inglorious crucifixion...
...Cows had to be harnessed...
...Toward the middle of October the cattle everywhere reached their destination...
...Itvettia, Sept...
...This report of plowing by hand is by no means exceptional...
...For no real, or more than momentary, movement towsrd any ideal can be made except upon the basis of a bold, honest, and continuous confrontation of fact...
...Pravda (May 27, 1943) published a report stating that at the moment of the liberation of the Rostov region, several thousand heads of cattle were left in every district...
...A I,MOST all reports about the reconstruction of agriculture in libersted territories come from the Krasnodar, Rostov, Stalingrad, Kalinin and Smolensk regions which were liberated in the first months of 1943 or even 1942...
...Where is the humsn who csn swsllow it...
...IT would of course be wrong to assume thst st the moment of its liberstion the populace wss stripped of all its cattle...
...This was not the rase...
...The overloaded means of transportation were inadequate for the shipment of this vast amount, and since the end of August, herds of many thousands were driven back thousands of miles from the faraway eastern provinces, some even from Western Siberia and Kazskstan...
...the preserved and"re-evacusted cattle put together constitute "a mere fraction of the pre-war livestock, which even then was inadequate...
...As for pledging to aid capitalism to stabilize itself, this is a pill fit only for s horse...
...When Stalin had the Socialists, Ehrlich and Atler, murdered, Mike stood up under it right msnfully...
...The absolute figures for the re-evsrusted cattle sre very high, but their relstive value is rather low Thus, while in 1938 the cattle in the Orel region numbered 857,0011, oiil* 21,000 have been re-evacuated...
...He celled me "our teacher" once, when denouncing my "treachery" in telling the treth about Russia...
...On August 21 the government issued a voluminous decree "On Urgent Measures for the Reconstruction of Economy in the Regions Liberated fnm the German Occupstion...
...Interesting from this point of view is a report from the Gulkovichi district in the Kuban area...
...In the villages this trend is still more conspicuous: from somewhere appear chairmen and executives of the collective farms, some of them hsving occupied their posts esrlier, others appointed from the top...
...In My Opinion MIKE GOLD'S condition is especislly pitiable...
...Fearful snd epic lsbor wss carried on on the Kuban fields...
...But even in these comparatively fortunate circumstances, during the first months, when the motors and livestock were not yet restored, labor in the fields was extremely hard: "It was time to start ploughing...
...they took the motors off the combines, lubricated and buried them...
...Approximately the same amount was probably preserved by the peasants of other liberated regions...
...As for regions at some distance from the roads tsken by the armies, it often happened that the Germans were too harassed to start a thorough-going farewell looting of villages, and in many instances they even had to abandon wheat that they had stored...
...This,'however, is infinitesimal compared with the needs of the population...
...The peasants managed to save some of the tractors, particularly where the occupation was of short durstion...
...But ia many instances they arrive at the tail of the Red Army, and immediately take the helm without any attempt to'organise elections of new Soviets and party organs...
...Yet, the policy in the liberated territories follows other lines...
...For the Sm lenak region corresponding figures are 889,000 and 48,000 for cattle, and 394,000 and 7.000 for horses...
...If the government had followed a determined course of encouraging organised local public activity, this policy might help considerably to eliminate the unwholesome frame of mind among the townspeople, snd to stimulate the swskened public energy among the villagers...
...Ardent revolutionary youth when I knew him—mind, heart, and soul burning to help the working class in its strug gle against capitalism—reduced now to writing pub ' licity for a strike-breaking organization dedicsted t o the support of big business...
...Even allowing for a certain amount of official optimism, these reports testify to a striking rise of social feeling: it seems that among th* peasantry the idea is prevalent that after the unprecedented disaster single-handed attempts to recover are of no svsil, that recuperation is possible only through tremendous collective efforts and all-out solidarity...
...the destruction inflicted upon the towns was so sweeping, the suffering of lh« population so awful, the exhaustion to terrifying, that after liberation the majority of the population recovers only gradually from its stupor...
...In the villages the devastation was not so sweeping ss in urban centers...
...News of farming in the Ukraine is rare...
...To be sure, wherever German srmies retreated and fierce battles raged, the Germans systematically tried to destroy everything, and removed rsttle, tractors, sgriculturai implements and stock...
...So long as the Germans did not reckon with being driven out of the occupied territories, they tried to preserve to some extent the peasants' livestock, for the needs of the German army as well as a means of existence for the populace It was only when they were leaving those territories, and along the roads of their retreat that the livestock was subjected to almost complete annihilation...
...They must have been guilty or the Soviet authorities wouldn't hsve condemned them, he ssid...
...I have not seen a single report about any new wide-scale elections...
...And then he proceeds to swallow it: "All this can not be understood apart from its context etc...
...This contradiction between the awakening public activity of the peasantry, i.e...
...Thus, for tractors they vary for different regions between 5 snd 10 per cent of the pre-wsr figures...
...Poor Mike...
...And that was that...
...This of course wss an exceptional rase: the near-by mountains and the short-lived occupation helped to mitigate the peasants' lot...
...Thus 160 out of 202 tractors, 67 out of 73 combines and the 3 Machine and Tractor Service Stations were restored...
...but soon, all these hidden riches were brought to light and put in order...
Vol. 27 • January 1944 • No. 4
