Now that in the United States of America the Democratic Party is practically synonymous with the U.S. Communist Party, with radical changes coming about in our Country that we never dreamed would happen, I thought it would be a good idea to share this with you.
From the Department of State Bulletin, September 25, 1950:
FORCED LABOR CONDITIONS IN COMMUNIST-DOMINATED COUNTRIES
Speech by Walter Kotschnig, U.S. Deputy Representative, before the 11th session of the Economic and Social Council at Geneva on Aug. 15, 1950, and released to the press by the Council on the same date.
This item on forced labor appears on the agenda of our Council for the fourth time. Our discussions of the item at the eighth, ninth, and tenth sessions of the Council brought out two shocking facts. First, the existence in this so-called enlightened age of ours, in this, our twentieth century, of slave labor conditions as inhuman, as cruel as any we have witnessed in the history of man. It has become evident to all but the blind and the wishful that millions of human beings living today have been deprived of every vestige of their basic human rights. They have been torn away from their homes; their families have been separated, and they have been herded into concentration camps. Yes, concentration camps, that is the word for it. Concentration camps of the kind that we had hoped we had heard the last of, when Hitler and his criminal regime had been defeated at a terrific cost to all of us.
Perhaps most terrible of all, it has become evident that the one country which initiated these practices, which imposed them on all those other countries over which it has established its controls, is the U.S.S.R.: the country which poses as the liberator of the suppressed masses, the home of the downtrodden and the oppressed, a member of the United Nations, a member of this very Council.
And, then, there is the second shocking fact: that to date we have been unable to do much about it, that we have found ourselves stalemated, that the U.S.S.R. and her friends, while admitting the existence of forced labor on a large scale, have refused to cooperate in any impartial inquiry. They have refused to make available any information regarding the number of people in their concentration camps, any information about their living conditions, the prevailing mortality rate, the type of labor in which these individuals are engaged—in short, anything which would have helped this Council, which would have helped the United Nations to discharge its obligations under the Charter to promote the rights of individuals, to create the kind of world where the well-being of all would become a secure guaranty for peace.
We cannot continue simply to make speeches about this condition. To make these speeches is a hateful task at best. It makes us ashamed of admitting that we live in a world where man's inhumanity to man is as ghastly and as ruthless as it appears to be in the U.S.S.R. and the countries under the various satellite regimes. The United Nations has found the will and the means, through collective action, to deal with military aggression. We must also find the will and the means to deal with large-scale planned aggression against the individual. We cannot stand by silently while the Charter of the United Nations is violated by some of its own members. We must awaken the conscience of the world against this utter negation of primitive human rights, against this ruthless exploitation of man by man. Admittedly, we may not be able to do much for those who suffer and die in Communist concentration camps. But, at least, we can do our share in protecting those from their own folly who may still look toward the Soviet as an enlightened regime, which assures justice and equality to all. The existence of concentration camps with millions of inmates is a travesty of justice, and the equality of their inmates is the equality of a graveyard.
Lest there be any mistake about the seriousness of the situation, I have the distasteful task of putting on record some further evidence which has come to light regarding conditions in some of the countries which were "liberated" by the Soviets and their supporters.
Forced Labor Codes
In Rumania, the seventh ordinary session of the Grand National Assembly, before its adjournment on May 30, 1950, approved unanimously (of course, unanimously) after one day of consideration, a lengthy and detailed new national labor code "inspired by the most advanced labor legislation in the world, that of the Soviet Union." Among other things, this "inspired" labor legislation provides that Rumanian citizens "in exceptional cases, such as calamities and important stated projects," may be called for "temporary compulsory labor." "Exceptional cases"—that sounds hollow to those who know of the almost daily arrests of large numbers of people who disappear into labor camps. "Important projects," incidentally, itself indicates that more than a few exceptional people are involved in these practices. And then the word "temporary"—it may be that once a man or woman is assigned to forced labor under inhuman conditions, their stay on earth is, indeed, very temporary. That is perhaps the best explanation of that particular word.
Take another country: Czechoslovakia.
In Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Nosek, Minister of Interior, asked the Parliament for nearly trebled appropriations in 1950 over 1949 for his Ministry, which controls the secret and uniformed police and the forced labor camps.
Here is the statement as it appeared in the New York "Times" of March 24, 1950, in a dispatch which has not been challenged as to accuracy:
He (Nosek) said he would need 10,637,952,000 crowns or $212,759,040 this year compared with 3,879,983,000 crowns or $77,597,860 in 1949. Expenditures for internal security will exceed those for national defense by more than 1,000,000,000 crowns...
The Interior Ministry's own income, he observed significantly, will increase by about one-third over last year's, thanks to increased revenues from the forced labor camps as well as from the 'Official Gazette' and the sale of pamphlets.
This statement is most revealing. It shows that Czechoslovakia is spending this year four times as much on her secret police and her concentration camps than all the states members of the United Nations spend on the United Nations. These fantastic figures further indicate that forced labor has become an integral part of the economic system of Czechoslovakia as it has of the Soviet Union and the other satellite countries. The sale of pamphlets can hardly explain the increase of about one-third of the revenues of the Minister of Interior. That increase must be attributed essentially to the income from the forced labor of the politically dispossessed.
If further proof is needed of the fact that these camps are used for purposes of political coercion, it can be found in an announcement made only 3 days ago by the Czechoslovakian Government which admitted the setting up of labor camps where security offenders could be sent for periods up to 2 years. We know, of course, that these labor camps have existed ever since October 25, 1948. Here, we have a clear-cut admission that the purpose of these camps is political coercion.
Take these other unfortunate countries: Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. The New York "Times" of April 25, 1950, states that, according to the best available figures, between 800,000 and 1 million Lithuanians, out of a total population of less than 3 million; more than 500,000 Latvians out of a total population of less than 2 million; and more than 200,000 Estonians out of a total population of 1.15 million have been deported. Most of those departed were shipped out within an hour of notification and were permitted to take along only what they could carry on their backs. Some of the more shocking details of such deportations were described in the documents which were submitted to the tenth session of the Economic and Social Council by the American Federation of Labor.
Conditions in East Germany
Take the Eastern zone of Germany. Conditions in the uranium mines in Germany, where labor is particularly dangerous to health, were described both in the report submitted by the American Federation of Labor to the Economic and Social Council and in Mr. Thorp's speech at the tenth session. A study prepared by the Social Democratic Party of Germany gives further details. Note that it is a Socialist workers' party, not a group of "capitalists" or of "exploiters," to use terms dear to the Soviets, which gives us these details. In this report, the conditions are set forth which prevail in these uranium mines. It is a sickening document to read. There is just one detail I would like to lift from this document. It contains a reproduction complete with names and dates of a work order issued by the Labor Office of Teltow-Mahlow in the Soviet zone of Germany which requires the wife of a fugitive from a forced labor uranium mining camp to report for work in her husband's stead. I would like to read that order:
Arbeitsamt Teltow-Mahlow
Branch Office Zossen
Zossen, 21 March 1949
B/N
Madam Frieda Heyer
Rangsdorf, Kr. Teltow, Kleine Standallee 863
Concerning your assignmet to work in Aue.
The medical examination has revealed your capacity for the contemplated assignment from here to Aue for work. You are therefore requested to present yourself at the Arbeitsamt (Labor Office) in Aue with the installation assignment card (Einweisungsbescheid) and to begin working in Aue in place of your husband who has made his own employment there impossible by fleeing with your knowledge and your help.
Nitsche
Now, note that the wife is ordered by this Labor Office to report for work in the mines on the strength of the medical report, and that nowhere in the order does it appear that she has had the benefit of judicial process to determine whether she is actually guilty of the charge made against her. That, of course, fits in perfectly with the provisions of the Soviet code which was mentioned by the distinguished representative of the United Kingdom.
This same report goes on to state that not only wives but also other members of the family are being sent to the uranium mines if the husband or brother escaped from their servitude. It points out, too, the intolerable working conditions suffered by women in forced labor camps, among which is the fact that they are considered free game by the Russian soldiers and German workers alike. The conditions described are very similar to those found in Russian forced labor camps. The women find it necessary to make "friends" with several men in order to eke out their pitiful ration allowances. Women are required to work until 6 weeks prior to the birth of their children, and the children are separated from their mothers after birth and cared for in groups to free the mothers for further work in the mines. Women, incidentally, are required to fulfill the same quotas as men and are employed as pick men and transporters of ore.
This shameful list of violations of human rights could be continued for a long time. I might talk about Hungary where parents or children are still looking for some 200,000 Hungarian citizens who disappeared in the U.S.S.R. I might also talk about the curious disappearance of hundreds and thousands of German and Japanese prisoners of war in the U.S.S.R. I shall desist, however, for I am sure it must be obvious by now to everyone that this situation calls for remedial and preventive action on our part.
Some action might be taken nationally, by those who share the abhorrence of free peoples everywhere to the kind of exploitation of human labor which has evidently become an integral part of the Soviet economy. The laws in my own country, and probably in many other countries, permit the exclusion of goods produced by forced or convict labor in other countries. Joint action along such lines may eventually become inevitable.
Resolution as Remedy
In the meanwhile, everything possible must be done to direct the searchlight of public inquiry upon these intolerable conditions wherever they may be found. And that is the purpose of the joint resolution which we were glad to cosponsor with the delegation of the United Kingdom. This resolution, if accepted, would provide for a joint inquiry, joint in the sense that both the ILO and the United Nations would assume responsibility for it. This is an important element of our resolution, because unless this inquiry is undertaken not only by the International Labor Organization but also in the name of the United Nations, some of the countries which are not members of the ILO might find a very easy excuse in escaping from this investigation.
Furthermore, this resolution provides for the setting up of a committee of 5 independent members. Please note the emphasis on independent members. We hope that it will be possible to find 5 men or women of the highest possible caliber who would serve on this committee and whose very name, background, experience, and record will assure us that their investigation will be an impartial investigation.
As to the terms of reference, I would like to underline point 1 of these terms of reference, which refer to the International Labor Convention No. 29. They refer also (and this is important) to what we want to get at most specifically, and that is the systems of forced or corrective labor which are employed as a means of punishment for holding or expressing political views out of tune with the views of the ruling clique or which are on such a scale as to constitute an important element in the economy of a given country.
I commend this draft resolution to you and to my distinguished colleagues on this Council. I commend it for your careful consideration. The action here proposed may not go as far as some of us might wish, but it does, in our opinion, constitute a definite step forward in our common struggle for a common humanity, for a society of free peoples, free of fear, and free of oppression.
Text of Resolution
U.N. doc. E/L. 104
Dated Aug. 15, 1950
Following is the text of the joint draft resolution admitted to the eleventh session of ECOSOC. The resolution was not adopted, and consideration of the problem was deferred to the twelfth session of the Council.
The Economic and Social Council,
RECALLING its previous resolutions on the subject of forced labour and measures for its abolition;
CONSIDERING the replies furnished by Member Governments to the communications addressed to them by the Secretary-General in accordance with Resolution 195 (VIII);
TAKING NOTE of the communication from the International Labour Organisation setting forth the discussions on the question of forced labour at the 11th Session of the Governing Body;
DECIDES to invite the International Labour Organisation to co-operate with the Council in the earliest possible establishment of an ad hoc Committee on Forced Labour of not more than five independent members to be appointed jointly by the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the International Labour Office with the following terms of reference:
(1) to survey the field of forced labour, taking into account the provisions of International Labour Convention No. 29, and enquiring particularly into the existence, in any part of the world, of systems of forced or "corrective" labour which are employed as a means of political coercion or punishment for holding or expressing political views, or which are on such a scale as to constitute an important element in the economy of a given country;
(2) to assess the nature and extent of the problem at the present time; and
(3) to report the results of its studies and progress thereon to the Council and to the Governing Body of the International Labour Office.
REQUESTS the Secretary-General and the Director-General to supply the professional and clerical assistance necessary to ensure the earliest initiation and effective discharge of the ad hoc Committee's work.
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