Jewish Collectives in White Russia and Kalinindorf Region Reported to Be in Chaos

The Jewish collectives in the Kalinindorf region are reported to be in a state of chaos and discipline daily growing worse while in White Russia colonists are paying as much as five roubles for a copy of the “Pravda” containing Stalin’s order discontinuing the enforced collectivization, because the local village leaders have hidden the order from the colonists.

The situation in Kalinindorf is worse than in Kherson. The tractors are out of order, the horses are under-nourished and the colonists are wrought up because the Jewish Communists in the region compelled them to join the collectives. Gitliansky, president of the regional soviet, is reported to be making the rounds of the colonies in Kalinindorf and threatening the Jewish colonists, although with little effect.

In the meantime the Jewish colonists in Kalinindorf have received back one cow a piece despite the opposition of the Jewish Communists. Moscow is blaming the Jewish Communists of Kalinindorf for the situation, particularly for Gitliansky’s excess zeal which is endangering the Spring sowing. The Jewish colonists in Crimea are highly dissatisfied with the order compelling them to share their houses with the new Jewish settlers.

They meet the newcomers with frank and undisguised hostility. The colonies of Larindorf, Ikor, and Freiheit in the Jankoy and Yepatoria regions refused point blank to share their dwellings with the newcomers.

The chaos among the village Communists in White Russia is also great while the land collectives are collapsing. At a meeting of the Communist Party in Minsk the secretary of the White Russian Communist Party insisted on a discontinuance of the compulsory measures of driving the colonists into collectives. He related that in several places those who had refused to join the collectives had been arrested although they were now released.