Jewish Colonies in Russia to Be 100% Collectivized in 1930, Comzet Declares

The Jewish agricultural colonies in Soviet Russia must be 100 percent collectivized during 1930. This is the decision adopted by the Comzet conference in Charkoff, which lasted three days and in which Merezhin, leader of the Comzet, and Dr. Rosen and Mr. Lubarski of the “Agrojoint” participated.

The conference also resolved, first, that individual Jewish colonists must submit their entire livestock, as well as their inventory, to collective barns; second, that cows which have been given in credit to new Jewish settlers be henceforth not given them directly, but be given to the collective; third, that houses which the American Joint and other organizations build for colonists should henceforth have no stables; fourth, that in the future, houses be built to accommodate several families instead of one; fifth, to remodel houses built since 1925 so that they should now have two families living in one house, instead of one as formerly.

The last two resolutions, especially the fifth, will undoubtedly meet with tremendous opposition on the part of the Jewish colonists, because it means not only merging the land or livestock but even people which is a blow to the settlers, who consider their houses as their own property, because many have already repaid the credits which they received for house-building.

Reports received from the regional Comzet representatives at the conference, related that the Kherson region is already 100 percent collectivized, that the Krivoy-rog region is 82 percent collectivized, Zaporozhie region 77 percent, Nikopol region 80 percent, and the Odessa region almost totally. In the Odessa region many Jewish kulaks have already been expelled from the collectives. In the Zaporozhie region, no Jew is accepted in the collective unless he submits into the collective treasury all the cash received for selling part of his inventory before joining the collective.