The mass desertion from the Jewish colonies in the Ukraine has been stopped, it is reported to-day, as a result of special decrees signed by Stalin and by M. Molotov, the Soviet Prime Minister, enabling individual peasants, and also the members of the collectives, to retain for themselves larger quantities of bread than hitherto out of their crops, when giving up supplies to the Government.
As a result of these decrees, the “Emess” states, most of the Jewish colonists have decided to remain in the collectives, and encouraged by the Government order are now demanding that the collectives should return to them their cows which were taken over when the colonies were converted into collectives. If the cattle are given back to the colonists, the “Emess” complains, it will place the livestock reserves of the collectives in danger.
Reports are arriving also from the Crimea and from White Russia that the Jewish collectives there are, as a result of the new decrees, starting more intensive field work, and that the tendency to leave the colonies and go back to the towns is subsiding.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.