$3.75 THE SOVIET SLAVE EMPIRE By ALBERT KONRAD HERLING HERE 1s the first documented expose of slave labor both in the USSR and in its satellite countries. Here are photostats of documents from the very files of the Russian secret police. Here is strong light on the dark places of Soviet eco­ nomic policy in the "People's Democra­ cies." And here are human stories that add flesh and blood to the documents. This is a study which will have to be taken into account in the welter of cur­ rent discussions revolving about United States foreign policy. Albert Herling has interviewed hun­ dreds of former inmates of Soviet labor camps. He has a thick pile of Soviet documents, here represented by photo­ stats for America. Having shown the pattern of the slave labor system, the author here shows the design for the U. S., and brings out the deeper mean­ ings for the reader by showing how the (Continued on back flap) T"lle Soviet Slave Empire ALBERT KONRAD HERLING The Soviet Slave Empire WILFRED FUNK, INC ., PUBLISHERS, N. Y. CoPYRIGIIT, 1951, BY Ar.BERT KONRAD HERLING All Rights Reserved FIRST PRINTING Preface An unbelieving world has too long refused to face the growing menace of slavery in its new 20th century guise -the slave-labor camps of the Soviet Union and its satel­ lite states. The refusa! to believe the mounting evidence was not so much an expression of confidence in the Soviet Union as it was a reluctance to believe that a society rapidly developing into one of the leading industrial powers of the world in this era was resorting to such a discredited and degrading system as slavery. lt is only now, at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, when the true nature of Stalinism has become a matter of concem to everyone, that it is pos­ sible to get the peoples of the Western World to take time to leam about the new slavery in which the Soviet Union is a pioneer. lt would be sufficient to arouse our concern and righteous indignation if this slave system were con­ fined to the Soviet Union itself. But it is now manifest that it is such an integral part of Communist economic life that it must and does spread wherever the followers of Stalin seize power. When the stories of the Nazi concentration camps first V vi PREFACE became known, most people refused to believe them , counting them merely as horror stories which the oppo ­ nents of the Nazis use to arouse the world to a :fighting pitch. De cent people are always loth to believe that other human beings can resort to such bestiality as the Nazis were charged with. But we have learned that the immense capa city for good in each human being and in each human system is matched by an equal capacity for evil. In presenting the experiences of many individuals, and of life in the Soviet Union and the satellite states ( with the exception of Poland), I have deliberately withheld some of the most harrowing stories, with their detailed descriptions of almost unbelievable tortures. I here pre­ sent objective facts. If at times I have been unable to retain a "scholarly objectivity" in my comment on various aspects of the Soviet slave system, I beg forgiveness. These are not statistics I am writing about, they are people suf­ fering as few of us have suffered, and condemned to die in ways in which none of us expect to die. I have not written this book to prove the incorrigibility of mankind-indeed my faith is quite the opposite. But the facts presented here are placed in the belief that we cannot exert our best efforts and thought to the creation of a decent world by closing our eyes to the evil that exists and accepting as reality only the good. There is one group in particular I hope to reach-those who look to the Soviet Union as the sine qua non of political, social, and economic . progress. These people, members of various Communist parties, fellow-travelers PREFACE vii and members of the travelers' aid, refuse thus far to believe the evidence presentèd to the world and to them by the actual victims of the slave-labor system of the Soviet police state. I hope that these people will pay par­ ticular attention to the reproduction of the official orders issued by the Soviet secret police and the various exhibits from official Soviet sources. And now a word about the material in this book and how I came by it. In December 1948 the Workers Defense League--a noncommunist agency doing a prodigious job in helping to eliminate the vestiges of illegal peonage which exist in the United States, as well as working against discrimination of ail kinds and generally doing a magnifi­ cent job in behalf of the underprivileged-initiated the Commission of Inquiry into Forced Labor. The Workers Defense League recognized the need for an autonomous and completely unhampered commission to bring to light the extent to which chatte! slavery, peonage, and forced labor still exist in the world. It was my good fortune to be asked to become Assistant to the Chairman and Re­ search Director of the new Commission. This Commis­ sion, organized at a meeting at Hunter College in the City of New York, consists of the following persons: Dr. Harry D. Gideonse, Chairman of the Commission, President of Brooklyn College, N. Y.; Morris L. Cooke of Washington, D. C., formerly of the Rural Electrification Program and now Chairman of the President's Water Resources Policy Commission; viii PREFACE Dr. George S. Counts, Profe_ssor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University; Max Delson, labor attorney, and author of the first FEPC law; Mrs. Ethel S. Epstein, Finance Chairman of Americans for Democratic Action; John F. Finerty, constitutional lawyer; Dr. Frank P. Graham, formerly President of the Univer­ sity of North Carolina and U. S. Senator from that state; John Green, president of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilders, CIO; Rev. Donald Harrington, minister of the Community Church of New York, and National Chairman of the Workers Defense League; Francis Heisler of Chicago, attorney, civil liberties and labor lawyer; Dr. Sidney Hook, Chairman of the Philosophy Depart­ ment, New York University; Emil Mazey, Secretary Treasurer, United Automobile Workers of America, CIO; Frank McCulloch, former director of the labor school of Roosevelt College, Chicago, now secretary to Sena­ tor Paul Douglas of Illinois; A: Philip Randolph, President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, AFL; Dr. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Associate Professor of History, Harvard College, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of The Age of Jackson; PREFACE ix Max Sherover, President of the Linguaphone Institute of America; Dr. George N. Shuster, President of Hunter College of the City of New York, now civilian administrator for Bavaria; Norman Thomas, Socialist leader, Chairman of the Post War World Council; Matthew Woll, 2nd Vice President of the American Fed­ eration of Labor; Dr. Ralph Gilbert Ross, Department of Philosophy, New York University, Director of the Division of General Education of New York University, Secretary of the Commission; Thomas L. Parsonnet, General Counsel to the Commis­ sion, formerly Corporation Counsel for the City of Newark, N. J., Chief Coun~el for the New Jersey State Federation of Labor; Ernest Fleischman, Associate Counsel to the Commission, labor attorney; Carl Rachlin, Associate Counsel to the Commission, labor attorney. The Commission met on February 24, 25, and 26, 1949, in the auditorium of the New York Bar Association, for its :6rst public hearings. At these hearings victims of forced labor, eyewitnesses of forced labor, and experts on the subject testifîed. Much of the material in this book is based on the hearings held by the Commission; but a good deal of the material presented here has corne as a result X PREFACE of the continuous program of research which the Com­ mission has continued to carry on. Many influences combine to make up a person' s life, . and many people are contributors to the work he does. Since this is my first published work in book form, it is therefore not surprising that a host of people corne to mind, people to whom I am indebted for encouragement, understanding, and help. Sorne of these persons must be here mentioned: The late Professor Leo Rich Lewis of Tufts College, Medford, Mass., and Mrs. Lewis; Dr. John Haynes Holmes and the Rev. Leon Rosser Land; the late Dr. Clarence R. Skinner, Dean of the Tufts College School of Religion; Mr. and Mrs. Eli Yoffe and Miss Beatrice Reed of Natick, Mass.; Miss Beatrice Bretzfield, formerly with the Town Hall of New York, Inc., and now with the U. S. Mission to the United Nations; Constantine R. Jurgela, Director of the Lithuanian American Information Center; Norman Thomas; the late Mme. Rosika Schwimmer, feminist, fighter for peace, and pioneer founder of the World Gov­ emment movement; Rowland Watts, National Secretary of the Workers Defense League; Brant Coopersmith, formerly Assistant National Secretary of the Workers Defense League, now New Orleans director of the ·Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith; Mrs. Carola W eingarten, my assistant on the research staff of the Com­ mission of Inquiry; Mrs. Dorothy O'Connell; Mr. David Dallin and Mr. Boris Nicolaevsky, outstanding students of Russia today; Miss Anna Bourguina and Mr. and Mrs. PREFACE xi Brutus Coste, friends and faithful workers against today's tyrannies and for tomorrow's freedoms. To Professor Warren B. Walsh, Chairman of the Board of Russian Studies of Syracuse University, go my special thanks for his considerate and constructive criticism.