Purges & Deportations

Intelligence reports, refugees' accounts, dispatches by correspondents in neighboring countries, and the Communists' own news services spelled out a grim story of events in Russia's satellites.

Poland. Nine high military staff officers, four of them generals, several of them for mer members of the anti-nazi Polish underground, are on trial, charged with spying for the West. A tenth is in jail. Deportation of "unessential" people from towns to rural areas is causing widespread unrest and desperate efforts to escape (see below). In Warsaw an estimated 40,000 former government workers, doctors, lawyers, and small businessmen have been ordered deported by the Communist police.

Hungary. Deportations to the provinces reached their highest peak in July. In Budapest, where an average of 2,000 people are being thrown out of their homes every week, some fathers expecting deportation of their families are tattooing their children so that they will be able to identify them in the future.

Czechoslovakia. Thousands are being deported from Prague, Brno and Bratis lava. A new town is being built near the Soviet border, to accommodate deported workers intended for the nearby copper mines. Homes left vacant by the deported are filled up with "essential workers," i.e., young Communists with technical skills wanted for industry, particularly arma ments. Four army generals, accused of plotting against the Red regime, have been arrested.

Bulgaria. Yugoslav intelligence sources reported the arrest of 200 high officials of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Rather than yield to Communist requisition of their produce, many Bulgarian peasants are burning their crops and taking to the forests and mountains, where they form small armed bands. An estimated 40,000 Bulgarian peasants have been deported from the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border region to concentration camps, another 35,000 sent to prison, and 1,800 of more peasant families interned in their homes.

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