[Paul Anderson Papers; post war Europe]

The file contains several reports written by Paul Anderson and Viktor Frank. Viktor Frank writes about Eastern Europe, the Soviet State and its peasants. From 1928 onwards, Stalin pushed relentlessly the compulsory collectivization of agriculture. The result of collectivization was a huge famine on the Volga river, in the Ukraine and throughout the country. The biggest problem, which he mentioned was that most of the peasants were unanimous in their rejection of the collective farm system. They all wanted to set up home in a country where they would be allowed to earn and keep the benefits of their toil. They wanted to be their own masters. Paul Anderson also wrote about the working conditions in the Soviet Union and about the Eastern countries, who were condemned to pay for their liberation from Hitlers slave-order with acceptance of a new form of state tyranny. Reports labled as 'labour legislation behind the Iron Curtain' and 'Compulsoy labour in the Uranium mines', explain about the working condition in the Soviet Union and the labour exchanges of the uranium mining districts. Throughout the twelve years of Hitler rule the German workers lived under the iron heel of the Nazi labour laws. As Anderson argues, the actual conditions under the Communist Government have remained almost entirely unchanged. Changed have only the names, the party symbols and the political terminology. Wages, working conditions and working positions are regulated by the state, like the 150.000 German men and women working in the Russian owned uranium mines of Saxony. A vast proportion of the German uranium miners are not free workers but have been directed to or consripted for the ore mines by local branches and Labour Exchanges of the East zone Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Furthermore Anderson reports about the recruitment of miners, medical examinations, the hygiene, accidents in the mines and water shortage.