To the Editor of the "Nomrm-Cuba Dany News"
Sm.—Several letters were given space in the columns of your esteemed paper under general heading "U.S.S.R. 1 Repatriation," and I hope that a few facts involved in that question would not be out of place, provided. of course, you wi find them of suffi cient interest tobe published.
We, White Emigrants, special those who were with the Ar kno: 4 personally those repatriates who are now conducting the propaganda amongst dur youngsters here, Even while in our midst ds one may, term it—"sh would roam around the v while there was an arm would offer the services pens to individuals or whoever could offer th of existence. As the y the individuals and organizations gre less in number on one hand—on th other the names of these "shifter the absence of ideology in them, became also quite odious, so the only 1 outlet remained for them—to change the colours. So they did. But to U.S.S.R. passport—they must "d serve" it, as usually stated by the 3 authorities they are ai But how can they "descry The only way to do it here in foreign lands are either to become "informants" (spies) or to get busy with propaganda work Now, what is the contingent em masse of these repatriates? Mostly youths who could not adapt themselves io. the surroundings successfully enough, and, driven by propaganda and desperation, join the union of re-patriotes where they are given some monetary help while being in the process of "deserving" the passport, the process long enough to get tired afd weary in waiting, in fact some of them cannot "deserve" it for years of faithful hard work of a sleuth-hound but the spark of hope to get home sooner or later is always cunningly fanned by those in power. This is the state of things for the proletarians amongst them, As for those who had independent means, why! they did not need to do anything to "deserve" the 3 grant of a passport; they got it in a short order abd departed. It is true though, in two to three months' time they would write to their relatives or friends here, abroad, begging to return some of their old, discarded clothing, saying in the same time, of course, that they are the happiest people in the happiest of lands.
Other facts are still fresh in the memory of everyone here in the Far East, the mass repatriations of ex-3 employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway. All of them were handsomely paid off, money partly was spent on all kinds of merchandise and partly put in the bank of Torgsin, the institution which used to issue the obligations to be exchanged for food stuff etc. in special provision stores within Russia, where the prices were fixed in foreign currency and were very reasonable indeed. Shortly after, however, it seems just a few months after the repatriation was effected, this institution was put out of existence together with a chain of stores. What became of the money I do not know, but presuming the best, that it was converted into roubles according to official rate of exchange, the resulting values are known to us only too well to admit that they would provide means of living for any reasonable length of time.
It may be mentioned here a characteristic fact which was narrated by one of these repatriates who re-emigrated one year after. When their train of repatriates arrived in Irkutsk the city fathers invited all of them to attend the meeting to be held in the theatre, where all kinds of greetings were freely aired, but on their return to the station they found entirely new and empty set of railway carriages waiting for them to continue' the journey, Thus they were "Proletariotized." On reaching Russia proper they were sent in small batches to provincial places under supervision of GPU to be enlightened further and eventually to become either faithful devotees of the "Great and dearly-beloved Stalin" or... to settle for some years in concentration camps for being a bit dull in the process of re-education.
Coming down to the basic points: why those who so ardently desire-to shake the dust of foreign lands off their feet, do not go and cross the borders without passports, the way they or their fathers came here? What stops them from doing so? The best—they may get shot by the border guard, and the other altefnative—Some 10 years of servitude in concentration camps, But does it really matter so far as, firstly, both will take place on the native/land they are anxious to get at, aW, secondly, if they enter it legally with passports and all what else can they expect there, considering that there is not much of a difference to live in the camp or outside of it. They know it, and some time ago in the letter addressed to Kalinin and published in local newspaper of repatriates, "Na Rodinu" asked just for that, so why wait and make so much fuss about it!
During all these years of existence of White Emigration, many a time the "amnesty" was offered to us, especially to the army men, and several from our ranks went to Soviet Russia giving a pledge to let us know the truth of what will happen to them. Did we get Do we know their ultimate fate? No. All of them were lost to us, the truth was left for us
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.