SOVIET EXPLOITATION OF THE BALTIC COUNTRIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00926A005200020030-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 2001
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: August 13, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFICATION COITIIDENTIAL/US OFFICIALS ONLY/SECURITY INFORMATION
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT NO.
INFORMATION REPORT CD NO.
USSR/Lithuania/Latvia/Estonia
Soviet Exploitation of the Baltic Countries
DATE DISTR. . / J 1952
NO. OF PAGES 3
1. "Baltic complaints of Soviet oppression recently submitted to the 1711 are tragic-
ally confirmed by the USSR's own publications. Analysis of the budgets and plan
reports of the three Baltic republics and of such copies of their Communist press
as have become available abroad, shows that the Balts are suffering a harsher
fate than the Soviets themselves. The twenty years of national independence
they enjoyed in the inter-war period seem to have enhanced their martyrdom.
Since the re-incorporation of the Baltic countries, the Bolsheviks who resent,
the contrast between the monotonous poverty of the present-day Soviet Union and
the variegated pattern of the more developed countries on their periphery, have
tried to wipe out every vestige of Western influence and to assimilate the
Balts by telescoping thirty years of Communist tyranny into three.
2. "The three Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia,, vogether nearly the
size of Missouri with nearly 2,000,000 more inhabitants,?,)re being tyrannized
politically, economically, and financially. Bolshevik pu itical tyranny, accord-
ing to Baltic spokesmen abroad, has led to the deportation of at least 1,000,000
people into the interior of the Soviet empire. On 8 Apr 52,,. by decree of
the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, Estonia and Latvia were subdivided into provinces
in accordance with the Soviet model. Each of these provinces now has its own
bureaucratic party and police" organization, which adds some 10,000 more parasi-
tical officials to the ranks of an already oversized administration. Russian'
names are more and more in evidence. The majority of the Baltic members of the
governments are Soviet-reared. Nov, according to the Moscow press, dictionaries
are being re-written with a view to expanding the large influence of Russian on
the three national languages.
STATE
ARMY
NAVY
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3. "Economically the once well-to-do Baltic peasants seem to be worse off than their
Soviet neighbors. On 6 Jun, 52 Lithuania's rural population-9--more than three
quarters of the total7.reported.to 'Dear Comrade Stalin' :.in 1951 year the cattle
herd of the collective farms increased by 61.9% over 1950. Since this is be-
tween four and five times the normal growth, most of the private cattle of the kol-
khozniksr-.One cow per householdg,must have been collectivized. In other parts of the
USSR where a similar process of expropriation is going on, the cattle herd of the col-
lectives usually increased by less than 20$$. ,? .
4. "Latvia's plan report for 1951 boasted that the peasants had delivered two and a half
times more wheat to the state than they sold in. the market prior to collectivization;
in other words, that the countryside today consumes much less good bread than in former
times. The fact that wheat production has been expanded at the expense of other cul-
tures cannot have had so great an influence.
"According to Raahva Haa7., the leading Estonian Communist. newspaper, last year's annual
share of a member of one of the most 'advanced' collective farms in the money income
of 'his' kolkhoze can be computed at rubles 400, or about Wix per eaxt 'b't the ai nual earn-
ings of the average Soviet worker. From the kolkhoze harvest each peasant further re-
ceived approximately 240 lbs of rye and the same quantity of potatoes. Then there is
the small additional income from the produce of the kolkhoznik's small one-acre home-
stead economy, part of which has to be sold in the market to buy clothing,, footwear,
and other indispensable manufactured goods, while the major part goes for taxes. Cal-
culated on this basis, the average Estonian peasant's gross income is but a fraction of
what it was before .Wortt!~ Vir,,II. the LIGSR', . on ? h&.,, other'-'.hand, Bolshevik
No. 10 calculated recently that the average peasant's real income was 30 above
1940.
6. "Industrial workers are not much better off. r,lx. 95i 86k--
is reported to have earned rubles 300 a month which is less than half of what
Lithuania
most students. of.Sovaet affa acs believe to be the Soviet average wage. Even a'skilled
worker's; earnings were below the overall average. In Latvia and. Estonia too workers
are reported to; e less than in the Soviet Union.
7. "While living standards in towns and country have declined sha.ply, official plan re-
ports for 1951 register a large increase in industrial production for each of the three
republics. More specific data shows that the output of the Baltic industries, once re-
nowned for their accuracy, reflects the miserable living conditions of the population.
Thus we read in Raahva Haal that Vladimir Stolboy. Estonia's.Minister of Light Industry,
complained. earlier ' .* 71952 .that the dobhttry ,* latgeit textile, 'works - turfled out
i`t ??,eudh poor quality that they were useless and entailed losses of many mil-
lions of rubles. Minister of Trade., Rudolf Vester, publicly displayed socks and stock-
ings of unequal size and one pair of rubbers,.one rubber with a broad, the other one
with P. narrow heel. Minister of Local Industries, Nikolai Kx' lov, stated that produc-
tion of essential building materials was far off schedule and, apparently, below 1950.
In order to make a, good showing on paper, industrial cooperatives doubled the price of
their. products and then declared that they had doubled their production. In Latvia
the leading Communist newspaper, Cina, reported that in Riga where three quarters of
the country's industries are concentrated., the principal shipyard and the largest
electrotechnical factory were seriously behind quota. Conditions were especially bad
in?the,food industry: Slaughter houses, for instance, supplied less than half the meat
they were supposed to turn out. In Lithuania,. where the Vilna newspaper Tiesa pub-
lished a detailed report on plan fulfillment during the first quarter (of 1952,..
' Q1as~ d . z': F~ y rse i t ec xsf~t a mi lk :'.'
butter 'prod oars .:, ac t:.2,3 off
buckets for farms, the plan. was fulfilled only to 16%. While this _seems to '.be
an exceptionally poor showing, it-~s characteristic of the unevenness with which pro-
grams are carried out.
8. "This travesty of a planned industrial production at wages fax below the overall Soviet
average yields substantial profits for-Moscow. The full measurejof the financial ex-
ploitation of the Baltic countries ip revealed a *.. aanalytig of the LithuaIian budget
which balanced at rubles 1,1+71:,000,000: ' The.country's total tax receipts, including
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irofitRs "from., state . industries, . are to ;yields rubles: 3.,918.,, 000,000.:.. The. balance :of
roughly: rilbles: 2;500,000.,000represents: the ~ share.. of the central government. of the USSR,
of- which only one.-third is. returned to Lithuania.. In. ' the .case..of ?the_ other two Baltic
countries,,;_the.contribution of the USSR to the republican. budget is much . smaller Yet
the. -.USSR arrays receives the lion's share of all taxes .and profits a .Soviet .financial
ecperts.maintain that a large part of these amounts is reinvested-by the various all-
Uriion-.1ninistries in 'industrial enterprises ' in the various , republics, .and that the .-
balsaice.:represep.ts.a contribution to general-services. These intricacies of the
Soviet budget may never be fully revealed to the world as long as the present regime
is in'power.. It-is a fact, however,.that the real income of the workers and peasants
in the. Baltic lands has declined, whereas according to data released:br the Soviets.
themselves,,. the real income , of 'the workers in the USSR has increased.-"
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