861.504/363: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Dickerson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:25 p.m.]
2109. With reference to the decree of June 26, 1940,40 forbidding all workers in Soviet factories and enterprises to leave their employment without permission, under penalty of imprisonment of from 2 to 4 months, the local press has published a decree dated December 26, 1941, raising the penalty for “arbitrary departure” of workers in armaments [Page 667] and related industries to from 5 to 8 years and giving jurisdiction in such cases to court martial. The present decree applies not only to ordinary factories but also to those which have been evacuated. Thus workers in armament plants evacuated to the east are obliged to move with the plant to its new location.
- See telegram No. 760, June 27, 1940, from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. iii, p. 202.↩