EUROPE: Coal Is the Tyrant

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The Poles Got Orders. Fortunately, King Coal's tyranny knows no Iron Curtain. Gross coal output is rising, especially in Red Poland, which has replaced Britain as Europe's No. 1 exporter (31 million tons in 1950). But the Russian war machine gulps more coal and steel than the U.S.S.R. can produce; to keep it rolling, the Reds are squeezing every bit of production they can get out of the satellite mines and mills. The Poles got orders to step up coal production by one-third. Hungarian playwrights and poets have been told to forget such themes as "love" and "adventure" and to concentrate instead on "what is more important to the People's Republic: getting more coal out of the ground."

To dig more coal, the Communists have organized a vast slave labor program. Polish mines have been reinforced by convicts, military conscripts, students who fail their examinations and members of the SP (Service to Poland) youth organization. Czechoslovakia drafted 77,500 minor bureaucrats into the pits in one sweeping purge. The Communists get coal by a combination of threats, rewards ("Banner of Labor" decorations), bonuses, extra food, and discipline.

The West, which balks at the more successful Communist methods, could only counter with pleas to the miners, better working conditions for them, more skill in production, less waste in consumption, and as a last resort—that old popular refrain, help from the U.S. This week in Paris, the Council of Ministers of 18 Western nations will gather for an emergency session on coal. Unless their experts make wise and bold plans, Europe's dependence on U.S. coal will remain "shocking."