Russian Scorched Earth Policy Proving Successful

[Globalization41]

Rome, By Telephone to The New York
Times, Sunday, August 17, 1941: Evidence
that the Russian "scorched earth" policy is
proving highly successful continues to be given
by the Italian press. Today several newspapers
profess to be horrified. The policy will not
stop the Germans they say. It will only result
in the starvation of millions of Russians. ...
The Lavoro Fascisto says that the system is
"being perfected everyday." ... "The advancing
German troops find nothing but ruins," it says,
"and the more they push into the interior, the
more complete is the devastation. The
destruction is systematic. No city, no village, no
group of houses is spared. Other nations, other
people, other territories have suffered the
horrors of war, but nowhere has there been
anything like what has happened in Russia."

Moscow, United Press, The New York Times,
Sunday, August 17, 1941: A communique by
the Soviet Information Bureau today said that
hundreds of thousands of Soviet workers,
collective farmers, and intellectuals were taking
intensive training in their spare time to get
ready, if need be "to go to the front to fight
German fascism." ... The communique listed
many instances. Workers of Moscow's
Krasnaya Presnya works, for example, were
studying modern weapons and tactics, while
150 workers of the Ivanovo textile mill had
mastered "the technique of bayonet fighting."
... Other spare-time pursuits, it added, were
learning how to become machine-gunners,
radio operators, and air raid and anti-chemical
defense workers.

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]