Russia possessed food in abundance, being far better off in this respect than any other belligerent on either side, yet Russia was in the grip of famine. There was a vast surplus of food grains and cereals over and above the requirements of the army and the civilian population, yet there was wide-spread hunger. Prices rose to impossible levels. The most astonishing anarchy and disorganization characterized the administration of the food-supply. It was possible to get fresh butter within an hour's journey from Moscow for twenty-five cents a pound, but in Moscow the price was two and a half dollars a pound. Here, as throughout the nation, incompetence was reinforced by corruption and pro-German treachery. Many writers have called attention to the fact that even in normal times the enormous exportation of food grains in Russia went on side by side with per capita underconsumption by the peasants whose labor produced the great harvests, amounting to not less than 30 per cent. Now, of course, conditions were far worse. When the government was urged to call a convention of national leaders to deal with the food situation it stubbornly refused. More than that, it made war upon the only organizations which were staving off famine and making it possible for the nation to endure. Every conceivable obstacle was placed in the way of the National Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Cities; the co-operative associations, which were rendering valuable service in meeting the distress of working-men's families, were obstructed and restricted in every possible way, their national offices being closed by the police. The officials of the labor-unions who were co-operating with employers in substituting arbitration in place of strikes, establishing soup-kitchens and relief funds, and doing other similar work to keep the nation alive, were singled out for arrest and imprisonment. The Black Hundreds were perniciously active in all this oppression and in the treacherous advocacy of a separate peace with Germany. In October, 1916, a conference of chairmen of province zemstvos adopted and published a resolution which declared: The tormenting and horrifying suspicion, the sinister rumors of perfidy and treason, of dark forces working in favor of Germany to destroy the unity of the nation, to sow discord and thus prepare conditions for an ignominious peace, have now reached the clear certainty that the hand of the enemy secretly influences the affairs of our state. VI