The Practice and Theory of BolshevismRussell, Bertrand
Religion
The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
Russell, Bertrand
Communism -- Soviet Union -- History; Soviet Union -- Social conditions
The problem of inducing the peasants to feed the towns is one which
Russia shares with Central Europe, and from what one hears Russia has
been less unsuccessful than some other countries in dealing with this
problem. For the Soviet Government, the problem is mainly concentrated
in Moscow and Petrograd; the other towns are not very large, and are
mostly in the centre of rich agricultural districts. It is true that
in the North even the rural population normally depends upon food from
more southerly districts; but the northern population is small. It is
commonly said that the problem of feeding Moscow and Petrograd is a
transport problem, but I think this is only partially true. There is,
of course, a grave deficiency of rolling-stock, especially of
locomotives in good repair. But Moscow is surrounded by very good
land. In the course of a day's motoring in the neighbourhood, I saw
enough cows to supply milk to the whole child population of Moscow,
although what I had come to see was children's sanatoria, not farms.
All kinds of food can be bought in the market at high prices. I
travelled over a considerable extent of Russian railways, and saw a
fair number of goods trains. For all these reasons, I feel convinced
that the share of the transport problem in the food difficulties has
been exaggerated. Of course transport plays a larger part in the
shortage in Petrograd than in Moscow, because food comes mainly from
south of Moscow. In Petrograd, most of the people one sees in the
streets show obvious signs of under-feeding. In Moscow, the visible
signs are much less frequent, but there is no doubt that
under-feeding, though not actual starvation, is nearly universal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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