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“Or a good civil war,” I suggested gloomily. “But,” I went on, “Soviet Russia had famines, epidemics, and a civil war and yet her population grew very rapidly, and the Bolsheviks, in 1928, took certain economic measures.”

“You want to force me into an admission that we would need rapid industrialization,” Gandhi said. “I will not be forced into such an admission. Our first problem is to get rid of British rule. Then we will be free, without restraints from the out side, to do what India requires. The British have seen fit to allow us to have some factories and also to prohibit other factories. No! For me the paramount problem is the ending of British domination.”

This, obviously, was what he wanted to talk about; the vague future interested him less. “Well,” I asked, “how do you actually see your impending civil disobedience movement? What shape will it take?”

“In the villages,” Gandhi explained, “the peasants will stop paying taxes. They will make salt despite official prohibition. This seems a small matter; the salt tax yields only a paltry sum to the British government. But refusal to pay it will give the peasants the courage to think that they are capable of independent action. Their next step will be to seize the land.”

“With violence?” I asked.