Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/69

 Rh "Once an old lady went to visit an old peasant widow who had on that same day buried her only son. The lady was shocked to find the old peasant woman eating shchi, and angrily asked her whether she loved her son and how it was possible for her to have an appetite under the circumstances. 'Vasia is dead,' answered the widow in a low voice, and the tears began again to run down her hollow cheeks. 'My end is therefore come too. But the shchi shouldn't be wasted; the salt had been already put in it.'"

It will be said: this was long ago, and matters must have improved since then. But when all allowances are made, this story confirms the statement that the meals of a Russian peasant were never really plentiful!

With the war, however, a great change began in the consumption of the peasants. They became reluctant to sell their grain and used it more and more for themselves. This reluctance to sell increased with every year of the war—not only in accordance with the maxim that "l'appétit vient en mangeant," but for a simple economic reason. The peasants discovered, by and by, that in spite of the large sums of money they could get for their products they were really no better off. On the contrary, they found that their condition was becoming worse; that it was becoming more and more difficult to buy for money the necessities of their peasant life and work. Money had become useless to them. They would have been glad to exchange their grain for the things they needed, but these they could not buy in the market, and the State was equally unable to provide them. Thus, at the same time they not only consumed more of their grain and cattle themselves, but actually had less and less economic inducement to produce more than they needed for their own subsistence.

So we see that the disorganisation of Russian agriculture is as little a puzzle as her economic exhaustion and the ruin of her industry and transport. But I ought not to leave this subject without indicating