Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/63

 sale dealers and myesochinki should be allowed to carry on their trade as they like. It is easy to understand why the tradesmen are interested in the repeal of the bread monopoly; in some way or another this monopoly hinders them from fleecing the consumer. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the present state of things is absurd: the rich calmly go on eating white bread, buying it in smuggler fashion; that they have black bread in plenty there is no question. They just pay considerably more and get everything they want. Who helps them in this? The speculators, of course. What they are anxious about is not to feed the population, but to grab a little more money, to stuff a little more, into their pockets, and it is, of course, the rich, not the poor, that can give more. That is why the speculators bring bread not to those localities where it is most needed, but to where they get paid most. And, so far, it has not been possible to put an end to this. Hence it is clear that to organise a systematic distribution of bread, the bread monopoly must be left intact, as well as the food committees and the hoards of food, and further, this monopoly must be carried out in the strictest manner, speculators must be dealt with without mercy, private traders must be made to understand that they dare not make money out of a national calamity, disturbing the general plan. The trouble at the present time is in the fact that the bread monopoly is imperfectly carried out, while contraband private trading is thriving, and not in the fact that there is a monopoly. And that, at a time when there is so little bread, when the Germans have occupied the richest provinces; at a time when in many places grain stored for seeds has been eaten up, when the fields remain uncultivated and people are starving! Every piece of bread is precious, every pound of flour and grain is priceless. And just for this very reason everything must be strictly registered, so that not a crumb be wasted, and that all the bread be distributed evenly, and that the rich should not be privileged in any way. This, we repeat, can be done and will be attained if the workers only set to work promptly, if they aid the working organisers in their task, if they help to catch speculators and cheats.

Unfortunately, there are quite a number of people not filled