Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/198

172 bulk of the city population), find themselves, may be called either increased cost of living, or depreciation of money.

No less important is the economic crisis, which has had its most marked effects again, upon persons with "fixed incomes," Russian economic life is based on rural economy. And the latter has suddenly undergone a tremendous change. The enormous sums of money,—almost one and half billion roubles,—which the population of the country annually spent for drink, now remain in their hands. At the same time, hundreds of millions of roubles come into the peasants' hands as pensions, money paid to the families of militiamen, and as payments for supplies delivered to the War Department. The enormously increased deposits received by the savings institutions continue to grow. Despite the rapidly rising prices for such articles as dry-goods, the peasants now purchase larger quantities of them than they did formerly, even in the most successful years.

In former days, it should be noted, the rural population not only cut down its needs, but it actually starved. There is nothing strange, therefore, in the fact that this population first of all began to satisfy its need of food products, i. e., it ceased to throw its supplies of these products upon the municipal markets. Last summer the writer had occasion to spend some time in a village in one of the northern governments, which he had visited annually for many years. Approaching a group of peasants, who were just through with their breakfast and morning rest, he found that the place where they were sitting was strewn with egg shells. Now, he had never before seen peasants in this locality eat eggs, except on holidays, or as a special delicacy. And those were the times when eggs were worth about one copeck each. At present, peasants refuse to sell them at three copecks.

In the same locality, the writer had occasion to observe another interesting phenomenon. Hemp-growing is quite common there. Ordinarily, the work of preparing hemp is done by women and girls. This work is not difficult and not tiresome, but it is dusty, and the women are compelled to work in the rain. The usual wages paid are from 35 to 40 copecks per day. Now it is impossible to find workers for 1 rouble and 20 copecks. And this is so because they refuse to work under conditions which compel them to breathe dust and remain out in the rain. An economic crisis always entails an increase in the cost of living, as a consequence of a disturbance in the established economic relations. Of course, human cupidity takes advantage of such an economic disarrangement of things. But no system of