Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/75

 the crop failure last year. It is said that every thirty years or so Russia experiences a series of consecutive drought years. The present is one of such periods. I remember the last one vividly through seeing, when a bit of a boy, the flag-bedecked wheat ships steaming down the Delaware River bearing America's gifts to starving Russia. Two years ago the harvest was a bountiful one, but it was practically destroyed by the white-guard invaders of Kolchak and others, and no reserves were left over from it.

So serious was the crop failure last year that Ballod, an eminent German economist, declared it to be many times worse than during the famine period of the early 90s, above referred to. He prophesied that millions would die from starvation and that the Soviet Government probably would not survive the winter. But these dark forebodings did not come true. Had there been in force the usual capitalistic grab-all-he-who-can system, with some getting too much to eat and others too little, no doubt great numbers would have actually perished from hunger. But with the prevailing rigid method of food rationing the crisis was safely gotten over: famine was averted and the Soviet Government did not fall. Nor is it likely to fall in the present critical period; the same rationing system that pulled it through before will do so again.

In apportioning out the food supply to the people in the cities several classes of rations, or "puyoks," are used. These are calculated according to the needs of respective industrial and social groups receiving them. There are rations for children, the aged, the sick, manual laborers, brain workers, diplomats, etc. The children, the manual laborers, and the diplomats get the most of the best food: the children because they need it to build their bodies and to lay the foundation for future rugged constitutions; the manual laborers because they burn up more food fuel in their work than do people in other walks of life; and the diplomats, which include foreign delegates to the congresses, etc., because they are physically and psychologically unable to subsist upon the slim fare on which the gallant Russian working class are fighting their way to freedom. Everyone adds as best he can to his Government rations