THE FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Grey River Argus, 3 April 1922, Page 2

THE FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

THIRTY MILLIONS STARVING. AX APPEAL BA’ II.E. HOLLAND. Since it will not now be possible for mi? to speak throughout these districts in support of the appeal for the Russian Famine Fund as I had intended, and also as an effort will shortly be made to raise funds here, I purpose asking the Editor of the “Argus” to give me ‘space to set forth some of the facts in connection with the famine, and to make a plea at the same time for the fullest measure of support for the starving people of Russia. It is needless to say that the Labour Party joins whole-heartedly in the effort to raise money in this country as does every other element in the Labour movement. Already a little has been done by the party in this direction, but still not a fraction of what is needed or what should be done. Austria, economically ruined and starving, has done immensely better than any of our British countries in. response to Russia’s agonised call for help. Let New Zealand set herself the task of removing this reproach so far as one part of the British-speak-ing world is concerned. The Famine’s Beginning. Sir Hall Caine—the world-famous novelist—in an article in the London “Daily Telegraph” (19/9/21), under the heading of “Downfall of a Nation: Story of the Russian Famine,” has shown how the Tsar’s mobilisation order of August 1, 1914 (following on his signed declaration of war against one of the Powers of Central Europe), ultimately drew 19,000,000 men, chiefly from the pluogh, “where they were necessary to the life of Russia and the well-being of Europe,” and put them to the occupations which belong to warfare, destruction, and death. Sir Hall Caine says: “The Russian Famine began, not with the drought, of 1921, but with the insanity of the Tsar’s General Staff in 1914; and by the famine that was coming the welfare of the whole world was threatened.” Because of the withdrawal of those millions of men from industry, ami the war-time drain on her resources, Russia was economically exhausted when the first revolution dethroned the Tsar and set up the bourgeois government of Prince Lvoff in May of 1917—five months before tin* Bolsheviks assumed office. Military and Economic Blockades. The Bolsheviks took over a shattered country; moreover, a country that was doomed to be militaristically and economically blockaded by both the Germans and the Allies. While yet the ‘war was at its height the Germans hammered at the ’western gates of Russia, what time the Allies were battering her eastern doors. When the war ended, the economic blockade was enforced with disastrous results —for ourselves as well as for Russia; for no one country can economically blockade another without in the end blockading its own people. Then, in addition to the wickedness of the economic blockade, time and time again Russia was attacked from without by a procession of military brigands—Koltehak, Deniken, Wrangel, and the rest. Millions of her manhood were again forced to leave the fields of production for the theatre of war—forced to fight to the death to save from destruction not alone their country but the supreme cause they espoused. How, with incredible resourcefulness and courage born of heroism, they met the invading armies one by one and inflicted decisive defeats upon them, until at last the victorious Red Armies of Russia were able to contemplate transforming themselves once more into an Army of Industrialism for the purposes of wealth production, is now one- of the commonplaces of history. A Mightier Foe. But a far mightier enemy than any that, had yet attempted to tread with ar ned heel on Russian soil was yet to eo: ie. Russia had her own internal troubles —some of them arising out of the effort to establish a new economic system —and those troubles cannot be minimised; but every other trouble became a minor circumstance, when the great drought spread itself like a. withering flame over the vast extent of the Volga Provinces, the tract of country most immediately affected stretching 800 miles from Viatka in the north to Astrakhan in the south. Dr Nansen, the noted explorer, has told us: “There had never been a drought in the memory of man such as that which smote the plains of Russia in 1921. Practically the total crop of these great provinces was lost. ’ ’ These drought-stricken provinces constitute one of the world’s rich granaries in ordinary times. Difference in the Rainfall. The average rainfall in the 10 or 12 provinces affected is not usually . high. During the months from October to June —which are regarded as the important months—the ordinary fall was 14 inches; but in these months in 1920-21 the fall was only 2| inches. In that year the harvest came up early only to be burnt down by the blazing sun. Those of us who have some knowledge of the Australian drought will be ible to appreciate the appalling effect of this great Russian rain failure. 'Province after province was transformed into a parched and blackened vaste, so dry and iron-hard that, even ,vhen rain fell in small squantities in Tune, it did not penetrate sufficiently far to affect the seeds.” In September of last year it was estimated that >00,000,000 poods (15,000,000 tons) of rain had 7’>erished in all!

Cattle and Horses Perish. In the London “Daily Herald” of July 21 last, it was stated that “the destruction of crops is practically universal, and already from lack of forage two-thirds of the cattle and horses have perished. Since the early spring there has been blazing sun which consumed every blade of grass, withered like, a flame the young crops, and set the thatched roofs on fire, so that the peasant has not even the traditional famine resource of feeding his panting horse with thatch. ... In the provinces of Samara and Saratoff not a single pood of winter corn came to maturity.” Of the country about Simbirsk it was written: “One sees only naked khaki plains, trees without leaves, fields covered with a consumed, spotted, sapless scrub that ought to have been corn, cabins without roofs, half-naked human skeletone without hope, and a brazen sky without mercy.’’ Pestilence Follows the Famine. Cholera —the product of famine—raged in most of the provinces, the elemental flight of the population from the starving centres being a potent cause of the spread of the disease. A still greater cause was said to be that “desperate people welcomed the epidemic as a means of . delivering them from from more painful forms of death.” On the Volga the Soviets were obliged to forcibly dissolve Cholera Clubs, joined by thousands of persons —mostly women —driven desperate by the death of their children. In Simbirsk on the first of July, 70 hungry peasants roped themselves together and sought death in the Volga. A large crowd of men, women, and children, who had fled from one of the Russian droughtstricken districts, arrived in a. West Siberian town; but the town had not food enough for itself, and the fugitives were driven into the plains to die. There are said to be thousands who could not eat bread if it were given to them, for they have lost their teeth entirely from hunger scurvy. Thirty Millions Dying. Out of the famine has come the record of a tragedy of a magnitude never before written into the annals of any people under the sun, the details of which I shall endeavour to deal with in another article. It is the tragedy of some 30,000,00(1 people—more than half of whom ar echildren—dying in hunger and wretchedness, little children suffering the pains of a living hell and dying agonised and tortured deaths, while the world’s Governments —whose countries hav ' food in abundance — withhold the :: rge-scale help that would bring widesj .and relief. And since the Government s will not move effectively for the savl;..; of human life, for the relief of these slowly-dying women and children, these starving men of droughtcursed Russia, the duty of providing assistance devolves upon the most humanistic of the elements among their citizens. My appeal is to the Labour movement on the one hand and to the churches on the other—both of whom have done much already, but not nearly so much as we should have done and will do.