FAMINE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 13 May 1925, Page 7

FAMINE.

MENACE IN RUSSIA

FAILURE OF SPRING CHOPS

CHILDREN AT STARVATION POINT.

Reports regarding the precarious position of the population as the result of the new famine which is spreading all over Soviet Russia are being daily published, says the Russian correspondent of the London Morning Rost, in the Bolshevist official Press, which frankly admits that unless the Soviet Government succeeds in importing and distributing enormous quantities, of grain and flour from abroad a situation much more serious and menacing than that of 1921 is bound to reveal itself in the summer of this year. The Kharkoff “Communist” of March 12 contains appalling revealations regarding the fate of over 750,000 children who are literally starving i n the Ukraine. The facts published bv the Soviet official organs are in direct contradiction of the statements regarding the welfare of children under the Soviet regime made by the British Trades [Tnion Delegation in its report on, its visit to the Soviet paradise. According to the “Communist” over 420,000 children are gradually dying from starvation and exhaustion in the government of Kharkoff, and another 230,000 are faced with the same fate in the government of Odessa. Up to .the present the Soviet authorities have only succeeded in organising partial relief for 91,000, while the remaining 660,000 are being left to starve. The “Communist” adds:

“The failure of the crops has first of all affected the children jn Kharkoff, Donetz, Odessa., Podolsk, and Volhynia provinces. In the course of the last few months the number of inhabitants who are literally* starving is growing daily, but it is nothing compared with the number of those who will he starving in April and May.” In the government of Tamboff one-third of the sow r n area was destroyed last autumn by the drought, and now the winter-sown' crops have practically all been destroyed also, owing to the lack of snow. In the government of Tavriz 115,000 inhabitants have been officially registered as starving. According to the “Ekonomiclieskaya Zhizri,” the spring crops in the government of Smolensk are also completely destroyed The Soviet Commissary of Finance, Sokolnikoff, stated in an interview to representatives of the Berlin Press that notwithstanding the great strain on Soviete resources created by the necessary of purchasing grain and flour abroad instead of exporting these commodities the state of Soviet finance was “quite satisfactory.” Sokolnikoff made the following interesting admissions: “The total value of the gold reserves of the Soviet Government amount to about 450,000,000 gold rubles (£45,000,009). In this sum are not included the jewels and precious stones which at one time formed the property of the late Imperial Family, and the value of which exceeds 1.000,000,000 gold rubles (£100,00,000). To this one must also add the yield of gold from our gold mines which in 1924 equalled about 30.090.000 gold rubles.” Sokolnikoff evidently forgot to add that the “jewel reserve fund” is not at the disposal of the Soviet. Government, but was long ago set aside by Lenin for the needs of the Communist Internationale and its foreign propaganda.