TRAGIC FAMINE

Taranaki Daily News, 29 August 1933, Page 7

TRAGIC FAMINE

five millions starving [RUSSIA’S FIVE-YEAR PLAN NEEDED WHEAT EXPORTED PEASANTS-’ AWFUL PLIGHT PILFERING FEVER SPREADS By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 9.20 p.m. London, Aug. 28. The Daily Telegraph’s special observer in'the Northern Caucasus makes a striking revelation of the famine conditions there. He says bread has completely disappeared from the diet of the peasant owner, who is resigned to despair and complete apathy. He characterises the people as starving and the peasant as practically a prisoner in his village. In some villages in the Northern Caucasus the population is almost extinct, but the authorities dp not acknowledge that a famine exists, though without doubt it is more acute than in 1921, when hundreds of thousands were saved by the American Relief Association. When sufferers implored help they were told they could eat the bread which they had hidden away. The distribution of one pound of bread daily would prevent death from starvation, yet the Soviet Government exported 1,500,000 tons of grain of the 1932 crop. “It may well be that the extermination Of the Cossack population would be advantageous and desirable to the Government,” says the correspondent. “One meets people with their legs swollen by starvation, and others so weak that they

lie about the roads awaiting death.

Bodies are even seen in the streets of the towns, and there is grave danger of an epidemic from these circumstances.” A special correspondent of the Daily Express says five million Russians are facing death ’ from starvation owing to the tragic weakness of the. Soviet’s second Five-Year-Plan. Managers and workers anxious to provide for their families steal whatever they can. The pilfering fever is of such proportions that goods cannot be transported in Russia unless accompanied by armed guards. Tractors arrive on the farms with most of the valuable parts stolen on the road.