Abstract

Russia from a Car Window: IV. The Unfolding of a Great Drama

This article reports on economic conditions in the Soviet Union. Whereas the five-year plan called for 36,000 collective farms in 1929, there are instead 57,000. Whatever is reported, from whatever source, as to agricultural progress, it must never be forgotten by American readers that the figures cited connote an enormous amount of suffering and heartbreak. As to the movements of population, Leningrad, which had 1,905,589 inhabitants before the war, sank to 722,000 at the end of the civil war, so great was the mortality and the exodus from that stricken city. During the short period of five years the colossal sum of 64,600,000,000 rubles is being wrung out of the labor of poor, long-suffering people.