Agriculture in Russia The report on collectivized agriculture in the
Soviet Union published by the London School of Slavonic Studies is not to be summarily dismissed on the ground that the authors of it have no recent personal experience of condi- tions in Russia, or that they are politically opposed to the Soviet .Government. The document is based almost entirely on published official documents or speeches by the Soviet leaders, its treatment is objective, and its conclusions depressing. It is stated that on the best collective farms the surplus of grain remaining to the peasants is only about a third of their total production, and numbers of peasants are concealing grain systemati- cally in spite of the drastic steps taken against any found so offending. There is said to be Less grain per head of the population available than in 1913, and in view of the special privileges granted to industrial workers and the Red Army and the demands for export, it follows that masses of the peasants themselves are left not much above the starvation level. Part at least of the 3,000,000 deaths from famine, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke recently, must be attributed to breakdown of organization, though most may be due primarily to drought and like natural causes.
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