A Food CrIsis in Russia Reports from various quarters, including
the latest memorandum of the Birmingham University investigators into economic conditions in Russia, lay-
stress on the food difficulties in the Soviet Union. That there is some truth in them is clear ; how much, it is hard to estimate. There has been no agricultural development comparable with the industrial develop- ment, which by drawing off workers from the country to the towns has left a relatively smaller rural population to feed a relatively larger urban population. Under proper organization there should be no difficulty about that in a country like Russia, with its potential export surplus of wheat and other cereals, but there have been a good many breakdowns in the collective farm system, sustained discontent on the part of the peasants with the terms on which the State takes over- their" produce, and a great many hitches in distribution. But all this means no more than that a good deal of Russia will go hungry. Those who see in it either the seeds of a revolt against the system or a general break- down of the system are quite certainly wrong. The system is failing badly at points, and Russians by the million feel the effect of the failure. But the Russian is inured to suffering, and his capacity for it is ahnest infinite. Neither in town nor in conntry, is the Stalin regime threatened by a food shortaze.
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