32	HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
and other grains. Accordingly, despite the decline of agri-
culture, the remnants of the harvest ought .to have sufficed at
least to keep the peasants alive. Here we come to the imme-
diate cause of the tragedy which is being enacted in the Russian
agricultural districts.
Apart from the process described above, leading to the ruin
of agriculture, the diminution of the cultivated areas, the
declining yield, the disastrous loss of cattle, and the constant
difficulties in garnering the harvest, it must be pointed out
that the peasants of the agricultural districts are deprived of
almost the whole yield of the harvest through the system of
compulsory surrender. This means the total exhaustion of the
producers, with the consequence that not even the minimum of
grain and other food required to sustain life is left them. The
State demands the surrender of impossible amounts of grain:
and the peasant resists this pressure from the State by the only
possible means—sabotage. Gareth Jones's explanation of the
psychological causes of the peasants5 passive resistance seems
very apt. He writes that anyone who has the blood of a Welsh
farmer in his veins would understand what it means for a
peasant to be deprived of his land. The Russian farmers
wanted to own their land, and if it were taken away they
refused to work.
What are the reasons that induce the Soviet Government to
pursue a policy which can only be described as the systematic
starvation of the agricultural population? Two reasons musl
,be borne in mind to appreciate in its full scope the agricultura
policy of the State, which in normal circumstances would Be
entirely unintelligible. First, the absolute necessity of providing
the populations of the districts to which grain has to be trans-
ported, especially the capitals and industrial centres, with th<
necessities of life; secondly, the necessity of keeping alive th<
industrial system, the real foundation of the Communis
State, by exporting—in order, with the help of foreign currency
to obtain the foreign fuel and raw material essential for industq