244	HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
honour could learn much from this collaboration of all Soviet
officials in arranging the different stages of M. Herriot's
Russian journey.
But the organization of the journey was only a part of the
task. The more difficult part remained—the propagandist and
journalistic exploitation of the journey at home and abroad;
for it was on this that the whole success of the undertaking
depended. It was here that Moscow proved almost inimitable.
The exploitation of M. Herriot's evidence was designed to
take place in four stages. The two first stages depended upon
the Soviet press apparatus, while in the last two M. Herriot
himself was cast for the role of unconscious propagandist. The
first task was to induce M. Herriot to make brief statements
when visiting Odessa, Kiev, Dnieprostroi and other places, on
subjects important to the Bolshevists. These were forthwith
transmitted to Moscow and thence to the world.
The chief object was to get M. Herriot to deny the existence
of the famine and the disastrous position of the Ukrainian
population when he was actually in such centres as Odessa,
Kiev, etc.; this would be in August, i.e. before the beginning
of the League Assembly meeting, and at a time when news of
the catastrophe was just beginning to spread in the West and
in America and Cardinal Innitzer was initiating the Russian
relief work in Vienna. Accordingly the ablest journalists had
been sent from Moscow to meet M. Herriot at Odessa, their
function being to wait for utterances from the French states-
man. Nor did they have long to wait; after the impressive
experiences at Kiev Herriot was "ripe" for making statements.
His denial of the famine and of the sufferings of the Ukrainians
made at the station at Kiev amounted to a striking success for
the Soviet regime, and further declarations about the idyllic
state of things in the Ukraine were not wanting. Daily the
Russian correspondents were able to telegraph to Moscow,
with appropriate comment, the written and spoken dicta of
Ai Herriot, and thence they were distributed throughout the