I6 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
foreigners living in Moscow or Petrograd to exist in a kind of
oasis, having enough, indeed plenty, to eat every day and never
becoming aware of the distress of a less privileged class of
humanity. The members of this class are in such a state of
mental distress—they are so keenly aware of their declassementy
their membership of a different world—that they would not
venture to appeal to their relatives or to members of the more
fortunate classes even if the Ogpu allowed it. Hunger, continual
undernourishment, tyranny and unending fear make these
people easily governed slaves—especially when malnutrition has
become chronic.
The psychological state of these permanently hungry and
harried people would certainly demand a chapter to itself.
No appeals come from them, no cries for help, no shrieks of
despair; which explains why there is here no potential source
of revolt. But equally these humiliated wretches know no
laughter and no joy, and their look—no other comparison is
possible—is that of a beaten dog. In those days in Petrograd I
realized for the first time the duty and the responsibility which
rests on all those who succeed in escaping into another world,
and who know from their own experience the dreadful suf-
ferings to which all those are exposed who live in the Russian
famine areas.
In those sunny, spring days of 1921 the contrast between
the mass of distressed people and the life of the privileged
classes—by which I mean especially the members of the first
foreign delegations in the Soviet State—was particularly
striking. The result of the extraordinary conditions prevailing
was that many of the foreigners attached to various delegations
in Moscow participated in the buying-up of Russia. In exchange
for spirits, food or foreign exchange, carpets, paintings and
jewels could be obtained and enormous profits made in the
shortest time. Thus many of the first foreigners who came to
Russia in 1919 as members of economic commissions, technical
delegations, etc., became the abettors of the regime in the sale