THE CAUSES OF FAMINE IN RUSSIA 53
was a medium harvest., and certainly not a failure. The state-
ment is confirmed by all the agricultural experts present in
Russia at that time. It follows that the agricultural distress in
Russia has little to do with the nature of the harvest in any
given year: the state of things as it is to-day cannot be changed
by a better or a worse harvest in one year or another. At the
same time, if a future harvest were severely injured by climatic
or other natural causes—as was the case in 1933—the catas-
trophe would once more reach vast dimensions.
Thus there are two questions. The first is whether the
communist experiment will succeed and State Socialism will
become a fact; all the world is interested in the answer. Another
question, and a most pregnant one, is what will become of the
people in the Soviet Union. It is all too clear that many
consider this a question of only secondary importance.