56 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
neglected fields, the complete absence of cattle. It would be
less than the truth, he wrote in March, to say that there was a
famine in the most fertile areas of Russia. There was, he said,
not only hunger, but also—and this was true also of the north—
a state of war and of military occupation. The grain collections
in the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus had been carried
out with such ruthlessness and brutality that the peasants
were left completely without bread. Thousands were expelled,
and in some instances the entire population of a village was
sent to do forced labour in the forests of the north.
Elsewhere he describes the "everyday sight" of whole
parties of men and women, so-called kulaks, being dragged
along in thd custody of armed guards. Only the military and
the G.P.U. officiate—i.e. those engaged in the forcible collection
of grain—had enough to eat. All the rest had to go hungry.
In December 1932 the position of the peasants had farther
deteriorated. Almost simultaneously with the beginning of
the struggle with the Ukrainians, the White Russians and
other nationalities, the Government resolved on much severer
measures than hitherto for the exploitation of the peasantry.
Under such slogans as the pursuit of "saboteurs," "counter-
revolutionaries," "enemies of the State" and so on, stronger
pressure was exercised to extract from the peasants the grain,
they still possessed. Moscow exerted itself to the uttermost to
seize the peasant's last reserves for the requirements of a
privileged category and for the fulfilment of the five-year plan;
in other words, for the maintenance of exports. From now on
even those peasants who hitherto had been best off began to
suffer ftom the famine. Mr. Muggeridge describes the exodus
of the peasants from the villages to seek help in the towns. But
they gained nothing from this; on the contrary, a decree about
the issue of passports drove thousands, whose presence in the
cities was consideredundesirable, out into the country—to death.
Mr. Muggeridge then tells us, in a gripping passage, how,
on his return to Moscow, he heard an address by Stalin at a