THE CATASTROPHE 77
71934* in the issue in which it reported the opening
WLoscow party meeting, Pravda contained a report
clearly that the stocks of grain in the south were in
!: to feed the peasants on the collective farms. Seekin
le explanation of this "strange phenomenon/5 it fe
he "faulty distribution35 of the stocks of grain collected
1 in full various official decrees to prove that it was th
iie population, and not the Government. The hungr
of the collective farms were reminded that they ha<
to increase their stocks of corn by setting up certai
so that it was their own fault if the Communis
ions of the cities and the industrial centres succeedec
ing more than their fair share by "inflating" their owi
The fact, however, was that, as in the previous year
ailable grain was simply taken away from the peasant
ocal organizations.
uel mockery of the starving peasant population impliec
tatements is best seen from certain instances quotec
a to show that the peasants of the collective farms wen
*s to blame for their distress. "Some examples o:
n followed by the collective farms in the Kiev districi
• how the working days were calculated there." These
surprising facts discovered: "In the Shevtschenkc
farm in the Petrovsk district, the village doctor was
i for fifty-four working days, for no ascertainable
A number of similar examples are then quoted. Sc
ing peasants are told that they have been wasting
n by unjustified distributions to such prikhlebateli as
t doctor, etc. (It is notorious, by the way, that if any-
a difficult position it is village doctors and other
kers.)
r argument put forward by Pravda to prove that
itants are to blame for the existing state of things is
tarily significant. The paper claims that **in dozens
:s in the Ukraine, the Azov-Black Sea district, the