88 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
that in Western Siberia the fulfilment percentage of the
delivery plan had increased since October i, i.e. in less than
three weeks, from 40 (or 53) to no less than 83 (or 93). The State
had thus won a decisive victory over the starving peasants in
their struggle for existence. It is the same result as was obtained
in White Russia in December 1932, when the fulfilment of
the delivery plan reached 106 per cent, and a large part of the
population died of starvation. We have here another proof of
the fact that, if Moscow succeeds, as in 1933^ in collecting the
grain required for its purposes, this is no proof that the food
position as a whole is normal, still less that it has improved.
On the contrary, the prosecution of the "unprecedented
military offensive" against the population of the agricultural
districts, and the employment of the most extreme terroristic
measures, even the execution of Soviet officials, only proves-
that the requisite amount could be collected in 1934 only with
the greatest difficulties and with the heaviest sacrifices on the
part of the agricultural population. It further confirms the
statements of eyewitnesses that a large part of this population
had been deprived of the minimum supplies of grain necessary
to support life even before the end of 1934.
Let us turn now to the position in the Ukraine, the Volga
district and other important agricultural regions. I mentioned
above the misleading Moscow report, published in the summer
of 1934, that the harvest would reach 89,000,000 tons. What
are the actual facts? The official Moscow figures do not permit
of an answer, because the Government publishes no authentic
figures for the harvest.1 But we know that as late as September
the delivery quotas for some of the most important districts,
e.g. the Volga district, Western Siberia, the Southern Ukraine,
etc., were most unsatisfactory and suddenly shot up only when
a "firm hand" was employed for collecting the grain. We know
further from Postyschev's and Kossior's evidence, as well as
from an official Kiev report on the "preliminary" agricultural
1 The real nature of the Soviet statistics is dealt with in detail elsewhere.