THE CATASTROPHE 95
if anything, deteriorated through the new arrangements and
the abolition of the bread cards. The new system greatly
increases the price of the bread, which used to be handed out
to the holders of bread cards.
A correspondent of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse (January
27a *935) describes the effects of this innovation as follows:
"As from January i the free sale of bread, flour and other
rationed foodstuffs has begun. If part of the population were
pleased to be relieved of this bureaucratic fetter, yet the pleasure
was very mixed. There can be no doubt that the abolition of
the bread cards does material injury to the ill-paid. The price
of rationed bread has been increased, and that of bread formerly
sold without restriction has been lowered. Thus the cost of
living of highly paid officials,, who were not content with their
card ration and bought the better qualities for sale in the State
shops, has somewhat declined. But for workmen,, who used to
obtain enough from their bread cards alone, it has considerably
increased. Wages have been somewhat raised, but the largest
increase is 24 roubles a month. A worker's family of four spent
last year 54 roubles per month on bread. To-day an equal
quantity costs 90 roubles."
A very large profit—and this is probably the real purpose of
the change—is made by the State, which notoriously takes their
. grain from the peasants at a very low price. Admittedly the
State has promised employees and workers higher wages as
an alleged equivalent for the increase in the price of bread
over the bread-card price. But these increases^ as a Moscow
radio talk put it, would be adapted to individual conditions
and above all to the quality of the individual's work: in other
words, they would be given arbitrarily, in accordance with the
fundamental principle of the Soviet regime.
The result is that the Soviet regime only secured a new
means of tyrannizing over individual groups and categories
of the population. More than ever is Moscow able to deter-
mine the fate of individual groups of the urban population.