THE STRUGGLE OF THE NATIONALITIES 149
in question, and certainly not to "racial Chauvinism/5 but far
more than anything to the starvation and economic ruin of
the population as a result of collectivization. As for the vaunted
freedom and independence of the local Soviet republics, he
declares that the head of such a republic is entirely dependent
on the instructions and the dominating influence of the Soviet
Government. The conduct of the delegates of Moscow in the
non-Russian areas he characterizes by comparing them with
Skrypnik, for years president of the Ukrainian federal republics.
"This old revolutionary/3 he writes, "was not so hard-hearted
as many of the young men whom Stalin sent into the Ukraine
with instructions to raise the last bushel of corn there; in fact,
to carry out collectivization even at the cost of a famine,,.."
Mr. Chamberlin sums up his judgment as follows: "The
Soviet Government, along with the other Powers which adhered
to the Kellogg Pact, has renounced war as an instrument of
national policy. But there are no humanitarian restrictions in
the ruthless class war which, in the name of Socialism, it has
been waging on a considerable part of its own peasant popu-
lation; and it has employed famine as an instrument of national
policy on an unprecedented scale and in an unprecedented
way."1
These comments of a distinguished writer, whose authority
is undisputed by friend and foe, require no elaboration*
So it is that in the middle of the twentieth century, at a time
when influential Soviet statesmen are praising the Soviet Union
as a factor making for peace, a systematic war of destruction
is proceeding in the interior of Russia—a war carried on not
with artillery and machine-guns, but by banishments, execu-
tions and famine. I think I have shown that this war is directed
in particular against the members of the various nationalities,
millions of whom have already been sacrificed to It.
1 Christian Science Monitor, May 29,1934.