I76 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
realities, has been described by Basseches in a Moscow report
published in the Neue Freie Presse (November 17,1933):
"Russia is still in distress. I can still see in my mind's eye
hundreds lying in the railway stations of the Northern Caucasus
and the Urals, underfed, often miserably clad, waiting for days
and weeks to find a seat in the train. The regime promises new
trains, new lofty stations. But hunger has yet to be overcome
in the Ukraine. Tremendous efforts are needed to supply
millions of people with the barest necessities.
"But Moscow's propaganda posters promise that next year
will see the fulfilment of every wish, even the most fantastic.
Therein lies their political importance. That is the new political
line of the Soviets. The Russian is tired; he would prefer
bread to macadamized roads and butter to mammoth locomo-
tives. The State complies, and produces this decorative pro-
paganda to show that the dictatorial regime is at length going
to attend to the subjects' personal needs. The red poster
showing a macadamized road will perhaps be replaced to-
morrow by a huge red canal lock with a smart steamer going
through it—an allegory of the Stalin canal, the new waterway
between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
"As yet every dwelling in Moscow displays a collection'of
bell-pulls and brass plates to show that in every flat where
formerly one family lived each room now shelters a numerous
family. But the propaganda posters promise impressive blocks
of flats. On May I the city was decorated with accounts of
what the heavy industry has done and what was achieved
during the five-year plan/*
This account^ together with the details given earlier in the
book, shows that the Soviet Government is enabled, by
means of the system of rationing and tie compulsory collection
of grain, to inflict the severest injury on any groups of people
incurring its displeasure, if not actually to annihilate them. No
special individual persecution is necessary. The way in which
this "indirect method" is applied to the peasants in the