232 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
children and youthful criminals, and once again were "sur-
prised." Perhaps they had assumed that they would receive
the saddest impressions of their visit to Kharkov; instead of
which they found "music and flowers." (Contrast the descrip-
tion of the position at Kharkov at the time, particularly of
the children, given elsewhere in this volume, as well as the
illustrations, which all show the state of affairs in the summer
of 1933 in and around Kharkov.)
In the afternoon M. Herriot visited the Shevtschenko
Museum to study, once again "in detail," the development of
Ukrainian culture. Next there followed the inspection of a tractor
factory "in every detail"—indeed, this expression is applied to
practically every one of M. Herriot's visits and conversations.
Finally there was a meeting with members of the Ukrainian
Soviet Government and "representatives of local society."
During the banquet M. Herriot conversed with Comrade
Tschubar, the President of the Council of Ukrainian Com-
missaries, on the collectivization of peasants. He took the
opportunity to expound his view that neither the reforms of
1861 nor those of Stolypin in more recent times could possibly
have improved the hard lot of the Russian peasantry—a view
frequently repeated in articles after his return from Russia. To
this view of a very complicated and long discussed question he
added the quickly formed judgment that "only the Communist
revolution could provide a favourable solution of the problem."
This sweeping judgment was made at a time when the peasantry
of the Ukraine and elsewhere was fighting for mere existence.
M. Herriot was particularly favourably impressed by
Kharkov; his later articles expressed the view that it was "one
of the best administered of cities." Apparently he did not know
that at Kharkov^ as at Kiev, starving people were lying in the
streets until just before his arrival, and that almost every other
house was the scene of dreadful tragedies owing to passport
and other Government regulations.
The next day, August 29, was destined to be one of par-