CHAPTER VIII
THE PROBLEM OF RENDERING ASSISTANCE
PRECEDING chapters have shown why the various states and
also the public opinion of the world have hardly concerned
themselves with the Russian catastrophe. They have shown,
too, that Soviet wishes and the interests of the states have
been at one on this question. Only so could it happen that,
while the famine was taking so heavy a toll of human life, the
agricultural districts abroad were positively "suffering55 from
a surplus of grain (in certain regions, e.g. in Kansas, industry
used corn and maize for fuel) and numbers of vessels which
might have brought the surplus grain in a few weeks to
Odessa, Nikolaiev, Rostov, etc., were laid up unoccupied.
Despite the attitude of Moscow, however, and the indifference,
indeed opposition, of most of the states, or rather of their
Governments, to the question of the Russian famine being taken
up, there were forces available which urged a general relief
undertaking—a work of pure charity—on behalf of the people
perishing in the Soviet Union. That their efforts have hitherto
been unsuccessful is doubtless a sign of the times in which
we live.
Before discussing these efforts to bring assistance to the
starving populations in the Soviet Union during the last few
years, I must explain that there is a fundamental difference
between the two classes of victims of the events in Russia.
First, there are those who> rightly or wrongly, are treated as
enemies and offenders against the State and are openly opposed^
persecuted, even executed, as such. Their numbers are appal-
lingly large. Any assistance for members of this class was
naturally restricted within narrow limits. Nevertheless, a good
deal was done for them during the earlier period of the Soviet
regime. In this connection a courageous woman must not be