The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-08-30
OUR TASK IN RUSSIA.

| Reports from MOSCOW Indicate Lndt
1 the business of relieving the needs OF
| tho starving Russians is under way.
Were there an efficient government
1 in Russia; were there surpluses in
| other than the afflicted regions o.
/ Russia; were the means of transpor-
tation in running order; were Russia
not isolated from the entire civilized
world by the Bolshevist regime which
declared itself in permanent war
against democratic civilization, Rus
STA would be able to help herself in
combating the results of the drouth,
and the other nations would be in n
better position to help her.
Now. when the economic catas-
trophe comes as the logical result of
the Bolshevist experiments, criminally
performed upon the unwilling body
of Russia, the Bolsheviki themselves
are becoming more and more frank
in their admissions and confessions.
Official Bolshevist statements ac-
knowledge what Secretary Hoover ad-
mirably expressed as the situation in
his communication to former Presi-
dent Ador of Switzerland. saying that
the causes of the famine are such
that they will be recurrent every year
until there is much further change in
the economic system OF Russia"
The story of how Russia was
brought to her present plight is sim
pie and quickly told. Lenin and
Trot8lIy were imbued with the idea
that the way to help the people was
to take from those who have and give
to those who have not. They began
by Selling the accumulated savings of
the rich. They seized the banks and
the funds In the public treasury-all
of the accumulated savings of cen
turtles. They seized the railroads and
large industries-wrecking transport
tation and destroying production.
Having conquered large capitalism
they fell upon the farmers-the only
capitalists remaining in Russia. They
seized the surplus products of the
farm, often leaving the farmers fam
lily without provisions to carry them
over the season. and without seed for
the next planting. They have been
living upon and have lived up the ma
tons resources, the fruit of the toll
of ITS people for hundreds of years.,
1t was simply a process of colossal or
ganized loot.
The effect was what everybody
might have foreseen. Not only the
talists exclaimed in despair Whats
the useH' and quit production. The
looted country is paying the inevitable
penalty.
The present famine comes as the
elimination of four years of civil war,
of privations, and even of slow starva-
ton, thruout the entire territory of
Russia. At the same time, this is al
ready the second year. of crop failure
in central Russia. According to the
official Bolshevist "Pravda'' of recent
date, "as a result of the drouth ana
the crop failure. famine is raging now
among a population numbering about
$4,000, 0O0."
The situation is made worse by the
fact that, due to the destruction of
transport and the shrinkage in area
under agricultural cultivation, the
other regions of Russia are unable to
help those affected by the famine. In
his address before the eighth congress
of Soviets, Trotzky himself acknow!-
edged that about $4,000 miles of
Russian railroads are destroyed, SO
that only the central part, about 49,
600 miles, remains intact. Three thou
sand bridges and 5000 telephones
and telegraphs have also been de-
stroyed, and We have about 81 per
cent of sick locomotives"
Speaking at the recent Moscow
conference of the communist party,
Kameneff, the president of the Mos
COW Soviet and the chairman of the
AllRussian commission for combat
ing famine, said, according to the
official Bolshevist "Pravda," that LAS
result of our food levies, there is a
terrible shrinkage of the area under
agricultural cultivation, the decrease
amounting to about 67.5oO,0O acres.
We have reached the stage where the
incentive for developing their farms
has almost disappeared among the
peasants" The Bolshevist policy, said
Kameneff, has resulted In ''agricul-
ture having decreased to half of its
former extent. while the industries,
even according to an optimistic esti-
mate, produce only one-seventh If
what was produced before"
W. Jet Lauck, consulting econo-