the result of bad seeds, the lack of manure, agricultural implements and horses (taken by the Soviet armies), as well as poor and negligent methods of cultivation (partly voluntary) had also fallen so as to reduce the crop to less than fifty per cent.
The following description of the agricultural position in Russia was given in one of the reports read at a meeting in Moscow on February 22, and printed in the Economic Life of February 24 (1921):
The present position of agriculture is such that the sowing area is one-third less than in pre-war years. The yield has decreased by 45 per cent. In former years the export of grain amounted to 700,000,000 poods, but in 1918 there was already a deficit in the crops amounting to about 1,000,000,000 poods. The peasantry, constituting 85 per cent, of the population, is no longer a producer, but a consumer. Not finding the necessary commodities he wants on the markets, the peasant reduced his produce to the minimum of his personal needs.
Alarmed at such figures and at the prospect of a greater and more rapid agricultural decay and food shortage the Soviet Congress in December, 1920, decided upon still more violent persecution of the peasantry. The new situation is thus summed up by a friendly correspondent, Michael Farbman:
