Russia & The Struggle for Peace/Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DISORGANISATION OF
AGRICULTURE
LET us now see how the war affected the other great component of Russia's national economy—her agriculture. If the exhaustion of industry was not appreciatel till the very last hour, it is little wonder that the exhaustion of Russian agriculture is still looked upon as a paradox or a puzzle. Indeed at first sight it is puzzling. Russia is the largest agricultural country in Europe, and one of the largest in the world. She was the granary of Europe. By far the greater part of her exports consisted of products of the soil. Hence, when the war put an end to her foreign trade and Russia could no longer export the surplus of her grain, she ought rather to have suffered from plentifulness than from scarcity. It is therefore easy to understand that Europe was shocked when—first rumours—and then the sheer fact that Petrograd and Moscow had been put on rations, became known. That Russia was threatened by famine seemed too absurd, too incredible. Even in Russia itself the food question was not taken seriously for many months. When real starvation was imminent, nobody could explain where the misfortune came from. People ironically shrugged their shoulders and said: "Well, in Russia anything can happen!" And yet, there was nothing puzzling in the agricultural crisis of Russia. The only puzzling thing was the incredible stupidity and the absence of foresight of those who were conducting this war.
To begin with, Russian agriculture never was sound and healthy. Russia lived permanently in a state of agricultural crisis. Famine, or at least semi-starvation, was habitual in rural Russia. Great districts, year after year, were in such straits that the peasants had to apply to the Government or to the Zemstvos for help. The supply of extra seed-grain was a regular thing; but in many cases corn had to be supplied to the population for subsistence till the next harvest. The former was known as "semenaia pomoshch" (help with seed), the latteh as "prodovolstvennaia pomoshch" (victualling help), and this was one of the regular and chief functions of the Zemstvos.
There were many reasons for this deplorable state of affairs. The main reason certainly was the insufficient size of the small holdings held by the peasants, and the scarcity of agricultural implements and manure. Then there was the great indebtedness of the peasants to the State, which did not scruple to take away their horses and cattle and even their agricultural implements in payment of taxes overdue; and finally the lack of scientific knowledge and the primitive agricultural methods of the peasantry.
The war stopped the import of agricultural machinery altogether, and this led very quickly to a virtual crisis, because worn-out implements could not be replaced nor broken ones properly and quickly repaired. Again, the import of artificial manures, which always had been very small, ceased altogether. This was a very severe blow at Russian agriculture, but the mobilisation of horses for the war was even worse. To understand what the mobilisation of horses meant to Russian agriculture, it must be realised that in Russia there always was a great scarcity of horses. Not only in agriculture, but in Russia's transport system this scarcity was very acutely felt. As a matter of fact, the majority of peasant households in Russia are "odnoloshadniki," or one-horse households, and this one horse not only has to work in the fields, but also to perform the manifold transport duties for the household. Now the Russian army required an immense number of horses, on which their artillery and transport system almost entirely depended. And the chief burden of the mobilisation fell on the peasants, since horses in regular use for transport could less easily be interfered with. Peasant households having two horses had to give up one, and many of the one-horse households had to do without. The decrease of horses in Russia was felt immediately the war broke out, but it became more and more acute, for the drain on horses for war purposes never ceased. It will be felt for many years to come, for a very small proportion of the mobilised horses will ever return to civil employment. An enormous number died for want of fodder, especially last year, in addition to those which were killed or lost in the campaigns.
The deficiency in agricultural implements and the mobilisation of horses would alone have had a fatal effect on Russian agriculture. But, in addition, the war, of course, made a huge demand on man-power.
During three years of war about 20 million men were mobilised in Russia.[1] The land was practically left to women, unfit men, and children; and they had to do, without machines and horses, work which used to be very unsatisfactorily done with all the men and all the horses to help. The result was two-fold. On the one hand, a considerable diminution of the area under cultivation (estimated at about 20 per cent.); on the other hand, a permanent decrease in yield.
With all these things taken into consideration, it will still be said that Russia should not have suffered any scarcity. For the cessation of all exports—however bad for Russian finance and industry—was to the immediate advantage of the consumers. It kept in the country thousands of tons of grain which would have been exported in normal times. But there was yet another factor. The war not only stopped the export of grain abroad; it also created a new source of consumption of grain—the army at the Front. The same men in civil life would eat much or little according- as the times were good or bad, according to what they had in stock. But a soldier has to be fed, fed continually, and fed well. The needs of the army demanded a continuous and regular supply of grain.
The peasants had to supply the army, and the army consumed hardly less, probably more, than Russia used to export in peace time. The requirements of the army would have absorbed all the surplus of grain remaining in the country even if the area under cultivation had remained the same. But owing to the diminution of tillage and yield, the regular consumption of the army considerably surpassed the actual surplus. Before the war Russia used to export one-third of her cereal products, and two-thirds were consumed in the country. In the very first year of the war the whole of the surplus which would normally have been exported was taken over by the Government for the army. But, as the war dragged on, and the army grew in numbers, and the production correspondingly decreased, so a greater and greater proportion was taken for the army. In 1917, according to the statement made by Shingariov[2] in May of that year, the civil population was getting a little more than a third of the yearly production.
The removal of millions of men and horses from production is in itself sufficient to account for the agricultural crisis of Russia. But to understand thoroughly how Russia as an agricultural country became so poor during the war, it is necessary to consider two more factors. First, the increase in the consumption of agricultural products in the country; and, secondly, the slackening of economic inducements towards the intensification of work. It is a deplorable fact that the peasantry, while they consumed more actually became less industrious as the war went on.
The soldiers were certainly fed out of all proportion to their accustomed fare in the villages. Not only was their bread ration higher than the quantity habitually consumed by the most well-fed Russian workers, but in addition they had a daily meat ration. In peace time meat was certainly very little consumed in the villages, and even the town workers were accustomed to a very limited ration of meat. In peace time the soldiers themselves were fed, not on meat, but on "shchi" (cabbage soup) and "kasha" (porridge made of buckwheat). The meat crisis in Russia, which already in 1916 became a literal famine, is to be ascribed entirely to the methods of army feeding. But, even so, probably the greater part of the enormous quantity of food absorbed by the army is accounted for by waste and mismanagement.
The consumption of the town population also increased at the beginning of the war. The abolition of alcohol was partly responsible for this increase. Not only did the town workers save more money to be spent on food, but abstinence actually increased their appetites. The example of Russia confirms the established fact that drunkards spend less on food because they prefer to spend more on drink, and actually they feel hunger less. But while the consumption of the town population increased, that of the peasantry increased relatively much more.
I am afraid it is impossible to give an adequate idea to English readers of how Russian peasants were accustomed to be fed. Were I simply to say that in large districts the Russian peasants lived in a perpetual state of semi-starvation, it would nevertheless be impassible for the English reader to grasp the situation. Even "semi-starvation," as understood in Western Europe, would probably be considered waste and plenty in a Russian village. Without giving statistics to show how little the Russian peasants made use of milk, meat, eggs, butter, or even bread, I need only quote one short story of Turgeniev to indicate their extreme poverty:
"Once an old lady went to visit an old peasant widow who had on that same day buried her only son. The lady was shocked to find the old peasant woman eating shchi, and angrily asked her whether she loved her son and how it was possible for her to have an appetite under the circumstances. 'Vasia is dead,' answered the widow in a low voice, and the tears began again to run down her hollow cheeks. 'My end is therefore come too. But the shchi shouldn't be wasted; the salt had been already put in it.'"
It will be said: this was long ago, and matters must have improved since then. But when all allowances are made, this story confirms the statement that the meals of a Russian peasant were never really plentiful!
With the war, however, a great change began in the consumption of the peasants. They became reluctant to sell their grain and used it more and more for themselves. This reluctance to sell increased with every year of the war—not only in accordance with the maxim that "l'appétit vient en mangeant," but for a simple economic reason. The peasants discovered, by and by, that in spite of the large sums of money they could get for their products they were really no better off. On the contrary, they found that their condition was becoming worse; that it was becoming more and more difficult to buy for money the necessities of their peasant life and work. Money had become useless to them. They would have been glad to exchange their grain for the things they needed, but these they could not buy in the market, and the State was equally unable to provide them. Thus, at the same time they not only consumed more of their grain and cattle themselves, but actually had less and less economic inducement to produce more than they needed for their own subsistence.
So we see that the disorganisation of Russian agriculture is as little a puzzle as her economic exhaustion and the ruin of her industry and transport. But I ought not to leave this subject without indicating another factor which contributed a great deal to the terrible position of Russia. I mean the immense stores of supplies which the retreating armies destroyed or left in the hands of the enemy. The real amount of these stores will never be known, but there is little doubt that it must have been enormous. A soldier said to me once when I was in Russia: "When we saw that in a certain place they (meaning the High Command) were beginning to accumulate big supplies of grain, fodder, trucks, ammunitions, then we knew that this place was shortly to be given up to the enemy." This accusation of treachery may be only a prejudice on the part of the soldiers. However, the story conveys the right impression, that retreats were always followed by destruction or loss of enormous quantities of supplies.
- ↑ It is a curious fact, but very characteristic of Tsarist Russia, that the General Staff and the War Office never knew the exact number of mobilised men. Though the Revolutionary Government several times insisted on exact returns, the General Staff was never able to comply with this demand. The estimate of twenty millions was made by the Provisional Government.
- ↑ Shingariov—the tragically murdered Minister of Agriculture in the first Provisional Government.