ECONOMIC CONDITIONS in RUSSIA 1 Catastrophic Change in the National Economy
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C. 705. M. 451. 1922. II. LEAGUE OF NATIONS REPORT ON ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE FAMINE OF 1921-1922 AND THE STATE OF AGRICULTURE CONTENTS Page Introductory N o t e on S o u r c e s of In f o r m a t io n ........................................................................................ v Chapter I. —- S u m m a r y of t h e S it u a t io n .................................................................................................. I Chapter II. —- R u ssia n A g r ic u l t u r e b e f o r e t h e F a m i n e ......................................................... 6 Chapter III. — T h e F a m in e o f 1921-1922........................................................................................................ 26 Chapter IV. — T h e P r e s e n t P o s i t i o n .............................................................................................................. 58 Annex I. ■— (a) The Russian Land System and the Agrarian Policy of the Soviet Govern ment ............................................................................................................................................................ 77 (b) The Single Food Tax ............................................................................................................. 88 Annex II. •— Recent Harvest Statistics..................................................................................................................... 93 Annex III. ■— Mr. Hoover's Report to President Harding on the Work of the American Relief Administration in Russia ........................................................................................ 99 Annex IV. —■ Report of the International Russian Relief Committee on Famine Relief Work in Russia ............................................................................................................................... 103 Annex V. ■—• The Report of M. Ivanov, President of the Ukrainian Red Cross, on Famine Relief in the Ukraine..................................................................................................................... 107 Annex VI. ■— Statistics of Russian Industry ..................................................................................................... 113 Annex VII. — Statistics of Russian Transport............................................................................................................121 Annex VIII. — Statistics of Russian Prices and Currency...................................................................................127 Annex IX. — Changes in the Population of Russia ...........................................................................131 Annex X. — Note on New Territorial Divisions..............................................................................................134 Annex XI. — List of Books......................................................................................................................................................151 Annex XII. —• Map and Table the net harvest per head of Rural Population in Russia in IÇ2I. Showing the Density and Percentage of Starving Population; map of the Administrative Divisions of Russia; and map showing. 162 INTRODUCTION At its meeting of July 20th, 1922, the Council of the League of N ations considered a proposal made by the Norwegian Government that a Committee of Enquiry should be appointed to report upon the economic effects of the Russian famine and the possi bility of re-establishing Russian agriculture; and passed the following resolution : "The Secretariat is authorised to collect, arrange and tabulate all the infor mation obtainable from the various Governments and different relief organisa tions and other agencies working in Russia, and to complete it, whenever possible, from other sources, with the object of presenting to the Council as complete and accurate a picture as possible of the actual situation in Russia, and of ren dering the information thus obtained accessible to the public. "When this work is finished, and provided that the information thus col lected justifies it, a Commission of experts shall be appointed to make use of the material thus obtained, to examine what conclusions might be drawn there from, with the object of setting forth what, in its opinion, are the effects of the Russian famine on the Russian situation in general, and on the financial, eco nomic and health situation of Europe as a whole—-in a word, establishing a connection between the Russian situation and European reconstruction.” The report which follows has been prepared by the Secretariat in accordance with the instructions contained in this resolution. It is not based upon independent enquiry in Russia, but upon existing and, in the main, published sources of information. Requests for information were addressed to Governments, relief agencies and other private orga nisations. The work has been assisted by the replies received from the Governments of the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland and Denmark, and from the Inter national Red Cross Committee, the International Russian Relief Committee, the "Save the Children” Fund and the Friends’ Relief Organisation. The main basis of the report, however, has necessarily been the statistics and statements published by the Russian Government itself. The information obtained through the other channels has been useful m interpreting and, to some extent, in supplementing w hat is available from the official Russian sources; and it may, in some respects, slightly modify the impression which would be derived solely from these sources. The opportunities for external observation have, however, been very restricted, and all the information from outside sources, while considerable in volume, is somewhat fragmentary in character, and its use is subject to VI --- many difficulties, to which reference is made below. It cannot be too strongly empha sised that such external information is not an alternative to the picture of the country’s condition presented by the statistics and statements of its own Government. So far therefore, as any general survey is concerned, the task imposed by the Council has neces sarily consisted mainly in collecting and piecing together official Russian information extracted from Government documents, the Russian official Press, wireless messages or the speeches of the members of the Soviet Government. This information suffers inevitably from certain serious defects. Even before the War, information about Russian agriculture (i), though fairly comprehensive, contained a more than usually large element of estimation, owing to the enormous extent of its territory and the illiteracy of the great majority of the population (79 % of the population of European Russia in 1912 were illiterate) (2). But these defects have been immensely magnified by the Revolution and the Civil Wars. Large numbers of the population have been in a state of migration; the terri tory within the control of the Central Government has constantly changed, while the personnel of administration has been largely replaced and their energies devoted to more immediate tasks than that of collecting statistics. Between 1917 and 1920 there is a gap in many of the most essential series of figures, and as regards 1920, 1921 and 1922, the famine conditions have themselves made accurate estimation almost impos sible, for to the ordinary difficulties of building up statistics from a thinly populated country covering 8 1/4 million square miles, there has been added the bias of the peasant, and to some extent also of the village and even the local Government to conceal or mis represent the facts. To these difficulties there is added yet another, namely, the change not only in the area under the control of the Russian Government itself, but also the very considerable reshuffling of territory falling within the various republics and governments in Russia itself. This has made it very difficult to get a firm basis of comparison of the present situation with that before the War, while confusion is heightened by the fact that many of the statements made with regard to crops sometimes refer to cereals for human con sumption, sometimes to all cereals, and sometimes include potatoes and other crops such as flax, hemp, etc. Confusion of area and lack of definition in many of the figures quoted are responsible for many contradictory statements made on the situation of Russian crops. The Secretariat has endeavoured to solve these riddles and piece to gether a consistent statement. It cannot be certain that the figures quoted are always comparable, but it has made such investigations as were possible in the time available and the reasons are given for thinking that the statistics quoted are as correct as the conditions permit. (1) Agricultural statistics ate never based on actual enumeration but are a summary of a series of estimates. If such estimates are numerous enough and if there is no reason for general bias in a particular direction, an average of estimates is sufficiently accurate to make the final result of value not merely comparatively but as an absolute statement. When, how ever, the individual entries cover a very wide area, the result should be considered rather as a summary of impressions stated in approximate figures than as a precise estimate. (2) Russian Year Book 1912. But the paucity of precise statistical information makes it particularly desirable that the dry bones of statistics