Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-10-28 | Page 3 | Starvation is Facing Russia

STARVATION IS i FACING RUSSIA Indications of Worst Winter Win-ter People Have Ever Experienced. Correspondence of The Associated Press. ff LONDON, Oct. 19. A winter of starvation star-vation is a eafe prediction for Russia. Indications are that it is will he one of the worst winters the Russian people have experienced in all their history. All summer the food situation In Russia, Rus-sia, particularly in Moscow, Petrograd and other large cities has been steadily growing more and more acute. In the latter part of August, before the writer left Moscow, hread. or that mixture of straw, oat husks and other Ingredients of unknown origin which Moscow inhabitants inhabi-tants are induced to accept a bread, had almost entirely disappeared, and certain cer-tain city districts had not received the usual allowance for nearly a week. The government had classified the population into categories, whereby work-ingmen work-ingmen and government employees received re-ceived a larger allowance, while professionals profes-sionals and well-to-do people got the smallest, which in Moscow amounts to one-sixteenth of a pound. In Petrograd the bourgeots .or middle (Hass fared poorly on an allowance of three herrings a day. "the shortage of bread is largely due to the government's short-sighted policy in fixing a low price for grain, which did not even cover the farmer's expenditure, let alone profit. The peasants refused to comply with the decree to turn over all grain in excess of a certain arbitrarily fixed amount to the food committee, and when the latter were re-enforced by a detachment of armed "bread crusaders," the peasants gathered from several villages vil-lages and offered resistance, frequently putting the crusaders to flight. But even If the government price were much higher, the peasants would not willingly exchange their grain for worthless worth-less money, of which they seem to have much, and which has no practical value to them. They want manufactured goods, which the government is unable to furnish, fur-nish, as most of the factories are idle for lack of fuel and raw material, and also because the Bolshevik! need the workmen to- fight on the numerous fronts.