high profits naturally decrease the willingness of the villages
to sell bread at less abnormal rates. But as a Communist
said to me, "There is only one way to get rid of speculation,
and that is to supply enough on the card system. When
People can buy all they want at 1 rouble 20 they are not
going to pay an extra 14 roubles for the encouragement of
speculators." "And when will you be able to do that?" I
asked. "As soon as the war ends, and we can use our
transport for peaceful purposes."


There can be no question about the starvation of Moscow.
On the third day after my arrival in Moscow I saw a man
driving a sledge laden with, I think, horseflesh, mostly
bones, probably dead sledge horses. As he drove a black
crowd of crows followed the sledge and perched on it,
tearing greedily at the meat. He beat at them continually
with his whip, but they were so famished that they took no
notice whatever. The starving crows used even to force
their way through the small ventilators of the windows in my
hotel to pick up any scraps they could find inside. The
pigeons, which formerly crowded the streets,
utterly undismayed by the traffic, confident in the
security given by their supposed connection with religion,
have completely disappeared.


Nor can there be any question about the cold. I resented my
own sufferings less when I found that the State Departments
were no better off than other folk. Even in the Kremlin I