"Two trains of oats from Ekaterinburg are expected day by
day. If the oats arrive in time a considerable success will be
possible." And if the oats do not arrive in time? Besides, not
horses alone require to be fed. The men who cut the wood
cannot do it on empty stomachs. And again rises a cry for
trains, that do not arrive, for food that exists somewhere, but
not in the forest where men work. The general effect of the
wreck of transport on food is stated as follows: Less than 12
per cent. of the oats required, less than 5 per cent. of the
bread and salt required for really efficient working, were
brought to the forests. Nonetheless three times as much
wood has been prepared as the available transport has
removed.


The towns suffer from lack of transport, and from the
combined effect on the country of their productive weakness
and of the loss of their old position as centres through which
the country received its imports from abroad. Townsfolk
and factory workers lack food, fuel, raw materials and much
else that in a civilized State is considered a necessary of life.
Thus, ten million poods of fish were caught last year, but
there were no means of bringing them from the fisheries to
the great industrial centres where they were most needed.
Townsfolk are starving, and in winter, cold. People living in
rooms in a flat, complete strangers to each other, by general
agreement bring all their beds into the kitchen. In the
kitchen soup is made once a day. There is a little warmth
there beside the natural warmth of several human beings in a
small room. There it is possible to sleep. During the whole