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children to imagine that it is not the horse that carries them, but
that it is they themselves who are going along; but we
grown-up folk can very well understand how the famine has come
upon the people. The people hunger because we consume too
much. To us Russians this fact ought to be all the clearer.
Industrial and commercial nations, like the English, who live
upon their Colonies, may yet be unable to see this clearly. . . .
But as regards ourselves, our connection with the people is so
immediate, so evident, it is so clear that our wealth is produced
by their misery, or their misery by our wealth, that it is
impossible for us not to see why the people are suffering from
hunger. Is it possible that the people, in such circumstances,
in which they are born, i.e., with these taxes, this insufficiency
of land, this neglected condition and this savagery, having to
perform this immense amount of labour, the fruits of which
we enjoy in the shape of comforts and amusements—is it
possible, I say, that these people can escape hunger?
“All these palaces, these theatres, these museums in the
capitals, the cities, and small centres of population are produced
by the people, who suffer and continue to produce all these
things that are useless to themselves simply because they get
their food thereby. That is, through this forced labour, they
save themselves from the famine that is always hanging over
their heads. Such is their constant position. We continually
keep the people in a situation in which they never can keep
themselves from hunger. This is our method of forcing them
to work for us. This year the strain has been too great; the
bad harvest has shown us that the string has been pulled too
tightly. But what has happened is nothing extraordinary or
unexpected, and we ought to understand why the people are
starving. Knowing the cause, it is very easy to find the cure.
The principal means of cure is not eating up their portion.
“This concern of society for the relief of the distressed people
is like that of the founders of the Red Cross during war.
Then the energy of some is devoted to massacre; this massacre
is considered as the normal condition. On the other hand, a
new activity is brought into being, of a contrary tendency,
having for its aim the healing of those who suffer from the
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