Page 52 - Communism in Ambush

COMMUNISM IN AMBUSH
50

balism. Soon millions of wretched human beings abandoned their villages
and headed for the nearest railroad station hoping to make their way to re-
gions where, rumor had it, there was food. They clogged the railway de-
pots, for they were refused transportation, because until July 1921 Moscow
persisted in denying that a catastrophe had occurred. Here, in the words of
a contemporary, they waited "for trains which never came, or for death,
which was inevitable." Visitors to the stricken areas passed village after
village with no sign of life, the inhabitants having either departed or lying
prostrate in their cottages, too weak to move. In the cities, corpses littered
the streets... 35
What was the aim of this policy? Lenin wanted to strengthen the
Bolshevik regime's economy by seizing villagers' produce and realize
the Communist dream of abolishing private property. But in deliber-
ately subjecting his fellow Russians to famine, Lenin also had another
purpose: Hunger, he knew, would have a devastating effect on their
morale and psychology. He wanted to use famine as a tool to destroy
people's faith in God and instigate a movement against the church. The
Black Book of Communism describes Lenin's state of mind:
A young lawyer called Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov was then living in Samara,
the regional capital of one of the areas worst affected by the famine. He
was the only member of the local intelligentsia who
not only refused to participate in the aid for the hun-
gry, but publicly opposed it. As one of his friends
later recalled, "Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov had the
courage to come out and say openly that famine
would have numerous positive results, particularly
in the appearance of a new industrial proletariat,
which would take over from the bourgeoisie…
Famine, he explained, in destroying the outdated
peasant economy, would bring about the next stage
more rapidly, and usher in socialism, the stage that
necessarily followed capitalism. Famine would also
destroy faith not only in the tsar, but in God too."

A photograph of Lenin, shortly
before his death.