During the last three months of my stay, while waiting for permission to leave, I went closely into the life of the city. I visited all sorts and conditions of Russians in their homes and gained an intimate knowledge of how they lived, if one can use such a word to describe their bare existence.
In nearly every house there was overcrowding, four and five and even six people living and sleeping in one room. Their staple diet was black bread, kasha, salt herrings and potatoes. If a family was able to afford a little meat once a week and some milk, sugar and fruit, they were living in comparative luxury.
Card System a Farce.
The card system, except for the new aristocracy, that is to say the members of the Communist Party, who number only 500,000 in all Russia, is a farce. The bulk of the commodities one is entitled to purchase with cards do not exist. The cards are really only good for the bread ration, kasha, salt herrings and occasionally a little cooking oil, sugar, tea and potatoes.
The bulk of the people exist on black bread, kasha and unsweetened tea. The rations are just sufficient to maintain life. The people, to judge by their outward appearance, which medical men can probably explain, look healthy, but in reality they are terribly undernourished and are without any reserve strength. If an epidemic broke out in Moscow the people would die like flies.
The children are well taken care of. There are numerous creches, children’s homes and children’s dining rooms. However, even in the care of children the Soviet differentiates between the children of Communists and the offspring of non-Communists. The main reason why the Bolsheviki take good care of the children is because it enables them to bring up the coming generation on Bolshevism, Communism and class hatred from the cradle.
The sanitary arrangements of Moscow are deplorable. Most of the piping broke during the winter of 1918–1919 and no effort has been made to repair it since; in fact, no repair work of any description has been done during the past three years. The roads and pavements are full of yawning cavities and one risks his limbs if he goes out after dark. The streets are unlighted.
No regular scavenger service is maintained. The work of cleaning the streets, the railway stations, &c., is done by forced levies of bourgeois and “eye wash” parties of Communists, who work on Saturday afternoons for propaganda purposes. The street cars are running on a limited service and are invariably crammed to suffocation. The shops, of course, are all closed, with the exception of a few which sell milk, fruit and vegetables. There are no restaurants and no hotels open to the public. There are no newspapers except those published by the Soviet and which are crammed with lies from cover to cover. There is not the slightest freedom of pen or speech.
The population lives in a state of terror. The soldiers of the Chika are dressed in weird Mephistophelian headgear in order to terrify the people. House searches are invariably made at night or during the small hours of the morning. People are arrested daily on the flimsiest charges and thrown into prison without any form of trial. People accused of speculation and counter revolution are shot in thousands, being given no chance of proving their innocence. Eight thousand paid agents are employed in Moscow alone. The Soviet spy system is probably the most highly developed organization of its kind in the world.