Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt Page B

there this year from starvation and typhoid. At least another million will die before the year end.”
    “What does he say caused the food shortage?”
    “The drought. The worst in history.”
    “Can’t food be brought in from other sections?”
    “Into Kansas? Which is supposed to feed other sections?”
    “But—”
    “We simply haven’t the transport,” said Stalenin. “Practically all the bread being consumed in Moscow now is from wheat from the Argentine. Of course Russia must get priority in everything; and there just isn’t any more wheat to be had from the Argentine—But you can get all that from Bolshekov.”
    “When do you want me to start?” “Tomorrow. Bolshekov is at Wichita. You are to meet him there. Sergei is making all the arrangements for your trip.”
    Great Bend, Kansas. Peter was at breakfast in his private car. He gazed out the train window. The station platform was crowded with begging peasants. They stared at him, and at the food still on his table, with hollow eyes. Women held up infants for him to see—deformed little monsters with big heads, horribly swollen bellies, and skeleton limbs dangling from them.
    He got up and went to the train kitchen. “Something must be done for these people!”
    “We have only enough for ourselves, Comrade Uldanov,” said the chief cook. “And I am under absolute orders not to give—”
    “Then at least let the rest of my own breakfast be given to them!”
    “We are under absolute orders from Moscow not to permit that either, Comrade Uldanov. Whatever you leave untouched is eaten by members of the train crew.”
    Beaten, Peter returned to his seat. He was ashamed to look out again until the train started to move. At the edge of the platform men and women were lying prone, staring up out of expressionless eyes. A mass funeral procession went by.
    The whole trip had been a nightmare. He had taken off from Moscow on a large bomber. He could not now remember the number of dreary stops for refueling and repairs—in Siberia, Alaska, Canada, CVA. They had had to land first at a forced labor camp in Siberia, where Peter had seen hundreds of scarcely human creatures, mostly women, filthy and in rags, working in complete silence, many of them up to their knees in muddy water. Armed guards watched their every movement.
    The plane had come down twice in Alaska, in clearings in the wilderness.
    Because of Peter’s curiosity, they had flown relatively low when they got to the remote district of CVA. A guide had pointed out to him, every now and then, a herd of elk or bison roaming the prairie states; but there were few signs of human habitation.
    The original plan had been to fly direct to Wichita, but the plane had had to make a forced landing at a place that had once been the site of the proud capitalist city of Denver. For a whole day Peter, accompanied by a member of the plane’s crew, had wandered among the crumbling and deserted ruins.
    Peter tried to imagine what Denver must have been like in the days of its glory, when the barbarian capitalist chiefs held court. The only sign of life he found now was a lizard.
    It had finally been discovered that the plane would have to wait for new parts from Moscow, and Peter had been forced to finish the journey to Wichita on this single-track railroad.
    They passed one more station—Hutchinson—without stopping. He was grateful for that.
    At Wichita he was conducted to Bolshekov’s waiting automobile. Bolshekov stood just outside, looking taller, gaunter, more green-complexioned than ever. He looked Peter up and down. “Congratulations on your amazing promotion!” His tone was bitingly sarcastic.
    A crowd of starving peasants and workers stonily watched them drive off.
    About fifteen minutes later, in the open country, the chauffeur had to stop to change a tire. Everyone got out. Peter noticed thick weeds along the roads and vacant fields full of wild sunflowers. All the seeds had been picked out of the