If one further allows that, as a result of the Brest Treaty, Russia lost the Ukraine, which previously had supplied the country with more than one-third of its cereals, and that in June 1918 the Czechoslovak rebellion cut off access to Siberia, the tragic situation confronting the urban inhabitants of central and northern Russia in mid-1918 becomes apparent. All the cities and industrial centers, and an increasing number of villages located in the less productive regions or with developed cottage industries, suffered hunger and faced the almost certain prospect of a devastating famine should the weather take a turn for the worse.
For the Bolsheviks this situation held dangers as well as opportunities. Hunger in the cities and industrial regions stimulated discontent and eroded their political base. In 1918, Russian cities were in constant turmoil from food shortages. The situation was especially explosive in Petrograd, where in late January 1918 the daily ration consisted of 4 ounces of bread adulterated with milled straw.33 Since this ration was not adequate to sustain life, the inhabitants had to resort to the open market, where prices were driven artificially high by the Cheka’s harassment of food peddlers. Here, the price of bread fluctuated between 2 and 5 or more rubles a pound, which placed it out of the reach of workers, who, if fortunate enough to find employment, earned at best between 300 and 400 rubles a month.34 During 1918, the food ration in Petrograd was adjusted every few days either upward or downward, depending on the ability of supply trains to run the gauntlet of armed deserters and peasants who lay in ambush: if they succeeded in overpowering the guards they stripped the train in no time, and it reached Petrograd empty. In March, the bread ration in Petrograd rose slightly to 6 ounces, only to drop toward the end of April to 2 ounces. The situation was no better in the provincial cities. In Kaluga, for instance, the daily bread allotment in early 1918 was set at 5 ounces.35
To escape the hunger, urban inhabitants fled the cities in droves: among the refugees were many peasants who had come during the war to work in the defense industries and demobilized garrison troops. Contemporary statistics indicate a drastic fall in the population of Petrograd: by April 1918, 60 percent of the industrial workers employed there in January 1917 (221,000 out of 365,000) had fled to the countryside.36 An exodus of nearly equal proportions occurred in Moscow. During the Revolution and the Civil War, Moscow would lose one-half of its population and Petrograd two-thirds,37 a process which dramatically reversed the urbanization of Russia and enhanced her rural character.* Russian statisticians estimate that between 1917 and 1920, 884,000 families, or some 5 million people, abandoned the cities for the countryside.38 This nearly corresponds to the number of peasants who had moved into the urban areas during the war (6 million).
Those who stayed behind grumbled, demonstrated, and sometimes rioted over food shortages. Lower-class men and women, crazed by hunger, looted food warehouses and stores. Newspapers carried reports of housewives running in the streets screaming “Give us bread!” Peddlers who demanded exorbitant prices risked lynching. Many cities issued ordinances excluding outsiders. Petrograd was tightly sealed off: in February 1918 Lenin signed a decree forbidding nonresidents to enter the capital and certain areas in northern Russia. Other cities passed similar laws.39
In the atmosphere of hunger and lawlessness, urban crime soared. Police records indicate that in the third month of Bolshevik rule the inhabitants of Petrograd reported 15,600 burglaries, 9,370 incidents of store looting, 203,801 incidents of pickpocketing, and 125 murders.40 How many crimes went unreported there is no way of knowing, but there must have been very many, since it was common at the time for ordinary criminals to rob under the pretext of carrying out “expropriations,” which the victims were too terrorized to report.
The countryside was in the grip of similar lawlessness. In some provinces (such as Voronezh) food was abundant; in others (such as nearby Riazan) it was desperately short. It was not uncommon for one district to enjoy a comfortable surplus while its neighbors went starving. As a rule, those who had a surplus either disposed of it on the free market or hoarded it in expectation that the state grain monopoly would collapse. Charity was unknown: well-fed peasants refused to feed the hungry ones, and if they came begging, chased them away.41
