outside of the Bolshevic control, which was concentrated in towns and 
along the railway lines, and the peasants only suffered by raids and grain- 
seizing expeditions. The Bolshevics only gradually extended their admini- 
strative net-work to the very heart of the country. But even when incor- 
porated into the Bolshevic system, the village remained but little dependent 
of it; and the Bolshevics had to make up for this in an indirect way; for 
instance, by the organisation of an entire army of “village correspondents”, 
as voluntary spies and informers; and chiefly by organising the social 
struggle of the “paupers”, who in their narrow personal interests were set 
up against the better-off strata of the village population. In the villages 
the Soviet rulers were obliged to build up their State by means of organising 
social feuds. However, this policy vacillated. At times the Government 
permitted a certain amount of economic activity, and the “paupers” were 
oppressed; at other times the pressure was exercised in the opposite direction. 
But these sporadic ways do not alter the true aspect of affairs. The feud, 
whether open or secret, remained the true form of Soviet mastery in the 
village. At times it manifested itself in mutinies even long after the civil 
war; at other times, as a reign of terror within the village limits (murder 
of officials and of village correspondents). 
The lesser dependence of the peasantry on the Government is, however, 
not only the result of the dispersal of the peasants, but also due to other 
causes which were most conspicuous in the early times of Bolshevism. The 
town inhabitant received his food from the State; the peasant, on the con- 
trary, fed himself and the State. The village with its frugal demands 
retains the possibility of withdrawing within itself, e. g., within its natural 
economy. The town folk, deprived of everything, and receiving their food 
from the Government, fear a change of Government (even if they look 
upon the new power as a salvation). For they know not how they are to 
subsist during the period of replacing the Government, — a period which 
can literally starve them to death; the peasants may fear a new Government 
(for instance, the possibility of having to surrender the land they themselves 
had appropriated), but they are not afraid of the time when the change 
of government actually takes place. The citizens, however, cling to the 
Soviet Government, and in this way serve as a support to it, even when 
they hate it and perish by it; whereas the peasants, less dependent on the 
Government, are more dangerous and capable of dealing it a blow. But 
on the other hand, being distributed over an immense territory, removed 
from all important administrative centres and besides being uncultured, 
they prove — in spite of their number — a very thin layer of the com- 
munity having very little active power in any political tussle. 
To obviate their own destruction, with which the general disintegration 
of the country menaced them. the Bolshevies introduced the NEP. which 
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