Everyone is hungry in Moscow and Petrograd, including the people's
commissaries themselves. The daily ration of Lenin and the other
commissaries is the same as that of a soldier in the army or of a
workman at hard labor. In the hotel which is reserved for Government
officials the menu is the following: Breakfast--A quarter to half a
pound of black bread, which must last all day, and tea without sugar.
Dinner--A good soup, a small piece of fish, for which occasionally a
diminutive piece of meat is substituted, a vegetable, either a potato
or a bit of cabbage, more tea without sugar. Supper--What remains of
the morning ration of bread and more tea without sugar.
Occasionally sugar, butter, and chickens slip through from the Ukraine
and are sold secretly at atrocious prices--butter, for example, at 140
roubles a pound. Whenever the Government is able to get its hands on
any such "luxuries" it turns them over to the schools, where an
attempt is made to give every child a good dinner every day.
The food situation has been slightly improved by the rejoining of
Ukraine to Great Russia, for food is relatively plentiful in the
south; but no great improvement in the situation is possible because
of the lack of transport.