Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

n- ment, as chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the Ukraine, was the brilliant Christian Racovsky. Their patriotism included the whole of Soviet Russia, but with the entire country now communized, it focused on their own Ukraine, and the fiery nature of the South flamed all the more violently. So narrowly nationalistic did they become in their enthusiasm that even the Russian language was to be discarded. The overweening zeal among some may have been a camouflaged chauvinism. For several generations Russian had been the language of the State, of the school, and of the family, especially in the larger towns and cities. Now the Russian was to be displaced by the cruder Ukrainian language, which was scheduled for revival. There were many officials in high Government positions who were wholly ignorant of this language, as were also a large percentage of the school teachers. By way of explanation it might be well to make clear that Soviet Russia is made up of a group of federal re- publics, autonomous republics, and autonomous territories, each with its own capital. The grouping is largely on ethnographical lines. The Communistic element in these various regions had cooperated during the struggles of the revolution, and held together closely in the common 154 FEEDING THE HUNGRY political and economic program. But the republics which formed among these Communistic groups had not yet be- come organically united into one state. They were not yet a union or federation of all the Soviet states in Russia. Moscow, however, enjoyed a peculiar position of special influence. It was the capital of the largest and most influential of the Russian Republics—The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. In Moscow were held periodically the most important congresses. Here were also the headquarters of the Communist party of Russia; its Political Bureau; the center of the Tcheka or Secret Service, mightier than the Government itself; and the powerful Secretariat of the Communist International. It was a natural development that Moscow should assume the role of capital of all the Russian states. But this was resented by some of the other Republics, and especially so by the Ukraine, which was firm in its declaration of sov- ereignty, of equality with Moscow. By the end of 1922, however, a satisfactory solution was found by organizing a federation of the Republics to be known as the Union of Socialist Federative Soviet Republics. But in 1921 when the relief work was being organized, these stronger states stood on their rights, proclaiming that it was just as necessary to have a formal contract with each of them as with Moscow. As the oldest and largest Mennonite settlements in Russia were located in the Ukraine, the attitude of that Government was of special concern to us. We were uncer- tain, nevertheless, whether a visit to the Ukraine was absolutely necessary. ‘That question was decided