9/ "The fertile soils of these regions do not always properly reward the labours of the collective farmers... Dry winds and black dust storms frequently devastate the fields and destroy the fruits of the labour of many thousands of people ...
"In 60 years, at the junction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were 20 drought-stricken years in the southern districts of the Ukraine ... Drought, occurring every three or four years, frequently assumed the proportions of a calamity."