Society and the Rural Family

Abstract

What heart does not ache, gazing upon the poverty, misery, and devastation of the Russian countryside today? The facts are common knowledge, and they speak for themselves. People go for months without receiving their pay, which is about as low as it can get in any case. Ruination reigns on the farms!—crop-sown areas are reduced, milk yields are falling, harvest yields are down. So far, attempts to introduce market relations have not brought any benefits to the rural inhabitant. There was a time when just the unpromising communities were dying; now it seems as if even larger villages have one foot in the grave, as many community clubs and medical treatment centers are closed and their facilities and equipment are sold off or looted. The village schools may be our last hope as flickering hearths of the countryside's cultural and educational life.