Hitlerism, we were instructed to believe, was thus merely the iron fist of the whole plutocratic, imperialistic world. A war between Nazi Germany and… - Victor Kravchenko

The theatres of the capital [Moscow] were developing a great interest in German drama. In fact, everything Germanic was the vogue. A brutal John Bull and an Uncle Sam enthroned on money bags figured in the propaganda, but the Nazis were exempt from such ridicule. Hundreds of German military men and trade officials were in evidence in Moscow hotels and shops. They were busy with the gigantic program of Soviet economic help to Hitler’s crusade against the ‘degenerate democracies.’

The most terrifying sights were the little children with skeleton limbs dangling from balloon–like abdomens. Starvation had wiped every trace of youth from their faces, turning them into tortured gargoyles; only in their eyes still lingered the reminder of childhood. Everywhere we found men and women lying prone, their faces and bellies bloated, their eyes utterly expressionless.

Equality of income, which had been a Soviet ideal, was suddenly turned into a crime. Uravnilovka, equalization, was denounced as unworthy of a socialist society. The ‘Party maximum,’ under which Party members had been kept to an income not far above the average, was now removed, releasing torrents of greed and self-seeking in officialdom. Piecework was introduced throughout Soviet economy, even in types of work where such a system of payment was palpably silly if not impossible. With that strange Soviet genius for extremes, the evil of too many bosses was now replaced by the evil of the single and arbitrary boss, in which the last pretense of ‘workers’ control" from below was thrown overboard.