Eventually they had to pull out of their relief efforts after discovering the Bolsheviks were simply taking the grain and selling it for export. The rebellions in towns rife with starvation throughout the country were put down with complete mercilessness, with more than one village being razed and all its inhabitants slaughtered. At least one million people died, and almost certainly far more. But all this terror and suffering was a mere practice run for what was to come in the following decade.
