Chapter 4 turns to the food situation and shows how German economic policy and wartime upheaval combined to cause extreme poverty, hunger, and ultimately thousands of deaths by starvation in certain parts of northwest Russia. To fend off the ghost of hunger, people found work with the German army or fled to more well-off districts. Some benefited from trade and private enterprise. Hunger and deprivation apparently did not change popular political attitudes. Mass starvation was localized, and most people saw it as a result of war, not German policies.