  We investigate theoretically the effect of a finite electric field on the
resistivity of a disordered one-dimensional system in the variable-range
hopping regime. We find that at low fields the transport is inhibited by rare
fluctuations in the random distribution of localized states that create
high-resistance ``breaks'' in the hopping network. As the field increases, the
breaks become less resistive. In strong fields the breaks are overrun and the
electron distribution function is driven far from equilibrum. The logarithm of
the resistance initially shows a simple exponential drop with the field,
followed by a logarithmic dependence, and finally, by an inverse square-root
law.
