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The Russian famine of 1921, which began in the early spring of that year, and lasted through 1922, was a true famine: hunger so severe that it was doubtful that seed-grain would be sown rather than eaten. At one point, relief agencies had to give grain to the railroad staff to get their supplies moved. Russia was experiencing one of her intermittent droughts, but there had been droughts before.

George F. Kennan attributes responsibility for the famine to the doctrinaire mismanagement of the Bolsheviks, and to the six and a half years of war Russia had suffered without break. The last years of the First World War in the East were fought inside Imperial Russia. Modern war strains any economy; but for much of the period, Russia had been cut off, not only from trade with the Central Powers, but, with the closing of the Dardanelles, from the rest of the world. The end of grain export would at least have meant full granaries, if it were not for the peculation and corruption of Imperial Russia.

All sides in the Russian Civil Wars of 1918-20 - the Bolsheviks, the Whites, the Anarchists, the seceding nationalities - provisioned themselves by the ancient method of "living off the land": they seized food from those who grew it, gave it to their armies and supporters, and denied it to their enemies. The Bolshevik efficiency at this is confirmed by their recently uncovered records; it doubtless contributed to their victory. This led peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin ordered the seizure of the food peasants had grown for their own subsistence and their seed grain. The American Relief Administration, which Herbert Hoover had formed to help the starvation of WWI, had offered assistance to Lenin in 1919, on condition that they have full say over the Russian railway network and hand out food impartially to all; Lenin refused this as interference in Russian internal affairs.

This famine, the Kronstadt rebellion, and the failure of a German general strike convinced Lenin to reverse his policy at home and abroad. He decreed the New Economic Policy on March 15, 1921. The famine also helped produce an opening to the West: Lenin allowed relief organizations to bring aid, this time; fortunately, war relief was no longer required in Western Europe, and the A.R.A. had an organization set up in Poland, relieving the Polish famine which had begun in the winter of 1919-20.

The international relief effort

Although no official request for aid was issued, a committee of well-known people without obvious party affiliations was allowed to set up an appeal for assistance. In July 1921 the writer Maxim Gorky published an appeal to the outside world, claiming that millions of lives were menaced by crop failure. At a conference in Geneva on 15 August organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies, the International Committee for Russian Relief (ICCR) was set up with Dr Fridtjof Nansen as its High Commissioner. The main participants were Hoover's American Relief Association, along with other bodies such as the American Friends Service Committee and the International Save the Children Union, with the British Save the Children Fund as the major contributor.

Nansen headed to Moscow, where he signed an agreement with Soviet Foreign Ministry Georgy Chicherin that left the ICCR in full control of its operations. At the same time, fundraising for the famine relief operation began in earnest in Britain, with all the elements of a modern emergency relief operation - full-page newspaper advertisements, local collections, and a fundraising film shot in the famine area. By September, a ship had been despatched from London carrying 600 tons of supplies. The first feeding centre was opened in October in Saratov.

The ICCR managed to feed around ten million people, with the overwhelming bulk coming from the ARA, funded by the US Congress; the International Save the Children Union, by comparison, managed to feed 375,000 at the height of the operation. The operation was hazardous - several workers died of cholera - and was not without its critics, including the London Daily Express, which first denied the severity of the famine, and then argued that the money would better be spent on poverty in the United Kingdom.

The post-relief period

The Bolsheviks permitted the relief agencies to continue distributing free food in 1923, while they sold grain abroad. The net effect, since grain is fungible, was that they received money for nothing from capitalist philanthropy. When this was discovered, foreign relief organizations suspended the aid. Lenin's first heart attack was in the spring of 1922, and he had aphasia in 1923; the extent of his responsibility for the grain sales is therefore unclear. However, exploiting gullible capitalists would have accorded with his expressed policies.

François Furet estimated there were five million deaths in the famine; for comparison, the worst crop failure of late Tsarist Russia, in 1892, caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths. That failure followed years of normal and bumper harvests, with the resulting buildup of reserves; the harvest of 1888 had been "excellent beyond even the more optimistic hopes". Also, that was in a time of peace, international commerce, and good order; there had not been war throughout Russia before 1917.

Responsibility of Lenin's regime?

During Russian Civil War, Lenin started "requisitioning" supplies from the peasantry for little or nothing in exchange. This led peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin ordered the seizure of the food peasants had grown for their own subsistence and their seed grain. The Cheka and the army began by shooting hostages, and ended by waging a second full-scale civil war against the peasantry. The food requisitioning are documented on p. 97 and p 120-121. The war on the peasantry, including the use of poison gas, death camps, and deportations are documented on p. 92-97 and p. 116-118. In 1920 Lenin ordered increased emphasis on the food requisitioning from the peasantry, at the same time that the Cheka gave detailed reports about the large scale famine (p. 121). The long war and a drought in 1921 also contributed to the famine. Finally, Lenin allowed relief organizations to bring aid but later had most of the Russian members organizing the aid liquidated. Foreign relief organizations suspended aid when it was revealed that the Soviet Union preferred to sell food abroad in order to get hard currency rather than feed its starving people. Estimates on the deaths from this famine are between 3 and 10 million. For comparison, the worst crop failure of late tsarist Russia, in 1892, caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths .

See also

• Holodomor

References

• Kennan, George Frost: Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin. Boston (1961) Particularly pp.141-150, 168, 179-185.
  • Kennan: The Decline Of Bismarck's European Order : Franco-Russian Relations, 1875-1890 Princeton (1979) p.387. Harvest of 1888.
• Fromkin, David: Peace to End All Peace (1989 hc) p.360 (on Tsarist corruption and the closure of the Dardanelles)
• François Furet: Passing of an Illusion. (1999 tr. of 1995 orig.) on total deaths.
• Breen, Rodney (1994). "Saving Enemy Children: Save the Children's Russian Relief Organisation, 1921-1923". Disasters 18 (3), 221-237. On the international relief effort.

• Famines
• History of the Soviet Union and Soviet Russia
• Economic disasters