Much has been written about the terrible years of the Holodomor in which Stalin starved some seven million Ukrainians to death between 1932 and 1933. Some historians put the figure above ten if the victims since 1928 are counted. caused by Hitler during the Nazi Holocaust, but in less time, with the aim of collectivizing the lands of the peasants of the Ukraine, considered then, as today, “the granary of Europe”.
In this same newspaper we have told many stories about that atrocity, such as that of the correspondent of ‘The New York Times’ who hid the genocide and, despite this, received a Pullitzer. The one in the letter that Tolstoy’s daughter sent to ABC, in 1933, to denounce that situation. “Thousands of human beings in the North Caucasus are shot or exiled and I feel the urgent need to raise my weak voice against Bolshevik ferocity,” she wrote. Or, also, the criticism of the former president of the USSR, Nikita Kruschez, in 1970, against his predecessor: «If Stalin were alive, he would vote for him to be prosecuted and punished for his crimes».
Lenin knew perfectly well the delicate situation that the Soviet regime was going through at the end of the First World War
However, little has been said about the terrible famine suffered by the Soviet Union between 1919 and 1922, in the years in which it was brewing, and for which it was forced to ask the United States for help. An unusual call for help starring the communist giant who was to be, for the next eight decades, his capitalist archenemy in the struggle for world leadership. And that, strange as it may seem, it had an effect, because the Americans turned so that the Soviets did not die of starvation.
The first president of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin, knew perfectly well the delicate situation his regime was going through. In previous years, Russia had plunged into the abyss of misery as a result of the ravages caused by the First World War, the civil war and the ensuing revolution. Many factories were destroyed during this time. Infrastructures were destroyed and means of transport devastated. The latter was especially serious, if we take into account that it prevented the population from being provided with the necessary fuel to heat their homes.
A group of Russian children during the famine of 1922
New Economic Policy
The problems did not end there. Money was suppressed and the private property of Russian capitalists, as well as foreigners, was appropriated by the state without any financial compensation. Agricultural land, businesses, factories, mills, banks… Everything was gobbled up by the Soviet regime and, as a result, the market collapsed, industrial production fell by 88% and the grain harvest plummeted from 78 to 48 million tons collected. Not to mention the deportations to the concentration camps.
Historian Stéphane Courtois, coordinator of the famous ‘The Black Book of Communism’ and author of ‘Lenin: The Inventor of Totalitarianism’ (La Esfera de los Libros, 2021), states: «In thirty months, Lenin managed to ruin Russia, which in 1914 it was the fifth economic power in the world. A unique feat. Inflation was rampant: from a base of 100 in 1913, prices rose to 755 in 1917, 10,200 in October 1918, 92,300 in October 1919, 962,000 in 1920, and 64 million in 1923.
In light of this economic collapse, the United States had already offered its help to the Bolsheviks shortly after the end of World War I, but Lenin refused. By 1921, however, the situation had become untenable and he was forced to back down. In March he implemented the New Economic Policy (NEP), with a series of measures that he himself called “state capitalism.” This came to replace the “war communism” developed in the previous three years that had given him such bad results.
Lenin, during a speech before his followers in 1917
hoover to the rescue
On behalf of the USSR, Maxim Gorky wrote a letter to Fridtjof Nansen, a senior League of Nations official in charge of raising money for the Red Cross. In it, the famous writer friend of Lenin said: «I ask all honest European and American citizens to quickly help the Russian people. Give us bread and medicine.” That same month, the future president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, then head of the humanitarian agency ARA (American Relief Administration), sent the following message to the Secretary of State: “It is possible that he has taken note of the appeals sent by Gorki in search of help, as well as the curious statements of the Bolshevik government, which pretends not to have authorized them […]. Despite this absurdity, I deeply believe that we must go to the aid of children and, in addition, provide health support ».
“There can be no doubt that we have suffered a very severe defeat on the economic front”
The call for help from the communists unleashed a kind of solidarity movement in the United States. In October, Lenin justified himself with the following argument: “There can be no doubt that we have suffered a very severe defeat on the economic front. Given the circumstances, it’s inevitable that some people will feel very despondent, almost panic-stricken.” And he closed his writing with a Russian saying: «A man who has been beaten is worth two. After being hit we began to advance slowly, systematically and cautiously.
The Soviet leader wanted at all costs to avoid his movements being interpreted as a triumph of capitalism and a defeat of communism. That is why he also stated, with a very elaborate message, that “the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove to be capable of properly controlling these gentlemen, the capitalists, in order to direct capitalism through state channels and create a capitalism subordinate to the state. But none of this hid a reality: Lenin had had to accept the help of the United States and the Red Cross to get ahead.
Soviet poster from 1921, which reads in Russian: “Remember those who are hungry!”
More than 200 boats
American ships loaded with grits, cocoa, condensed milk, white bread, and sugar soon arrived in Russia. Over the next 18 months, more than two hundred arrived with a total of one thousand tons of food and medical supplies. In that time, Hoover managed to raise, in addition, the equivalent of 1,200 million current dollars. Of these, more than 300 came from the US government. And newspapers such as ‘The Chicago Tribune’ carried numerous images and articles on their front page in which the famine caused by Lenin was analyzed, with information on all the campaigns that were organized in the country to raise food and money.
Organizing the entire operation was commissioned by Colonel William Haskell, a soldier with extensive experience in humanitarian work. This provided some unimaginable episodes in the later years of the Cold War, as is the case of the American aid worker Harold Blandy who died of typhoid fever on one of those trips to Russia. Upon learning, the Kremlin did not hesitate for a second and organized a state funeral for the deceased. His coffin, draped with the American flag, was escorted through the streets of Moscow in a luxurious white carriage drawn by eight horses.
When Stalin came to power, he replaced the NPE with the Five-Year Plan for industrialization.
As the months passed, the help grew so much that it ended up becoming a problem. So much food and medical supplies were collected that there were not enough ships or trains to transport them, so that humanitarian aid system collapsed. As a result, criticism began to emerge from the hardest line of the communist party because its leaders had surrendered to capitalism. Lenin, for his part, always replied that although that was a small capitalism, his government continued to have control of industry, mining and banking.
Tension grew, and as soon as Lenin died in 1924 and Stalin came to power, the NEP was replaced by the five-year plans for industrialization. Some of these were a total failure, but they obtained good results, making the population believe that the situation was improving. At the end of that decade and the beginning of the next, however, the Soviets found themselves doomed to hell again with collectivization and the Ukrainian genocide.