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| 2016-09-28 | ||
A brutally honest account of Soviet malfeasence and incompetence in handling the Famine of 1921 in the Volga Region. Even if you viscerally hate Russia, which I s'pect most Rantburgers do, you should read over this account. If you go to the link, the author has posted several harrowing fotos of the calamity. Posting this for Dr. Steve.
Svetlana Shapovalova , 26 September 2016 , 00:07 [Regnum.ru] 1921-1922 years, entered the Russian history as a period of famine. Another insidious enemy, named a natural disaster, the Cold War and the actions themselves leaders of the young republic, had just gone through the period of the Civil War, killed about 5 million people. In the fight against famine, the Bolshevik government first took care of the capitalist countries. In 1921, Russia called on the world to help the starving Volga. Prodrazvyorstka, the pursuit of so-called kulaks and termination of circulation of money in the village destroyed any incentives not only to the development of agriculture, but also to maintain it at the previous level. The mass famine that occurred after a severe drought, covered 35 provinces (the Volga region, Southern Ukraine, Crimea, Bashkiria, partially Kazakhstan, Urals and Western Siberia) with a total population of 90 million people, of whom starved for at least 40 million. In the province of Samara, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan mortality increased from 2.4 to 13.9 per 100 souls per year. Rumors of rampant famine in the Volga region leaked to Moscow and Petrograd in December 1920. Well-known sociologist P. Sorokin, who visited the villages of Samara and Saratov provinces in the winter of 1921, in an autobiographical article "The Long Road", wrote: "The huts were abandoned, roofless, with empty eye sockets of windows and doorways. Thatched roof huts long since been removed and eaten. In the village, of course, there was no animals - no cows or horses or sheep, goats, dogs, cats, or even crows. Everyone already ate. Dead silence was over the snow-covered streets. " Who died of hunger exhausted villagers piled in empty barn. " "My dear Semashko ..." The content of private conversations about the unprecedented famine in the Volga region was made public on June 22 joint meeting of the All-Russian Congress on Agricultural Research and the case of the Moscow Society of Agriculture report on the unprecedented famine in the Volga region. The information voiced "suspicious bunch of bourgeois intellectuals" (Dzerzhinsky words of the chairman of the Cheka): data presented by Professor Saratov Agricultural Institute, A .A. Rybnikov and cooperators MI Kuhovarenko, stunned those present. Society President Professor AI Ugrimov offered the audience immediately to establish a Committee to help the starving, but the well-known economist, a former minister of the Provisional Government Food SN Prokopovich advised first to send a delegation to Lenin - wrote in his book, "Month" compromise "E. Kuskova . "My dear Semashko! Do not be fancy, my dear! - I wrote to the Politburo meeting on July 12 the leader of the world proletariat, changing emotion floor loyal comrade. - From Lump take the name, signature, a couple of cars from those who have it (and that kind) sympathizes. More no-Th-th "(VI Lenin Full. Cit. Cit., Vol. 53. pp 24-25). On the boundless generosity of the Political Bureau, committed the conception of the public committee, it was stated at the plenary session of the Moscow Council of 19 July as the day before, on July 18 Kalinin sealed by a decree of the Central Executive Committee of the transformation existed hitherto obscure committee into a new Commission under the Central Executive Committee for Famine Relief. The Commission, named CC Pomgol subsequently received "the right of association and coordination of activities of all Soviet institutions in the fight against hunger both in the center and in the field." On the day of the birth of the Committee on July 21, 1921, dignitaries authorized by higher authorities in the fight against hunger, and representatives of the "rotten intellectuals", who defended starving for reasons of conscience, met at the White Hall of the Moscow Council of the preliminary meeting. A doctor by profession, and in the past, one of the leaders of the Cadet Party and Minister of the Provisional Government of the state charity NM Kishkin read a prepared declaration of the initiative group: "Events taking place in Russia created between the citizens of one country insurmountable obstacles and scattered them to different irreconcilable camps. But it can not be, there should be animosity and turmoil where death devours his victims, where fertile fields converted into the wilderness, where work stops and there is no life-giving breath of life. The matter should help the hungry to unite everyone. It should be placed under the banner of peace of the Red Cross. Krasnokrestnaya work, devoid of any element of political struggle, must take place publicly, openly, under the sign of broad public scrutiny and sympathy. <...> We must have the right to say, not only domestically, but also there, abroad, in the countries where we are forced to seek temporary assistance that the authorities understood the problem the time that it accepted all its dependent measures to ensure that workers on hunger legitimate protection of their activities, promoting a speedy and complete safety of all goods and donations intended for the hungry ", - quotes the writer Victor Topolyansky article in the newspaper" Izvestia "for 1921. From the same issue of the newspaper is known that in his response, the representative of the Soviet regime Lev Kamenev stressed the apolitical nature of the Committee and said on behalf of the Soviet government: "We guarantee all conditions of business operation of the Committee, which may make its successful practical results." Then Prokopovich has formulated the main purpose of the Committee: "Help from abroad. When you create urgency for direct government appeal is unlikely to be considered convenient. Treatment should be based on Russian society. And we hope that it will resonate. " Kamenev did not mind; Moreover, the next day he informed the readers of national newspapers: "This committee has the task to collect and acquire the necessary funds to the starving in Russia and mainly abroad. He can count on the sympathy and support of communities that have not responded to the call of the Communists. " As soon as the newspaper with the decision of the Central Executive Committee of 21 July plastered around Moscow, the inhabitants of the capital have called babbler list of persons brought before the Committee, "the list of all-Russian idiots" (Sabashnikov MV op. Cit, pp. 462). He himself, the Committee received from the Bolsheviks sarcastic nickname "FICO" (or "Prokukish") in the initial syllables of names of representatives of his most energetic (Prokopovich, Sod and Kishkin). Recall that if in 1891, 1906 and 1911. all possible assistance to the starving peasants provided various social organizations and the government itself, that this time the aid is not only followed, but even on the contrary: the hunger, which began in 1920, exacerbated carried out according to the plan surplus repeated requisition foodstuffs. Even very low-key description of the disaster in the Volga region, resembling involuntarily biblical tradition of the ten plagues, caused in Moscow inhabitants, seasoned red terror, and all sorts of hardships, feeling a shudder. On MA Osorgin lasting impression produced information about starving diets. "The best bread was considered a green entirely of quinoa; worse - with a dash of manure, even worse - the whole dung. Even eating clay, and it was then made a great discovery "nutrient clay", gray and greasy, which vodilas only happy places and was pointed out to eat some saints. This clay is saturated with a short time, but it can pass through the intestine, and so man could live for a whole week, but gradually weakening. Plain clay, even if you select from it the pebbles and sand, saturating all, from her man is not freed, and took her, along with a bitter complaint to the light for the presentation of the great pursued, "- he wrote in his book" The Times "(M ., 1989, pp 130). The also were fasted menu meat dishes (from cats, dogs, turtles, gophers, rats, crows, frogs, locusts and fall, as well as boiled skins, belts and ground bones) and vegetarian concoction (grass, straw, quinoa, currant leaves and blackberries, acorns, flour horseradish, lime bark, bark, moss, chaff, sawdust and mill dust). A special place is occupied by mineral foods from peat, silt, and various debris (modern note. 1921. T. 7. S. 286-325). In this situation, fasted often perceive death as a deliverance from suffering. "Who does not work shall not eat" In Kostroma, Penza, Samara, Tsaritsyn and a number of other provinces winter faded by drought; Kuban on crops struck locusts. In the Volga Military District, the population was fed grass and leaves with a dash of flour, in Tatarstan - one only grass. In Ryazan province stopped victual hospitals and orphanages. Across the Volga region, in the Kursk and Voronezh provinces, cases of starvation, especially among children. "In fact, the children -" the country's future "," flowers of life "," the hope of the State ", as they called them in Soviet Russia - on the brink of extinction. In particular, in the Chuvash region from January to September 1921 he died 29 526 children under the age of 14 years. According to the head of Kalmykia regional health department, in November 1922 in the district of Erketenevskom 1322 children died 1090. Especially high was the mortality of children up to three years, in some areas, it reached 90-95%, "- writes in his article" The evacuation of starving children Soviet Russia abroad. 1921 "Doctor of Historical Sciences, Tatiana Smirnova. It also results in a statement the executive secretary of the Central Executive Committee Detkomissii made by the spring of 1922: "The mortality rate of the child population has reached dangerous heights. Suffice it to say that the child population up to three years, almost all died. <...> It is no exaggeration to say that 30% of the child population of the Volga region and Crimea struck by hunger and epidemics from the list of the living. " The initiators of the Committee for Famine Relief understand that the starving could only save foreign organizations and foreign states only. In May and June 1921, Lenin ordered the food purchases abroad, but its amount was not enough even for food workers, not to mention the kids and the peasantry. June 26, 1921 the newspaper "Pravda" published an article about the famine in the Volga region, pointing out that it is even stronger than a severe famine in 1891. In July (no later than 9th) it was even invented a simple and quick way to neizbity stabilize the situation in the country. According to the plan predsovnarkoma V. Ulyanov (Lenin), it was necessary to call on the army half a million (or more) of young men hungry provinces and to house them in Ukraine, where the expected good harvest, and in the fall the task put in front of recruits maximum withdrawal from the peasants (in particular through "special requisitions") grain surpluses. "If the area covered by crop failure and hungry, embraces a territory with 25 million people, is it not a series of measures to be the most revolutionary is to take this area of ??youth into the army in the amount of 500 thousand men? (And even, perhaps, to 1 million?). Objective: To help the public to a certain extent, because of the feed our hungry, and maybe bread parcels home will help to a certain extent hungry. This is the first. And the second: put these ½ million in the Ukraine, so that they have helped to strengthen prodraboty being especially interested in it, particularly clearly recognizing and feeling the injustice of gluttony of the rich peasants in the Ukraine ", - wrote the leader of the world proletariat (Lenin VI Complete Works. Ed. T. 5. 44. M., 1974, pp 67). The difficult economic situation is exacerbated by the poor organization of the supply, transport problems, red tape and theft, flourish at all levels: from canteens to Snabupra Narcompros childcare. Huge size reaches theft in transport. So, for example, sent in autumn 1921 in Chuvashia 1000 pounds of beans region received about 400 pounds, and fish and 2,500 pounds of potatoes disappeared completely. "We will not give a penny to guys from Moscow ..." "Received from foreign governments and foreign non-governmental organizations offer to take the education of Soviet starving children, at first glance, appear to be most cost effective and easiest way to save millions of children's lives. However, over the border it was evacuated only about two thousand children, while the offer of foreign powers (the US, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Turkey) totaled tens of thousands. What is it? The indifference of politicians, whose own political interests were more important than the lives of millions of helpless children? A superficial acquaintance just such an impression with this problem. However, in reality, the reasons for the failure in 1921, the evacuation of Soviet children from famine-stricken provinces campaign abroad is much deeper and more complex, "- he writes in his article" The evacuation of the starving children of Soviet Russia abroad. 1921 "Doctor of Historical Sciences, Tatiana Smirnova. According to historical documents, it is found that the agreement to send hungry children to grow up in a family of British and German workers did not meet with any response from the governments of Britain and Germany. Detkomissiya Central Executive Committee as a result was forced to seek help from the Central Committee of the United Communist Party of Germany. In a joint radiogram RCP (b) and Detkomissii Central Executive Committee on September 13, 1921 stated: "Dear comrades! With deep gratitude Comradely taking your offer to help the starving children of the workers and peasants of the Volga, the Russian Communist Party hereby notifies you that some time ago we had received an offer of English and German workers of their acceptance of its software on 1,000 children. This proposal was made by us and by Radio ... [sic - TS] in September this year It invited authorized representatives of Soviet Russia in London and Berlin to find out from the relevant Governments as well as the conditions under which they conceive the implementation of the desires of their workers on the evacuation of children from Russia. On the received response is sent to RADIO, and we would be extremely grateful if you could with his hand to take the necessary measures to accelerate clarify the issues raised. " A Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany in the collections of the Central Executive Committee and Central Committee Detkomissii Pomgol, unfortunately, has not survived. The idea of ??its content can be formed only on the cover letter Detkomissii in the foreign section of the Central Committee Pomgol. In this letter dated September 26, 1921 it states that the Central Committee Pomgol "response is transmitted to the Central Committee of the German Communist Party, indicating the number of children that can be brought to the port of Petrograd." However, no evidence that the Soviet children were indeed evacuated to Germany or England, could not be found in the materials of the Central Committee and Pomgol Detkomissii Central Executive Committee, - says Tatiana Smirnova. However, she suggested that the initiative of the British and German workers at that time did not support the governments of these countries. After reviewing the state archive documents, the historian believes that the indirect confirmation of this is the London bureau forwarded the motion to the secretariat of the International Christian International in Pomgol CC in February 1922 the British government's response to the request to accept the Christian International in England starving children from Russia. The answer, signed by Harold Scott stated: "At your request lead of 250 Russian children starving to inform you that I have been authorized by the Secretary of state to express my regret that at this moment he is not able to take them to England." Thus, the first attempt of Soviet Russia to evacuate the children starving provinces abroad were unsuccessful. September 30, 1921 at a meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva made Fridtjof Nansen. In it, he accused the governments - members of the League of wanting to solve the problem of Bolshevism in Russia by means of starvation and death of 20 million people. He noted that multiple and repeated requests for £ 5 million (half the cost of the battleship) to the governments of European countries remained unanswered. And now, when the League of Nations adopted a resolution - the resolution says only what you need to do something for Russia, but denies this. Moreover, the representative of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Spalaykovichem was proposed resolution lays the responsibility for the famine in the Soviet government. Commenting on this, he said: "We will not give a penny guys from Moscow ... of two evils - hunger and Bolshevism - I think the last the worst." Nixon, "FICO score" and Lenin's fury Authorities are reluctant to travel abroad, not only children, but also members of the Central Committee Pomgol. The last of its initiative to help the starving Volga paid prison and exile that followed immediately after because of foreign aid first arrived in Russia. Nansen, a famous polar explorer, appointed August 15 Glavnoupolnomochennym the International Red Cross to assist Russia, rushed to Moscow on August 24, accompanied by the Secretary and five advisers. In the evening, August 24 Chicherin Politburo informed about the purpose of the visit of an important guest: "We are, first, have to conclude an agreement with him about the way the transfer of aid received by philanthropic; Secondly, it considers it possible to obtain for us from the various governments and organizations of the loan of 10 million pounds sterling for 6 per cent for 10 years. " It is worth noting that Wikipedia said Fridtjof Nansen was the High Commissioner for Refugees for the League of Nations and it was in this capacity he visited Moskva. Also worth noting that Nansen was no Marxist Poor understanding in the political situation of the country mysterious Soviets, straightforward Nansen ( "Viking", by definition, Gorky) wanted to enter in the number of its employees representative of the Public Committee. "This intention has caused Lenin lingering rage. Head of the Soviet Government seemed as if as a result of communication with the Moscow intelligentsia Nansen distribution of food supplies and favorable credit could swim away from the hands of the Bolsheviks at the disposal of accidentally revived the public ", - he said in the article" The Year 1921 First: Punishment for hunger "Victor Topolyansky. Long kopivshiysya Lenin's anger, he said, "broke out as a subcutaneous abscess, on Friday August 26," when the leader got acquainted with the resolution of the Committee meeting of August 23, where, in particular, said that the fruitful work of the Committee is not possible without the work delegations abroad. Finally osvirepev by "brazenly offers Nansen" and unprecedented boldness "FICO score", the leader of the world proletariat thirsted exemplary punishment. August 26 Lenin in a lengthy note to Stalin demanded to put on the Politburo Immediate dissolution Pomgol and arrest or exile of its leaders, on the basis as if they "do not want to work." He also demanded that the press were given "hundreds frets" "ridicule and persecute at least once a week for two months" of its members. The government's message on the Elimination Committee issued national press 30 August, contained tiresome lie about "a group of so-called public figures," which supposedly took sometime "actively participated in the struggle against Soviet power", then established the aforesaid Committee, and now all of a sudden put forward an ultimatum: or their delegation be released across the border, or they stop working. Since the Committee itself has become "an instrument of" political games "Whites overseas and inspired by their government groups in Europe", but most of its members were captured "political calculations that have nothing to do with the interests of hungry people," the Soviet leadership considered it expedient to dissolve the organization. September 26, the Soviet government appealed to the international community for assistance in the fight against hunger. "The Russian government, - stated in the note - will take any help from whatever source it may entered, it is not linking it with the existing political relations." On the same day, Lenin wrote an appeal to the world proletariat, and even earlier (13 July), Maxim Gorky, with the knowledge of the West called the country's leadership community to prevent massive loss of life in Russia. And the next day, when the first batch of food on the ARA entered the Russian Pomgol and members gathered for a meeting with Kamenev, all public figures, with the exception of two people were arrested Cheka. Through the press they were accused of counterrevolutionary acts. Everyone expected the death penalty, but the intervention of the Nansen saved; released from prison, were expelled: someone abroad who in remote places of Russia. Price of hunger Closely monitor the situation in the Soviet Union last Russian Ambassador to France Maklakov September 6, 1920 wrote last Russian ambassador to the United States BA Bakhmetev: "By reaching up from Russian sources, there is a huge nedos, a huge crop failure, the band fires etc. Any government that would be based on the sympathy and confidence of the country, of course, this would not have survived. But to think that this will inevitably lead to the collapse of Bolshevism at the demoralization and depression of Russian society, which unanimously testify to all the data would be to be too hasty in the conclusions. Hunger at this time will affect not only cities but entire villages and provinces that do not have bread and who will not feed anybody. Russia will die from hunger and disease, but in order to feed the communist centers or those on which is based the Bolshevik regime in Russia, perhaps, grain and there. " Indeed, seeing the care of sustenance starving Soviet citizens took the foreign organizations, the Soviet government turned its resources for other purposes. In the book by Richard Pipes' " The Russian Revolution. 3. The Book of Russia under the Bolsheviks, 1918-1924 "states that for 25 August, three days after signing the contract with Hoover, an old Bolshevik and the Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov reported to Moscow that he sold jewelry in England at 20 million gold rubles and that the buyer is willing to purchase another 20 million pounds ($ 100 million) - means excess donations from abroad starving Russia. "At the beginning of October 1921, Trotsky gave strict instructions to the Soviet secret agent in Germany Viktor Tropp place orders for rifles and machine guns in the amount of 10 million gold rubles. It became known in the autumn of 1922, which caused a strong surprise in American charitable circles - information that the Soviet government came to pass their own products abroad during the famine in their own country shocked public opinion in the West. Soviet authorities explained this by the fact that they need the money for the purchase of industrial and agricultural equipment. Hoover expressed his protest against the "brutal policy of the government, comes off a starving people of food in exchange for imports of equipment and raw materials, for the sake of a successful economic activity of those who are lucky enough to survive," - writes the American author. But because the worst was already behind the Bolshevik authorities have ignored the opinion of the West. on the export of grain News from Russia made it impossible to raise funds in its favor, and in June 1923, foreign social activists ceased their activities in Russia. (Richard Pipes. Russian Revolution. Book 3. Russia under the Bolsheviks, 1918-1924) Meanwhile, only on hunger, on Estimates Commissariat and the CSB, for in 1921-1922. died more than five million people (from 5053 up to 5 .000 .200 000 Soviet citizens). For comparison, on all fronts of the First World War in Russia killed 664 890 people from 15 million mobilized. The total losses of the Russian army (killed or died of wounds, disease or gassing) from August 1914 to December 1917 inclusive amounted to 1,661,804 rights. Thus, the death toll from the epidemic of hunger three times higher than the amount of irrecoverable losses during the First World War. Soviet sources 1920 - mid-1930s famine was ranked as "the last message from the tsarist and the Civil War." At the height of the Cold War, when both parties were active in propaganda against each other, a book by Robert Conquest "Terror Famine," in which the author states that "terrible famine occurred in 1921, not because someone has decided to destroy the farmers such a method. According to him, to believe that it occurred spontaneously, is also incorrect. The weather was bad, but it was not enough to cause such a disaster. The main factor was the method of starvation of the Soviet government to produce bread by using the requisition. " This idea finds support among some publicists and historians in the USSR era of perestroika, is gradually transforming itself with the statements that "famine of the early 1920s. It was inspired by the Bolsheviks "and even" the Bolsheviks have invented a myth that the famine in the early 20s was caused by drought ... " Fold in the 1920s. notions of "natural disaster in the Volga region" have undergone radical revision until many years later. Thus, in the article "Hunger", published in the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1930, Vol. 17), it was noted that the famine of 1921-1922. They hit 35 provinces and killed 5 million people out of 40 million starving, the author of a similar article published in the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1952, Vol. 11), was limited to a mean of information on drought-induced famine that engulfed the 35 provinces, but not a word I mention of the victims of hunger. But in an article on the same subject, placed in the third edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1972, Vol. 7), it was only about "the catastrophic drought" of 1921, which "did not cause the usual heavy consequences" due to effective measures of the Soviet state. | ||
| Posted by:badanov |
| #8 I don't hate the Russians. Not even during the Cold War. Hate is an expensive luxury. Every Hillary's voter should read this. Wouldn't do any good.The Western Left adored the |
| Posted by: Pappy 2016-09-28 19:48 |
| #7 Of course I don't hate Russia. Visited it several times and have great friends there. Communism and communists are responsible for this. just like Mao and his ilk killed millions of Chinese by starvation. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2016-09-28 17:08 |
| #6 Some of them even read James Joyce's Ulysses. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-09-28 15:29 |
| #5 Shrillery's voter can read, #1 grom? |
| Posted by: Barbara 2016-09-28 15:25 |
| #4 Even if you viscerally hate Russia, which I s'pect most Rantburgers do, you should read over this account. I don't hate Russia. I hate communism. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2016-09-28 13:02 |
| #3 The photos are just brutal. Interesting are the posters and the early art style of the soviet propagandists. I guess I do not have an opinion one way or the other about the Russians as a people, mainly through seer ignorance. Sure seems like they have a lot of bad luck though. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2016-09-28 12:03 |
| #2 after the 1921 famine, the 1932-33 Holodomer famine hit the Ukraine and nearby areas - 5-8 million people died in that event (Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer for his pro soviet progaganda covering that). |
| Posted by: lord garth 2016-09-28 06:38 |
| #1 Every Hillary's voter should read this. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-09-28 01:54 |