Tickets were sold out long before the show. The entire collection was taken to the editorial office of the Izvestia newspaper and donated to the fund to help the starving in the Volga region.
On Sunday morning the club was filled with guys. Children came from neighboring houses and a large crowd of homeless children from the Rukavishnikovsky reception center.
History and documents. What could be worse than hunger in an agricultural country? Nevertheless, famine was a frequent occurrence in tsarist Russia. But famine came to Russia immediately after the end of the Civil War, and this was especially terrible. The fratricidal war in the literal sense of the word has just ended, just some hope has just appeared, and here you are, again suffering, again death, now not from a bullet, but from hunger. It began in the RSFSR in 1921 and covered about forty provinces of the country. By the end of the year, 23.2 million people were already starving. By the beginning of the spring of 1922, one million people died of hunger, and another two million children became orphans.
On January 27, Pravda wrote about the rampant cannibalism in the starving areas:
“In the rich steppe districts of the Samara province, abounding in bread and meat, nightmares are happening, an unprecedented phenomenon of rampant cannibalism is observed. Driven by hunger to despair and madness, having eaten everything that is accessible to the eye and the tooth, people begin to eat human corpses and secretly devour their own dead children …"
The newspaper Nasha Zhizn reported in 1922 that “a local resident together with his father caught an 8-year-old homeless boy on the street and stabbed him to death. They ate the corpse …”A real hunt for the homeless began. And it is clear why: well, who will exact for such and such? Hungry prostitution spread. Girls gave themselves up for a slice of surrogate bread, and in Simbirsk itself it became commonplace to remove a girl for a slice of bread. Moreover, helpless parents often pushed their children to prostitution.
The reaction to these events from the United States followed already on July 26, 1921, when the then Secretary of Commerce and at the same time the founder and head of the ARA (American Aid Administration) Robert Hoover, in his response letter to Maxim Gorky, in which he asked for help to the hungry in Russia to the world community, offered to supply food, clothing and medicines for one million starving children in Russia. Then, American and Soviet diplomats met in Riga and held negotiations, which ended with the signing of a corresponding agreement. At first glance, it might seem that the Americans had no benefit in helping the Bolsheviks, but in reality this was far from the case.
Just one of the consequences of the First World War for the United States was the overproduction of agricultural products, primarily grain. And there was no way to sell it for a profit for yourself on the bloodless and insolvent markets of European countries, which could have the most serious consequences for the country. Russia's aid made it possible to maintain, first of all, stable prices, and, consequently, the income of farms. But there was one more goal, and this is also not disputed by anyone: to stop the wave of Bolshevism. Hoover believed that such a large-scale assistance from the ARA would show the Russians the effectiveness of the American economy and cause the process of erosion of Bolshevism within Russia itself. And Hoover's authority turned out to be so great that he easily managed to get the corresponding law passed in Congress. “The food we want to send to Russia is a surplus in the United States,” he told congressmen. - We are now feeding milk to pigs, burning corn in furnaces. From an economic point of view, sending this food for relief is not a loss to America.”
The first to start feeding the starving children. The steamer "Phoenix" with a cargo of food arrived in Petrograd on September 1, 1921, and on September 6, the first ARA canteen in Soviet Russia was opened in Petrograd, and a total of 120 kitchens were opened in the city, feeding 42 thousand children. Four days later, the children's feeding center was opened in Moscow.
Then a very important agreement was signed with the ARA on food and clothing parcels for the starving. The idea was that everyone who wanted to help the hungry had to buy a $ 10 food coupon from one of the APA offices in Europe. ARA sent this coupon to the "country of hunger", gave it to the needy, and he himself went to the ARA warehouse, gave the coupon and received a food parcel. There were also clothing parcels that cost $ 20. The food parcel consisted of 49 pounds of flour, 25 pounds of rice, 3 pounds of tea, 10 pounds of fat, 10 pounds of sugar, 20 cans of condensed milk. That is, the weight of the parcel was about 53 kg!
By December 10, 1921, the ARA in the Samara province fed 185 625 children, in Kazan - 157 196, in Saratov - 82 100, in Simbirsk - 6075, in Orenburg - 7514, in Tsaritsyn - 11,000, and in Moscow - 22,000, only 565 112 children!
However, the appearance in Soviet Russia of a sufficiently large number of foreign specialists immediately aroused great concern among the Bolshevik leaders. Already on August 23, three days after the signing of the agreement with the ARA, Lenin gave a personal order to the Central Committee to organize supervision of the arriving Americans:
“Secret to Comrade Molotov. 23/8. T. Molotov. In view of the agreement with the American Hoover, the Americans are expected to arrive. We need to take care of supervision and awareness. I propose that the Politburo decide: create a commission with the task of preparing, developing and conducting through the Cheka and other bodies to strengthen supervision and awareness of foreigners. The composition of the commission: Molotov, Unshlikht, Chicherin. … The main thing is to take into account and mobilize the maximum Communists who know English to be introduced to the Hoover Commission and for other types of supervision and information …"
(Hereinafter, examples are taken from the material "Gangsters and Philanthropists" by V. Makarov and V. Khristoforov. "Rodina" No. 8, 2006)
Well, in the organizations of the ARA at that time there were 300 employees from the United States and about 10 thousand citizens of the RSFSR, whom the Americans recruited at their choice. Moreover, the authorized ARA were in 37 starving provinces, united in 12 sub-districts.
The agreement with the ARA provided that all of its cargoes were transported by the Soviet side free of charge throughout the country, the employees of the ARA were paid salaries, and housing and premises for canteens and administrative staff were provided free of charge. Equipment and utilities were also paid for by the host. Warehouses, various vehicles, garages, and fuel for vehicles arriving from the United States were also provided free of charge; all trains with food were unloaded free of charge, in addition, ARA agreed to pay for all postal and telegraph costs. And it took the Soviet government for all this, that is, for the costs of servicing the ARA, 14.4 million rubles in gold.
Already in May 1922, 6,099,574 people received food from the ARA on the territory of Russia. So, the American Quaker Society fed 265 thousand, then the International Union for Helping Children fed 259,751 people, the famous Nansen Committee - 138 thousand, the Swedish Red Cross - 87 thousand, the German Red Cross another 7 thousand, British trade unions - fed 92 thousand, and such an organization, as International Labor Aid - 78,011 people. Moreover, all meals were provided free of charge. In addition, the ARA distributed footwear and manufactories to those in need. Patients received medical care, vaccinated, and the peasants received even varietal seeds. Until the end of 1922, more than 10 million people received food aid from the ARA.
From the very beginning, the activities of the ARA in Russia were marked by a serious conflict between the Chekists of the Black Sea-Kuban coast and Hoover's agents who arrived in the RSFSR. Here is what the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G. V. Chicherin told Lenin about him in a letter dated October 23, 1921:
“The American destroyer, on which some of the Guverites were traveling, was stopped at sea by the Novorossiysk Chekists, who searched it and behaved extremely rudely towards the Americans. When in Novorossiysk the NKID authorized officer wished to board the American destroyer to greet the Americans, the Cheka agents standing on the shore in front of the Americans in the most rude manner did not let our authorized officer onto the destroyer. The Americans, having gone ashore, protested against the behavior of the Chekists, which made the most difficult impression on them."
The very next day, Lenin, in his characteristic categorical manner, demanded
“Arrest lousy security officers and bring them to Moscow, shoot those guilty. Put it in the Politburo on Thursday, giving Unshlicht a timely response and enclosing all the material."
On the other hand, the surveillance put on by the Hoover members made it possible to conclusively say that much of what was done in the ARA in Russia was to a certain extent anti-Soviet in nature.
So, the head of the information department of the INO VChK Y. Zalin in the memorandum "On the ARA" dated January 26, 1922, noted the following:
“The results we have found through systematic monitoring of the ARA's activities force us to urgently take measures that, without interfering with the fight against hunger, could eliminate everything that threatens the interests of the RSFSR in this organization. American personnel were selected mostly from military and intelligence officers, of whom many know Russian and were in Russia either in pre-revolutionary times, or in the White Guard armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich and in Poland (Gavard and Fox - at Kolchak, Torner - at Yudenich, Gregg and Fink - in Polish, etc.). The Americans do not hide their hatred of Soviet power (anti-Soviet agitation in conversations with peasants - Dr. Golder, destruction of portraits of Lenin and Trotsky in the dining room - by Thompson, toasts to the restoration of the past - Gofstr, talk about the near end of the Bolsheviks, etc.) … Engaging in espionage, organizing and spreading a wide network throughout Russia, the ARA tends to become more and more widespread, trying to cover the entire territory of the RSFSR in a continuous ring along the outskirts and borders (Petrograd, Vitebsk, Minsk, Gomel, Zhitomir, Kiev, Odessa, Novorossiysk, Kharkov, Orenburg, Ufa, etc.). From all of the above, one can only conclude that, regardless of subjective desires, the ARA objectively creates strongholds for counterrevolution in the event of an internal uprising, both ideologically and materially …"
On the other hand, the work of the Arovites in Soviet Russia was life-threatening. Two employees were killed for the purpose of robbery.
In the summer of 1922, the assistant to the head of the SB GPU reported to his leadership:
“Observing the work of the Russian branch of the ARA for several months made it possible for the GPU to establish the true nature of its activities. At the present time, from the material at the disposal of the GPU, it is clear that, in addition to helping the starving, in Russia "ARA" pursues other goals that have nothing to do with humanitarian ideas and philanthropy. The ARA personnel who came to Russia from America were recruited with the participation of conservative, patriotic American clubs and under the influence of the former Russian consul in the United States, Bakhmetyev. In addition, all ARA employees were filtered by Guy, a prominent employee of the ARA European office in London, who is the representative of American intelligence in England; almost all ARA employees have military experience. Most of them are this or former. American intelligence and counterintelligence officials; or people who worked in the White Russians and other opposing armies. Finally, some of these employees took an active part in the work of "ARA" to overthrow the Soviet regime in Hungary. Colonel William Haskell, the ARA's representative in Russia, was at one time the High Commissioner for the Caucasus. At that time he was distinguished by his irreconcilability towards Soviet Russia, inciting Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia against it. Spreading fables about the Bolsheviks in the press. Of the more responsible ARA workers with extensive military experience, we can point to the following: Major of Artillery Karol, Cavalry Captain Gregg, Lieutenant Selarge, Colonel Winters, Colonel Bucks, Captain Dougreg, Major Longgrand, Captain Mangan and a number of others."
At the same time, the special concern of the Chekists was caused not so much by the Americans themselves as by the Russian employees of the ARA, since it was thanks to them that they managed to get all the information they needed about Russia and its life. It was noted that the ARA mainly supplies the former Russian bourgeoisie with its food parcels, so the GPU began to consider the ARA's presence in Russia undesirable, especially after the famine in the Volga region subsided.
As a result, in June 1923, an agreement was signed between the ARA and the RSFSR on the termination of its activities and the dissolution of its personnel, after which its functions were transferred to the Swiss Committee for Helping Children. The result was as follows: over the two years of its activity, the ARA spent about 78 million dollars, of which 28 - the money of the US government, 12, 2 - the Soviet government, the rest - donations from private organizations and individuals.
The foreign White émigré press also responded to the completion of the ARA's work. The newspaper "Rul" on this occasion informed the readers the following:
ARA ends its activities in Soviet Russia. Banquets are held in honor of its representatives and the Bolsheviks deliver eulogies. However, from the words of ARA employees returning to the United States, it becomes clear how hard it was for them and how unfriendly the Soviet regime was towards them. The history of ARA's activities is full of misunderstandings with the Soviet government. In the offices of "ARA" detective agents were placed to observe and spy on the employees. Their mail, despite the diplomatic privileges officially granted to them, was opened and viewed. Soviet newspapers attacked ARA representatives as smugglers."
Maxim Gorky, in a letter to Herbert Hoover, spoke about the activities of the ARA as follows:
"Your help will be inscribed in history as a unique, gigantic achievement worthy of the greatest glory, and will remain for a long time in the memory of millions of Russians … whom you saved from death."
And now a little about the results and consequences of all these events. Let's start with the children on whom the food in the ARA canteens had a huge moral, psychological and cultural impact. First of all, the children ate themselves, and although it was forbidden to take food out of the canteens, they, of course (bread), secretly took it out and thus fed their parents. The children, in spite of their hunger, began to play again, and it was noted that when playing the war, they did not shout "Hurray!", But "Ara!" There were also quite amusing phenomena associated with the interpenetration of cultures. So, the guys, having done their homework well or answering at school, began to say that "they did the lesson in an American way", that this or that … "Arow's good." Adults, especially peasants, on the contrary, treated the "American" with great distrust. They could not understand how it was possible to distribute food like that for free. At the same time, they did not like the coldness and aloofness of the Americans, who did not in any way resemble their own on the blackboard, and even more so did not allow for a familiar relationship. Hence the constantly arising rumors about espionage, although what could the Americans have to spy on - in the then RSFSR? Fix the number of clamps and carts?
But the social policy of the ARA, so to speak, undermined the foundations of the young Soviet statehood. First of all, the ARA sought to feed “its own”, “former” and the intelligentsia, its organizations accepted 120 thousand cultured people to work and thereby saved them from hunger and death, that is, they acted thereby in fact against the Soviet regime, of which many of these citizens Russia simply did not need it. And the Bolshevik Zinoviev stated this quite frankly back in September 1918 at a party conference of the Petrograd communists:
“We must lead ninety of the hundred million people who make up the population of the Soviet Republic. The rest of us have nothing to say. They need to be eliminated."
And so it turned out that famine first of all covered the areas of the famous Chapanna war, and there the positions of the Soviet government were by no means strong. The workers in the cities, the main revolutionary class and the mainstay of the dictatorship of the proletariat, received rations, they were not threatened with hunger. But the poorest peasantry, which, as a well-known Moor, played its role in the revolution, in general, was no longer required by the authorities, and indeed it was a reactionary class. Who was Vendée, after all? Of the peasants! The Bolsheviks were just glad-happy that all these "former", as well as "backward peasants" are dying out by themselves, but it turned out that the ARA was feeding and saving them. And, saving these people, the ARA increased the inertia of Soviet society, saved millions of people who did not accept communism in their souls, that is, by their actions, the Arovites put a decent pig on the Bolsheviks … And it is not surprising that they understood this and did their best to get rid of the ARA. With their practical attitude towards people, this help in the end was completely useless. The main thing for them is to preserve the proletariat - the striking force of the revolution, and all sorts of peasants, intelligentsia, "former" and "officers" - as they said, was the tenth thing for them! So the famine, in a certain respect, even played into the hands of the authorities, it was not for nothing that at this very time the Soviet government allocated much more money not for the purchase of bread for the starving, but for the purchase of steam locomotives in Sweden, for which they gave 200 million rubles in gold! And then ARA with its help, which seemed to be a good thing, but it seemed … not even very much. It is not for nothing that TSB in 1950 did not mention the ARA at all, as if its activities had not existed at all. True, Soviet newspapers of the 1920s wrote about her activities, but all of them soon migrated to the archives. Who went there then? In general, they don't go there too much today. Is it possible to look for your pedigree …
P. S. But the archives contain a lot of interesting evidence of Soviet-American cooperation of those years. For example, from the newspapers stored there, you can find out that in Novorossiysk, for example, American destroyers were being repaired at that time, and, in particular, the American destroyer DD-239 Overton was being repaired. The newspaper "Krasnoe Chernomorye" dated April 22, 1922, wrote that "for every day of stoppage, the plant was obliged to pay 300 dollars under the contract," so the work went very quickly. In addition, its commander Ware agreed with the plant about the repair of him and all other American destroyers that entered the parking lot in Novorossiysk. Soon the ship was repaired and the ship weighed anchor to leave the port.
