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"December 4, 1921."
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"Samara District, Soviet Russia."
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"Today I came upon a group of
men in a makeshift cemetery"
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"digging a mass grave."
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"When I asked where the bodies were,"
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"one of them explained..."
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"We are trying now to make a place"
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"to put the future corpses."
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"We are afraid we won't have
the strength to do it later."
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"As I looked at them,
I wondered if any of those men"
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"thought he might be digging
his own grave."
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Will Shafroth,
American Relief Administration.
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In July 1921,
noted Russian author Maxim Gorky
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issued a plea to the West.
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"Gloomy days have come
for the country of Tolstoy,"
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"Dostoyevsky, Mendeleev," Gorky wrote.
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"I ask for prompt aid
to the Russian people."
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"Give bread and medicine."
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Gorky never mentioned Vladimir Lenin
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or his Bolshevik revolution.
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Russia had suffered a drought,
which was not unusual.
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The famine of 1921 was.
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It would become the worst
natural disaster in Europe
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since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages.
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There was this historical coincidence
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of a number of social forces:
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the collapse of the tsarist regime,
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the outbreak of civil war,
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the policies of the Bolsheviks themselves.
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The government carried out
mass requisitioning of grain,
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which prevented peasants
from feeding themselves
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or even having enough seed
to carry on next season
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planting a new crop.
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Herbert Hoover,
the new secretary of commerce
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under President Warren Harding,
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spotted Gorky's plea in a newspaper.
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Hoover was also the director
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of the American Relief Administration,
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known as the ARA.
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For most Americans,
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Herbert Hoover is associated
with the Great Depression.
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But back in the 1920s,
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his image was one of being
a very efficient...
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a hardheaded humanitarian
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who knew how to get the food through.
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No one in the West had better credentials
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to answer Gorky's request
than Herbert Hoover.
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Hoover was a Stanford-trained
mining engineer
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who had operated in Australia, China,
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and Russia's Ural Mountains,
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and knew the logistics
of moving men and materiel
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around the world.
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When World War I broke out, he
was asked to organize the relief
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of an entire nation.
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There were seven million Belgians
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living under German occupation.
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So it became Hoover's responsibility
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to provide daily food assistance
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that would keep all those people alive.
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And Hoover showed that he had
the administrative talents
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as well as the humanitarian
sympathies to pull this off.
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And he became an American hero
and even an international hero.
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After the war,
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the Paris Peace Conference
asked the United States
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to feed tens of millions in 21 countries
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throughout war-torn Europe
and the Near East.
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The U.S. created the ARA
with Herbert Hoover as its head.
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It has been said, and I think correctly,
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that Herbert Hoover was responsible
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for saving more lives than
any person who has ever lived.
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He became known
as the "Master of Emergencies"
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and the "Great Humanitarian,"
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the embodiment of an America
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proud of its newfound sense of
itself as an altruistic nation.
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Hoover accepted Russia's plea for help.
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Will Shafroth, 29, son of
the governor of Colorado,
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joined other famine relief
workers from the United States
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and headed for Moscow.
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Spurred by a sense of adventure
and altruism, "Hoover's boys,"
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as they came to be known,
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had done relief work after World War I
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and represented an America
that emerged from the war
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as a world power.
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Now their idealism would be tested
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by a railroad system in disarray...
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a forbidding climate...
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a ruthless government suspicious
of their motives...
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and the shear scale
of starvation and death.
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They would be among
the first Americans to see
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the earth-shaking revolution
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that Vladimir Lenin and
his Bolsheviks had wrought
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and the first to feel the tensions
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that would mark U.S.-Soviet
relations
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for much of the century.
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On September 1, 1921,
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the first ship carrying
American relief supplies
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arrived from Hamburg, Germany,
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and docked at Petrograd,
the former St. Petersburg.
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It began to unload 700 tons of
rations that had been in storage
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since the European relief.
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The ARA's goal in Russia was
to do what it had done
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in postwar Europe:
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feed children, mainly in the cities.
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Feeding one million seemed
a manageable task.
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Within a week, the first ARA
feeding station opened
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in Petrograd School number 27.
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The menu was white bread,
corn grits, rice, milk, cocoa,
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and sugar.
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At a time when there
was not a spark of hope anywhere,
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unexpectedly, without any reason,
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nobody could explain why Americans came,
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why they provide food for children.
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The "Chicago
Tribune" began running a story
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that would captivate America.
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It also appealed for funds.
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Private donations began to flow
to the ARA.
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Five days after his arrival in Moscow,
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Will Shafroth was part of an ARA
scouting party sent east
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to evaluate the famine
in the Volga valley.
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People had fled their villages,
desperate to escape the famine.
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At the station at Kazan
on the northern Volga,
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Shafroth noted "wretched creatures
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huddled together in compact
masses like a seal colony."
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Most were children whose mothers
had deserted them or had died.
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Shafroth and his fellow scouts
then drove to a home
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for orphaned and abandoned children
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whose lice-ridden clothes
had to be destroyed.
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"I saw emaciated little skeletons,
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"whose gaunt faces and toothpick
legs testified to the truth
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of the report that they were
dying daily by the dozen."
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"The stench was nauseating."
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He served with the ARA in Poland
right after the war,
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but he had never witnessed
scenes of horror like this.
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Shafroth witnessed
the same or worse in Simbirsk,
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in Sengiley, in Samara.
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Once the richest grain-growing
province in the Volga valley,
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Samara was now at the heart of the famine.
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My father wrote about one children's home
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in Samara where 283 children
were confined to three rooms.
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"They were sitting on the floor,
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"and when I asked the brave
little lady where they slept,
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"she pointed to the floor
and said, 'There.
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"We have no other place
for them.'
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"And then she had those
little, hungry, homeless waifs
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sing for me."
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My dad said he had to turn away.
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It was more than he could stand.
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In October
1921, Colonel Walter L. Bell,
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a National Guardsman from Syracuse,
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was dispatched into the abyss
of the unknown...
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Ufa in Bashkiria, 725 miles from Moscow,
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at the foot of the Ural Mountains.
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His relief district would expand
east across the Urals
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to the edge of Siberia.
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"It is impossible
to describe the suffering and misery
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that presented itself
on every side."
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"I found the only food was made from weeds
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mixed with ground-up bones,
tree bark, and clay."
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The famine was awful.
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People were eating almost everything
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that could be swallowed.
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They ate straw from the roof.
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Using this straw and such
substitutes of food,
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they became ill and they look
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something like fat men,
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but it was the beginning of their illness.
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We had a camel...
two camels our family had.
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Finally, of course,
we ate him, our family.
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So we ate all cats, dogs,
horses, everything.
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Shafroth and Bell wired their reports
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to Colonel William Haskell in Moscow,
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a retired Army officer
who was the director
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of the ARA's Russian relief.
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Haskell began to grasp the
enormity of the problem.
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In October 1921,
he wired Hoover in Washington
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that the starvation would peak
in the winter
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and affect 16 million people.
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Hoover realized the challenge
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was not hunger, as in postwar Europe.
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Soviet Russia faced the greatest
famine in history.
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Feeding one million children
would only scratch the surface.
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He needed to feed adults as well.
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That would mean funding from Congress.
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Yet he worried Americans
would be reluctant
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to spend their tax dollars on people
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whose Communist government
many saw as monstrous
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and intent on spreading revolution.
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We had had a Red
scare in our own domestic politics
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in 1919, 1920,
a general strike in Seattle,
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a bombing of the home
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of the attorney general of the
United States, never solved.
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00:14:29,972 --> 00:14:33,976
There were many reasons to fear
that left-wing agitation,
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even of the Communist variety,
was a serious menace.
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Hoover had a
reputation not just as a humanitarian
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but also as a staunch anti-Communist.
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In postwar Central Europe,
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he had helped thwart Lenin's
attempts to expand Communism
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by threatening to withhold relief supplies
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from countries sympathetic
to the Bolsheviks.
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00:14:58,138 --> 00:15:01,314
That worried the American left.
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Left-of-center
people... legitimately, I think...
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00:15:09,322 --> 00:15:13,291
suspected that his motivation
here wasn't pure,
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00:15:13,326 --> 00:15:15,845
because he had this
counterrevolutionary record
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with respect to food relief
in Eastern Europe.
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00:15:19,746 --> 00:15:24,613
To them, a Socialist revolution
or a Socialist regime in Russia
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00:15:24,647 --> 00:15:26,926
was an experiment that should be
encouraged.
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00:15:29,031 --> 00:15:30,860
In Hoover's mind,
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00:15:30,895 --> 00:15:33,967
there was no conflict
between feeding people...
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giving sort of straightforward
humanitarian relief
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00:15:36,590 --> 00:15:38,213
on the one hand...
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and using food as a political
weapon to stop Bolshevism.
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00:15:42,458 --> 00:15:44,391
Bolshevism was wicked.
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00:15:44,426 --> 00:15:45,530
It was evil.
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00:15:45,565 --> 00:15:47,498
Stopping it was humanitarian.
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00:15:47,532 --> 00:15:51,847
Hoover felt the
example of American efficiency
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00:15:51,881 --> 00:15:56,438
and generosity might do more
than just feed the Russians.
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00:15:56,472 --> 00:16:01,063
That was part of his pitch
to President Warren Harding.
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00:16:01,098 --> 00:16:03,410
He wanted and I think implied
221
00:16:03,445 --> 00:16:07,345
that food famine relief could, perhaps,
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00:16:07,380 --> 00:16:08,657
lead to a regime change
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00:16:08,691 --> 00:16:12,730
and that it might get rid
of the Bolsheviks.
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00:16:12,764 --> 00:16:15,008
He thought that by bringing in
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00:16:15,043 --> 00:16:19,150
Americans with their talents
and administrative expertise...
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00:16:19,185 --> 00:16:20,772
their efficiency, if you will...
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00:16:20,807 --> 00:16:25,018
that they could serve as
an example to the Russians.
228
00:16:25,053 --> 00:16:28,470
Lenin was afraid that he would
try to sneak arms in with food
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00:16:28,504 --> 00:16:30,161
and try to organize a resistance.
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00:16:30,196 --> 00:16:33,509
No, no, Hoover was not trying
to do that at all.
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00:16:35,822 --> 00:16:38,480
Hoover's primary
argument for helping the Russians
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00:16:38,514 --> 00:16:40,378
was an economic one.
233
00:16:40,413 --> 00:16:44,210
Feeding Russians would help
American farmers
234
00:16:44,244 --> 00:16:46,660
who were sitting on huge surpluses.
235
00:16:46,695 --> 00:16:51,976
Hoover asked Congress for
$20 million to buy surplus corn
236
00:16:52,011 --> 00:16:55,497
for an expanded relief program
for children and for adults.
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00:16:57,706 --> 00:16:59,673
Some in the House feared it would bolster
238
00:16:59,708 --> 00:17:01,399
the Bolshevik government.
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00:17:01,434 --> 00:17:05,472
With unemployment reaching
five million during a recession,
240
00:17:05,507 --> 00:17:08,510
some senators favored projects
that would create jobs
241
00:17:08,544 --> 00:17:11,444
for Americans or help veterans
in distress.
242
00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:18,865
Hoover supporters and the Farm
Belt lobby carried the day.
243
00:17:18,899 --> 00:17:22,938
On December 22, 1921,
with Harding's backing,
244
00:17:22,972 --> 00:17:25,182
Congress approved the purchase
of surplus corn.
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00:17:27,356 --> 00:17:30,083
Hoover also insisted
the Soviets buy wheat seed
246
00:17:30,118 --> 00:17:35,468
to plant in the spring to secure
the harvest of 1922.
247
00:17:35,502 --> 00:17:38,195
The ARA campaign in Russia
248
00:17:38,229 --> 00:17:42,958
would be the largest relief
operation to date...
249
00:17:42,992 --> 00:17:46,962
and the first to provide relief
to an adversary.
250
00:17:48,136 --> 00:17:50,690
The challenge was to get the food
251
00:17:50,724 --> 00:17:53,037
almost halfway around the world,
252
00:17:53,072 --> 00:17:56,523
where up to 100,000 Russians
were dying every week.
253
00:18:06,119 --> 00:18:10,192
America's surplus corn and wheat
seed began to move quickly
254
00:18:10,227 --> 00:18:13,402
from the heartland to the holds
of oceangoing freighters.
255
00:18:20,616 --> 00:18:24,655
The first relief ships left
New York in mid-January 1922,
256
00:18:24,689 --> 00:18:27,658
carrying 300,000 tons of grain.
257
00:18:30,074 --> 00:18:34,941
The task before the ARA workers
in Russia was Herculean.
258
00:18:34,975 --> 00:18:37,806
During the child feeding,
259
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:41,154
the ARA had divided Russia
into ten districts.
260
00:18:41,189 --> 00:18:46,090
Each had an American supervisor
and a small staff of Americans.
261
00:18:48,161 --> 00:18:50,715
Once again, these relief workers set off
262
00:18:50,750 --> 00:18:53,062
into the far corners of their districts,
263
00:18:53,097 --> 00:18:57,239
estimating the new needs,
arranging for more warehouses
264
00:18:57,274 --> 00:18:59,655
to store 20 million bushels of corn
265
00:18:59,690 --> 00:19:01,588
and thousands of tons of seed...
266
00:19:03,970 --> 00:19:06,800
and directing the village committees
267
00:19:06,835 --> 00:19:10,666
to identify starving adults
for the expanded relief.
268
00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:16,569
They traveled over the flat
expanses of the Russian steppes
269
00:19:16,603 --> 00:19:20,124
for silent days in crude sleighs,
270
00:19:20,159 --> 00:19:21,919
by train if they could find a private car.
271
00:19:25,025 --> 00:19:29,064
Their greatest physical threat
was typhus, spread by lice.
272
00:19:30,652 --> 00:19:33,413
They're afraid
to travel with ordinary Russians
273
00:19:33,448 --> 00:19:38,487
in third-class cars because of lice.
274
00:19:38,522 --> 00:19:39,902
They're traveling along in a sled,
275
00:19:39,937 --> 00:19:42,181
and they get out and they go
into a peasant hut
276
00:19:42,215 --> 00:19:46,668
for the night and they see
the walls crawling with lice.
277
00:19:48,808 --> 00:19:52,156
So they go back in the sled,
they bundle up, and they know
278
00:19:52,191 --> 00:19:55,884
"Mr. Louse," as they called him,
couldn't survive in that cold.
279
00:19:58,645 --> 00:20:02,477
The ARA had to expand its staff.
280
00:20:02,511 --> 00:20:05,445
With no more than 200 American
supervisors in Russia
281
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:11,831
at any one time, it hired
120,000 Russians to do the work.
282
00:20:11,865 --> 00:20:14,005
They invited those who could speak
283
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:17,250
at least a little bit English
or other foreign languages.
284
00:20:17,285 --> 00:20:20,667
For ARA, it was practical reasons.
285
00:20:20,702 --> 00:20:23,256
They had an education.
286
00:20:23,291 --> 00:20:25,879
Because most Communists were
without any education,
287
00:20:25,914 --> 00:20:29,642
no languages, but the Russian authorities,
288
00:20:29,676 --> 00:20:33,577
they interpreted this
as an opportunity for the ARA
289
00:20:33,611 --> 00:20:38,478
to find people who would be able
to support
290
00:20:38,513 --> 00:20:40,031
counterrevolutions, all these things.
291
00:20:40,066 --> 00:20:41,792
So, different perceptions.
292
00:20:41,826 --> 00:20:47,004
Will Shafroth's Samara
district was divided into eight regions,
293
00:20:47,038 --> 00:20:49,627
each with at least one warehouse.
294
00:20:52,043 --> 00:20:54,391
Every village had a committee
of local citizens
295
00:20:54,425 --> 00:20:56,496
who decided who got fed.
296
00:20:59,568 --> 00:21:04,746
Shafroth would supervise 16,000
Russians in 900 kitchens.
297
00:21:09,785 --> 00:21:12,374
In his sprawling Ufa Urals district,
298
00:21:12,409 --> 00:21:14,997
Walter Bell faced even greater challenges.
299
00:21:16,896 --> 00:21:21,003
The population
of that district was almost nine million
300
00:21:21,038 --> 00:21:23,592
and the territory is bigger than France.
301
00:21:23,627 --> 00:21:26,146
And there were only five or six Americans
302
00:21:26,181 --> 00:21:28,666
supervising the operations.
303
00:21:28,701 --> 00:21:31,082
They didn't know Russian at all.
304
00:21:31,117 --> 00:21:34,051
They knew nothing about
Bashkir and Bashkiria.
305
00:21:34,085 --> 00:21:36,087
They kept asking each other,
306
00:21:36,122 --> 00:21:38,642
"Have you ever heard
about those Bashkirs?"
307
00:21:38,676 --> 00:21:41,230
They, they didn't know that
such people exist.
308
00:21:44,061 --> 00:21:46,581
The Bashkirs had been a nomadic people
309
00:21:46,615 --> 00:21:50,964
who settled in what would become
Russia's lawless wild east.
310
00:21:54,623 --> 00:21:57,108
In addition to the Muslim Bashkirs
311
00:21:57,143 --> 00:21:58,731
who were hostile to the Russians
312
00:21:58,765 --> 00:22:00,422
and had a reputation for plunder,
313
00:22:00,457 --> 00:22:03,494
Bell's district contained Kazakhs,
314
00:22:03,529 --> 00:22:05,945
who for centuries had attacked
the Bashkirs
315
00:22:05,979 --> 00:22:08,396
and hated the Russians.
316
00:22:08,430 --> 00:22:12,952
"The diplomatic entanglements
involved," Bell would write,
317
00:22:12,986 --> 00:22:15,230
"make the Paris Peace Conference seem
318
00:22:15,264 --> 00:22:17,266
like a well-conducted
private school."
319
00:22:19,372 --> 00:22:22,410
Walter Bell faced a formidable task.
320
00:22:22,444 --> 00:22:25,689
Unlike Shafroth,
he had no previous experience
321
00:22:25,723 --> 00:22:27,656
with relief work.
322
00:22:33,282 --> 00:22:36,182
Vladimir Lenin kept
a watchful eye on the ARA.
323
00:22:39,427 --> 00:22:42,844
In February, the Cheka...
his secret police...
324
00:22:42,878 --> 00:22:47,296
ordered its agents "to purge the
ARA of undesirable elements."
325
00:22:49,022 --> 00:22:53,130
These agents began
to infiltrate ARA offices,
326
00:22:53,164 --> 00:22:56,582
hired as Russian assistants.
327
00:22:56,616 --> 00:22:59,308
They reported to Alexander Eiduk,
328
00:22:59,343 --> 00:23:02,381
a Cheka agent who was
the Soviet government's liaison
329
00:23:02,415 --> 00:23:04,555
with the ARA.
330
00:23:04,590 --> 00:23:08,904
Was there any
political activity made by the ARA?
331
00:23:08,939 --> 00:23:12,632
Did they meet any suspicious persons here?
332
00:23:12,667 --> 00:23:14,772
Did they agitate against anything?
333
00:23:14,807 --> 00:23:18,293
Did you notice any anti-Communist slogans
334
00:23:18,327 --> 00:23:20,709
in their declarations?
335
00:23:22,539 --> 00:23:27,095
Eiduk also tried
to undermine the ARA's American staff.
336
00:23:27,129 --> 00:23:32,756
One target was David Kinne, the
29-year-old district supervisor
337
00:23:32,790 --> 00:23:37,001
of Saratov Province on the Volga.
338
00:23:37,036 --> 00:23:40,453
Cheka agents
had secret instructions from their chiefs
339
00:23:40,488 --> 00:23:42,938
to use every American weakness
340
00:23:42,973 --> 00:23:45,458
to get control over American supply.
341
00:23:45,493 --> 00:23:50,049
And David Kinne was
a perfect match for them
342
00:23:50,083 --> 00:23:52,500
because he was an alcoholic.
343
00:23:54,950 --> 00:23:59,748
The Cheka exploited Kinne's weakness.
344
00:23:59,783 --> 00:24:02,924
The Soviet notion
is if they can get control of the food,
345
00:24:02,958 --> 00:24:07,860
they can funnel it to the people
they want to get the food,
346
00:24:07,894 --> 00:24:10,587
and they can keep the food
away from people
347
00:24:10,621 --> 00:24:13,452
they don't want receiving the food.
348
00:24:15,074 --> 00:24:18,215
Poretskii, that guy from Cheka
349
00:24:18,249 --> 00:24:21,218
who was supervising American
operations in Saratov,
350
00:24:21,252 --> 00:24:23,462
he knew exactly what he was doing.
351
00:24:25,878 --> 00:24:29,191
The Cheka
agents took over Kinne's operation
352
00:24:29,226 --> 00:24:32,988
and diverted food from children
to their political allies.
353
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:38,235
It took several months before
the ARA could reclaim
354
00:24:38,269 --> 00:24:41,031
American control in Saratov province.
355
00:24:45,138 --> 00:24:48,832
In March, David Kinne was
dismissed from the ARA
356
00:24:48,866 --> 00:24:51,697
and sent out of Russia a broken man.
357
00:25:03,018 --> 00:25:07,333
American relief ships got
as far as the Baltic Sea,
358
00:25:07,367 --> 00:25:11,061
only to become icebound in
February and for much of March.
359
00:25:14,443 --> 00:25:17,032
It was the coldest winter in 15 years.
360
00:25:19,621 --> 00:25:21,554
"The Lord seems to have
a particular animus
361
00:25:21,589 --> 00:25:25,109
toward the Russian people,"
an ARA staffer mused.
362
00:25:25,144 --> 00:25:27,698
"He cuts off the rain in the summer
363
00:25:27,733 --> 00:25:30,425
and freezes up the Baltic
in winter."
364
00:25:38,606 --> 00:25:42,230
While touring his district
in the fall of 1921,
365
00:25:42,264 --> 00:25:45,474
47-year-old Walter Bell contracted typhus.
366
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:49,996
His Russian assistants drove him
for three days
367
00:25:50,031 --> 00:25:52,620
back to Ufa, delirious.
368
00:25:55,484 --> 00:26:00,559
He was unconscious for
three weeks and almost died.
369
00:26:00,593 --> 00:26:04,459
Harold Blandy, Bell's assistant in Ufa,
370
00:26:04,493 --> 00:26:06,047
also came down with typhus.
371
00:26:07,393 --> 00:26:10,569
Harold Blandy had a big heart.
372
00:26:10,603 --> 00:26:12,363
Harold Blandy was the type who could not
373
00:26:12,398 --> 00:26:14,573
simply go into a children's home
and inspect it.
374
00:26:14,607 --> 00:26:16,229
He had to go into a children's home
375
00:26:16,264 --> 00:26:20,924
and interact with the children,
put his hand on the kid's head.
376
00:26:23,823 --> 00:26:27,068
It wasn't a surprise to the Ufa Americans
377
00:26:27,102 --> 00:26:31,003
that Blandy caught typhus.
378
00:26:31,037 --> 00:26:33,730
Blandy died a week later.
379
00:26:36,180 --> 00:26:39,149
To the Russians,
his death warranted a tribute...
380
00:26:39,183 --> 00:26:42,980
an elaborate funeral procession in Moscow.
381
00:26:44,637 --> 00:26:49,711
To the ARA, anyone who caught
typhus, much less died from it,
382
00:26:49,746 --> 00:26:52,024
was an embarrassment.
383
00:26:52,058 --> 00:26:54,751
To be outwitted by lice was to fall short
384
00:26:54,785 --> 00:26:58,099
of being a cautious and
efficient relief worker.
385
00:27:03,622 --> 00:27:06,003
When Walter Bell recovered,
386
00:27:06,038 --> 00:27:08,385
he resumed his tour of some
of the remotest parts
387
00:27:08,419 --> 00:27:09,766
of his district.
388
00:27:11,802 --> 00:27:15,944
He found a home in what he
called "the wilds of Russia."
389
00:27:21,605 --> 00:27:24,366
He would stop at a village
and spend days at a time
390
00:27:24,401 --> 00:27:26,990
with the local Bashkirs
and Soviet officials,
391
00:27:27,024 --> 00:27:29,786
including Eiduk's Cheka agents.
392
00:27:34,100 --> 00:27:37,345
"He out thinks these people,"
a colleague noted,
393
00:27:37,379 --> 00:27:39,727
"and wins them by his courtesy."
394
00:27:41,970 --> 00:27:45,560
The other directors of the ARA regions,
395
00:27:45,594 --> 00:27:51,117
they were not polite
with Russian authorities.
396
00:27:51,152 --> 00:27:53,913
And I have read some letters.
397
00:27:53,948 --> 00:27:58,055
They were full of sarcasm, irony,
398
00:27:58,090 --> 00:28:01,818
and sometimes they used rather rude words.
399
00:28:01,852 --> 00:28:06,512
Mr. Bell, he was polite,
400
00:28:06,546 --> 00:28:10,447
and sometimes,
when there were his mistake,
401
00:28:10,481 --> 00:28:14,244
he accepted that he was not right.
402
00:28:19,180 --> 00:28:22,355
"One big reason for the friendly contact
403
00:28:22,390 --> 00:28:24,703
"that existed between us
and the authorities
404
00:28:24,737 --> 00:28:27,982
"was whenever we had an
important question to decide,
405
00:28:28,016 --> 00:28:30,985
we had a conference
with the ones concerned."
406
00:28:33,056 --> 00:28:37,370
Bell was
older than most of the ARA workers.
407
00:28:37,405 --> 00:28:40,477
And it was easier for local population
408
00:28:40,511 --> 00:28:43,273
to perceive him as a boss.
409
00:28:43,307 --> 00:28:47,001
He's Colonel Bell.
410
00:28:47,035 --> 00:28:51,005
He's, as the Russians would say,
"Polkovnik Bell."
411
00:28:51,039 --> 00:28:52,972
And we're dealing with a country here
412
00:28:53,007 --> 00:28:55,837
that has just seen a civil war,
413
00:28:55,872 --> 00:28:58,081
Whites and Reds going back and forth.
414
00:28:58,115 --> 00:29:00,255
Military authority counts for something.
415
00:29:04,466 --> 00:29:07,159
With the Baltic
frozen and supplies running low,
416
00:29:07,193 --> 00:29:09,506
Polkovnik Bell told his colleagues
417
00:29:09,540 --> 00:29:11,232
he was forced to put
the children's kitchens
418
00:29:11,266 --> 00:29:13,268
on half rations.
419
00:29:15,098 --> 00:29:17,721
Yet he continued to feed the children
420
00:29:17,756 --> 00:29:21,587
of both Russians and Bashkirs
with their cooperation,
421
00:29:21,621 --> 00:29:23,244
not interference.
422
00:29:30,838 --> 00:29:33,633
On February 6, 1922,
423
00:29:33,668 --> 00:29:37,741
the first American ship carrying
corn to feed Russian adults
424
00:29:37,776 --> 00:29:41,469
docked at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea.
425
00:29:41,503 --> 00:29:44,334
Six weeks had passed since
Congress had voted.
426
00:29:47,095 --> 00:29:49,822
The next link in the chain
to feed the starving Russians
427
00:29:49,857 --> 00:29:53,032
would be a crucial one, and the weakest.
428
00:29:56,070 --> 00:29:59,901
Years of war had wrecked
80% of Russia's railroads.
429
00:30:02,939 --> 00:30:04,354
An American journalist wrote
430
00:30:04,388 --> 00:30:06,287
of locomotives resting in graveyards
431
00:30:06,321 --> 00:30:10,015
"silently like sleeping monsters"...
432
00:30:10,049 --> 00:30:13,501
of "miles of sick box cars on sidings
433
00:30:13,535 --> 00:30:15,814
like rows of skeletons."
434
00:30:19,403 --> 00:30:24,477
The corn had traveled by ship
almost 5,500 miles in 16 days.
435
00:30:28,516 --> 00:30:33,038
The trip from Novorossiysk to
Samara was only 1,300 miles,
436
00:30:33,072 --> 00:30:35,834
yet it would take 21 days.
437
00:30:38,077 --> 00:30:41,253
"The dilapidated railroads were
urged to do the impossible,"
438
00:30:41,287 --> 00:30:45,878
Will Shafroth wrote,
"and they did it."
439
00:30:45,913 --> 00:30:49,433
Shafroth received a small
first installment of corn
440
00:30:49,468 --> 00:30:51,677
in mid-March.
441
00:30:51,711 --> 00:30:53,886
And actually the Bolsheviks paid
442
00:30:53,921 --> 00:30:56,578
to railroad workers with American corn
443
00:30:56,613 --> 00:30:58,891
to make the trains run.
444
00:30:58,926 --> 00:31:00,789
And it was a big help
445
00:31:00,824 --> 00:31:03,378
because Russian government
didn't have money
446
00:31:03,413 --> 00:31:05,242
and didn't have food to pay them.
447
00:31:09,039 --> 00:31:12,146
With relief workers
desperately waiting for more supplies,
448
00:31:12,180 --> 00:31:16,115
entire trains began to disappear.
449
00:31:16,150 --> 00:31:20,016
Shafroth wired Moscow that
local officials in Samara
450
00:31:20,050 --> 00:31:24,365
had commandeered 95 corn cars
for railroad employees.
451
00:31:27,402 --> 00:31:30,612
The authorities in Moscow had no
control over their railroads.
452
00:31:32,614 --> 00:31:37,930
By mid-March, almost 7,000
freight cars had left the ports.
453
00:31:37,965 --> 00:31:41,934
At the end of the month, 60,000
tons of supplies were waiting
454
00:31:41,969 --> 00:31:43,763
for the empty cars to return.
455
00:31:57,639 --> 00:32:01,781
Forty-six trains from Odessa
in Ukraine were stalled
456
00:32:01,816 --> 00:32:04,577
in one yard west of the Volga.
457
00:32:10,998 --> 00:32:13,759
Supplies from the Baltic
via Moscow were stalled
458
00:32:13,793 --> 00:32:15,278
at another train yard.
459
00:32:21,974 --> 00:32:25,460
The result was like logjams on rivers.
460
00:32:28,463 --> 00:32:31,363
Trains were hemmed in.
461
00:32:31,397 --> 00:32:35,056
For three weeks, nothing could move.
462
00:32:37,300 --> 00:32:40,165
Relief supplies from both
the Black Sea and the Baltic
463
00:32:40,199 --> 00:32:42,098
to much of the Volga valley
464
00:32:42,132 --> 00:32:45,894
and all of Walter Bell's
Ufa-Urals district were stalled.
465
00:32:49,001 --> 00:32:51,210
An estimated 25,000 Russians
466
00:32:51,245 --> 00:32:53,937
died in these regions each week...
467
00:32:55,628 --> 00:32:58,804
75,000 more deaths by the end of March.
468
00:33:01,703 --> 00:33:06,191
People had been dying at this
rate all over Russia all winter.
469
00:33:07,675 --> 00:33:12,093
Will Shafroth described
a scene he witnessed in Samara.
470
00:33:14,095 --> 00:33:16,442
"I have seen piles of corpses,
471
00:33:16,477 --> 00:33:19,514
"half naked and frozen into
the most grotesque positions
472
00:33:19,549 --> 00:33:24,174
"with signs of having been
preyed upon by wandering dogs.
473
00:33:24,209 --> 00:33:27,350
"I have seen these bodies
474
00:33:27,384 --> 00:33:30,629
and it is a sight that
I can never forget."
475
00:33:33,632 --> 00:33:36,186
Shafroth cabled Haskell in Moscow
476
00:33:36,221 --> 00:33:39,051
that the body of a Russian
assistant who recently died
477
00:33:39,086 --> 00:33:43,055
from typhus had been dug up and eaten.
478
00:33:43,090 --> 00:33:45,920
Ten butcher shops, he said,
479
00:33:45,954 --> 00:33:48,026
had been closed for selling human flesh.
480
00:33:52,306 --> 00:33:55,447
Americans read that Shafroth
himself had been eaten.
481
00:33:57,449 --> 00:34:02,385
The government
tried to stop people eating corpses.
482
00:34:02,419 --> 00:34:06,113
And they led propaganda against this,
483
00:34:06,147 --> 00:34:09,185
and they tried to put guards
in the cemeteries
484
00:34:09,219 --> 00:34:13,292
in order to prevent people
from eating dead bodies.
485
00:34:15,467 --> 00:34:18,228
Grandma told me about it.
486
00:34:18,263 --> 00:34:20,127
When the dark was coming,
487
00:34:20,161 --> 00:34:25,684
they put a huge lock to save children,
488
00:34:25,718 --> 00:34:28,825
because children were the
main target of cannibals.
489
00:34:28,859 --> 00:34:33,312
There were cases of killing
children by their own mothers,
490
00:34:33,347 --> 00:34:36,591
by their own parents, and eating them.
491
00:34:36,626 --> 00:34:40,975
Some mothers did that for mercy.
492
00:34:41,009 --> 00:34:44,668
But some mothers killed them
to feed other children,
493
00:34:44,703 --> 00:34:47,119
especially very small babies.
494
00:34:50,605 --> 00:34:53,505
And now, at the end of March 1922,
495
00:34:53,539 --> 00:34:56,646
dozens of trains with relief
supplies were stalled.
496
00:34:58,924 --> 00:35:02,824
It was unclear why the first
trains were detained.
497
00:35:02,859 --> 00:35:06,725
What was clear is that only
the Russians could undo
498
00:35:06,759 --> 00:35:09,210
the train jam.
499
00:35:09,245 --> 00:35:13,283
Alexander Eiduk, the Russian in charge,
500
00:35:13,318 --> 00:35:16,942
told Haskell everything was under control.
501
00:35:16,976 --> 00:35:19,669
For two weeks, he did nothing.
502
00:35:19,703 --> 00:35:24,398
Another 50,000 Russians starved to death.
503
00:35:24,432 --> 00:35:27,918
If the American wheat seed were
not planted that spring,
504
00:35:27,953 --> 00:35:30,300
there would be no harvest in the fall.
505
00:35:30,335 --> 00:35:33,614
The famine would continue another year.
506
00:35:33,648 --> 00:35:38,066
Haskell decided it was time
for a showdown.
507
00:35:38,101 --> 00:35:41,173
He decides to send a cable
508
00:35:41,208 --> 00:35:43,693
in the clear...
not coded, in the clear...
509
00:35:43,727 --> 00:35:45,350
to Herbert Hoover,
510
00:35:45,384 --> 00:35:47,800
meaning that the Kremlin
would be able to see
511
00:35:47,835 --> 00:35:49,250
the message he was sending.
512
00:35:49,285 --> 00:35:53,254
And the message was the Soviets
are not only not helping,
513
00:35:53,289 --> 00:35:55,049
they're being obstructionist,
514
00:35:55,083 --> 00:35:59,018
and that until he got better cooperation,
515
00:35:59,053 --> 00:36:01,435
all relief supplies from the United States
516
00:36:01,469 --> 00:36:03,506
ought to be held up at port.
517
00:36:10,685 --> 00:36:13,757
The engineer
in Herbert Hoover had foreseen the limits
518
00:36:13,792 --> 00:36:16,208
of Russia's railroads.
519
00:36:16,243 --> 00:36:19,453
He had testified before Congress
that $20 million worth of corn
520
00:36:19,487 --> 00:36:23,146
would test these limits.
521
00:36:23,181 --> 00:36:25,942
When Haskell's telegram arrived,
522
00:36:25,976 --> 00:36:28,634
Hoover was being blamed
by his critics on the left
523
00:36:28,669 --> 00:36:32,845
for exaggerating Russia's
transportation problem.
524
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:36,539
He was attempting "to kill the
Soviet government," they argued,
525
00:36:36,573 --> 00:36:39,266
by limiting relief supplies.
526
00:36:40,681 --> 00:36:42,303
Hoover could have silenced these critics
527
00:36:42,338 --> 00:36:44,788
by releasing Haskell's telegram.
528
00:36:44,823 --> 00:36:47,584
But he felt stirring up
anti-Soviet feelings
529
00:36:47,619 --> 00:36:49,862
would be inappropriate for an agency
530
00:36:49,897 --> 00:36:52,796
"engaged in the business
of saving human lives."
531
00:36:56,041 --> 00:36:58,423
Lenin's government got the message.
532
00:36:58,457 --> 00:37:02,565
It humiliated, then fired, Eiduk.
533
00:37:02,599 --> 00:37:05,188
It brought in Felix Dzerzhinski,
534
00:37:05,223 --> 00:37:07,570
People's Commissar of Transportation,
535
00:37:07,604 --> 00:37:10,089
better known as the founder of the Cheka
536
00:37:10,124 --> 00:37:14,784
and mastermind of the Red Terror
during the civil war.
537
00:37:14,818 --> 00:37:18,753
He was the most feared man
in Soviet Russia.
538
00:37:18,788 --> 00:37:22,274
It was very important symbolically.
539
00:37:22,309 --> 00:37:25,553
The dreadful Iron Felix was appointed
540
00:37:25,588 --> 00:37:27,624
as a railroad commissar.
541
00:37:27,659 --> 00:37:31,041
And every railroad worker understood.
542
00:37:31,076 --> 00:37:32,767
It's a sign.
543
00:37:32,802 --> 00:37:35,943
"We should do something,
otherwise we will be shot."
544
00:37:35,977 --> 00:37:37,807
And the trains started to run.
545
00:37:58,483 --> 00:38:01,071
The corn was finally on its way.
546
00:38:03,073 --> 00:38:04,868
Its distribution would be planned
547
00:38:04,903 --> 00:38:08,941
in hundreds of ARA offices across Russia.
548
00:38:08,976 --> 00:38:13,877
Here the Americans still faced
major hurdles.
549
00:38:13,912 --> 00:38:17,743
The culture clash was profound.
550
00:38:17,778 --> 00:38:20,884
A lot of the people the Americans hired
551
00:38:20,919 --> 00:38:23,439
had never really worked
in an office before.
552
00:38:23,473 --> 00:38:24,992
If they had worked in an office,
553
00:38:25,026 --> 00:38:26,787
it wasn't like an American office.
554
00:38:26,821 --> 00:38:28,927
The Americans wanted you
to get to work on time.
555
00:38:28,961 --> 00:38:31,688
You start work at 8:00.
556
00:38:31,723 --> 00:38:34,277
What the Americans found was the
Russians would wander in late.
557
00:38:34,312 --> 00:38:36,348
"Well, there was a goat
for sale up the street,
558
00:38:36,383 --> 00:38:38,074
and I had to go check that out."
559
00:38:38,108 --> 00:38:40,766
It would drive them nuts.
560
00:38:44,391 --> 00:38:48,533
There were even
problems with the elite they hired.
561
00:38:48,567 --> 00:38:50,983
"With the best will in the world,
562
00:38:51,018 --> 00:38:54,504
it is rather difficult for an
ex-princess to do cross-filing,"
563
00:38:54,539 --> 00:38:57,473
wrote a relief worker from Montana.
564
00:39:00,407 --> 00:39:02,340
Especially baffling to the Americans
565
00:39:02,374 --> 00:39:04,825
was the sense of passivity and resignation
566
00:39:04,859 --> 00:39:07,206
on the part of peasants who came for help.
567
00:39:10,555 --> 00:39:15,698
Many Russians
saw in that famine a sign of...
568
00:39:15,732 --> 00:39:19,046
a sort of God will, a sort of retribution
569
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,704
for their bad behavior
during the revolution.
570
00:39:21,738 --> 00:39:24,327
They seized church land.
571
00:39:24,362 --> 00:39:26,156
They killed priests.
572
00:39:26,191 --> 00:39:29,608
"So we can only suffer,
because we deserved it."
573
00:39:31,438 --> 00:39:34,786
These Americans
got pretty impatient with this.
574
00:39:34,820 --> 00:39:39,342
Their attitude was, "Look,
it's time to get to work."
575
00:39:39,377 --> 00:39:41,240
This is their Protestant ethic speaking.
576
00:39:41,275 --> 00:39:42,759
"Your fate is in your hands.
577
00:39:42,794 --> 00:39:46,314
"Get up off your knees, start to help out,
578
00:39:46,349 --> 00:39:47,764
and let's get moving."
579
00:40:00,812 --> 00:40:05,437
Despite the
culture clash, romance flourished.
580
00:40:05,472 --> 00:40:11,063
The Americans had comfortable
quarters, food, and cars.
581
00:40:11,098 --> 00:40:13,480
Their Russian staff was mostly women.
582
00:40:17,794 --> 00:40:22,212
Of the 300 American supervisors,
26... nearly ten percent...
583
00:40:22,247 --> 00:40:24,836
came home with Russian brides.
584
00:40:36,744 --> 00:40:40,196
Weather had helped cause the famine.
585
00:40:40,230 --> 00:40:43,958
Now it once again delayed the relief.
586
00:40:43,993 --> 00:40:48,411
A spring thaw made it almost
impossible to get the corn
587
00:40:48,446 --> 00:40:50,965
from the rail-heads to the villages.
588
00:41:03,219 --> 00:41:05,773
The return of winter helped.
589
00:41:15,162 --> 00:41:17,233
Horses were important...
590
00:41:17,267 --> 00:41:21,340
those which had not died or been eaten.
591
00:41:21,375 --> 00:41:26,242
Many were too weak to draw heavy
loads over long distances.
592
00:41:30,660 --> 00:41:35,527
Where horsepower was lacking,
some relied on camels.
593
00:41:35,562 --> 00:41:38,116
"The camel can live where the horse dies,"
594
00:41:38,150 --> 00:41:40,601
the "Chicago Daily News" noted.
595
00:41:40,636 --> 00:41:42,948
"It grubs up herbage from under the snow.
596
00:41:42,983 --> 00:41:46,020
It will exist on anything."
597
00:41:48,471 --> 00:41:53,476
An ARA Russian inspector
remembers seeing 2,500 wagons,
598
00:41:53,511 --> 00:41:55,651
drawn mostly by camels,
599
00:41:55,685 --> 00:41:58,895
leave Tsaritsyn and head for Leninsk.
600
00:42:02,830 --> 00:42:05,695
"In spite of the immensity
of the steppes," he wrote,
601
00:42:05,730 --> 00:42:08,526
"it was impossible to see the beginning
602
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:10,907
or the end of this train."
603
00:42:12,875 --> 00:42:16,603
"Even the oldest and most
experienced teamsters admitted
604
00:42:16,637 --> 00:42:19,260
they had never seen
such a sight."
605
00:42:39,453 --> 00:42:42,318
"Contrary to the popular imagination,
606
00:42:42,352 --> 00:42:45,459
the corn was not heralded with
the ringing of church bells,"
607
00:42:45,493 --> 00:42:48,427
an ARA physician wrote.
608
00:42:51,845 --> 00:42:55,434
"These people have borne so much
609
00:42:55,469 --> 00:42:58,334
that their emotions have
long since exhausted."
610
00:43:12,797 --> 00:43:15,489
He observed the only surviving
member of a family of five
611
00:43:15,523 --> 00:43:17,525
clutch her 21-day ration.
612
00:43:23,462 --> 00:43:26,362
My father said
that there were a half a million people
613
00:43:26,396 --> 00:43:29,020
in his district who faced starvation
614
00:43:29,054 --> 00:43:31,194
when he began to distribute the corn.
615
00:43:33,576 --> 00:43:37,684
Every household got a month's
supply... two pounds per day.
616
00:43:40,031 --> 00:43:42,550
That's the job he came
to do, and he was doing it,
617
00:43:42,585 --> 00:43:43,828
and he was very pleased.
618
00:43:55,805 --> 00:43:58,843
People used to call that food "America."
619
00:43:58,877 --> 00:44:01,466
So, we were handed out
"America."
620
00:44:01,500 --> 00:44:05,746
At home, people cooked soup out
of it, fed their children.
621
00:44:05,781 --> 00:44:08,473
This, of course, was great help to us.
622
00:44:08,507 --> 00:44:12,373
My father used to say, "See, the
Americans did the right thing,
623
00:44:12,408 --> 00:44:15,411
sent us help."
624
00:44:18,345 --> 00:44:21,693
Every day in his
Ufa Ural Mountains district,
625
00:44:21,728 --> 00:44:26,180
Walter Bell fed 1.6 million
Russians, Bashkirs,
626
00:44:26,215 --> 00:44:31,807
Tatars, and Kazakhs in 2,750 kitchens.
627
00:44:31,841 --> 00:44:35,707
One was a three-year-old boy.
628
00:44:38,537 --> 00:44:41,057
I still remember they gave us corn
629
00:44:41,092 --> 00:44:45,372
and sweetened condensed milk.
630
00:44:48,755 --> 00:44:52,103
I was little then, but
I still remember the taste
631
00:44:52,137 --> 00:44:54,346
of that American canned condensed milk.
632
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,318
Our father brought it to us.
633
00:45:03,217 --> 00:45:06,911
Thanks to this help I survived,
634
00:45:06,945 --> 00:45:10,673
and then studied and
became a famous dancer.
635
00:45:23,859 --> 00:45:26,033
Before the corn and wheat seed arrived,
636
00:45:26,068 --> 00:45:31,383
up to five million Russians
had starved to death.
637
00:45:31,418 --> 00:45:34,490
By August 1922,
638
00:45:34,524 --> 00:45:37,320
five months after the corn
reached the villages,
639
00:45:37,355 --> 00:45:40,910
the ARA was feeding up to
11 million Soviet citizens
640
00:45:40,945 --> 00:45:44,258
every day in 19,000 kitchens.
641
00:45:54,061 --> 00:45:59,066
Jesus Christ brought 13 people bread.
642
00:45:59,101 --> 00:46:03,001
Herbert Hoover gave millions
of people bread.
643
00:46:03,036 --> 00:46:08,766
You cannot find other example of
such behavior in world history.
644
00:46:10,595 --> 00:46:14,564
Herbert Hoover had
insisted the Russians buy wheat seed,
645
00:46:14,599 --> 00:46:17,913
which the peasants planted
in the spring of 1922.
646
00:46:19,949 --> 00:46:21,882
The wheat harvested that fall
647
00:46:21,917 --> 00:46:24,471
ensured the famine would not return.
648
00:46:27,439 --> 00:46:31,512
The starvation in the Volga
valley was finally over.
649
00:46:35,171 --> 00:46:38,036
"Whether the Russians
or anyone else realizes it,"
650
00:46:38,071 --> 00:46:40,073
the ARA's historian wrote,
651
00:46:40,107 --> 00:46:43,801
"we have saved a nation."
652
00:46:52,533 --> 00:46:56,434
The ARA's relief operation
in Russia began to wind down.
653
00:47:05,581 --> 00:47:09,965
Will Shafroth soon wrote
of his experience.
654
00:47:09,999 --> 00:47:12,830
"The thing which
gives me the most satisfaction
655
00:47:12,864 --> 00:47:16,903
"is the gratitude with which
our help was received,
656
00:47:16,937 --> 00:47:18,870
"from the simplest peasant
who would have died
657
00:47:18,905 --> 00:47:21,942
"if he had not been fed by America,
658
00:47:21,977 --> 00:47:26,360
"from the mother whose children
ate at an ARA kitchen.
659
00:47:26,395 --> 00:47:30,088
These are the people for whom
we brought in the food."
660
00:47:33,402 --> 00:47:35,507
Nowhere was that gratitude greater
661
00:47:35,542 --> 00:47:37,647
than among Russia's 14 million Muslims,
662
00:47:37,682 --> 00:47:41,789
who paid Colonel Walter Bell
a special tribute.
663
00:47:41,824 --> 00:47:45,414
This was an extraordinary moment
664
00:47:45,448 --> 00:47:50,419
when the local Muslim officials
decide to show Bell...
665
00:47:50,453 --> 00:47:55,700
this infidel...
a copy of the Koran.
666
00:47:55,734 --> 00:47:57,633
It was incredible.
667
00:47:57,667 --> 00:48:01,430
They had never shown it
to anyone before, to any...
668
00:48:01,464 --> 00:48:03,881
to anyone who is not Muslim.
669
00:48:06,331 --> 00:48:09,369
And they had never shown it
even to Russians,
670
00:48:09,403 --> 00:48:13,511
with whom they lived
side by side for many years.
671
00:48:17,066 --> 00:48:20,518
Before he left Russia in July 1923,
672
00:48:20,552 --> 00:48:23,935
Bell, who served longer than
any other ARA supervisor,
673
00:48:23,970 --> 00:48:28,250
was named honorary mayor of Ufa.
674
00:48:28,284 --> 00:48:32,910
He became known as the
"idol of the Bashkirs."
675
00:48:35,567 --> 00:48:38,743
"I feel as though I were a part of them.
676
00:48:38,777 --> 00:48:41,746
"I have lived with them through
the worst period of suffering
677
00:48:41,780 --> 00:48:43,334
"they have ever endured.
678
00:48:43,368 --> 00:48:48,097
"I have traveled into every
corner of their republic,
679
00:48:48,132 --> 00:48:49,374
"slept under their roofs,
680
00:48:49,409 --> 00:48:52,412
"broken their bread
681
00:48:52,446 --> 00:48:55,691
and listened to their tales
of woe and happiness."
682
00:48:59,143 --> 00:49:01,145
"They nursed me through typhus."
683
00:49:04,217 --> 00:49:08,462
"I feel as if I am part
of their new existence."
684
00:49:16,746 --> 00:49:19,853
Herbert Hoover
had hoped the ARA's efficiency
685
00:49:19,887 --> 00:49:24,340
would inspire the Russians
to overthrow the Bolsheviks.
686
00:49:24,375 --> 00:49:27,343
Instead, it may have saved
the Soviet regime.
687
00:49:29,311 --> 00:49:30,760
He himself in the late '20s
688
00:49:30,795 --> 00:49:33,936
said to a reporter named Henry Wolfe
689
00:49:33,971 --> 00:49:38,147
that he thought "he had set
the Soviets up in business."
690
00:49:38,182 --> 00:49:41,495
Now, that was a kind
of revelatory statement
691
00:49:41,530 --> 00:49:43,014
for him to make,
692
00:49:43,049 --> 00:49:49,262
because he had sold the program
of emergency relief to Russia
693
00:49:49,296 --> 00:49:54,025
as something that would perhaps
effect regime change.
694
00:49:56,545 --> 00:49:59,375
Hoover was president
when the Great Depression began
695
00:49:59,410 --> 00:50:02,792
a decade after he rescued the Russians.
696
00:50:02,827 --> 00:50:04,932
As Americans went hungry,
697
00:50:04,967 --> 00:50:08,074
his image as the "Great
Humanitarian" began to fade.
698
00:50:09,558 --> 00:50:13,596
The story of his Russian relief
was soon forgotten.
699
00:50:13,631 --> 00:50:16,496
Yet the humanitarian spirit he planted
700
00:50:16,530 --> 00:50:18,946
in the American character lived on.
701
00:50:20,845 --> 00:50:24,538
Hoover was really,
in some ways, the vanguard
702
00:50:24,573 --> 00:50:27,334
of that whole approach that has
become associated
703
00:50:27,369 --> 00:50:29,060
with America in the last hundred years,
704
00:50:29,095 --> 00:50:32,339
namely that when there
is a humanitarian tragedy
705
00:50:32,374 --> 00:50:36,136
in the world, whether from war
or from famine or revolution
706
00:50:36,171 --> 00:50:39,346
or a typhoon or an earthquake,
707
00:50:39,381 --> 00:50:42,384
that Americans will be there
to organize the relief.
708
00:50:44,903 --> 00:50:47,803
The memory of
the American Relief Administration
709
00:50:47,837 --> 00:50:50,944
lives on in Russia by word of mouth
710
00:50:50,978 --> 00:50:53,774
among the families who were saved.
711
00:50:53,809 --> 00:50:57,123
My grandma told me many times,
712
00:50:57,157 --> 00:51:02,024
"Dear Anatoly, do not forget American help
713
00:51:02,059 --> 00:51:06,201
at the time of our
national disaster."
714
00:51:06,235 --> 00:51:10,205
Among those people who were
saved were my family,
715
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:14,554
family of my father, of my grandmother.
716
00:51:14,588 --> 00:51:17,212
My family will never forget.
55134
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