Causes of hunger

• the severe drought of 1921 - about 22% of all crops died from the drought; in some areas, the harvest did not exceed the amount of seeds spent on sowing; the yield in 1921 was 43% of the 1913 level;
• the devastating effects of the Civil War;
• the destruction of private trade and money carried out by the Bolsheviks (surplus appraisal and war communism).

The historian A. M. Kristkaln refers to the main causes of the famine as the backwardness of agriculture, the consequences of the civil war and intervention, and surplus appropriation; to the secondary - drought and the disappearance of landowners and large peasant farms.

According to the conclusions of some historians, among the causes of the famine were the overestimated volumes of surplus appropriations of 1919/1920 and 1920/1921, as a result of which the peasants lost part of their sowing seeds and essential food products, which led to a further reduction in sown areas and grain harvests. The surplus appraisal and the grain monopoly that had been in effect since the spring of 1917 led to a reduction in the production of products by the peasants only to the level of current own consumption. The absence of a legal private market for bread, in the absence of any significant stocks of grain from the governments of the Soviet republics and the devastation of transport, and the new institutions of power that had just begun their activities, also caused the famine.

Help for the starving

Six peasants accused of cannibalism in the vicinity of Buzuluk, and the remains of the victims they ate

The absence of any significant food reserves from the government of the Soviet republics led to the fact that in July 1921 it turned to foreign states and the public for food aid. Despite numerous requests, the first minor aid was sent only in September. The main flow of assistance came after an active public campaign organized personally by Fridtjof Nansen and a number of non-governmental organizations in Europe and America in late 1921 - early 1922. Thanks to a much better harvest in 1922, the massive famine ended, although in the regions most affected earlier, assistance to the starving was provided until mid-1923. The famine of 1921-23 also caused a massive rise in homelessness.

To fight hunger and save the population of Soviet Russia, the state mobilized all institutions, enterprises, cooperative, trade union, youth organizations, the Red Army. By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of June 18, 1921, the Central Commission for Assistance to the Starving (Central Committee Pomgol) was formed as an organization with emergency powers in the field of food supply and distribution. It was headed by the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M. I. Kalinin. Commissions for helping the starving were also created under the Central Executive Committees of the republics of the RSFSR, at provincial, district and volost executive committees, at trade unions and large enterprises.

In July (no later than the 9th) of the Presovnarkom V. Ulyanov (Lenin) wrote:

If a region engulfed by crop failure and famine embraces a territory with 25 million inhabitants, then shouldn’t some of the most revolutionary measures be taken from this it is precisely the region's youth in the army in the amount of about 500 thousand bayonets? (and maybe even up to 1 million?)

Purpose: to help the population to a certain extent, for we will feed some of the hungry, and, perhaps, by sending home bread we will help the hungry to a certain extent. This is the first. And secondly: to place these 1/2 million in the Ukraine so that they help to strengthen the food work, being purely interested in it, especially clearly recognizing and feeling the injustice of the gluttony of the rich peasants in the Ukraine.

The harvest in the Ukraine is approximately (Rakovsky) 550-650 million poods. subtracting 150 million poods for seeding and 300 (15 x 20 = 300) to feed the family and livestock, we get the balance (550-450 = 100 ; 650-450 = 200 ) on average about 150 million pounds. If you put an army in Ukraine from the hungry provinces, this remainder could be collected (by tax + barter + special requisitions from the rich to help the hungry) fully.

Lenin V.I. Complete Works. Ed. fifth. T. 44. M .: Publishing house of political. literature, 1974.- S. 67.

Formally, at that time, Ukraine was not part of the RSFSR. In 1921, famine began in Ukraine (especially in the southern regions).

In addition to the head of the Russian government (in 1921), the head of the German government (in 1941) spoke about food parcels from Ukraine.

On August 2, 1921, the Soviet government turned to the international community with a request for assistance in the fight against hunger. “The Russian government,” the note said, “will accept any assistance, no matter what sources it comes from, without at all linking it to existing political relations.” On the same day, V. I. Lenin wrote an appeal to the world proletariat, and even earlier (July 13), Maxim Gorky, with the knowledge of the country's leadership, called on the public of the West to prevent mass deaths of people in Russia. On February 9, Soviet Russia allocated about 12 million 200 thousand dollars for the purchase of food only in the USA. In just two years, US$13 million worth of food was purchased from the United States. Significant resources were also mobilized inside the starving country. By June 1, 1922, more than 7,000 Soviet canteens (up to 9,500 canteens of foreign organizations) were opened in the hungry provinces.

Confiscation of church property

Poster to help the starving regions of the RSFSR "Hunger spider strangles the peasantry of Russia." Black marks the most starving regions (Lower Ural-Volga region, Crimea, southern Ukraine). Allegorical streams emanating from various religious institutions (Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim) hit the body of the "hunger spider"

<…>We have found it possible to allow church parish councils and communities to donate precious church decorations and objects that do not have liturgical use for the needs of the starving, about which we informed the Orthodox population on February 6 (19) of this year. a special appeal, which was allowed by the Government to be printed and distributed among the population.

But following this, after sharp attacks in government newspapers against the spiritual leaders of the Church, on February 10 (23), the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in order to help the starving, decided to remove all precious church things from churches, including sacred vessels and other liturgical church items . From the point of view of the Church, such an act is an act of sacrilege... We cannot approve the removal from churches, even if through a voluntary donation, of sacred objects, the use of which is prohibited by the canons of the Ecumenical Church and is punished by Her as sacrilege - the laity by excommunication from Her, the clergy - eruption from the dignity (Apostolic canon 73, Double. Ecumenical. Council. Rule 10).

The valuables taken from the church were sent to Gokhran. According to the consolidated statement of the Central Committee of the Last Goal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the number of seized church valuables, as of November 1, 1922, the following were seized:

• Gold 33 pounds 32 pounds
• Silver 23,997 pounds 23 pounds 3 lots
• Diamonds 35,670 pcs.
• Other precious stones 71,762 pcs.
• Pearls 14 pounds 32 pounds
• Gold coins 3 115 rubles.
• Silver coin 19 155 rubles.
• Various precious things 52 pounds 30 pounds

In total, church valuables worth two and a half billion gold rubles were seized. Of these funds, only about one million rubles was spent on the purchase of food for the hungry. The main part of the funds raised went to the "approach of the world revolution"

Assistance from foreign organizations

Food, material and medical support to the victims was provided by: the International Committee for Workers' Assistance (Mezhrabpom) (Created on the initiative of the Executive Committee of the Comintern on August 13, 1921), the Organization for All-European Assistance to the Starving Russia (headed by F. Nansen - it united under the auspices of the International Red Cross 15 religious and charitable societies and committees) and a number of other religious and charitable societies and committees (Vatican Mission, Joint, etc.). The bulk of aid was provided by the American Relief Administration.

American Relief Administration

In July 1922, 8.8 million people received food in the canteens of the ARA and rations of corn, and in August 10.3 million. At the peak of activity, 300 American citizens and more than 120 thousand people employed in the Soviet republics worked for the ARA.

In just two years, the ARA spent about $78 million, of which $28 million was money from the US government, $13 million from the Soviet government, and the rest - charity, private donations, funds from other private organizations. From the beginning of the autumn of 1922, aid began to be reduced. By October 1922, American food aid in Russia was reduced to a minimum.

The International Committee for Assistance to Russia under the leadership of Nansen from September 1921 to September 1922 delivered 90.7 thousand tons of food to Russia.

The League of Nations and the appeals of F. Nansen to help the starving Soviet Russia

The same area as in the photo in the title of the article, from a different angle. The photo was used on a charity card from the F. Nansen Foundation. On it was indicated - Famine in Russia. The edge of a cemetery in a devastated country. If the governments of Europe had agreed to help them at their request in October 1921, all those who died of starvation would have been saved.

On September 30, 1921, Fridtjof Nansen spoke at a meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva. In it, he accused the governments of the League member countries of wanting to solve the problem of Bolshevism in Russia through starvation and the death of 20 million people. He noted that multiple and repeated requests for 5 million pounds sterling (half the cost of the battleship) to the governments of European states remained unanswered. And now that the League of Nations has adopted a resolution, this resolution only says that something needs to be done for Russia, but it refuses to do so. Moreover, the representative of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Spalajkovic, proposed a resolution placing the entire responsibility for the famine on the Soviet government. Commenting on this, he noted - "We will not give a penny to the guys from Moscow ... of the two evils - hunger and Bolshevism, I consider the latter to be the worst." According to the correspondent, other delegations had a similar opinion - but they expressed it in a more streamlined form.

The Scale and Consequences of the Famine

Territories subjected to drought, and, accordingly, crop failure and famine in the Russian Empire and the RSFSR

Hunger researcher V. A. Polyakov came to the conclusion that the measures of the Soviet government to eliminate hunger and its consequences were ineffective. About 5 million people died from the famine and its consequences. Mortality increased 3-5 times (in the Samara province, Bashkiria and the Tatar Soviet Republic, the death rate increased from 2.4-2.8 to 12.3-13.9 people per 100 capita per year). Mostly non-sown (23.3) and, to a lesser extent, small-sown (11.0), medium-sown (7.7) and large-sown (2.2) peasants died.

In addition, famine, to one degree or another, engulfed almost all regions and cities of the European part of the Soviet Republics. The most difficult situation was in the southern provinces of the Ukrainian SSR (Zaporozhye, Donetsk, Nikolaev, Yekaterinoslav and Odessa), in the entire Crimean ASSR and the region of the Don Cossacks.

The police entered again ... into a period of hunger ... there were cases of death of policemen from hunger and exhaustion ... the state of the police in terms of food was extremely close to catastrophic

From the report of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine N. Skrypnyk on August 3, 1921

In Kaz ASSR in November 1921, the number of starving people was 1 million 300 thousand people, and in March 1922 - 1 million 500 thousand people.

Losses during the famine are difficult to determine, since no one was involved in counting the victims. The biggest losses were observed in the Samara and Chelyabinsk provinces, in the autonomous region of the Volga Germans and the Bashkir Autonomous Republic, the total population of which decreased by 20.6%. Socially, the rural poor suffered the most, especially those who did not have dairy cattle, which saved many families from death. In terms of age, hunger hit the children the hardest, depriving a significant part of those who managed to survive, parents and shelter. In 1922 more than one and a half million peasant children, left to their own devices, wandered around begging and stealing; the death rate in homeless shelters reached 50%. The Soviet Central Statistical Office determined the population deficit for the period from 1920 to 1922. equal to 5.1 million people. The famine in Russia in 1921, apart from military losses, was the largest catastrophe for that time in European history after the Middle Ages.

Assessments of what happened

In Soviet sources of the 20s - mid-30s of the XX century, famine was estimated as " last message from tsarism and civil war". In Western publications, the activities of the ARA were widely considered, indicating the main reason for the origin of the famine that was voiced in 1921.

Photographs of the famine of 1921-1923 have been repeatedly used as photographs of victims of the Holodomor in Ukraine.

see also

Notes

Literature

• Polyakov, B.A. Famine in the Volga region, 1919 - 1925: origin, features, consequences. Volufad. 2007. 735 p.
• Patenaude B.M. The Big Show in Bololand. The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921. Stanford, 2002
• Fisher H. The Famine in the Soviet Russia. The Operations of the American Relief Administration. N.-Y., 1971. (1st ed., 1927.).
• Belokopytov V. I. Hard times: (From the history of the fight against hunger in the Volga region of 1921-1923). Kazan, 1976.
• The results of the fight against hunger in 1921-1922. M., 1922.
• Results of the last goal. M., 1923.

When you get acquainted with the history of the famine in the Volga region, it seems that you do not recognize reality, but you are watching a Hollywood trash horror. The future Nazi criminal, cannibals, the great polar explorer and church robbers appear here ... But, alas, this is not a fantasy, but real tragic events that happened on the banks of the Volga less than a century ago. And the weather anomalies served as the root cause of them.

"News from the fields" were held in high esteem during the Soviet Union. Many tons of grain found their place on newspaper pages and in the frames of news programs. Even now, on regional TV channels you can see stories dedicated to this topic. However, for most urban dwellers, winter and spring crops are nothing more than obscure agricultural topics. From the television screen, farmers can complain about heavy rainfall, severe drought and other surprises of nature. But we remain deaf to their moans. The presence of bread, like other products, is considered an eternal, unquestionable given. Agrarian cataclysms can only raise its price by a couple of rubles.

But less than a century ago, our province was at the epicenter of a humanitarian catastrophe, and bread began to be valued worth its weight in gold. But first things first.

Causes of hunger

The first prerequisite for a future catastrophe was the lean year of 1920. Only 20 million poods of grain were harvested in the Volga region. While in 1913 its number reached 146.4 million pounds. The spring of 1921 brought an unprecedented drought. In the Samara province, already during May, winter crops perished, and spring crops began to dry up. The lack of rain and the appearance of grasshopper locusts that ate the remains of the surviving crop caused the death of almost 100% of the crops by the beginning of July. As a result, more than 85% of the population of the Samara province were starving.

Almost all the food stocks that remained with the peasants were seized in the previous year during the so-called "surplus appraisal". In a nutshell, this term means food weaning. Mostly among the peasantry. Moreover, among the “kulaks” it was carried out on a “free of charge” basis (by way of requisition). Others were paid money for this at the established state tariffs. The so-called "food detachments" were in charge of the process.

An interesting fact - the future chairman of the "People's Court of Justice" of the Third Reich, Roland Freisler, while in Russia from 1918 to 1920 (he was captured in the First World War and later became a member of the CPSU (b)) - served as a food order commissar.

Many of them did not like the prospect of forced sale or seizure of food at all. The peasants began to take preventive "measures". All surpluses and stocks of bread were subject to “utilization” - they ate it, mixed it into animal feed, sold it to speculators, simply hid or brewed moonshine on its basis. Initially, “surplus appraisal” extended to bread and grain fodder. In the procurement campaign of 1919-1920. potatoes and meat were added to them, and by the end of 1920, almost all agricultural products. After the surplus appropriation of 1920, the peasants were forced to eat seed grain already in the autumn of this year.

The geography of the regions affected by the famine was very wide. The south of modern Ukraine, the Volga region (from the Caspian Sea to Udmurtia), the Southern Urals, part of Kazakhstan.

Actions of the authorities

The situation was stalemate. The Soviet government did not have food reserves. In this regard, in July 1921, it was decided to seek help from the capitalist countries. The "damned" bourgeois were in no hurry to help the young republic, and the first, small humanitarian aid arrived only at the beginning of autumn. However, at the end of 1921-beginning of 1922, its number increased. Largely due to the active campaign organized by Fridtjof Nansen, the famous polar explorer and scientist.

We must get ahead of the Russian winter, which is slowly but surely coming from the north. Soon Russian waters will be covered with ice. Try to really understand what will happen when the Russian winter comes in earnest, and try to imagine what it means to have no food in these severe colds. The population of the whole region roams the devastated country in search of food. Men, women, children perish by the thousands in the snows of Russia. Try to imagine what that means! If you've ever experienced what it's like to fight hunger, fight against the terrible winter elements, then you will understand what the consequences are. I am sure that you will not be able to sit still and calmly answer that you are very sorry, but that you, to your great regret, can do nothing to help.

In the name of humanity, in the name of everything holy and noble, I appeal to you: after all, you have wives and children at home, so think about what it is like to see with your own eyes the death of millions of women and children.

While Western politicians were pondering what conditions to put forward to the Soviets in exchange for humanitarian aid, public and religious organizations in Europe and America got down to business. Their material assistance in the fight against hunger was very great.

The activities of the ARA (American Relief Administration), headed by the then US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (by the way, an ardent anti-communist), reached a particularly large scale. On February 9, 1922, her contribution to the fight against hunger amounted to 42 million dollars. Against 12.5 spent by the Soviet government.

The Bolsheviks were not idle either. In June 1921, by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, the Central Commission for Assistance to the Starving (Central Committee Pomgol) was organized. She was endowed with emergency powers in the field of food supply and distribution. Similar commissions were also formed locally. There was an active purchase of bread abroad. Particular attention was paid to the organization of assistance to the peasants in the winter sowing of 1921 and the spring sowing of 1922. For these purposes, about 55 million poods of seeds were purchased.

The famine became an occasion for the Soviet authorities to deliver a knockout blow to the church. On January 2, 1922, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution "On the liquidation of church property." At the end of February, it was confirmed by a corresponding decree. The goal was declared to be good - the proceeds from the sale of church valuables were to be used to purchase food, medicines and other necessary goods. As a result, during 1922 church property worth 4.5 million gold rubles was seized. Huge amount. Naturally, not all of it was spent on the fight against hunger and its consequences. Only 20-30% was spent for these purposes. The main part of these millions was "spent" on kindling the fire of the world revolution.

Consequences of the famine

About 5 million people died from the famine and its consequences. In the Samara region, the death rate increased by 4 times. It reached 13%. Children suffered the most from hunger. There were cases when parents got rid of extra mouths. Even cases of cannibalism were not isolated. The same children who survived, as a rule, became orphans, replenishing the army of thousands of homeless children.

The famine years, unfortunately, will be repeated very soon in 1932-1933. However, for the Samara region, it will be more "sparing". This time, Ukraine and southern Russia will suffer the most.

Memoirs of eyewitnesses and a trace in fiction

The famine of 1921-1922 is described in the story of our countryman A.S. Neverov - “Tashkent is a city of bread”. In simple, intelligible words, he talks about the misfortune that has fallen on the people:

Grandfather died, grandmother died, then father. Mishka remained only with his mother and two brothers. The youngest is four years old, the middle one is eight. Mishka himself is twelve ... Mother is sick from hunger. Today he cries, tomorrow he cries, but hunger does not regret at all. Now they carry a man to the cemetery, then two at once. Uncle Mikhail died, aunt Marina died. Every home prepares for the dead. There were horses with cows, and they ate them, they began to catch dogs and cats.

Isn't it true that this passage of the story is similar to the diary of Tanya Savicheva? Criticism reacted to this work very cool, but it was allowed to print. But in the mid-1930s, she was on the "prohibited" list. The disgrace from the work of Neverov was removed during the Khrushchev thaw. In 1968, based on his motives, a film of the same name was shot, on the script of which Andrei Konchalovsky and Andrei Tarkovsky worked.

But the harsh reality of those years was much darker than a literary work can convey.

In the rich steppe districts of the Samara province, which abounded in bread and meat, nightmares are happening, an unprecedented phenomenon of wholesale cannibalism is observed. Driven by hunger to despair and madness, having eaten everything that is available to the eye and tooth, people decide to eat a human corpse and secretly devour their own dead children. In the village of Lyubimovka, one of the citizens dug a 14-year-old girl out of the grave, chopped the corpse into several parts, put the body parts in cast iron ... When this "crime" was discovered, it turned out that the girl's head was "cut in two and scorched." The cannibal obviously failed to cook the corpse

Here is how the provincial instructor Alexander Zworykin describes the situation in his report dated February 15, 1922:

The population of the Stavropol district has eaten everything that can be eaten: tree bark, straw from the roofs, rags that have accumulated over the years, all surrogates up to and including katun. Horse feces are collected and processed fresh into food. Corpse eating is incredibly developed. Not only dead relatives are eaten, but corpses are also stolen from the barns, where all the dead are brought in anticipation of a group funeral. They bury in each village once every 10-14 days, 60-80 people each. Recently, the death rate has reached 10-12 people a day. There is no registration of deaths...

For many, eating a person is no longer considered a big crime - they say, this is no longer a person, but only his body, which will be devoured by worms in the ground anyway. Previously, they say, they did not eat carrion either, because it was considered a sin, but now they have eaten everything. They talk about it with a kind of dull indifference and calmness, and sometimes it seems that the conversation is about some kind of Danube herring, which is bigger, fatter, and cheaper.

Photographs taken in areas suffering from famine have been preserved.

90 years ago, on January 30, 1922, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) banned the publication of reports on mass cannibalism and corpse-eating in the starving regions of the country. Vlast columnist Yevgeny Zhirnov found out how the party and the government have driven people to the point of losing their human appearance.

"Ruthlessly sweep everything to the grain"

In Soviet times, the famine of 1921-1922 in the Volga region was written and told in a monotonous and rather boring way. It was usually said that in the summer of 1921 there was a drought and in some areas of the country the crop died and famine began. But the working people of all Soviet Russia, and after them the representatives of progressive humanity, came to the aid of the victims, and within a short time the famine and its consequences were eliminated. From time to time, however, articles and pamphlets that fell out of the general order appeared, in which it was said that the American Relief Administration (ARA), which delivered food from abroad and fed the starving, in addition to charitable pursuits, pursued other, not at all noble goals. Its employees were engaged in espionage, prepared conspiracies against the Soviet government, and only thanks to the insight and vigilance of the Chekists, their secret intentions were revealed, and the Americans were expelled from the country.

Actually, this information about the Volga famine for a wide range of readers was exhausted. In those years, few Soviet ideologists and propagandists could have imagined that in the foreseeable future, the archives of the party and its punitive organs would become available, albeit not completely. So the picture of the famine in the Volga region can be reconstructed in all details and, above all, it will be possible to understand that the famine arose not only and not so much because of the weather.

Food difficulties during the Civil War arose everywhere and regularly. Moreover, often the lack of food in rural areas was the result of their ruthless seizure by the Soviet government in the person of representatives of food commissions at all levels with the support of specially created armed food detachments. And any evasion of surrendering the poods of grain, meat, pounds of butter, etc., established during the food distribution, led to ruthless repressions. So at times even members of the Cheka expressed dissatisfaction with the actions of the food commissions and food detachments, which disrupted the process of establishing relations between the new government and the peasantry.

For example, on January 5, 1920, a special department of the Saratov provincial Cheka reported to Moscow on the state of affairs in this Volga region:

“The mood of the population of the province, in particular the peasantry, is not the same everywhere. In those counties where the harvest was better, the mood of the peasantry is also noticed better, since this county has the opportunity to more easily carry out state apportionment. Quite the opposite is observed in those counties where the harvest was poor. It should be noted that the peasantry cherishes every pound of grain, and according to the psychology of the peasant as a small proprietor, a materialist.Many misunderstandings are observed during the apportionment.Food detachments, according to the statement of the peasants, mercilessly sweep everything to the grain, and there are even cases where they take hostages who have already completed the apportionment.Except In addition, not a small, but even a big minus for the successful implementation of the apportionment is the fact that the apportionment is disproportionately decomposed.From the statement received by the Red Army soldier with the documents of the Village Council that came to us, it can be seen where the Village Council testifies in one case to the cash state of the property with digital data mi, and another document issued later indicates the amount of the imposed application, the latter being 25% more than the actual amount certified by the village council in the first document. On the basis of such inattentive attitudes towards the apportionment, the discontent of the peasant masses is really aroused.

A similar picture was observed in other parts of the country, where famine later began. The peasants were indignant and sometimes even revolted. But after the arrival of the armed units, they humbled themselves and gave more than they could actually give.

It often turned out that everything was handed over, right down to the seeds for the next sowing. True, the workers' and peasants' government promised help to the peasants and in the spring gave a loan from the grain taken from them. But it was different in different parts of the country. Accordingly, the results of the care shown by the state turned out to be absolutely different.

For example, in the summary of the Tomsk gubchek sent to the capital "On the situation in the province for the period from April 15 to May 1, 1920" said:

"The famine has reached terrible proportions: the peasantry ate all the surrogates, cats, dogs, at the present time they are eating the corpses of the dead, tearing them out of the graves"

“Peasants complain that they waste a lot of valuable time getting all sorts of certificates and permits, futilely running from one institution to another, and often to no avail. For greater clarity, we will give one of the most numerous examples of how much the regional food committee pays attention to the requests of the peasants and fulfills them in a timely manner. Peasants, members of a rural communal society, petitioned the regional food committee to give them seeds for sowing fields, drawing attention to the fact that spring thaw is close and seeds must be obtained urgently. when the road had already deteriorated and it was not possible to take the seeds out."

As a result, the spring sowing of 1920 in Tomsk, and in some other provinces, in fact, was disrupted. And in the fall, grain had to be handed over again according to the surplus appraisal, and there were even fewer seeds left for autumn sowing. In the information summary of the All-Russian Cheka for August 1-15, 1920, prepared for the leaders of the party and the state, it was reported on the situation in the provinces:

"Saratov. In connection with the current complete crop failure and the almost complete absence of grain for the autumn sowing of fields, very favorable soil is being created for counter-revolutionary forces in the province."

The same picture was observed in the Samara province, where the peasants had not only no grain left for the next sowing, but also no supplies to hold out until spring. In part of the Volga regions, the peasants even tried to massively refuse to carry out the surplus appropriation. But the Soviet government, as usual in such cases, did not stand on ceremony. The information summary of the Cheka for October 26, 1920 stated:

"The Tatar Republic ... The peasants are unfriendly to the Soviet government for reasons of various duties and apportionments; due to the shortage of crops this year, in some places in the republic they refused to carry out appraisals. In the latter case, armed detachments sent to such places act pacifyingly."

However, by spring the situation became critical. There was simply nothing to eat or sow. The peasants tried to return the grain brought to the state bulk points. But the authorities used proven methods. The Saratov Provincial Cheka reported to Moscow on March 19, 1921:

"In the Saratov district, the peasants made demands for the issuance of the collected grain, in case of refusal they threaten to take it by force. We sent a detachment, the peasants of two more counties made the same demands."

"There is a mass death from starvation"

The result was not long in coming. In late spring - early summer of 1921, pockets of famine began to appear in various regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, the North Caucasus and Ukraine. The information summary of the Cheka for April 30 and May 1, 1921 stated:

"Stavropol province ... The mood of the population of some counties is bad due to the lack of food. In the Aleksandrovsky county, a crowd of peasants approached the building of the executive committee, crying, demanding bread. if by that time there is no bread.

The Bashkir Republic... The political state of the republic is unsatisfactory. Mass deaths from starvation are observed. An uprising broke out in the Argayazhsky canton on the basis of the crisis.

However, since the starving areas were interspersed with quite prosperous ones, the Soviet leadership did not take the situation seriously. Even more confusion was made by reports from the field. From the same provinces there were reports either of starvation deaths or of an expected good harvest. Local leading comrades either reported on a terrible drought that burned out everything and everything, and the onset of locusts, which was supposed to destroy all remaining plants, then joyfully reported on the past rains and overcoming the consequences of the heat.

As a result, even the Soviet people's commissars could not understand what was really happening in the Volga region and other starving regions. On July 30, 1921, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin wrote to Lev Kamenev, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b):

"Dear Comrade. It is necessary to introduce regularity and deliberation into the published information about the state of the harvest and about the situation of the starving provinces. What we publish fluctuates between extremely alarmist pictures and comforting indications that it is not so bad at all, whether potatoes have succeeded or buckwheat has succeeded. etc. Reading our information radios, I consider myself not entitled to suspend official information of this kind, all the more so I have no right to stop the transmission of this information by radio inside Russia. are intercepted in Western countries. I myself, reading our official information, in the end do not know whether there is a transformation of a dozen provinces into a continuous desert, or whether there is a partial crop shortage after the rains have corrected the situation. Our official information is distinguished by inconsistency and thoughtlessness This is heavily used abroad.Who wants to present on Our situation is in a catastrophic state, clutching at our alarmist news, others clutching at reassuring news. Lloyd George (Prime Minister of Great Britain.— "Power") in the chamber, answering a question, said that he was confused by radio-telegraph news from Russia that the rains had passed and the situation had improved.

As a result, a commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) went to the Volga region, and work on organizing assistance to the starving, as it was said then, began to unfold. Across the country began collecting money and food in favor of the hungry. The ARA and Red Cross organizations from various countries joined the cause of assistance.

To help the affected areas was also carried out in the spring of 1921, after the announcement of the new economic policy, the replacement of the surplus with the food tax. According to the Bolsheviks, the tax in kind greatly facilitated and improved the life of the peasants. But in fact, everything depended on the local authorities and, above all, on the notorious food commissions. In the Chekist reports, it was said that in some provinces the tax in kind is set according to the area of ​​land sown or available to the peasant family. In addition, taking advantage of the illiteracy of the peasants, food workers doubled their available area. So the tax could exceed the harvest of grain in the most productive years. At the same time, the tax in kind was levied even in the places most affected by the crop failure of 1921, for example, in the Crimea. The information summary of the Cheka for September 24 and 25, 1921 stated:

"Crimea... The income of the tax in kind has recently decreased. The food meeting recognized the need to use armed force, form food detachments and prohibit trade in the markets in places that have not paid the tax in kind."

As a result, despite charitable assistance, the famine in the country grew and deepened. And besides, epidemics began. On November 18, the Cheka informed the country's leadership about the state of affairs among the Volga Germans:

"The number of starving people is increasing. In Mamadysh Canton, the number of starving people is 117,156, of which 45,460 are disabled, there were 1,194 cases of starvation. The number of diseases is increasing. According to the People's Commissariat of Health, 1,174 people fell ill with typhus, 162 people died. Diseases of children are increasing."

"The White Guard press," People's Commissar Nikolai Semashko wrote to the Politburo (in the photo - in the center), "strongly relishes the "horrors of cannibalism in Soviet Russia""

"Hunger is getting worse. The death rate of children is increasing. There is an acute shortage of medicines. Due to lack of material resources, the fight against hunger is being weak."

"The food situation in the northern and Trans-Volga counties is extremely difficult. Peasants destroy the last livestock, not excluding working livestock. In the Novouzensky county, the population eats dogs, cats and ground squirrels. Mortality due to hunger and epidemics is increasing. 250 thousand children".

“Hunger is intensifying, deaths due to hunger are becoming more frequent. In November and October, 663 children died of starvation, 2,735 sick people, and 399 adults. Epidemics are intensifying. The Swedish Red Cross Commission took care of 10,000 children."

Quite a logical result was information about the Samara province, received by the country's leadership on December 29, 1921:

"Epidemic diseases are increasing due to lack of medicines. Cases of starvation are increasing. There have been several cases of cannibalism."

"The Unprecedented Phenomenon of Endemic Cannibalism"

In the new year, 1922, reports of cannibalism began to arrive in Moscow with increasing frequency. On January 20, the reports mentioned cannibalism in Bashkiria, and on January 23, the leaders of the country were informed that in the Samara province the case had gone beyond isolated cases:

“The famine reached terrible proportions: the peasantry ate all the surrogates, cats, dogs, at present they are eating the corpses of the dead, pulling them out of the graves. Repeated cases of cannibalism were found in the Pugachev and Buzuluk districts. mass forms. Cannibals are isolated."

The party press also began to write about the horrors taking place in the starving regions. On January 21, 1922, Pravda wrote:

"The Simbirsk newspaper Economic Way published the impressions of a comrade who visited hungry places. These impressions are so vivid and characteristic that they do not need comments. Here they are:

"I myself, in the end, do not know whether there is a transformation of a dozen provinces into a continuous desert, or whether there is a partial crop failure"

“The two of us drove into a remote, abandoned village to warm up, relax and have a snack. We had our own products, we just had to find a corner.

We go into the first hut that comes across. Another young woman is lying on the bed, and at different angles on the floor are three little guys.

Still not understanding anything, we ask the hostess to put the samovar on and light the stove, but the woman, without getting up, without even rising, faintly whispers:

- There is a samovar, put it yourself, but I don’t have a powerhouse.

- Are you sick? What happened to you?

- The eleventh day there was no crumb in the mouth ...

It became terrifying ... We took a closer look around and we see that the children were barely breathing and were lying with their arms and legs tied.

- What about the hostess with your children, are they sick?

- No, relatives, they are healthy, but they also haven’t eaten for ten days ...

- But who tied them up and scattered them in the corners?

“But I have come to this myself. After four days of starvation, they began to bite each other's hands, well, I tied them up, and put them away from each other.

Like crazy we rushed to our little basket to give the dying children a piece of bread.

But the mother could not stand it, she got down from the bed and on her knees began to beg us to quickly remove the bread and not give it to the children.

I wanted to express my reproach to this mother, to express my indignation; but in a weak weeping voice she spoke:

- They suffered painfully for seven days, and then they became quieter, now they don’t feel anything. Let them die in peace, otherwise feed them now, they will go away, and then again they will suffer for seven days, bite, in order to calm down again in the same way ... After all, neither tomorrow, nor in a week, no one will give anything. So don't torture them. For Christ's sake, go away, let me die in peace...

We jumped out of the hut, rushed to the village council, demanding explanations and immediate help.

But the answer is short and clear:

“There is no bread, there are many starving people, there is no way to help not only everyone, but even a few.”

“In the rich steppe districts of the Samara province, abundant in bread and meat, nightmares are happening, an unprecedented phenomenon of wholesale cannibalism is observed. Driven by hunger to despair and madness, having eaten everything that is accessible to the eye and tooth, people decide to eat a human corpse and secretly devour their own dead children. From the village of Andreevka, Buzuluk district, it is reported that "Natalia Semykina eats the meat of a deceased person - Lukerya Logina." The police chief of the 4th district of the Buzuluk district writes that along his route in three volosts, he "met experienced ancient cases of cannibalism of ancient Hindus, Indians and savages of the northern region" and that these "experienced cases" were expressed as follows:

1) In the village of Lyubimovka, one of the citizens dug a 14-year-old girl from the grave of a dead man, cut the corpse into several parts, put the body parts in cast iron ... When this "crime" was discovered, it turned out that the girl's head was "cut in two and scorched" . The cannibal obviously failed to cook the corpse.

"Hunger is intensifying, deaths due to hunger are becoming more frequent. In November and October, 663 children died of starvation, 2,735 sick people, and 399 adults. Epidemics are intensifying"

2) From the words of the members of the Executive Committee with. Lyubimovka, it is clear that "wild cannibalism" is taking on mass forms in the village and that "at dead midnight the cooking of the dead is going on", but in fact only one citizen is "persecuted".

3) In with. Andreevka, in the police warehouse, there is a head without a body and part of the ribs of a sixty-year-old old woman in a trough: the body was eaten by a citizen of the same village, Andrei Pirogov, who confessed that he ate and did not give the head and the dead body.

4) In with. Citizen Yungov delivered a certain Timofey Frolov to the duck of the Samara district, "explaining that on the night of December 3, he, Yungov, let Frolov go to his apartment and, having fed him, went to bed. At night, Frolov got up and stole one bread, half "I ate it and put half of it in my bag. In the morning, in the same bag, Yungov's strangled cat was found with him."

When asked why he strangled the cat, Frolov explained: for personal consumption. “He strangled the cat quietly at night and put it in a bag to eat after,” the act says.

The executive committee decided: to release the detained Frolov, since he committed the crime due to hunger. Reporting this, the Executive Committee adds that, in general, the citizens of the village "arrange hunts for dogs and cats and feed on the prey they have caught."

These are the facts, or rather an insignificant part of the facts. Others have already been reported, while others elude the attention of society and the press.

What do they do with cannibals? The answer is simple - they arrest, "prosecute", forward the guilty along with "material evidence" - bloody sacks of meat - to the People's Court, accusing them of cannibalism.

Despite the fact that the article further accused foreign bourgeois and new Soviet entrepreneurs - NEPmen who eat well while the starving die, the article made an unpleasant impression on the members of the Soviet leadership. People's Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko on the same day, January 27, wrote to members of the Politburo:

"Dear comrades! I allow myself to draw your attention to the "overkill" that our press allows in the anti-starvation campaign, in particular to the reports of allegedly growing "cannibalism" that are multiplying every day. dated 27/1) we have a message about mass cannibalism ("in the manner of the ancient Hindus, Indians and savages of the northern region") in the Buzuluk district; in N Izvestia of the same date about "mass cannibalism" in the Ufa province, with all the detailed supposedly reliable descriptions.

1) that many of these descriptions are clearly implausible (Izvestia reports that a peasant in the village of Siktermy left "the corpse of his wife, having managed to eat his lungs and liver", while everyone knows what a disgusting place the lungs of a dead man are, and of course, the starving man ate rather meat, "during the search they found the rotting bone of a slaughtered brother" - meanwhile, bones, as you know, do not rot, etc.),

2) the White Guard press intensely relishes the "horrors of cannibalism in Soviet Russia",

3) that in general, in our agitation, we should not hit on the nerves of sensitive subjects, but on the feeling of solidarity and organization of the working people -

I propose, in party order, to prescribe to our bodies:

1) be stricter about printing sensational messages from hungry places,

2) stop printing stories about any "mass cannibalism"".

"Many eat human flesh"

Who knows what the reaction of the members of the Politburo to Semashko's appeal could have been, but the next day Pravda allowed itself to question the Politburo's decision on cannibals. After reporting cases of cannibalism, the Politburo decided not to judge them, but to send them to psychiatric treatment. And the organ of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) published the following reflections of its employee:

"I have a whole bunch of documents about the famine in front of me. These are the protocols of the investigators of the Revolutionary Tribunal and the People's Courts, official telegrams from the field, acts of medical examination. Like all documents, they are a little dry. But terrible pictures of our Volga region very often break through the official shell. A peasant of the Buzuluk district of Efimovskaya Mukhin volost at the inquest told the investigator:

"My family consists of 5 people. There has been no bread since Easter. At first we ate bark, horse meat, dogs and cats, chose the bones and grind them. There are a lot of corpses in our village. They lie around the streets or pile up in a public barn. I made my way in the evening to the barn, took the corpse of a 7-year-old boy, brought it home on a sledge, cut it into small pieces with an ax and boiled it. Within a day we ate the whole corpse. Only bones remained. In our village, many people eat human meat, but they hide it. several public canteens. They only feed young children. From my family, two of the youngest were fed in the canteen. They give a quarter pound of bread per child, watery soup and nothing else. In the village everyone is exhausted. They are not able to work. In the whole village there are about 10 horses per 800 yards. In the spring of last year there were up to 2,500 of them. At the present time, we do not remember the taste of human meat. We ate it in a state of unconsciousness."

Here is another document. This is an excerpt from the testimony of a peasant woman from the same volost, Chugunova:

“I am a widow. I have 4 children: Anna, 15 years old, Anastasia, 13 years old, Daria, 10 years old, and Pelageya, 7 years old. The latter was very sick. In December, I don’t remember the date, I didn’t have any products. The eldest girl gave me the idea to slaughter the younger, sick. I decided on this, slaughtered her at night when she was sleeping. Sleepy and weak, she did not scream and did not resist under the knife. After that, my eldest girl, Anna, began to clean up the murdered , i.e., throw out the insides and cut it into pieces.

"Food detachments, according to the statement of the peasants, mercilessly sweep everything to the grain, and there are even cases where they take hostages those who have already completed the apportionment"

"What to do with the cannibals?" asks the chief of police of one of the districts of the Buzuluk district. "Arrest? Bring to justice, punish?" And the local authorities are at a loss before this terrible truth of hunger, before these "experienced cases" of Indian cannibalism. A characteristic touch: almost all cannibals turn themselves in to the local authorities: "Better arrest, better prison, but not the former daily pangs of hunger."

“I ask only now not to return me to my homeland,” says the peasant Semikhin from the village of Andreevka, Buzuluk district, “take me wherever you want.”

“I know many people like us are sent home,” says Konopykhin, an arrested peasant in the village of Efimovka.

What is it, criminals? Mentally abnormal? Here is the protocol of the medical examination carried out by the Privatdozent of Samara University:

“All testimonies did not show any signs of mental disorder. From the analysis of their mental state, it turns out that the acts of necrophagy (eating corpses) committed by them were not in a state of any form of mental disorder, but were the end of a long growing and progressive feeling of hunger, which gradually broke down all obstacles, broke down the struggle with oneself and immediately attracted to that form of satisfaction, which turned out to be the only possible one under the given conditions, to necrophagy. None of the witnesses showed inclinations to deliberate murder or to the abduction and use of corpses.

“I want to work with all my strength, just to be fed. I know how to sew mittens, I used to be a coachman, I worked as an assistant in a bakery. Give me a job,” Semykin, who had eaten a woman, asks. Millions of Semykins of our Volga region are asking for the same. Will their request be heard?

But to criticize the Politburo, and even publicly, was too much even for the Party's favorite and editor-in-chief of Pravda, Nikolai Bukharin. The Politburo supported Semashko and on January 30 made the following decision:

"1. Be stricter about printing sensational reports from hungry places;

2. Stop printing stories about any "cannibalism"".

True, cannibalism itself has not disappeared from the hushing up of the facts of cannibalism. For example, in the information summary of the Cheka for March 31, 1922, it was said:

"The Republic of Tatarstan... The famine is intensifying. The death rate due to hunger is increasing.

In some villages, 50% of the population died out. Livestock is mercilessly destroyed. The epidemic is rampant. Cases of cannibalism are on the rise."

The last message about cannibalism came to Moscow on July 24, 1922 from the Stavropol province:

"In Blagodarnensky district, hunger does not stop. Several cases of cannibalism have been registered. The population feels an acute shortage of food. There is a physical exhaustion of the population due to malnutrition and complete incapacity for work."

"Registered 315 cases of cannibalism"

With the end of the famine, the terrible time, it would seem, should have disappeared forever, and the country's leadership could draw the appropriate conclusions from what had happened. But it turned out that history soon repeated itself down to the smallest detail. Only they took everything to the last grain not from specific peasant families, but from collective farms. On September 6, 1932, land surveyor Mikhail Chirkov, a school friend of the head of the Soviet government Vyacheslav Molotov, wrote to him about a strange approach to collecting grain from collective farms in the North Caucasus region. The harvest of winter crops, as Chirkov wrote, for many reasons (pests, lack of tractors and horses) was not successful. And grain for deliveries to the state was demanded in a disproportionate amount:

“Rainy weather during harvesting completely ruined the already meager harvest and, moreover, spoiled the grain. Thus, it turned out that the actual wheat yield per hectare this year is reduced to 1-1.2 centners, i.e., they are only returning only seeds, while the yield of wheat was set at 3.5 centners per hectare, and a grain delivery plan was drawn up according to it. I even came across such a case on one of the collective farms, where for 500 hectares of wheat sown (with a set yield of 3.5 centners) the grain procurement plan given not 1,750 centners, as it should have been arithmetically, but 2,040 centners. The Germans (kolkhoz-natsmenovsky-German) are doubly surprised. centner per hectare (i.e., the gross harvest is only 600 centners), and most of all they are surprised at what head calculated the grain procurement plan, when the task for the collective farm for it exceeds even the gross harvest for the crop planned by the authorities stu of wheat per hectare".

But they demanded everything from the collective farms at once, and repressive measures were immediately applied to those who resisted. The same picture was observed in Ukraine. And when the famine began again, there were reports of the consumption of food surrogates, dogs and cats. And then about cannibalism. On April 26, 1933, the Secret Political Department of the OGPU reported on the North Caucasian region:

"From February to April 1, 108 cases of cannibalism were detected in the region ... In total, 244 people engaged in cannibalism were identified, of which 49 were men, 130 were women, and 65 were accomplices (mainly minor family members)."

"In areas affected by acute food difficulties, cases of cannibalism, corpse-eating, eating carrion and various surrogates are common. If in February, March and the first half of April 206 cases of cannibalism were registered in Ukraine in 166 settlements of 76 districts, then from April 15 to According to incomplete data, 315 cases of cannibalism were registered in 201 settlements of 66 districts on June 1. As of April 15, there were 113 cases of corpse-eating, and 368 as of June 1. Killings for the purpose of cannibalism are mainly children.These phenomena take place especially in Kievskaya, Odessa, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk regions".

Specific examples were no less horrific than those that took place in 1922. However, as it turned out, the same scheme of bringing people to complete hunger despair and cannibalism worked later - during the Great Patriotic War, and in the far rear, in areas where everything was taken to the front and Victory to the last grain. And again the Chekists reported to the top leadership of the country, and again measures were taken when a lot of people could no longer be returned.

But, in general, there is nothing strange in this: in a country where everything was done for the sake of great goals, they never paid attention to the life and death of ordinary people.

The famine in the Volga region that reigned in 1921-1922 claimed about 5 million lives. It was a real disaster for the young country of the Soviets. Nevertheless, the terrible situation turned out to be in the hands of someone - this, oddly enough, was the Soviet government.

background

In 1918-1920, in the Volga region, due to the surplus appraisal organized by the committees of the poor, unrest began to grow, resulting in popular uprisings. Chapan war, which broke out in March 1919, engulfed the entire Simbirsk province - the birthplace of the leader of the proletariat. The bulk of the rebels consisted of the so-called middle peasants, that is, peasants with an average income level.

In February 1920, the Fork Uprising began in Zakamye, it is also the uprising of the Black Eagle. The reason was the same - surplus appropriation. In the village of Novaya Yelan, the committee members took 20 peasants hostage and did not want to let them go until the inhabitants had collected 5,535 poods (88,560 kg) of grain. Moreover, the collected grain was poured into one pile right in the yard. The peasants seized the barn with the hostages by force and freed them, while killing four employees of the food committee. New forces joined the rebels, and already on February 14, a week after these events, their number reached 40 thousand.

These and other uprisings were crushed, but the new government needed to be strengthened. The carrot method, in which people were given lands that would make them richer, did not work. Many refused to give away the grain, feeding it to livestock or distilling it. At the same time, the working proletariat also wanted to eat, and food became insanely expensive. Yes, and gold and foreign exchange reserves had to be replenished. Industrialization was impossible without serious government financial injections. Prodrazverstka became the very method of the whip, which the peasants did not like very much. In order to keep the people in obedience, it was necessary to strengthen the power structures. But where will the funds come from?

It would seem that a hopeless situation arose: the forces of the new government were running out, the money was running out, the people were revolting, the reforms were stalled. And then the drought came to the rescue.

Hunger is not an aunt

A man who is hungry will not waste his strength fighting for power, land, or freedom. The famine in the Volga region was simply catastrophic. In 1920, little rain fell in this region, and in 1921 a real drought began. Once fertile fields turned into steppes where only weeds survived. There was no talk of growing crops. The loss of livestock and the extinction of poultry began.

It would seem that only one year to hold out ... But the surplus appraisal took almost everything, and there was nothing to sow the land in the new year.

Inexorable figures speak about how the grain was selected. From 1918 to 1919, 1,767,780 tons of grain were harvested in the Volga region. A year later - 3,480,200 tons, that is, almost twice as much. And from 1920 to 1921 - in a year of drought - 6,011,730 tons. This measure made it possible to provide the army and workers with bread and at the same time pacified the peasant militancy. It is hard to resist when the bread that is served on the table is baked from acorns. Every day people died by the dozens, here and there whole families of cannibals were arrested.

The birth rate dropped to zero, typhus spread - the eternal companion of poverty and wars of that time - after all, hungry people did not have the strength to wash and wash, there was no money for soap.

Lenin was clearly aware of how important the lever of power was bread. This is evidenced by his words in the article “Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?”

The leader of the proletariat wrote: “The grain monopoly, the bread card, universal labor service are in the hands of the proletarian state, in the hands of the sovereign soviets, the most powerful means of accounting and control. This means of control and coercion to work is stronger than the laws of the convention and its guillotine. The article was written by Lenin back in 1917, that is, four years before the famine in the Volga region.

The next step, which finally extinguished the ardor of peasant revolts in the 1920s at the same time as the famine, was the introduction of a food tax, part of the New Economic Policy (NEP). This tax took into account the number of family members and, very importantly, the weight of the harvest. This relaxation, combined with the high harvest of 1923, prepared excellent ground for reformism. The period of war communism has passed, and the time has come for the NEP.

Fighting Faith The Church at All Times

was the strongest rival in the struggle for power over the minds of the people. The offensive against the power of religion was started by the Provisional Government in 1917, and then continued by the new leadership of the country, approving in January 1918 the "Decree on the separation of the Church from the state and the school from the Church." And finally, almost without resistance, it was hunger that helped to defeat this opponent of the new government.

But the struggle for power was not the only reason for such an attack on religion. Church wealth was what was needed to keep the young country's sinking economy afloat.

At first, the government did not dare to take seriously such a strong enemy. The secret directive of the Central Committee of the party, which was sent to the local committees in September 1921, said: "The period we are experiencing is least of all convenient for bringing the anti-religious struggle to the fore." After all, the Orthodox clergy allowed the collection of donations to help the starving.

However, the money was urgently needed, and a year later the decision of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the liquidation of church property" was issued. The exhausted people still tried to protest. In Shuya, the believers wanted to prevent the authorities from requisitioning church property. The demonstrators were stopped by machine-gun fire. This event was the occasion for the final massacre of the clergy of the old formation and its supporters.

Lenin sent a letter to Molotov for members of the Politburo, which stated: “It is now and only now, when people are being eaten in hungry areas and hundreds, if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the seizure of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy, not stopping at the suppression of any resistance. The more representatives of the reactionary bourgeoisie and reactionary clergy we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better.”

The resolution on the seizure of valuables was adopted in January 1922, and already in the first ten days of July, 21 poods 9 pounds of gold (almost 340 kg) were requisitioned; 17,961 pounds 11 pounds; diamonds and diamonds - 23,706 pieces weighing more than 1200 carats; more than 3,800 pearls, 43,711 precious stones and 870 gold coins and 12,422 silver rubles. In total, this wealth was estimated at 4.5 million rubles.

But the starving Volga region got less than a quarter of the total. Then, in 1922, grain exports resumed. Under the guise of a year, almost half of the church leadership was arrested. The country's treasury was replenished. One of the main opponents of the new system - the Church - was practically beheaded, the people became peaceful. And all this was facilitated by hunger, which in the capable hands of the party members turned into a terrible weapon.

These events are gradually erased from people's memory. People are much more concerned about the same famine, around which disputes still do not subside - due to the frank desire of some political forces to make PR for themselves on the bones, for the most part. But today we are not talking about the Holodomor.

I want to tell you about the events against which the Holodomor, perhaps, can only pale helplessly. The famine in the Volga region turned out to be much worse than the Holodomor and the Tsar Famine of 1891.

In 1918, the young Soviet government began the policy of food dictatorship. Surplus appraisal begins in the country. Strictly speaking, it was carried out earlier, back in Tsarist Russia. But only under the Bolsheviks did this word acquire its true ominousness.

Grain (later - meat, potatoes and many other types of food) is confiscated from wealthy peasants free of charge. For the poor and middle peasants - on compensation, i.e. paid. However, money has one significant drawback before bread: it cannot be used for food.

I cannot but mention the German Roland Freisler. During the First World War, he was captured by the Russians. In Russia, he became a member of the RCP (b) and rose to the rank of head of one of the food detachments. After returning to Germany, his career growth led him to the position of Chairman of the People's Judicial Chamber of the Third Reich. At this post, he was accused (!) by some Nazis (!!) of excessive bullying (!!!) of prisoners. I think that this gentleman cannot be used to judge all the food detachments and their activities, but it is quite acceptable to imagine what level of personality the Soviet government was at the head of such detachments.

Nevertheless, the policy of the Bolsheviks is understandable: large cities demand bread, and the Red Army, whose numbers are steadily creeping up, also demands it. How was this policy implemented? The peasants were confiscated not only grain, which they could well eat - that was not so bad. The real problem was that part of the seed grain was being taken away - the one that was supposed to turn into a new crop next year. The peasants ate another part themselves - because they still needed something to eat.

Subsequently, there will be talk that the peasants deliberately ruined food by feeding grain to livestock. There is, of course, a great deal of truth in this. However, it is unreasonable and illogical to explain such behavior as the main cause of the famine (by the way, unlike the famine): in the process of surplus appropriation, it was not the amount that should be withdrawn from the peasant, but the amount that should remain with him. In other words, the peasant, before the guaranteed loss of grain, preferred to feed it to cattle, and not to the Soviet authorities. One can treat this with understanding or condemnation, this does not change the fact: even under conditions of the most severe economy, the peasant would find himself in exactly the same position as when feeding livestock with selected grain. By the way, in contrast to the Holodomor, livestock was not massively slaughtered - the peasants did not save only what, in their eyes, was already doomed to an abyss.

The result is obvious. In general, in Russia in 1913, 90.2 million tons of grain were harvested, in 1915 - 77.3 million tons, in 1921 - 37.6 million tons. However, these figures can largely be called average for the ward. In the same Samara region, compared with 1913, the figures fell sevenfold.

It was obvious to everyone that a difficult time lay ahead. But no one expected that in 1921 a drought would begin, which would destroy about 22% of the crops (again, this percentage is also an overgeneralization. In some provinces, primarily in Samara, up to 100% of the crop died ).

In 1921, a famine began in the Volga region, the Southern Urals, Southern Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Southern Siberia and Bashkiria, which will go down in history as the famine in the Volga region - after the name of the most affected region. The Volga region turns into hell. Hell, photos from which, many years later, some not too conscientious individuals will try to pass off as evidence of the Ukrainian famine. However, I repeat, the Holodomor of the 30s does not look so scary against the backdrop of the Volga region of the 21st ...

If you are an impressionable person, read no further. I warned you. There are photographs from the scene and eyewitness accounts. You may... not like them.

Bread shortages begin as early as February 1921. The first thing peasants resort to is adding quinoa to flour. Actually, this is standard practice in times of famine. But this time, she doesn't make any sense. The torment ends soon.

Semyon Bolshakov, journalist, eyewitness of the events:
For six months or more they have been feeding on one quinoa, without any admixture of flour. A lot of them. 260 thousand people eat quinoa. They push it in a mortar with some large heavy iron or just a pin from a cart. They crush gray, crispy, brew it and bake koloboks, such fragile "hard-to-reach" - you touch them, they crumble. With greed, people pounce on gray, tasteless, crumbs that do not give strength. "The belly is deceived, and that's okay," the skinny, earthy peasant smiles bitterly, taking up the plow ...

In summer and autumn, these measures allow you to somehow hold on. The Soviet government has no reserves. It is forced to buy food abroad, but the volume of supplies is completely insignificant and has little effect on the situation. In addition, the Soviet government turns to Western countries for help, but they are not eager to rush to the rescue for free. However, by the end of 1921 aid began to arrive. The main merit in this belongs to the Norwegian public figure and scientist Fridtjof Nansen and a number of public organizations that organized fundraising to help the starving. Maxim Gorky becomes one of the first agitators.

Maksim Gorky:
I - in August - go abroad for agitation in favor of those dying of hunger. There are up to 25 million of them. About six [million] have taken off, left the villages and are going somewhere. Can you imagine what it is? Around Orenburg, Chelyabinsk and other cities - a camp of the hungry. Bashkirs burn themselves and their families. Cholera and dysentery are bred everywhere. Ground pine bark is valued at 30 thousand rubles per pood. They reap unripened bread, grind it together with the ear and straw, and eat it shallowly. They boil old skin, drink broth, make jelly from hooves. In Simbirsk, bread is 7,500 rubles per pound, meat is 2,000 rubles. All cattle are slaughtered, because there are no fodder grasses - everything burned down. Children - children are dying by the thousands. In Alatyr, the Mordovians threw their children into the Sura River.

Frithion Nansen (speech at the Assembly of the League of Nations):

We must get ahead of the Russian winter, which is slowly but surely coming from the north. Soon Russian waters will be covered with ice. Try to really understand what will happen when the Russian winter comes in earnest, and try to imagine what it means to have no food in these severe colds. The population of the whole region roams the devastated country in search of food. Men, women, children perish by the thousands in the snows of Russia. Try to imagine what that means! If you've ever experienced what it's like to fight hunger, fight against the terrible winter elements, then you will understand what the consequences are. I am sure that you will not be able to sit still and calmly answer that you are very sorry, but that you, to your great regret, can do nothing to help.

In the name of humanity, in the name of everything holy and noble, I appeal to you: after all, you have wives and children at home, so think about what it is like to see with your own eyes the death of millions of women and children.

But governments are slow. The representative of Yugoslavia, Spailakovic, announces that between the Russian famine and Bolshevism, he likes Bolshevism less. Later, this nit will also be marked by cooperation with the Nazis. However, of course, to judge the whole of Serbia by him is a crime and insanity.
Others speak more correctly - but the essence of their words is the same.

Winter is coming. And the main food is boiled cowhide.

High mortality entails an explosive growth of homeless children. Those whom parents tried to save at the cost of their lives find themselves alone. Their further fate is sealed.

The photo below shows corpses collected over several days in Buzuluk, modern Orenburg region, December 1923.

In an atmosphere of complete hopelessness, some people are rapidly losing their humanity ...

Photo taken by the same Nansen in 1921.
"These children can't be saved. It's too late."

Below are the stories of the inhabitants of the Samara province.

Chepurnov Pyotr Savelyevich:
Caught. They look - there is some little suitable one. His time - and somewhere. No. Where? Disappeared and disappeared ... I myself went to the dining room, where my sister lived. They went there along the river. I walked, and it was empty there, only dugouts stood. They come out of this dugout and follow me. People disappeared, ate them. I've run away. Or here they will bring the dead and circumcise.

Ekaterina Nikolaevna Minaeva:

You will remove the skin from this cow or from a horse, you will singe it. You cook and eat. This is how they fed. Barely lasted until spring, yes.

Some man was driving from Uralsk. Previously, a merchant went with tetanus. Now the highway. And before tetanus was. Well, his horse drowned, a camel. Our whole farm ran there. Who has a leg, who has a paw, no one has the strength to chop. Everyone swelled up. And I was swollen, my stomach was like that. The legs are like this. All swollen was. But she did.

We always have water in a cast-iron in the stove. Hot. Here you rinse with this water. And you divide this meat in order to hold out until spring.

Melted ... We cook and eat grass. They ate chaff, but I, for example, ate little chaff. And I ate all kinds of grass. And in the spring they began to give corn flour, you mix this grass with flour, it seems to be full.

Kharitonova Matryona Mikhailovna
Eat, eat people. From the pit they dragged straight the dead, and even the living ... Gone - no. It was scary to walk down the street. There was such a time. They eat and eat and still die. They will eat and die...then there was no power. What power? Kipuchka, screaming, tears, hunger. What can the government do? Here is the dining room - who ate? Power and matchmaker, yes brother, yes acquaintances. The calves were fed in the canteen. Porridge and bread.

How many people died, who counted them. Three holes... How can you count them? They go or go, they fall. They put it again, they put it again.

Mortality in homeless shelters reached 50%. There is no exact data. According to rough estimates, the total number of starvation deaths is considered to be at the level of 5 million people.

By the spring-summer of 1922, the situation was improving. More than 10 million people receive at least some regular meals organized by the American Relief Administration. At its peak, 300 Americans worked in the Volga region and more than 120,000 Soviet citizens hired by them.

The Soviet government considers the famine a good reason to crack down on the church. Under the pretext of the need to help the starving, church valuables are confiscated. According to a very rough estimate, the value of the seized property amounted to about $100 million.

In total, 78 million dollars were spent to help the hungry. Of these, 28 million dollars - from the US government, 13 million dollars - from the Soviet government. The rest came in the form of charity. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the conditions under which the "government" American money was provided. However, as far as I can tell, these funds were non-refundable. However, the delivery of aid was paid for - in addition to food, it also included clothing and medicines. A significant part of what was confiscated from the church (according to various sources - from 60% to 90%) was directed to ... the needs of the world revolution.

About 7 thousand Soviet and 10 thousand American canteens operated in the country.

Later, during perestroika times, a duck will be launched that the famine was provoked by the Bolsheviks on purpose. This, of course, is complete nonsense. Another thing is that the main reasons for the famine were not only the carelessness and illiteracy of the forces exercising power in the Volga region and other regions, but also, quite often, the desire of the Freislers to curry favor with their superiors by reporting on record grain harvests for the needs of the Red Army. Reported what is already there. Bolshevik propaganda called the drought of 1921 the main cause of the famine. It really dealt a powerful blow to agriculture. The famine itself was declared "the last message of tsarism." I should note, however, that much more serious crop failures, which led to the "king-famine" in tsarist times, cost a much smaller number of victims. Bolshevik power turned out to be worse than drought and locusts. Or the same price as them. Also dubious.

In the summer of 1922, the Soviet government stunned the whole world by announcing the resumption of grain exports.

The consequences of the famine were overcome only in 1923.