Volga famine. Cannibalism and shocking footage of 1921-1922 (18+)

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The famine in the Volga region of 1921-1922, according to official statistics, covered 35 provinces (the Volga region, southern Ukraine, Crimea, Bashkiria, Kazakhstan, partly the Urals and Western Siberia) with a total population of 90 million people, of which at least 40 million were starving.

The peak of hunger was in the fall of 1921 - spring of 1922, although cases of mass starvation in some regions were recorded from the fall of 1920 to the beginning of the summer of 1923. The number of victims of the famine was about 5 million. The famine of 1921-1922 led to numerous cases of cannibalism and caused a massive increase in homelessness and crime.

The main reasons for the famine are considered: the severe drought of 1921, the devastating consequences of the Civil War, the destruction of private trade by the Bolsheviks, the confiscation of food from the peasants in favor of the city (surplus appropriation) and the human factor. The famine became a convenient pretext for a massive attack by the authorities on the Orthodox Church, under the guise of confiscating church values to fight hunger. At first, the Soviet government did not advertise the fact of the famine, but by 1921 it became clear that it was impossible to cope on its own. However, even then, it was not the first persons of the state who turned to the world community for help, but the writer Maxim Gorky. In July 1921, he sent telegrams to a number of public figures in Europe, after which on August 2, V. I. Lenin appealed to the international proletariat for help, and on August 6, the Soviet government officially informed the world about the crop failure that had befallen the country. The main stream of aid 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 (ARA - American Relief Administration, American Quaker Society, International Save the Children Alliance, Vatican Mission, Joint , Swedish and German Red Crosses, British trade unions, etc.) In just two years, the ARA spent about $ 78 million, of which $ 28 million was money from the US government, 13 million was from the Soviet government, the rest was charity, private donations, and other funds. private organizations. From the beginning of the fall of 1922, aid began to decline. By October 1922, American food aid in Russia was minimized. The International Committee for Aid to Russia under the leadership of Nansen from September 1921 to September 1922 delivered 90, 7 thousand tons of food to Russia.

Hunger, to one degree or another, has engulfed virtually all regions and cities of the European part of the Soviet Republics. The loss during the famine is difficult to determine, since no one has done an accurate calculation of the victims. The greatest losses were observed in the Samara and Chelyabinsk provinces, in the autonomous region of the Volga Germans and in 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 hardest of all, depriving a significant part of those who managed to survive, their parents and shelter. In 1922, more than one and a half million peasant children, left on their own, wandered, begging for alms and stealing, the mortality 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.

01. In one of the villages of the Volga region

02.

03.

04.

05.

06.

07. Activities of the Samara provincial commission of assistance to the hungry 1921-1922

08.

09.

10.

11.

12.

13. Fight against hunger and homelessness, Volga region, 1921

14. Refugees from hunger in the Samara province, 1921

15.

16.

17.

18. A family of starving people in one of the Volga villages, 1921-1922

nineteen. Died of hunger in Saratov, 1921

20. Saratov, 1921

21. Corpses of children, collected on a cart, Samara

22.

23. Examples of cannibalism in the Volga region

24. Photos of a Japanese journalist

25. Cannibals of Buzuluk district

26.

27.

28. Six peasants accused of cannibalism in the vicinity of Buzuluk, 1921

29.

30. In the city of Marks, Saratov region 1921

31.

32. Food aid to victims of hunger in the Volga region

33. Fridtjof Nansen is a Norwegian polar explorer, scientist, political and public figure who has provided great assistance in saving the inhabitants of the Volga region from hunger.

34. Photo from F. Nansen's archive. Unloading food from the warehouse of the International Union for the Rescue of Children in Saratov, 1921-22

From the memoirs of Nansen: “The most terrible visit was a cemetery, which had a mountain of 70 or 80 naked corpses, most of which belonged to children who died in the last two days and were brought here from shelters or simply picked up on the streets. 8 corpses of adults. They are all simply put in one grave until it is full. The corpses are naked, because the living ones take their clothes. Nansen asked the gravedigger how many dead were brought to the cemetery every day, and received the answer that they were brought in "carts." It was impossible for the gravediggers to cope with the burial of such a number of the dead, because the ground was frozen and it was very hard to dig, so mountains grew out of the bodies of the unfortunates. cemetery".

35. Photo from F. Nansen's archive. Cemetery in Buzuluk, famine of 1921-22

36. One of the photographs taken by Nansen in Russia during a trip to the starving regions in 1921

37.

38. The corpses of those who died of hunger collected over several December days in 1921 at the cemetery in Buzuluk, photo by F. Nansen 1921

39.

40. The crowd at the medical and nutritional train.

41. American charity organization ARA (American Relief Administration) in Samara, 1921-1922.

42. At one of the nutritional points

43.

44. Children receive food from the American Committee in Kazan, 1921-1922.

45.

46. Medical assistance to street children of the Volga region.

47. Saratov, 1921