The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Ruin

by Douglas Smith

An award-winning historian reveals the harrowing, little-known story of an American effort to save the newly formed Soviet Union from disaster

After decades of the Cold War and renewed tensions, in the wake of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, cooperation between the United States and Russia seems impossible to imagine―and yet, as Douglas Smith reveals, it has a forgotten but astonishing historical precedent.

In 1921, facing one of the worst famines in history, the new Soviet government under Vladimir Lenin invited the American Relief Administration, Herbert Hoover’s brainchild, to save communist Russia from ruin. For two years, a small, daring band of Americans fed more than ten million men, women, and children across a million square miles of territory. It was the largest humanitarian operation in history―preventing the loss of countless lives, social unrest on a massive scale, and, quite possibly, the collapse of the communist state.

Now, almost a hundred years later, few in either America or Russia have heard of the ARA. The Soviet government quickly began to erase the memory of American charity. In America, fanatical anti-communism would eclipse this historic cooperation with the Soviet Union. Smith resurrects the American relief mission from obscurity, taking the reader on an unforgettable journey from the heights of human altruism to the depths of human depravity. The story of the ARA is filled with political intrigue, espionage, the clash of ideologies, violence, adventure, and romance, and features some of the great historical figures of the twentieth century.

In a time of cynicism and despair about the world’s ability to confront international crises, The Russian Job is a riveting account of a cooperative effort unmatched before or since.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Politics, Russian History, American History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2019

About the author

​Douglas Smith is an awarding-winning historian and translator and the author of four books on Russia. He studied German and Russian at the University of Vermont and has a doctorate in history from UCLA.

Over the past twenty-five years Smith has made many trips to Russia. In the 1980s, he was a Russian-speaking guide on the U. S. State Department’s exhibition “Information USA” that traveled throughout the USSR. He has worked as a Soviet affairs analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany specializing in Russian nationalism and served as an interpreter for late President Reagan.

Smith has taught and lectured widely in the United States, Britain, and Europe and has appeared in documentaries for A&E and National Geographic. He is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including a Fulbright scholarship and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study Center.

His latest book, Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy, was published in 2012 with Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the U.S. and Macmillan in the U.K. Read an interview with Douglas Smith about Former People and listen to his interview on KUOW Radio.

Douglas Smith is currently writing a biography of Grigory Rasputin to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2016.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Douglas Smith exceptionally fine historian and chronicler of aspects of imperial/revolutionary Russian history have attracted masses of attention in terms chronicling in anecdotal ways but never the searching glare of historian determined to look beyond 'legend' into hard archival investigation. His biography of Rasputin has superseded all previous ones. His books on the Russian aristocracy at its extravagant, glittering apex under Catherine II and it's demise after Nicholas II are unique and essential reading for anyone interested pre and immediate post revolutionary Russian history. He has now tackled one of the more incredible stories from the immediate post civil war period in Russian history - the mammoth famine relief programme by the USA which saved millions of Russian lives and the new Soviet regime which was as close to death as any of the emaciated wraiths haunting the Volga.

The story of the famine relief programme carried out by the capitalist west between 1920-22 to save both human beings and the Soviet state has been told in a number of very fine histories, some very recently, but Smith's splendidly readable narrative history is as good as any of them and supported by recent research in the Russian archives. The way the story has fallen from recollection or commemoration in either the USA or Russia is not hard to understand because neither capitalists nor communist regimes wanted it remembered. The story does provide a insight onto why Hoover, when president, attracted such vilification for his handling of the 1929 economic crash and subsequent economic depression.

In 1914 Herbert Hoover was a very successful mining engineer and self made millionaire, not from playing the markets, but from creating and managing mining industries. His ability to get things done in practical terms was much admired and after the outbreak WWI for the number of large scale, complex relief programmes he largely initiated and managed. Amongst them was the repatriation of thousand US citizens caught in Europe after war began without access to money or transport and famine relief to Belgian citizens which necessitated complex negotiations with all the belligerent powers to ensure relief went to starving Belgians and not soldiers or the black market. He was seen as the only man who could do the same in Russia - making sure help went to the starving and politically 'approved' recipient's. That he did this earned him a reputation as businessman who understood how markets and business worked so as to be humanitarian on grand scale. Everyone presumed he would no how to fix the economy and provide relief to the millions of hungry and homeless.

That he failed to do so led to a reversal of reputation that is hard to comprehend. In 1925 as one of the most respected humanitarians in the world. By 1930 his name meant shanty towns (hoovervilles) and police on horseback massacring starving veterans of WWI on the streets of Washington DC.

But back to the 'Russian Job' - if you have read nothing on this fascinating episode in US/Russian relations then I urge to read this delightful narrative of a complex historical moment. It is stronger on personalities then the ins and outs of the political and administrative matters that underpinned the famine relief operation. But he does not ignore it, he provides an account of it within the whole narrative and gives plenty of archival references as well as up to date bibliographical information on not only books but scholarly articles that could be interest.

Finally I just want to praise again this books wonderful prose based as it is on first rate scholarship. Historians like Douglas Smith who write well and knowledgeably - on subjects that to often attract the monolingual amateurs who peddle the same unattributed stories from mediocre memoirs - is to be treasured and encouraged.

[Alex Givant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Отличная книга о том, как Америка спасала Россию от голода в 20-х годах прошлого века. Взамен они получили подозрительность, ненависть и репрессии в отношение советских людей, работавших на американцев. За 100 лет ничего не поменялось: американцы спасают людей - а их за это ненавидят!

[Nikita Mihaylov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не валяй дурака, Америка,
Вот те валенки, мерзнешь, небось.
Что Сибирь, что Аляска - два берега:
Баня, водка, гармонь и лосось.
Баня, водка, гармонь и лосось.

Так получилось, что пласт истории "до войны" (отечественной, пусть с нашей нынешней наверняка будет так же) начисто затёрся этим чудовищным бедствием. Даже военные события, где большевики проявили себя — Революция, Гражданская, Польский и Финский походы ушли из общественного сознания, что уж говорить о трагедии, за которую они несут прямую ответственность, и которая не закончилась крахом для России во многом благодаря иностранной помощи? Но это тоже наша история.

Книга суть повесть в лицах о том, как American Relief Administration, она же АРА, помогала Советской России в борьбе с голодом 21-23гг. О том, какие жуткие картины бандитизма, антропофагии и бесконечного унижения им пришлось наблюдать, о всепоглощающей подозрительности ЧК, о коллапсе медицины, транспортного соообщения, да и государственности вообще. И в то же время самопожертвования и работы на износ — у американцев, и несравненно большего числа их русских сотрудников.

О войне с советской бюрократией, с американским общественным мнением, о гуманизме наконец.

Удивительно, как русские умеют выбирать себе врагов. Янки спасли десять миллионов крестьян в 20х, и сколько еще жизней сохранил ленд-лиз в 40х. В начале девяностых, когда 70% населения страны недоедало, Ельцин получил 2млрд долларов продовольствием, угадайте от кого. При этом они наши злейшие враги.

А Сербы обе мировые войны дрались с нами, и они братья. Как это так?

Крестяне говорили Келли, сотруднику АРА, что вечно будут помнить то, как американцы спасли их детей от голодной смерти. И я тоже буду.

[AcademicEditor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began studying Russia two decades ago because I loved the beautiful things that came from Russia-- literature, music, art, ballet, and even science. But you can't study these things out of context, so I know more than I'd like to about war, corruption, poverty, and famine. I knew about the famines of 1921-22 as they affected political and cultural events in the early years of the USSR. I knew that from their earliest days in power, Lenin and Stalin used hunger as a weapon, strategically starving certain populations. I even knew the multiple words for cannibalism in Russian, which exist to make the moral distinction between eating a corpse and murdering someone for the purpose of eating them.

But I hadn't heard the American side of the aid story, which was quite amazing in itself. Starting during WWI, Herbert Hoover orchestrated massive operations to administer food and supplies, first to Belgium, then to other nations. Eventually, this organization was formalized as the ARA. When the writer Maxim Gorkiy sent out a plea for help, Hoover commissioned this small group of Americans to work with thousands of Soviet citizens, managing to bring large amounts of food, medicine, and clothing. As a narrative, the book is an excellent source of inspiration to put aside political or cultural differences to save lives in danger. As an academic source, though, the book does not offer full sources or many notes, so it won't be the greatest help to researchers (unless this can be added--I read a review galley).

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a digital ARC.

[Kristi Thielen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1921 when the Soviet Union was experiencing one of the worst famines in history, a Herbert Hoover-led entity, the American Relief Agency, came to Russia and spent two years providing much needed help. They fed some 11 million people. They distributed over 1.25 million food parcels. They restored 15,000 hospitals and inoculated 10 million people against epidemic diseases.

American politicians often challenged the program. Their contempt for communism and their opposition to the idea of American goods going anywhere but to Americans made them an ongoing obstacle. Hoover himself came to question how much could or should be done.

When the program ended, it faded into obscurity in America as other national concerns rose. In Russia, the program was discredited as the communist government was loath to seem reliant on capitalists. (Some of the Russians who had helped with the program were executed.)

This book relates the stories of those who worked for the ARA, the experiences they had, the frustrations they encountered as a needy but suspicious Soviet government helped/hindered them and how all of this changed their lives forever.

It is a very thought-provoking book and well worth reading.

Here’s one question that came to me as I read it:

Lenin was still in power at the time of the ARA efforts. ARA staff felt that he was aware of the need to ameliorate some of the inflexibility of communism. Would he have done so, had he lived longer and Joseph Stalin not risen to power? How would the history of the Soviet Union have been impacted?

And an idea that struck me.

Many of those whose lives were saved during the famine, grew to be the adults who fought the Nazis and served as allies to the British and Americans during WW2. Had the ARA not saved those lives, would the Soviet Union have been able to mount the formidable forces they did during WW2? Would the allies have been able to defeat the Nazis?

[Daniel Farabaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid history of a lesser known event. The author does a very good job of giving the details and illuminating the people involved. One area of weakness was that it presented the suspicion that the Russians had of Americans as being completely unwarranted. A few years previously, the US had invaded Russian as part of an international force and attempted to overthrow the Bolshevik's government. This would have give more depth to the book.

[Olesya Gilmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really insightful look into the American Relief Administration, U.S’s massive, federally funded relief program organized in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and subsequent famine. Douglas, as always, writes accessible nonfiction, with deep knowledge of Russia and her mentality and history.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I have read widely and studied Russian history for most of my adult life, I had never come across this somewhat forgotten interlude – and what a fascinating story it is, the story of how the American Relief Administration, under the auspices of the US Government, fed millions of starving Russians in the crisis facing the country after the Revolution and Civil War. Over 300 volunteers went to save as many lives as they could, sometimes sacrificing their own to do so. It’s a harrowing and heart-breaking tale of famine, death and devastation accompanied by some equally harrowing and heart-breaking photographs. A compelling narrative, excellently told and of absorbing interest.

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firmly in the "human story" camp as opposed to the politics and logistics surrounding the launch of "A-hra".

[Melvin Smrcka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story i actually didn’t knew. Great read, 5 stars.

[Albert M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to imagine such extreme famine. Very interesting read about how this famine was dealt with by Americans and an unfriendly communist government. Suffering is hard to read about, I can’t imagine what it was like to witness it. Certainly worth reading.

[Jim Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating and intriguingly written account of the rescuing of millions of Russians from famine in 1921-23. The five star rating is boosted by the fact that I knew so little about this; the providing of background, context, and a follow up made the story easy to understand.
By 1921, following WWI, revolutions and civil war, the USSR could not feed itself. Reluctantly Lenin and the Communists had to beg for aid. In a war-ravaged world that could only come from the US. And we had not only food but the MAN - Herbert Hoover who had helped feed Belgium during the war. He pt together a team of eager volunteers (often young men who found the post war world boring) and started the ARA. Eventually they fed millions of people. As Smith points out, this relief was a seed for recovery. With food assured peasants did not eat seed grain (or each other).
Lenin and his clique were, of course, suspicious. There had to be ulterior motives. Hoover was very anti-Communist. But the workers tried to stay out of Politics. There were expressions of gratitude and even plaques, but these were later torn down. (As a side note, if you check newspaper reviews, there is a cheery Russian troll zipping around “proving” it was all an evil plot.)
Smith provides a lot of anecdotes, from letters and archives. To the members of the ARA it was a thrilling and often dangerous time. And, at least in retrospect, they loved it!

[Dmitry · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a masterful story of America's aid to the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The relief effort is described through the lens of individual participants - both American and Russian, which makes it personal and easy to follow. In addition to the description of the humanitarian aid operation, Mr. Smith provides great insight into the formation and development of the US-USSR relations at the beginning of the Soviet era.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book details a piece of American and Russian history that has largely gone unremembered. The politics involved in trying to save human lives was fascinating. The devastation detailed in the book, (along with some pictures) is horrifying. I found the book too interesting to put down, but it was somewhat depressing to read of some of the difficulties people faced with extreme famine. A must read for a picture of the years prior to the Great Depression.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting part of history, but I'm not sure it justifies a full book-length treatment. I felt like there was a lot of repetitiveness and getting into details that I didn't necessarily need to know. I think for the sake of posterity it's good that Smith did enough research to fully flesh out the people involved and the incidents, but for my purposes I am not sure I needed quite so many biographical details of the primary actors here.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Food from America Saved Millions in the Soviet Union from Starvation

The Russian Job is the story of an American relief effort under the leadership of Herbert Hoover to address extreme famine in the Soviet Union in 1921-1922. As the book’s subtitle suggests, this effort is little remembered in the United States and, because it was an embarrassment to the Bolsheviks, was effectively erased from official Soviet history. Those who administered the aid and those who benefitted at the time have now passed away.

The scale of the American Relief Administration (ARA) program was massive. A group of 300 young Americans mobilized 120,000 Russians to help administer the program, and fed 10 million starving people a day across a million square mile territory.

Many of the young administrators were idealists. They believed that Russia, once fed, would abandon its radical roots and could be brought back into the Western fold. American aid would make the Bolsheviks more responsible and respectable.

Hoover was a hard-headed realist and did not agree. His motivation is not fully explained, but the fame and honors he gained as an administrator of an earlier Belgian relief operation from 1914 to 1919 during World War I was likely a factor. This was an opportunity for him to duplicate his earlier effort and again achieve global acclaim. In the book, he comes across as a faceless, unemotionally involved bureaucrat. This seeming inability to inspire, despite skill in organizing private relief initiatives, later haunted him as president when the US entered the Great Depression fewer than ten years later.

The book’s description of Russian starvation, as Americans entered the countryside, is haunting. Poverty was extreme even before the war and Bolshevik depredations further stripped the countryside of food. The young men from the ARA encountered disease, starvation, and at times cannibalism among those with no other option to avoid death from starvation themselves.

There are charming profiles of many of the young Americans involved in the program, who often fell in love with Russia and with Russian women. Many of the women were attracted to the Americans because they were a source of food and money, but surprisingly few wanted to leave the Soviet Union even when given an opportunity to do so through marriage. One exception involved J. Rives Childs, who managed to marry and to help his wife and her mother, former members of the Russian aristocracy, to emigrate. Unfortunately for the reputation of the ARA, Childs also was found to be exporting Russian treasures, thereby fueling Soviet suspicions about the integrity of the organization, and he was forced to resign.

The ARA’s activities came under suspicion from all sides. The Soviets were paranoid about Western involvement. They believed that food distributed by the organization was used to thwart Bolsheviks in Hungary, a charge that was false. Henry Ford led attacks from the right, claiming that the ARA was controlled by Jews and Bolsheviks.

But it was Hoover who decided to wind down the organization after two years, when it became apparent that while America was sending food relief to Russia, the Bolsheviks were exporting their own grain to earn foreign currency so as to purchase industrial goods essential to the modernization of their economy. For Hoover, that was the last straw.

Author Douglas Smith does an effective job telling the story of this forgotten initiative. Moreover, through diaries and other contemporary accounts he captures personalities, as well as the extent of naiveté and prejudice as both sides encountered each other. There had been very little contact between the two countries before 1920, and later under Stalin’s dictatorship the Soviet Union became a closed society as never before. Indeed Stalin’s collectivization of the countryside in the 1930s again sacrificed peasants to starvation in the name of modernization and Communist ideology. Had they known the full extent of Stalin’s programs, the men of the ARA would have lamented the fact that their efforts were transitory and failed to permanently lift what one called, “the interminable sadness of Russian peasant life.”

[Jim Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a readable, well-written account of the story of American Relief Administration famine relief in Russia in 1921-1923. It seems based primarily on letters, photographs and memoirs of American ARA officials, so you see the story through their eyes. You see the doomed, starving people in the famine zones; the gruesome instances of cannibalism; the non-functioning government and transportation systems (unless the Cheka steps in); the grateful aid recipients once ARA food starts arriving. The ARA men have adventures and love affairs, get sick or demoralized or invigorated, get in and out of trouble. They do a world of good — saving perhaps 10 million lives — and then leave, even more quickly than they arrived. Smith asks but can’t answer the question of why such a consequential event was so quickly and thoroughly forgotten. My guess is that it was forgotten because it doesn’t make a good story. There are some of the elements of a good story: the ARA good guys facing off against the famine, with Soviet incompetence, resistance and assistance keeping things interesting until the famine is ultimately defeated. But in a good story the participants end up someplace different for the experience, and that didn’t happen. The ARA men went home to a country that wasn’t terribly interested. The experience did not change the U.S. view of the Soviet Union, or the Soviet view of the U.S. The ones with most at stake in the drama — the residents of the famine zone — were not in a position to turn their personal gratitude for being saved into any real difference in their world. The bigger picture after the famine was the same as it was before: the Soviet Union wanted U.S. recognition and trade but had little to offer in exchange, the U.S. was suspicious and had no pressing interests in Russia. In hindsight it seems like a fluke — driven largely by Hoover’s force of personality — that the mission occurred at all. For a brief window of time it served the interests of Soviet officials, grain farmers in the U.S., and American politicians, but it wasn’t based on any durable foundation of support, and couldn’t be built upon into something larger or more permanent. It brings to mind George W. Bush’s PEPFAR: a powerful man takes a personal interest in a particular moral cause, money is found, millions of lives are saved, but the effort is overshadowed by more contentious world events, and soon nearly forgotten.

[Rhuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful recap of a long-forgotten, century-old act of international goodwill that saved the fledgling USSR from collapse and its people from moral and physical disintegration. Though not as monumental as Parnaude's "The Big Show in Bololand," Smith's book does capture the idealism and horror, success and repercussions of the world's largest (and genuine) act of humanitarian intervention.

The American Relief Administration built on Herbert Hoover's successful famine-fighting in Europe. Off to a rocky start between a Soviet rock and anti-Bolshevik hard place, it nevertheless fulfilled its mandate of feeding millions of hungry children and adults in big cities and far-flung villages. The course was never smooth, the motives on both sides often ambiguous. The ever-paranoid Bolsheviks, even with Cheka chief Dzerzhinsky's help, were often obstructionist; the Americans were often less than Boy Scouts, behaving like swaggering, sexually-entitled colonialists bearing White Man's Privilege.

The saving and gratitude of the recipients was what mattered in the end. That it did not lead to a formal recognition between the two countries was to be expected; though, as a part of NEP, this opening did lead to widely-expanded trade and laid the foundation for WW II Lend Lease. Even a half-century later, in Brezhnev's time, the word "Ah-ra" could provoke a nostalgic outburst.

Hoover's legacy stood him in good stead in election as president; unfortunately, the Depression proved his match and liquidated this success as well as his larger legacy. This never really matched Luce's self-worshipping ideals of the "American Century." Smith acknowledges this fact, yet takes his case a little too far when he parallels the American aid and bailouts of the 1990s with the ARA. This was banking business, not charity. But his concluding sentence on p. 273 is spot-on: "May the story of the ARA inspire that same spirit of generosity today toward all humanity, abroad and at home." A far cry from our current state, which sees intervention only in brutal military terms.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the early 1920s, after the Bolsheviks defeated the White forces in a civil war, parts of southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the Urals suffered significant crop failures that were compounded by carryover problems from the civil war and the preceding revolution along with World War I. The American Relief Organization, a quasi government organization led by Herbert Hoover that had been active elsewhere in Europe was able to organize relief efforts in Russia that saved millions of Russians from dying.

It's a remarkable history that as the author suggests isn't well known. The focus is on particular American individuals who worked for ARA who documented their time in letters and other documents that the author found in archives and elsewhere. It is a mostly chronological presentation of what happened that moves from place to place in telling what happened.

Hoover is not as much a part of the telling of the story as I expected, which is fine. The larger story of the relationship between the United States and the USSR during this time is a reoccurring theme - the US did not recognize the USSR until 1933 and it is perhaps surprising that the aid program did not help with establishing diplomatic relations before that.

At the end the author draws attention to the lack of awareness among Russians and even Americans that this help was given. I'm not sure it is that surprising - how many Europeans are aware of the extent of the Marshall Plan assistance after World War II at this point? Perhaps it is more noteworthy that the almost complete lack of awareness now was in part the result of official Soviet policy to erase this from Soviet history.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374252960 includes a long excerpt from the book.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Holodomor of the 1930s is the more well-known of the Soviet famines, but the 1920s also experienced a famine, albeit one with a very different response. The aid given by the American Relief Administration between 1921 and 1923 helped alieviate the disaster in a way that was made impossible in the 1930s. Smith focuses on the personal here, following the men on the ground along the Volga as they struggled to get food and aid where it was needed most.

Divided by year, The Russian Job follows the story from Herbert Hoover's early relief efforts and the formation of the ARA to the Russian Civil War and its effects on the countryside. He lays out how the relief mission was formed and initiated, pausing to provide short biographies of the men involved.

Most of the focus stays personal, following the men in their district as they struggle to balance their own health, physical and mental, with the constant barrage of need. Smith doesn't pull any punches here - included are both long extracts from personal letters and pictures that reveal exactly how people - many of them children, the ARA's main focus - were effected by the lack of food.

Because Smith's focus is the personal, most of the political back and forth between the US and Soviet governments are only glanced at, as is the logistical efforts of moving that much food across the world. This book serves as either an introduction to the subject or a suppliment to more specific research.

[Ralphz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tragedy I read about in "Stalin's Famine" was massive and horrendous, but this account of an earlier outbreak is bigger, and frankly more nightmarish. Whereas the previous book took a broader look at the politics driving the famine, this one about a famine in 1921 is different, looking at the horror of people starving, dying - and cannibalizing. Unlike 1932, this famine wasn't intentional and relief was given - and it still didn't stop the suffering.

Unlike they would do decade later, Russia acknowledged this crisis and put out a call for help, and the most effective relief came from the United States.

There was a political aspect to it - those who wanted or help but not endorse communism, those who wanted to crush the nation in its time of need. But the Americans, led by the hero of post-WWI European relief (and future president Herbert Hoover) did their best to keep politics out of it.

If the Americans had acted in 1921 like Stalin eventually did in 1932 - letting people starve to win a political victory - the Soviet Union would have died in the cradle. But the American Relief Administration would not let that happen.

The book covers the ARA, the Cheka secret police and the people caught in the middle. Through it all, the Americans fed 10 million men, women and children in a huge zone of the Soviet Union and rebuilt the communist nation's infrastructure.

[Dropbear123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5. Definitely worth reading if interested in Soviet history or American-Soviet relations. Note - First book I’ve read on Kindle in a long time in case that affects my views on it.

Covers the period of 1921-23 and American Relief Administration (led by Herbert Hoover but he wasn’t specifically in Russia itself) attempts to provide famine and medical relief after the Russian Civil War (where there had been American soldiers fighting the Bolsheviks in Siberia and the very north of Russia near Finland). You don’t need much background knowledge on the period as everything is well explained. It’s a dark and grim book as there is a lot of starvation and cannibalism described (some of the Americans got ‘famine shock’ like shell shock from the things they saw) but rather compelling to read as the book focuses on the human stories without getting bogged down in too many statistics. Some politics as well about the state of American-Soviet relations, mainly about whether the USA would formally recognise communist Russia but also the Bolshevik mistrust of the relief efforts as some sort of anti-communist plot (a bit of truth in the suspicion but the Bolsheviks took it too far)

[R. Reddebrek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initially found this book while looking for information on the lend lease to the Soviet Union during WWII. I have read quite a lot about both the Russian Revolution and the Civil War period and was very surprised by its contents as I had never heard of the American Relief Association or its work in the early Soviet Union. Although, I was aware of the famine during the period 1921-23 but not the extent of it and had heard of some of the other relief organisations. This book was enlightening, it charts the operation from beginning to end, covers much of the territory of the young USSR from Moscow to recently conquered states in the Caucuses, works with first hand accounts and provides additional context and rebuts the author's strange racial prejudices about Slavic peoples.

It was also a very interesting look at how the early Soviet state dealt with catastrophes, and sadly it paints a very bleak picture. Practically every chapter held some interesting information I had not encountered before. I highly recommend this work to any sovietologist or student of humanitarian efforts.

[Chris Maska · Rating 5 out of 5]

How America Saved the Soviet Union From Ruin

The subtitle is a fair statement of the book. After WWI, multiple civil wars, and the wreckage caused by trying to implement Marxism, the new Soviet Union was in trouble. Private Americans, the American Relief Administration, asked for help during a terrible famine, came through and saved millions. They were never trusted by the Soviet government, even though several key members were socialists. They insisted on having the freedom to feed all those in need as was agreed. But they had to fight to maintaining that freedom. Ultimately, they were incredibly successful. But the Soviets government did all it could to blackened their memory and deny their achievements. Here is to true example disinterested giving that is largely forgotten.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had vague notions of mass starvation in early 20th century Russia, but the Russian Job puts into focus their first major incident of famine in the early 1920’s (not to be confused with the later actions a decade later centered mostly in Ukraine that is painstakingly detailed in Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine). What’s even less known is the US involvement in famine relief during the 20’s, which was largely led by Herbert Hoover prior to his presidential term later in the decade. It contains accounts of the Americans who went over to Russia and what they did and saw while there from the mundane (Yanks falling in love with Russian) to the heartbreaking (the accounts of the extent of the starvation).

[Jody Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1921 as the Russian Civil War wound down, the new Bolshevik government under Vladimir Lenin faced a catastrophic famine in the Volga River Valley and further east. Future American president Herbert Hoover, then head of the American Relief Agency (ARA--set up to help feed war victims in Europe after WWI), sent a team of intrepid young Americans to help distribute millions of tons of grain and food to millions of starving Russians in 1922-23. This happened when the two nations did not officially enjoy diplomatic relations. This book is a reminder that the U.S., when called upon, can do great things for other nations. Smith's book focuses on several ARA employees and their individual experiences in the Soviet Union.

[Rey Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit with some awkwardness that I knew nothing about this connection between the American Relief Administration and Russia in the 1920's. The story of the US providing millions of tons of food to feed millions of Russians is incredible with so many conflicts revealed on both sides as a giant humanitarian effort to feed starving children throughout Russia.

What puzzled me about the book is that there is a photo of one of the food caravans and the sleds appear to being pulled in winter conditions by either camels or llamas, yet there is no reference in the book to this unusual animal being used in this way. Anybody else know more about this?

[Barry Smirnoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

American Aid to Soviet Russia following their Civil War

This is an analysis of The ARA, American Relief Association which distributed American food and essential goods in the Volga region and Western Siberia during the Russian famine of 1920-23. Hubert Hoover was the leader who sent American NGOs to Russia to distribute humanitarian aid. Interesting story of a unknown relationship that would set an example of American values diplomacy. Smith is very critical of the Revolution and of the Communists. He feels that Americans do not get enough credit for their involvement in the USSR and that Russia owes Americans a lot of thanks, which was only expressed to a limited extent.

[Robert Walkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gruesome but riveting story about Hebert Hoover’s ARA (American Relief Administration) and its effort to save millions of Russians from starving to death in the early 1920’s. Smith tells what happened, but he also tells the stories of some individuals who were instrumental in making the relief effort a success. Before reading this book, I’d never heard of the ARA. Hoover may have been a terrible president but he did a lot of good as the leader of this great humanitarian effort. Even Lenin had to admit that Hoover and the ARA helped the Soviet Union. My main question is what became of those who were saved from starvation when Stalin came to power?

[patricia j patane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn’t put it down. I had come across the mention of the ARA in other books about the horrors of the Russian Revolution but none so thorough as this. It is a brilliant history of an organization the brainchild of a complicated man who most of us know only for his failure ( Hooverville) during the American Depression. It tells the stories of many of the people who worked in the ARA and the impact it had on their lives.
I have to say it was difficult to read in places. It is hard to imagine the horror that the famine was in Russia. Surrounded by the dead and dying waking up surrounded by those who collapsed in the streets.