
The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (2011) - rutenspitz
https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2011/pr-famine-040411.html
======
johntiger1
While often disparaged these days, the US has long been one of the most
charitable countries in the world both in terms of private citizen
contributions and public government aid. Glad to see some of the good deeds
finally being recognized!

~~~
refurb
Knowing just how much anti-Americanism exists on HN, I'm not sure why I
assumed this wouldn't be downvoted.

~~~
adventured
Well consider the _extreme_ history absurdism going on here, that is being
upvoted.

A very small contingent of US soldiers is involved in an allied invasion of
Russia. Mostly those US soldiers do nothing, two hundred die (half from
disease), they go home a very short time later having done almost nothing at
all in terms of conflict. Then in this thread, that is being blamed for the
forced Communist famine deaths of millions of Russians and Ukrainians.

It's the ultimate combination of Communism apologism (apologizing for the
_mass genocide_ and slaughter of millions of people under Lenin's policies),
and blame America for everything'ism. And all of that is happening in the
thread for an article that is about how Americans altruistically contributed
historically vast quantities of food to keep millions of other people from
starving to death.

~~~
zipwitch
I suspect what you are seeing is a reaction, or over-reaction, to how
Americans have long censored our own history. Once you figure out the official
(accepted, schoolbook, popular) depiction of history edits out the nastiest
bits in favor cheerleading, the presumption that _anything_ "left out" should
be taken in the worst possible light comes naturally. This is especially true
when the information in question ("The US invaded Russia? And we just dont
mention it?!) seems so potentially loaded and relevant to current world
events.

------
teej
This YouTube video seems to be the PBS episode mentioned -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmCsztQz4s0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmCsztQz4s0)

------
nraynaud
Different times, different behaviors. Now Yemen is ravaged by famine and the
US is droning it.

------
gumby
Hmm, this article doesn't mention the allied invasion of russia (of which the
US was a major part) that ended in 1920. Sure, the US was a great humanitarian
but also contributed to their being a famine!

~~~
adventured
edit: downvoters, feel free to correct what I'm saying if you can. I'm going
by the factual history of what actually happened, what role the US actually
played in the conflict (barely any), and the _trivial_ scale of that role.

It's not mentioned because the US was not a major part of any invasion into
Russia and did not contribute to the famine. Factually the US involvement in
that conflict was something below trivial. Although feel free to explain how a
couple hundred US soldiers contributed to the forced famine of a nation of
tens of millions of people.

[https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-day-that-
th...](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-day-that-the-usa-
invaded-russia-and-fought-with-the-red-army-x.html)

~~~
gumby
Though I disagree with you I gave you an upvote -- the right way for people to
disagree is to comment, so thank you for adding that edit and alerting me to
the downvoting.

I agree that in a country the size of russia the counterrevolutionary invasion
was, in a sense, trivial (as had been the counterrevolutionary invation of
revolutionary France). However it had various long term consequences in terms
of policy, resentment, pride etc which, sad to say, do effect politics in
international relations today as well.

However on the subject of the invasion itself, there were about 150K invaders
of various nationalities (about 100K in the north, of which the US personnel
was about 10%). However US materiel support was substantial, as they had
barely entered WWI and had plenty to supply. in addition the blosheviks -- not
particularly well organized or rational) were quite distracted by this force.
You can see from the treaty of Brest-Lutovsk that they were quite eager to be
shed of foreign obligations, wanting to consolidate domestic control. I don't
claim the invasion was the _cause_ of the famine, nor do I believe the
bolsheviks would have been competent to deal with it without the invasion, but
it has a significant distractor as you can see from their records.

But to present the article as the US being the rescuing heros without
mentioning their bloody opposition in the years immediately leading up to the
famine I do consider rediculous.

~~~
myrandomcomment
What "bloody opposition"? Proof please. The fact that we got involved on the
side of the Royalist does not prove we oppressed anyone. The largest damage
ever done to the population of the USSR was always by their own government,
FULL STOP.

~~~
Svettie
I think "Bloody opposition" in this context is a sensationalized way to say
"military involvement", it doesn't refer to the magnitude of the blood spilt
nor of oppression.

~~~
myrandomcomment
“But to present the article as the US being the rescuing heros without
mentioning their bloody opposition in the years immediately leading up to the
famine I do consider rediculous.”

I do not think so. Pretty much is an direct statement accusing the US of it.

So I say again, proof please?

------
thriftwy
Then another famine was created to sell wheat to pay Americans for factories.
It is usually shown as Ukrainian genocide, but when you look at absolute
numbers, large areas of greater Russia and present-day Kazakhstan were
affected to the same extent.

------
ballenarosada
This article makes no mention of the role the Wilson administration likely
played in creating the famine to begin with. Following 1917, anglo-american
support of fascist paramilitary groups in Russia led to the bloodiest civil
war in history.

~~~
nnq
Wait, so somebody actively tried to kill the scourge of communism in it womb,
and you say it like it's a bad thing?!

Maybe that civil war should've been _bloodier_ , if only the other side could
have won... it would have spared the rest of the world at least (hint: Eastern
Europe) from the hideous ideology and politics that spread from Rusia and
infested them and dragged them down for decades after decades.

~~~
chepaslaaa
You realize that communism didn't drag Russia down but actually improved their
quality of life from the reign of the Czars right? They were an
unindustrialized starving shithole and became 2nd world power. Communism was
far from perfect, but it was a step forward at least up until the mid 1950s.

~~~
literallycancer
Russia had an elected parliament since 1905.

>You realize that communism didn't drag Russia down but actually improved
their quality of life from the reign of the Czars right?

Did it improve faster than it would have under democratic rule?

And then there is the whole business with making half of Europe a 'starving
shithole'.

~~~
rospaya
> Did it improve faster than it would have under democratic rule?

That wasn't an option for Russia at any point, as it isn't even today.

~~~
nasredin
It's sad. Russia only had less than a decade of somewhat democratic rule over
the last... I don't even know... years.

------
adventured
In line with the same type of intentionally forgotten history, US investors
and business persons built and provided a large portion of the Soviet
industrial capabilities prior to WW2 [1], which the Soviets later pretended
were their own accomplishments. It's a theme that repeats throughout all of
Soviet history, where Communist propaganda collides with market economy
prosperity, on up to the famous 1959 Kitchen debate between Nixon and
Khrushchev [2], or Yeltsin's visit to the Texas supermarket [3].

Communism universally, completely failed at providing superior material
prosperity, which was one of its most touted foundational claims. Worse, it
failed at providing nearly any consistent materialism at all, as witnessed by
the second great Soviet famine under Stalin in 1932-33 [4], in which millions
of people perished.

[1] [http://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-america-
helped-b...](http://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-america-helped-build-
soviet-machine)

[2] [http://adst.org/2015/07/nixon-vs-khrushchev-
the-1959-kitchen...](http://adst.org/2015/07/nixon-vs-khrushchev-
the-1959-kitchen-debate/)

[3] [https://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-
yeltsin...](https://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-went-
grocery-shopping-in-clear-lake/)

[4]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/re...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/red-
famine-anne-applebaum-ukraine-soviet-union/542610/)

~~~
dang
Let's not have yet another battle about how bad communism was. On HN, generic
tangents are always off topic because the discussions they produce are
predictable. Ideological battle is the worst subtype of those.

I know the theme is adjacent to the article's material, but so are plenty of
other things, some of which are specific rather than generic, and those are
the ones that can seed good conversation. Who even knew this massive event had
taken place? or that Herbert Hoover played a central role? I sure didn't.

Relitigating communism, on the other hand...not so much. Nearby generic themes
trigger quick reactions because we all have many pre-existing associations to
them. But for internet discussion, they are the black holes we need most to
steer clear of.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
adventured
Fair enough. I thought it fit well with the parent article. I get your point
about how wandering anywhere near Communism as a discussion can quickly lead
to low quality argumentation.

