
A new book on cannibalism in the 1921 Russian famine - the-enemy
https://airmail.news/issues/2019-11-2/how-to-serve-man
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stanski
I think the main point of the story should be the famine rather than the
supposed cases of cannibalism. I don't think it's that unheard of for people
to resort to eating human flesh (usually already dead) when starving. And
we're talking about _millions_ of people starving to death. I'd be shocked if
there were no cases of cannibalism.

Of course it does make for a pretty sensational title and probably better book
sales.

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philwelch
It's hard to get an emotional reaction out of bare numbers and facts. If you
tell people "x million people starved to death in a famine", we all
intellectually agree that it's horrible, but it doesn't seem shocking. If you
tell people, "no seriously, here are some stories about people cannibalizing
each other because they were starving from a famine", it gives you an
emotional gut punch because you get a stronger grasp of the utter despair and
suffering involved.

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jackhack
Also sickening is the understanding that the massive horror of the famine (in
large part a result of the policies of confiscation of goods) was seized upon
as an opportunity to punish the suffering peasants and diminish the authority
of the Orthodox Church. I'm troubled there wasn't there an ounce of humanity
among leaders, those who would rather grab power than alleviate the suffering.
But then, to admit the scale of the suffering and/or to ask for international
aid is to admit that the central planning model is inefficient, and the
embarrassment of the food aid provided by the United States must have deepened
the insult to the (well fed) leadership. A disgusting low-point in human
history, for certain.

~~~
philwelch
It's not just a question of ego and power. It's fundamentally based in the
ideological belief that the ends justify the means--though that belief is very
useful for laundering motivations of ego and power into self-perceived
righteousness.

These people didn't necessarily want to alleviate immediate material suffering
in the here and now. They wanted to Achieve Communism, which would supposedly
alleviate material suffering forever. If that meant tens of millions had to be
sacrificed on that altar, so be it.

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gwbas1c
I can't read this. After having children, the first few paragraphs of parents
butchering their own children just hurt too much.

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trhway
That is the state policy of forced buying at fixed price which on practice
basically was outright confiscation of food from peasants.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka#Soviet_prodraz...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka#Soviet_prodrazvyorstka)

Beside everything else (like massive loss of work capable men and horses
(there were no tractors back then) due to WWI and the Civil War), the
important point here is that usually everything was taken away, including that
grain, potatoes, etc. that would otherwise be used as seeds next year. Not
having anything to plant next year naturally amplified the situation into such
a severe famine. In general dominance of such short-term approaches were the
hallmark of USSR through all its existence.

Another situation of famine and related cannibalism - 2 and half year siege of
Leningrad during WWII by Germans
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad#Cannibalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad#Cannibalism)

and some stats :

"By December 1942 the NKVD had arrested 2,105 cannibals – dividing them into
two legal categories: corpse-eating (trupoyedstvo) and person-eating
(lyudoyedstvo). The latter were usually shot while the former were sent to
prison. The Soviet Criminal Code had no provision for cannibalism, so all
convictions were carried out under Code Article 59–3, "special category
banditry".[72] Instances of person-eating were significantly lower than that
of corpse-eating; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism,
only 44 were murderers.[73] 64% of cannibals were female, 44% were unemployed,
90% were illiterate, 15% were rooted inhabitants, and only 2% had any criminal
records. More cases occurred in the outlying districts than in the city
itself. Cannibals were often unsupported women with dependent children and no
previous convictions, which allowed for a certain level of clemency in legal
proceedings.[74]

Given the scope of mass starvation, cannibalism was relatively rare.[75] Far
more common was murder for ration cards. In the first six months of 1942,
Leningrad witnessed 1,216 such murders. At the same time, Leningrad was
experiencing its highest mortality rate, as high as 100,000 people per month.
Lisa Kirschenbaum notes that rates "of cannibalism provided an opportunity for
emphasizing that the majority of Leningraders managed to maintain their
cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances."[75] "

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vkou
If anyone wonders why Russia 'cares' so deeply about surrounding itself with
aligned buffer states, the horrors it experienced during the second World War
may serve as a bit of a hint.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/dhp1Y](http://archive.is/dhp1Y)

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vz123
1921 was not Soviet Union. Soviet Union was established in 1922.

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gatherhunterer
A soviet is a local official (elected, I think) in Communism. It is not
necessarily tied to the USSR. The soviet system was in place at this time, as
is mentioned throughout the article.

~~~
varjag
Soviet is a council, as in a governing committee.

~~~
Frondo
As in the Russian word совет, lit. advice or council.

~~~
varjag
When Lenin pushed the motto вся власть Советамъ it was as I outlined above. In
neither sense it means a person/official.

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droithomme
"Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine" is a related book, which covers this
phenomenon in 1950s China.

It's not a pleasant topic. Some people ate their children to survive. It's
interesting though how very well meaning utopian policies can lead to this
result. Planting the seed 5 ft beneath the ground will result in great crops
because the seed will have to struggle and thus only the best seed will make
it to harvest. And of course all that seed buried that far down didn't make it
at all. But that is your fault, traitor, not infallible Great Leader's.

~~~
lacampbell
_It 's interesting though how very well meaning utopian policies_

The largest tragedy of the 21st century is that people still think these
policies and these people were 'well-meaning' or 'it just went a bit wrong'.
It seems that only when we defeat murderous totalitarians militarily that we
understand them for what they are.

~~~
commandlinefan
> still think these policies and these people were 'well-meaning'

It’s awfully hard to imagine that Mao actually was hoping that people would
die, and that they would die en masse of starvation: even if he was strictly
self-serving and heartless, he must have known in the back of his mind that
huge populations of starving people are unpredictable and difficult to govern.
The only way I can picture this taking place is that he (like all dictators)
successfully instilled such fear in his direct reports that they never gave
him bad news or challenged what he thought sounded like good ideas at the
time.

~~~
AlanYx
Mao had an awareness of what was going on. For example, like the Soviets
during the Ukraine famine, Mao's government intentionally outlawed starvation
being listed as a cause of death. He was also so utterly convinced of the
correctness of his ideologically informed ideas about farming (e.g., he was
under the spell of Lysenko's ideas about unproductively close spacing because
crops of the same "class" would never compete with each other) that he would
choose to blame failures on people's lack of purity for correctly following
his ideas and on imagined conspiracies of deposed landlords.

However, what you're saying is also true; there are documented historical
examples of local officials, terrified of Mao, setting up faked fields with
scarce crops from the neighboring area being transplanted into a single field
specifically to "impress" Mao during his visits and avoid his ire.

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est31
Wow, that century was so full with suffering, war, slavery and genocide. Let's
hope our century will be better.

~~~
philwelch
The only way is if we remember our history and learn from it.

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ivanhoe
This is usually called the Russian famine as Soviet Union wasn't established
yet. The one in 1932 is called Soviet famine and even more people died that
time, some 10 millions. There was also 1919-1922 famine in Kazakhstan, and in
these two events combined Kazakhstan lost more than half of its population.

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robk
Pay wall :(

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thedudeabides5
tl,dr:

Along with human flesh, cannibals had feasted upon the brains of their
victims.

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chungus_khan
I have a hard time taking this seriously when whoever wrote the abstract
doesn't seem to be aware that the Soviet Union was founded in December 1922.
Basic historical errors in the abstract make the paywall less appealing, and
it's unfortunate if a lot of work went into the actual article.

~~~
lyxsus
Soviet state was established in Russia 1917. In 1922 USSR was formed from
several soviet states, including Russian Soviet Republic.

~~~
chungus_khan
The article's abstract mentions the Soviet Union explicitly:

> In 1921, the Lenin-led Soviet Union faced one of the worst famines in
> history. A new book details its horrors and the American effort to combat
> cannibalism

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lyxsus
Come on, the difference is less important than when one confuses Frankenstein
for his monster, especially in this context.

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a0-prw
Perhaps their gratitude for food aid faded because "After the Bolshevik
government withdrew from World War I, the Allied Powers openly backed the
anti-communist White forces in Russia." (Wikipedia)

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natechols
The food aid came later. Eventually it stopped, once the US realized that the
Bolsheviks were simultaneously seizing grain from peasants to sell on the
international market. (A trick they repeated in the 1930s, to pay for rapid
industrialization, at the cost of ~5 million dead peasants.)

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xvx
It always amazes me when cannibals describe human flesh as tasting like pork
or chicken, yet most people read that and still don't question why it's OK to
eat animals. These poor people needed to eat human flesh to survive. We don't
need animal flesh to survive.

