Features of the work of foreign charitable organizations in the Volga region to provide assistance to the starving (1921–1923)

Annotation

The aim of the work is to study the features of the work of foreign charitable organizations to provide assistance to the starving in the Volga region in 1921–1923. The main source for writing the article were the materials of the Astrakhan Provincial District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Fund of the State Archives of the Astrakhan Region, as well as thematic collections of documents. A historiographical analysis of the scientific literature revealed the differences in the approaches of historians of various schools in explaining the causes of the famine. Researchers of the 1920s concluded that the natural factor in the form of drought was the primary cause of the famine that affected the population of the region. Historians of the 1930s–1980s the root cause of the tragedy was attributed to political and socio-economic factors (civil war that ruined agriculture, peasant uprisings against the food tax, the “trade union debate” in the RCP(b) that weakened the unity of the ruling party, etc.), which were compounded by a severe drought that ruined the harvest. In the post-Soviet period, with the revival of scientists' interest in the topic of the new economic policy, the primacy of the natural factor began to prevail in research again. This topic seems quite relevant now, when such organizations are very active in many regions of the world, but their role is very ambiguous. In addition to extensive charitable, educational and medical activities to help that in need, these organizations are conductors of the “soft power” of their governments, sowing the seeds of discord, conflict and “color” revolutions in other countries. From this position, one can evaluate differently the party-state directives and documents of the period under study, which recommended that local authorities in the famine-stricken territories remain vigilant in relation to the activities of the ARA and other philanthropists. At the same time, one cannot deny the positive significance of foreign food aid in eliminating the consequences of the famine of 1921–1922.

Keywords

• famine
• crop failure
• drought
• peasantry
• Volga region
• food tax
• RCP(b)
• civil war
• new economic policy
• foreign charities
• ARA
• food aid
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