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Lot 87
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Remarkable Herbert Hoover Draft Letter to Vladimir Lenin
Remarkable Herbert Hoover Draft Letter to Vladimir Lenin
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Description:

Hoover Herbert

Herbert Hoover Draft Letter to Vladimir Lenin

 

This fascinating draft shows Herbert Hoover attempting to navigate the complicated politics of postwar Europe and revolutionary Russia to get desperately needed food supplies to starving Russians. He drafted this radio message to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to be sent by Norwegian humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen.

 

HERBERT HOOVER, Autograph Draft of Fridtjof Nansen to Vladimir Lenin, April 1, 1919. 3 pp., 8.5" x 5.375". Typed Radio Transmission of Fridtjof Nansen to Vladimir Lenin, April 1, 1919, 4 copies.  4 pp., 8.5" x 13.25"

 

Complete Transcript

Lenine

            Dr. Nansen and Mr Mr Branting and myself are in Paris and have asked have approached the Allied governments to learn under what Conditions they would be prepared to allow a pure neutral and non-a purely nonpolitical commission comprised of Norwegian Swiss Swedish and possibly Danish and Swiss members to undertake the supply of foodstuffs to the starving populations in Russia, as purely a humanitarian effort. We have in view a similar question organization to that carried through for Belgium during the war. In order to enable us to take the first [added in typescript: steps] we would like to receive an indication from you whether such a commission would be welcomed in russia and whether we could have freedom of be assured such such entire independence in organization and distribution as would enable us to guarantee the allies that there was no discrim these supplies are would be justly and equally distributed to all civilian population without discrimination as to rice religion or political class and whether the you could afford us financial support in the provision of such supplies and to what extent.

 

Historical Background

To combat starvation in Europe during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson created the United States Food Administration by executive order. Under the direction of Herbert Hoover, it became one of the most efficient and successful governmental initiatives in American history.

 

Although Norway, like Sweden and Demark, declared its neutrality during the war, its loss of overseas trade led to food shortages. In 1917, Norway sent explorer and scientist Dr. Fridtjof Nansen to the United States, where after months of discussion, he obtained food supplies in return for the establishment in Norway of a rationing system. He also met Herbert Hoover, and they quickly became good friends.

 

In Russia a pair of revolutions in 1917 left the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin in power, and Lenin ended Russian participation in World War I by March 1918. Civil war erupted within Russia, which continued for several years, but the Bolsheviks emerged victorious as the Communist Party, which led to the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922.

 

By the spring of 1919, Russia had been out of the war for a year, but the civil war created havoc, and millions neared starvation. To extend the reach of the American Relief Administration, which he directed, into Russia, Hoover needed to find a “neutral executive” like Nansen to serve as an intermediary with the Russians.

 

This initial radio message was sent to Lenin to gauge his interest in allowing a “purely humanitarian effort” to feed starving Russians.


On April 3, Nansen sent a telegram (drafted by Hoover), to American President Woodrow Wilson, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando (the “Big Four” Allied leaders of postwar Europe), proposing the plan and, after obtaining approval, wired the offer to Lenin on April 17. The French, unwilling to do anything to keep the Bolsheviks in power, never sent Nansen’s telegram to Lenin. The offer had to be resent, by radio on May 3.

 

On May 6, Lenin wrote to People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin, “Be extremely polite to Nansen, extremely insolent to Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau. This is very useful, the only way to speak to them, the right tone.... Indeed, we must not miss the opportunity of replying to Nansen in a way that would make good propaganda.

 

The Russians responded on May 14 (their reply was also blocked by the French but picked up by radio and relayed to Hoover), insisting that the Allied leaders were mixing politics with humanitarianism in their demands. The Bolsheviks refused to stop fighting until they had achieved their objectives and therefore blocked the proposed plan. 

 

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) was born in Iowa into a Quaker family, but both of his parents died before he was ten years old. After living with relatives in Iowa and Oregon, Hoover became one of the first students to attend newly established Stanford University, from which he graduated in 1895. Hoover worked as a mining engineer in California, Australia, and China. He became an independent mining consultant in 1908 and traveled the world until the outbreak of World War I, building his reputation and fortune. When the war began, he helped organize the return of 120,000 Americans from Europe and spearheaded humanitarian relief efforts in Belgium, from his administrative base in London. After the United States entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the U.S. Food Administration. He lobbied for the job and agreed to accept no salary. After the war, the U.S. Food Administration became the American Relief Administration, which, at its height, fed 10.5 million people daily. Elected President of the United States in 1928, Hoover took office less than eight months before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 plunged the nation into the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Hoover’s 1932 bid for reelection.

 

Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) was born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, and became a champion skier and ice skater. He was an explorer, and led a North Pole expedition from 1893 to 1896. He studied zoology and his study of the central nervous system of marine creatures earned him a doctorate. He made many scientific cruises in his study of oceanography. From 1906 to 1908, Nansen served as the Norwegian representative to the United Kingdom. He devoted himself to the League of Nations and secured Norway’s participation in the League in 1920.  At the League’s request, he organized the repatriation of half a million prisoners of war, including 300,000 in Russia. Nansen received the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of persons displaced by World War I.

 

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov to a wealthy, middle-class family in Simbirsk. After his brother was executed in 1887 for attempting to assassinate the emperor, Lenin turned to revolutionary socialist politics. Arrested for sedition in 1897 and exiled for three years, he later moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent political theorist through his publications. He hoped that World War I would turn into a European proletarian revolution, and when the February Revolution ousted the czar in 1917, Lenin returned to Russia. He played a leading role in the October Revolution and led the Bolsheviks, who by 1918, had concentrated power in the Communist Party. Lenin redistributed land among the peasantry and withdrew Russia from the war. He suppressed opponents in the Red Terror, which left tens of thousands dead or in concentration camps. He led the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. Succeeded by Joseph Stalin, Lenin became an international symbol of the communist movement throughout the twentieth century.

 

Condition: All text clear and dark. Some corner folds and paper clip indentations.

 

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