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Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover Archive Regarding Famine During the Russian Revolution
Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover Archive Regarding Famine During the Russian Revolution
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Description:

Hoover Herbert

Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover Archive Regarding Famine During the Russian Revolution

 

WOODROW WILSON, HERBERT HOOVER, Five Annotated Typed Manuscripts, April-May 1919.  14 pp., various sizes from 8" x 10.5" to 8.25" x 13", with some additional carbon copies.

 

Excerpts

Draft Letter of Woodrow Wilson to Fridtjof Nansen, prepared by William C. Bullitt, April 6 or 7, 1919 (not used):

            “The misery and suffering in Russia described in your letter of April 3rd appeals to the sympathies of all peoples. It is shocking to humanity that millions of men, women and children lack the food and the necessities, which make life endurable.

            “The governments and people whom we represent, would be glad to co-operate, without thought of political, military or financial advantage, in any proposal which would relieve this situation in Russia.”

            “There are great difficulties to be overcome, political difficulties, owing to the existing situation in Russia, and difficulties of supply and transport.”

            “That such a course would involve cessation of all hostilities within the territory of the former Russian Empire is obvious. And the cessation of hostilities would, necessarily, involve a complete suspension of the transfer of troops and military material of all sorts to and within these territories. Indeed, relief to Russia which did not mean a return to a state of peace would be futile, and would be impossible to consider.”

 

Notes of a conversation between Herbert Hoover and French Foreign Minister Stephen Pichon at the Quai d’Orsay, April 17, 1919:

“M. Pichon handed Mr. Hoover a memorandum containing the precis of the French attitude towards Mr. Nansen’s proposal for revictualing Russia. He emphasized the fact that the French point of view was that the effort should be confined to feeding starving Russia, not to attempt any kind of political intervention.”

 

Excerpt from Interview between French Foreign Minister Stephen Pichon and Herbert Hoover:

“Mr. Pichon objected that the payment for this food would still further depreciate the ruble by diminishing the supply of Russian gold and platinum. He said it must not be forgotten that France had invested in Russia twenty milliards."

 

Draft Letter of Fridtjof Nansen to Herbert Hoover (edited by Herbert Hoover), April 17, 1919:

            “I am indeed greatly obliged for your letter of the 17th of April in respect to my suggestions as to the provisioning of Russia. You will please find attached hereto communication [insertion in Hoover’s hand: which I have asked my government to transmit by the quickest route to its destination] which I have today addressed to Mr. Lenine, at Moscow.”

 

Radio Message of Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs George Tchicherin to Fridtjof Nansen, May 10, 1919:

“Your very kind message of April seventeenth containing your exchange of letters with the council of four reached us on May the fourth by way of the nas wireless station and was at once given to the peoples commissariat of social welfare for thorough examination. Wish in the name of the Russian Soviet Government to convey to you our heartiest thanks for the warm interest you manifest in the well being of the Russian people. Great indeed are the sufferings and privations inflicted upon the Russian people by the inhuman blockade of the Associated and so called neutral Powers and by the incessant wars forced upon it against its will. If left in peace and free developement Soviet Russia would soon be able to provide for her own needs and be helpful to other countries.”

“Unfortunately your benevolent intentions, which you indicate yourself as being based upon purely humanitarian grounds and which according to your letter must be realized by a commission of wholly non political characters have been mixed up by others with political purposes. In the letter addressed to you by the Four Powers your scheme is represented as involving cessation of hostilities and of transfer of troops and war material and we regret very much your original intentions have thus been fundamentally disfigured by the Governments of the Associated Powers.”

“whenever jews come under their domination they are the objects of the most horrible bestialities. In the west the Polish Legionaries and the troops of the Ukrainians counter revolutionary (pelliura) who are both supported and even directed by Entente officers have perpetrated such massacres of Jews which by far surpass the most horrible misdeeds of the black hundred of old Tharism.... whole villages, whole towns were burned, the Russian neither sick nor aged was spared, and in numerous places the whole Jewish population was literally wiped out by these troops headed by Entente generals and officers.”

“For the worker this domination means every possible persecution, oppression, wholesale arrests, and in many cases wholesale shootings so that in some towns the workers were simply wiped out by the enraged extsarist officers who are at the head of Koltchaks troops. The horrors perpetrated by these Koltchak officers defy description.... These are the adversaries against whom we are engaged in desperate struggle and whom the Associated Governments are in every way supporting, providing them with war material, foodstuffs, financial help, military commanders and political advisors, and on the north and east fronts, sending their own troops to help them.”

“it is of course impossible to us to make any concessions referring to these fundamental problems of our existence under the disguise of a presumably humanitarian work. This latter must remain purely humanitarian and non political and we will welcome every proposal from your side made to us in the spirit of your letter sent by you to the Council of Four on April third.”

 

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.


On April 3, Nansen sent a letter (drafted by Hoover), to President Wilson and the other members of the Big Four, 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, and when the Russians responded on May 14 (their reply was also blocked by the French but picked up by radio and relayed to Hoover), their refusal to stop fighting until they had achieved their objectives blocked the proposed plan. 

Two years later, an even deeper famine struck Russia and lasted for two years. This famine killed more than 5 million people, primarily in the Volga and Ural River regions.  Unlike in 1919, Lenin allowed outside aid to Russians. In August 1921, the International Committee for Russian Relief (ICRR) was organized in Geneva, Switzerland, with Nansen as its High Commissioner.  Hoover’s American Relief Administration provided the bulk of the aid that went to Russia during 1922 and 1923, but the ICRR fed hundreds of thousands as well.

 

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.

 

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

 

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