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Features of nutrition: food violence | News and Articles VkusVill: Moscow and the region

After a series of texts on eating disorders, we decided to continue talking about the eating habits of people who are faced with various diseases.

Last time, together with the expert Natalia Nefedova and the heroine of our material Margarita, we talked about type 1 diabetes. Now we decided to discuss food violence and its consequences. A member of the Russian Psychological Society, crisis psychologist and nutritionist Galina Polovinka and five beautiful girls who shared their stories helped us with this. nine0003

What is food abuse

Many people can find a large number of blocks in eating behavior that have appeared as a result of the "motivational" parenting model used by their parents. Often this model is passed down “by inheritance”, due to a rather primitive, but very impenetrable position: “I was brought up like that - and nothing, I grew up as a normal person.”

The norm, of course, changes over time. And not only because of the different views of new generations, but also thanks to the research of scientists and doctors who discover new facets of the consequences of certain behaviors. nine0003

Food abuse has many facets and is expressed both by restrictions in the format “until . .., there will be no food”, and “feeding”, when the parent forces the child to eat everything to the last crumb or gives him only those foods that he considers useful (and some of them actually are).

In the case of the “right” foods, the child (immediately or already in adulthood) develops an offensive aversion to certain foods, open hatred and the emergence of a gag reflex to what the family forced to eat. Against this background, a person may develop food neophobia - the fear of trying new food and fixation only on those products that he knows. The situation can also take on a more pathological character: a child (or already an adult) will begin to eat only certain products of specific companies. Most often carbohydrate and high-calorie. nine0003

Situations when it is necessary to finish everything that was put on the plate may be fraught with the fact that later a person will not be able to leave food on his plate, and sometimes even on the plate of his child, husband or someone else. This in the long run can lead to the development of overeating, and then obesity.

When food is “motivated” (for example, “until you do your homework, there will be no food”), there can be two outcomes of events:

• The child will start eating stealthily, stealing food or money for it. It will absorb everything indiscriminately in order to have time to eat at least something and dull the feeling of hunger. As a result, this can lead to the development of obesity, compulsive overeating and bulimia. nine0024
• The child will acquire the behavior “it won't be my way - I'm going on a hunger strike”, will begin to sabotage and out of spite not fulfill the very conditions set by the parents. This may be followed by the risk of developing anorexia. In adulthood, this manner is likely to continue, which can also lead to compulsive overeating (the whole working day a person is starving, explaining this by a lack of time and opportunity, and in the evening he starts eating everything).

Food violence can be expressed not only in the habitual for the post-Soviet space “an airplane flies right into your mouth”, “for mom, for dad” and “you won’t leave the table until you finish”. Sometimes it begins even at the stage of pregnancy, when the mother is on a diet or does not have the opportunity to fully eat. Then, after birth, the child eats every time as if he was kept on a starvation diet. He just can't get enough. nine0003

How to instill proper eating behavior in a child

Most likely, if you give your child full rein, his diet will consist only of sweets and fast food. In this regard, parental control of child nutrition is simply necessary for the normal growth and development of the child. But it is needed in rational doses and in a soft, supportive format.

It is necessary to realize and accept several facts:

• the child always knows about hunger and satiety and transmits them to the parent; nine0024
• sometimes the child may show that he has eaten, and after 5-10 minutes ask for more food, and this is normal;
• children often eat mono-products: “empty” pasta, buckwheat, etc. ;
• when tasting something, children first of all rely not on the taste aspect, but on the visual aspect - it is necessary that the food be beautiful and attract the child;
• children intuitively sooner or later begin to show interest in new products.

Proceeding from this, you need to regulate your own patterns of behavior, which in the future will instill in the child the right attitude to food. nine0003

Shall we analyze everything in a little more detail?

“I declare a hunger strike”

Firstly, it is worth feeding the child not according to a clear schedule, but according to his desire - because otherwise he may begin to experience a feeling of hunger much “in advance”, and by the time of eating he will be so hungry that overeat. This, of course, does not mean that you need to completely stop calling the children for lunch or breakfast, but you do not need to be tied to a specific time.

Secondly, when a child makes it clear that he has had enough, and after some time comes running and asks for a snack, you should not refuse him. The words “you just ate” and “you had to finish everything at once” are absolutely inappropriate, because sometimes the amount of food eaten is absolutely not equal to its nutritional value. And to realize this, a child needs a little more time than an adult (although adults do not always know how to understand and determine this). nine0003

The moment of hunger as a whole on a subconscious level is combined with a feeling of lack of love. Until a certain age, the child receives protection through food. Therefore, too long a feeling of hunger can make a child feel unloved and abandoned.

He experiences the same if parents begin to manipulate with the help of food - they force him to eat separately if the child is capricious; kicked out from the table or not allowed to eat until he does his homework / housework / something else.

"Grandmother's love"

The fact that a child defines love and security through food does not mean that it is necessary to feed him. Getting love through food is not the same as broadcasting it through food. Often grandmothers sin with such behavior: they stuff children and force them to eat everything to the end, manipulating resentment, or they buy everything that the child asks for, despite the harmfulness of what they want.

In this case, an adult needs to learn another way to show his love and care, otherwise in the future the child himself will not be able to show feelings in an ecological way. In addition, it is likely to face consequences in the form of food spectrum problems. nine0003

When a child asks for something harmful, such as chips or chocolate, there is no need to refuse radically. So over time, he may begin to overeat forbidden foods, hiding it from you.

It is also not worth reducing the consumption of "harmful things" by turning them into a reward. Otherwise, an unhealthy association will be fixed, which will lead to problems in the future.

It can be explained to a more or less adult child that some foods cannot be eaten every day, because they are of no use. Little ones do not need to be given at all. nine0003

“I want”

It is also worth finding alternatives. The range of food products is now so wide that it is simply impossible not to find a healthy replacement or a new product that is tasty and at the same time healthy for a child.

Well, you need to insist on your own a little less radically. Children in most cases react from the opposite, however, like adults. If you are told not to think about the yellow elephant, then most likely it is about him that you will begin to think. And the stricter the ban, the more you want to break it. Therefore, if you remove the attention and stress from junk food, it is likely that children will simply forget about it. nine0003

Less persistence = less resistance

Introducing new foods into a child's diet works the same way.

Of course, a balanced and varied diet is essential for health. But, as noted above, children are not ready to eat complex and unattractive new foods.

Therefore, it is worth, firstly, to simplify the dishes or even offer the child mono-products. Secondly, to serve them cheerfully and beautifully, so that the child becomes interested and his eyes "become delicious." Thirdly, relieve tension and do not forcefully stuff the child. nine0003

Sooner or later, children themselves become interested in new products, and they can be stimulated to this interest by unobtrusive offers to try or smell, native advertising in the format “what a beautiful and tasty apple” or even by their own example. But you can’t insist, because the child will act from the opposite, or in the long run, and will begin to feel disgust for a particular product. You should also not motivate to eat with cartoons. This diverts the attention of the child and interferes with the perception of satiety. In the future, because of this, compulsive overeating, obesity and metabolic disorders can develop. nine0003

Consequences of food abuse: personal stories

“I played sports and had to keep myself in shape all the time. I had colossal physical activity, and in general, I never had problems with body weight. But for some reason my parents thought that if I ate a lot, I would become fat. And doing any sport with excess weight is difficult, because it is a load on the joints, tendons, etc. I was not offended, I was not indignant, but I was always very surprised why they fed me little or not fed at all. Girlfriends who also went to training were never forbidden to eat. They did not suffer from any problems with weight or nutrition, everything was fine with them and they ate like ordinary people: for example, at school they ate their breakfasts and lunches, and after training they also had dinner. And I don’t remember at all what my dinners looked like, perhaps because they simply didn’t exist. nine0003

It's not like I'm being starved. But I was overwritten by some Chinese wisdom that “you need to get up from the table hungry” and “there should be food on the plate”, “the one who eats to the end does everything not according to Feng Shui”. There were periods when my mother arranged fasting weeks for me. I could only eat fruits, vegetables and drink water. This is trash, because on such a diet it is impossible to live normally for a whole week. I also remember the period before the competition, when for some reason my parents told me to lose weight urgently (although I was not fat), and I ate cucumbers with water. Absolutely no jokes and no exaggeration. I ate cucumbers, respectively, without salt, because it retains fluid and you get fat from it. And I ate only cucumbers in unlimited quantities; but you need to understand that cucumbers are practically 0 calories, you don’t get enough of them. They fell into me, I washed them down with water - and after half an hour I was hungry again. What did it lead to? When I left the sport, I started to eat simply in incredible quantities. Gained a kilogram a month and became very ill. The metabolism was very shaky, and I did not understand if I could eat or not and what to do about it. Parents waved their hands: “Yes, that’s it, you don’t do it anymore, do what you want.” Due to the fact that almost all my childhood I was not given sweet and starchy foods, I began to lean on rolls, chocolates and fast food. And two years later, gastritis worsened, because I began to eat randomly. nine0003

Now I have a very strange eating behavior: I can eat non-stop all day, and not eat at all the next day. I know that this is not entirely correct, but I feel so comfortable because I write it all off for the needs of my own body. And when I talk to my parents about the fact that in childhood they didn’t let me eat, my mother says: “It was all for the good, you went in for sports, and you couldn’t eat. You should be grateful to me for starving you, because otherwise you would be fat and not win all your cups, medals and awards. In general, my parents do not see their fault in the fact that they did not feed me and in my stomach problems. But, let's put it this way, even then I understood that something was wrong, and now I understand that it should not be so. And in no case will it ever happen to my child.” nine0003

“When I was little, they used to play “spoon for mom, spoon for dad” with me. They also distracted with some sweetness from the not very tasty one: while you open your mouth on it, it’s time for you - and they give you a spoonful of mashed potatoes. When my younger brother grew up and I fed him, my mother taught me to do the same. I saw similar things from my grandmother: for example, it was impossible to not eat enough bread at her house, because “bread is the head of everything.”

When I became a teenager, the hormones hit my body so hard that I was "smashed". At the same time, I was an ordinary teenager - not fat, a little more than my weight before, but no more. Although my family is athletic, all hikers are my father, grandmother, grandfather, at that time I did not support this culture and did not go in for sports. When we ate, and I was in short shorts, they constantly teased me, especially dad. Grandfather called "mare". They told me: “Oh, what kind of barrel is this?”, “You need new jeans, you can’t fit into the old ones anymore? Of course, you don't do anything." And I didn’t know how to defend myself against this, they had the words at the ready about “come on, what are you offended about, you don’t need to take it too closely.” Naturally, when you are a teenager and are just being formed, and you often hear from your parents, grandparents that something is wrong with your body, over time you begin to believe in it. nine0003

In the 11th grade, that is, two years ago, everything came to a head, I started having an eating disorder. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror at all. It seemed to me that something was wrong, because I should look like women from the covers. Now I understand that this is stupid, but then there was a feeling that everything, the world converges on this. And because of this, I deliberately began to constantly reduce the amount of food in the diet. After about two months, a box of juice a day was enough for me, and I lost about 10 kilograms. But the worst thing was that no matter how much I threw off, it seemed to me that I was only getting worse and worse. nine0003

Ulyana

“My relationship with food has always been strained, apparently because of my mother's “jokes”. Now I eat almost nothing, I am very picky about food. And in the notes there is a whole list of what I don’t eat simply because I don’t feel like it. From the age of four, my mother often forced me to eat according to the principle “you won’t leave the table until you finish.” I heard this phrase almost every day, and three times in my memory I literally spent the night at the table. I woke up in the morning next to a half-eaten dinner, and my mother with psychos threw a plate into the sink and said: “Don’t come across my eyes again, don’t eat today.” Everything had to be eaten, it was forbidden to throw it in the trash: “It’s all food, don’t transfer food.” She also forbade me to cook, although almost every day I asked to be allowed to make some cottage cheese cake myself. She answered: “You will ruin everything again, you will spend a lot of apples and eggs. You don’t have to do anything, you only translate products.” It was the same with my older sister, with regard to her, my mother had no other rules. nine0003

As a result, the sister is now in a state where she either does not eat at all or eats in huge portions, eating problems. I have a broken diet: either I don’t eat, or I eat twice a day in small portions. I try to control it, but it's hard. Although "zazhory" also happen. It's probably okay. Or maybe not. I don't know.

By the way, my sister has already become a mother herself, her daughter is now three years old. But our mother even interferes with her upbringing. She says: “Why does she eat so little, why are the portions so small?” Or comments on the photo in the spirit: “Feed a three-year-old child with pasta? But what about soups?!” And when Amelia began to grow up and gain weight, the mother began to play caring grandmother with worries that the child was beginning to become obese. Although the niece is at a healthy weight for her age and height.” nine0003

“Problems with food started for me, like many people, probably, since childhood. There was a typical story in the kindergarten: me and my girlfriend (both ate badly) were constantly left at the dinner table for a long time, despite the fact that the rest of the children left for a quiet hour. They promised that they would call both the police and the President himself, so that they would scold us. Naturally, all this was perceived by the children's brain as something terrible, but I still could not eat. However, perhaps my nutritional problems began even earlier: dad is a big prankster, he jokingly said that I was allergic to some foods or that some things were poisonous to me. So, for example, I could not calmly eat tomatoes and still eat any red food with great difficulty, because I once remembered: red is poisonous. Dad once joked that I was allergic to garlic; even just smelling garlic, I began to hiss, spit and get hysterical that I was about to die from allergies. It all resulted in a long period of struggle with eating disorders, which began in the 7th grade. The situation stabilized only after the 2nd year of university.” nine0003

Tell me, have you experienced food abuse?

Michel

History: Science and Technology: Lenta.ru

Why did Patriarch Tikhon turn to Pope Benedict XV for help in the summer of 1921? Who actually introduced the surplus appraisal in Russia? Why did the Americans supply the Lubyanka prison with food? How did the experience gained in starving Russia help the United States overcome the Great Depression? Yulia Khmelevskaya, Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher at the Scientific and Educational Center "Cultural and Historical Research" of the South Ural State University, told Lente.ru about the little-known history of the catastrophic famine of 1921-1922 in Russia. nine0003

Starving Petrograd

Modern researchers consider the famine of 1921-1922 to be the worst in Russian history since the Great Plague under Boris Godunov at the beginning of the 17th century. American historian Richard Pipes calls it the largest non-military disaster in European history since the Middle Ages. Is it really true?

Of course, it was a colossal social and humanitarian catastrophe. Suffice it to say that we still do not know the exact number of his victims. According to rough estimates, famine 1921-1922 and the accompanying diseases killed more than five million people. There are no more accurate data, since in post-revolutionary Russia, statistical records were kept inaccurately for obvious reasons.

How did the Soviet post-revolutionary famine differ from the pre-revolutionary one?

Unfortunately, famine was a typical phenomenon for Russia. For example, in the 19th century, depending on the natural and climatic conditions, people were starving at intervals of five to seven years. Due to crop failure in 1840 and especially in 189In the years 1-1892, mass deaths from starvation were observed, alimentary dystrophy, starvation prostitution were widespread, mothers abandoned their children, there were cases of killing doctors.

Ivan Aivazovsky's painting "Food Distribution", 1892

But the famine of 1921-1922 was unprecedented in its scale. It covered a vast territory from the Urals to the Black Sea, where more than 30 million people lived.

That is, it was not only the Volga region?

Of course not. The fact that only the Volga region was starving is an established stereotype. At 19In 21-1922, the Southern Urals and the Urals, the Middle and Lower Volga regions (except for the port of Astrakhan), the Caucasus, Ukraine and Crimea were in poverty.

Let's not forget that the post-revolutionary famine in Russia began with large cities. For example, the inhabitants of Petrograd were already starving in the winter of 1917-1918, and a year later the situation only worsened. This led to an exodus of people from the former imperial capital and an increase in mortality among the remaining citizens. The following fact speaks eloquently about the scale of the disaster: by 1920, half of the members of the Academy of Sciences had died out (in the literal sense), and the population of Petrograd had almost halved. Therefore, the main goal of war communism was to put pressure on the countryside so that the peasants would share their bread with the city. And then the peasants had to starve. nine0003

Bread for Lenin

In August 1921, Maxim Gorky, in a letter to Vladimir Korolenko, with whom they created the All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving (VK Pomgol), noted that “our famine is not spontaneous, but artificial.” What was the main cause of the catastrophic famine of 1921-1922? An abnormal drought, the Civil War and devastation, or the food policy of the Bolsheviks with their food requisition and food orders?

The famine of 1921-1922 arose as a result of a bizarre interweaving of several factors at once, negatively complementing each other. First of all, the country survived two wars in a row: the First World War and the Civil War. The colossal economic overstrain led to a fall in agricultural production. After all, signs of a food crisis in Russia were already felt at 1916-1917 years.

It was then that the authorities introduced the surplus appraisal?

Yes, this is not an invention of the Bolsheviks, they just took everything to the extreme. The law on the grain monopoly was adopted in December 1916, and in April 1917, on its basis, the Provisional Government introduced a surplus appropriation, that is, the forced withdrawal of part of the grain reserves from the peasants. The first food detachments went to the village under the Provisional Government, but the Bolsheviks made this practice widespread.

And the peasants, of course, resisted. nine0003

Of course, they didn't want to give away the bread grown with so much effort. In addition to direct armed resistance, the peasants often resorted to passive forms of protest.

Hiding bread?

Not only. The peasants began to sow exactly as much grain as their families needed for physical survival. They did not want to spend their energy on the production of surplus grain to be handed over to the state. And when in most of the grain regions of Russia there were several drought seasons in a row, people were simply left without supplies. nine0003

That is, without the surplus appropriation, such a monstrous disaster could not have happened?

In that situation, not a single government could do without the forcible requisition of food: neither the tsarist, nor the Provisional, nor the Bolshevik. There was no other way to solve the problem of supplying large cities. Another thing is that it should not have been carried to such extremes and cruelties as the Bolsheviks everywhere resorted to.

Distribution of food to starving children in Petrograd

Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library / Globallookpress.com

The famine began in February 1921. In March 1921, at the 10th Party Congress, Lenin acknowledged that “it is impossible to take surpluses from the peasants during a famine, because they simply do not exist,” and that “if the problem of hunger among the peasants is not solved, this can lead to the death of the state. ” Why did the Bolshevik government apply for foreign aid only in July 1921, when everything was already clear in February and March?

Because in February and March there were still hopes for a new harvest. After a series of peasant armed uprisings throughout the country (the Tambov uprising is most famous) and especially after the Kronstadt uprising, the Bolsheviks replaced the surplus appraisal with a tax in kind. Therefore, in the spring of 19For 21 years, the authorities hoped that indulgences to the peasants would allow them to successfully carry out the sowing campaign. However, in the summer it became clear that all the main agricultural regions of Russia were facing a crop failure.

Attack on the Patriarch

How did the Orthodox Church try to help starving people? It is known that in July 1921, Patriarch Tikhon turned to Pope Benedict XV with a request for help to starving Russia.

The Orthodox Church was persecuted by the new authorities. The church really began to raise funds to help the starving, but it had few resources, so Patriarch Tikhon appealed to the Vatican and other Christian churches in the West. nine0003

Why, at the same time, did the Bolsheviks organize a large-scale operation to confiscate church valuables?

The new government took advantage of the famine to attack the Orthodox Church and personally Patriarch Tikhon. Under the pretext of raising funds for the starving, many church valuables were confiscated. However, the Bolsheviks used them for completely different purposes: to help the international labor movement, to meet the daily needs of the Soviet state. I personally saw a document from which it follows that part of the funds from the sale of seized church gold and silver went to the purchase of leather uniforms in Finland for the command staff of the Red Army and the GPU. nine0003

Related materials:

It is clear why the Bolsheviks attacked the Orthodox Church - it was an ideological enemy. But why did they discredit and disperse VK Pomgol? How did Gorky and Korolenko interfere with them?

Soviet Russia in 1921 was an outcast in the international arena, no one in the world recognized the power of the Bolsheviks. And Gorky, Korolenko and other representatives of the old intelligentsia, who organized VK Pomgol, were well-known and authoritative in the West. In addition, Korolenko had experience in raising funds for victims of famine 1891 year old. The Bolsheviks used their reputation to get help. When this goal was achieved, the authorities no longer needed VK Pomgol. Most of its members were accused of all mortal sins and arrested, and Gorky had to emigrate.

It seems that the West was initially skeptical about the idea of ​​helping hostile Bolshevik Russia. The turning point in Western public opinion came not only thanks to Gorky and Patriarch Tikhon, but also to the famous Norwegian scientist Fridtjof Nansen. nine0003

Yes, Nansen has repeatedly publicly advocated for help to starving Russia, which caused dissatisfaction among many. The Nansen Committee worked actively in our country, and thanks to it many of our compatriots were saved.

What other foreign organizations worked during the famine in Russia?

International Red Cross, Vatican mission, Protestant charitable organizations in the USA and Germany, Jewish fund "Joint". But the greatest role was played by the American Relief Administration, headed by future US President Herbert Hoover. nine0003

Was she the first to respond to the call for help for Russia?

Yes. It was a semi-governmental organization dominated by the military or reservists. At first, it provided humanitarian assistance to the population of European countries affected by the First World War, and in 1921 it almost completely reoriented itself to Soviet Russia.

Was ARA's activity in Russia different from what it was doing in Europe?

Initially, ARA intended to feed only starving children in Russia. By the way, this caused bewilderment and irritation among many peasants. They sincerely did not understand why they should give food to useless youngsters, if adult men who need to plow in the field swell with hunger. It was not uncommon for distraught parents to take food or ration cards from their own children. The Americans had to personally make sure that help went to children first of all. nine0003

Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen taken in Russia during the famine of 1921

Photo: Wikipedia

But when representatives of the ARA arrived in the starving regions and assessed the real scale of the disaster on the spot, they realized that they needed to feed the entire population without exception.

Uncle Sam's freeloaders

Did the ARA work in Russia under an agreement with the Soviet government?

Yes, it was a unique case for that time when an unrecognized government concluded an agreement with a public organization. The Bolsheviks were forced to agree to the conditions of the Americans, although Lenin at first demanded "to punish Hoover, to publicly slap him in the face." As a result, the ARA received the right to import its goods into Russia duty-free and independently distribute them in the starving regions. nine0003

Why did the Americans not want to distribute their aid through Soviet institutions?

They had experience in helping the famine-stricken in Russia in 1891-1892. Few people here remember this now, but even then the United States was actively supplying food to our country. Due to the fault of Russian officials, a significant part of American grain either rotted in ports or was stolen. It is hard to imagine that the Americans trusted the Bolsheviks more than the tsarist officials. Therefore, the ARA formed its own apparatus in Russia, dividing all the starving regions of the country into districts (districts). The central office was in Moscow. In fact, it was a parallel aid administration, operating independently of the Soviet authorities. nine0003

How did their relationship develop? Did the local authorities cooperate with the Americans or, on the contrary, interfere with them?

It was different everywhere, everything depended on the regions. In the Volga and Orenburg regions, ARA administrators often clashed with local Soviet officials who sought to dominate the distribution of American food. In addition, to oversee the activities of the Americans, the Bolsheviks under the Pomgol Central Committee created the institution of "plenipotentiary representatives for work with foreign aid organizations. " nine0003

Was the Central Committee Pomgol an official body created instead of the VK Pomgol dispersed by the authorities?

Yes, it was led by the notorious Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin.

How effective was this body compared to the APA?

It cannot be said that he was completely useless, but he lacked organization, strong personnel and resources. Even by Soviet standards, the Pomgol Central Committee was very bureaucratic. His commissioners looked at the ARA with jealousy, but could do little to oppose her. According to GPU reports, in some regions the ARA fed more people than the Pomgol Central Committee and other foreign organizations combined. nine0003

Starving children in the ARA canteen

Photo: republic.com.ua

Americans were engaged only in the supply and distribution of food?

No, not only. After all, diseases and unsanitary conditions have always been constant companions of hunger. Therefore, at the initiative of the Ufa Governor of the ARA, Colonel of the US National Guard William Bell, in the Ural cities, the Americans organized public works to clear the streets, repair the water supply, dig ditches and dismantle burnt houses. For many townspeople who lived without a permanent income, this helped to survive. When at 19In the year 29, the Great Depression began in the United States, Hoover was the president of the country. Perhaps he remembered the Russian experience of his former employees, and public works have already become a salvation for millions of disadvantaged Americans.

In 1921-1922 people died not only from malnutrition, but from typhus, cholera and smallpox. The Americans launched a mass vaccination campaign in the starving regions. At first, she was not successful - illiterate peasants considered vaccinations to be "the stigma of the devil." The situation changed when APA employees began to distribute food only after the vaccination mark. As a result, over ten million citizens of our country were vaccinated with American vaccines. By the way, even the Soviet authorities did not dispute this side of American assistance. The reports of the People's Commissariat of Health directly stated that it was mass vaccination with American medicines that stopped the typhus epidemic in Russia. nine0003

American Charity

How did Russian peasants generally feel about American help?

At first, they looked at the representatives of the ARA as strangers who invaded the closed village world. After all, the peasants heard practically nothing about the United States and the Americans. They knew about the French, who were defeated a hundred years ago, or about the Turks, with whom the "grandfathers" once fought. In the early 1920s, Americans did not fit into the picture of the world of the majority of the Russian population at all. The image of the United States in the head of the average Soviet person began to take shape later. Official propaganda created it through channels of influence on the mass consciousness through the spread of literacy, the mass press, radio, and then television. nine0003

Peasants of the village of Vasilievka, Samara province, and ARA employee George McClintock

Photo: world.lib.ru

And during the famine of 1921-1922, wariness towards outsiders gradually gave way to trust. In the Hoover Archives in the United States, I found evidence that Americans with their humanitarian aid in starving villages were often greeted with bells, prayers and processions. There were even cases when grateful peasants asked the ARA employees to send them portraits of Hoover in order to put them at home in a red corner next to the icons. nine0003

It is sometimes said that Americans in Russia were guided not so much by humanitarian as by mercenary considerations. Say, they had to sell the stale products of their farmers and unload warehouses in Europe left over from the First World War.

It's true - Americans are first and foremost business people. The ARA was built as a huge commercial organization with streamlined logistics, as far as it was possible in the desperate Russian conditions of the early 1920s. Her work was not charity for the sake of charity. The Americans sought to save people from starvation so that they could work again, but they were not going to take anyone for their permanent dependency. nine0003

ARA employees were accused of spying against Soviet Russia under the guise of helping the starving. Not in vain, they say, the ARA almost entirely consisted of military personnel.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that there were many soldiers there. The Russia of 1921 was an unsafe place for Americans. Therefore, for example, women and Jews were not sent to the Russian mission of the ARA (they were afraid of pogroms in relation to the latter).

As far as intelligence activities are concerned, the Americans really carried them out. And what do you want from an organization operating in a diplomatically unrecognized state that openly demonstrates hostility to the rest of the world? ARA employees collected a wide variety of information about our country: about the capacity of the railways (this was important for their work), about the possibilities of the flour-grinding industry, about the prospects for US trade with Soviet Russia (the conclusions were disappointing for us). The Americans monitored the mood of the population, domestic political life and the content of the press, the sanitary and epidemiological situation, and much more. About all this they sent analytical reports to the United States. nine0003

Did they carry out subversive work against the Soviet regime?

No. The employees of the ARA were closely watched by the organs of the GPU, whose agents infiltrated almost all district offices. But our valiant Chekists did not catch the Americans on anything.

American poster for the population of Russia about assistance from the ARA, 1921

Image: Hoover Institution Archives

Another thing is that the Americans willingly hired Soviet citizens from among the "former" in their apparatus: nobles, intellectuals, priests. Those often associated with the United States their hopes for the return of the old order. Therefore, on their part, indeed, sometimes there were cases of anti-Soviet agitation. They could tell a person who came to them for help: since you are for the Bolsheviks, then let Pomgol feed you. But these were individual excesses of the performers. nine0003

Lubyanka on American rations

Americans from the ARA were also accused of wholesale drunkenness. Indeed, in the United States at that time there was prohibition, and in starving Russia they allegedly came off to the fullest.

This problem did exist. But they tried to get rid of such employees as soon as possible, since the Moscow office of the ARA did not need unnecessary scandals. At first, there were a lot of random people there: alcoholics, cocaine addicts or womanizers. There was even a loud scandal in Moscow with a pedophile from the ARA who tried to seduce a Russian boy. After a short trial, the pervert was quickly fired and sent back so as not to give the Soviet authorities a reason to use this case to discredit the activities of the organization. The manager, who was a heavy drinker, was in the Saratov representative office of the ARA - when he sank almost to the state of an animal, he was immediately sent back to the USA. nine0003

Maybe for many Americans alcohol was a way of psychological rehabilitation after the horrors of a catastrophic famine?

Not excluded. There were many cases when, after what they saw in Russia, ARA employees experienced nervous breakdowns. Only from Ufa for 22 months of work were sent home with signs of a nervous breakdown of three assistants to the district manager. The horrors of the Russian famine with mountains of unburied children's corpses in every village, with massive cannibalism and widespread medieval savagery were a difficult test even for the American military who went through the First World War. nine0003

When and why was the ARA closed down?

This happened in stages. In 1922, for the first time in many years, Russia had a good harvest, which gave the authorities grounds to announce the end of the famine. Since the autumn of 1922, the ARA has gradually phased out its activities in Russia, reducing a significant part of its Russian personnel. By the way, this caused great disappointment among the citizens working for the Americans (and there were more than 120 thousand of them) because they lost stable jobs and rations. Now the ARA provided food only for shelters for homeless children (of whom there were a lot after the famine), hospitals and prisons. For example, the infamous GPU inner prison on Lubyanka was also supplied with American food. Thanks to this, the United States managed to rescue several of its citizens from there, captured during the Soviet-Polish war 1920 years.

As is known, ten years later the mass famine was repeated almost in the same territory, and not only in Ukraine.

Yes, it covered practically the same geographical area, except for the Urals.

How did the new pestilence differ from the famine of 1921-1922?

Related materials:

The first Soviet famine, as I call the famine of 1921-1922, was officially recognized by the Soviet authorities, who willingly accepted foreign aid and allowed many foreign organizations into the country. Also, the Bolsheviks did not interfere with the "hungry migration", that is, the flight of people from disaster-stricken places. Second Soviet Holodomor 1932-1933 was hushed up in every possible way, and the areas of its distribution were cordoned off by detachments. This was done to prevent refugees from entering big cities and industrial construction sites, where many foreign specialists, including Americans, worked. Information about the famine was concealed from them by all possible means, and there was not even any talk of any new Pomgol, not to mention foreign aid.

Why has the memory of not only the scale of this monstrous disaster, which remained only in the form of an ironic meme “give the Volga region to the starving,” but also of American assistance been erased in our country? nine0003

The activities of the ARA can serve as a clear example of the cooperation of ideological opponents in overcoming a large-scale social and humanitarian catastrophe. It could go on and on.

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