The Grey and Hazy Politics of Famine: An Evolving American Disposition to Russian Hunger

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelley Humber
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
The United States ◽  
Secondary Source ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Research Fellowship ◽  
The Soviet Union

Perception of famine in the 20th century transformed from a Malthusian reality to a governmental liability. In this period of developmental flux, assistance to the starving in the form of humanitarian aid took on a new political role on the international stage. As part of an Undergraduate Summer Student Research Fellowship (USSRF) my research broadly examined the political utility of humanitarian aid between the United States and the Soviet Union during this period. This research project was centrally concerned with tracing the conceptual evolution of the ‘hungry Russian’ in American society. My research looked specifically at incidences of famine in the Soviet Union from 1921-1922, 1932-1933, 1946-1947, and American perceptions thereof. In order to understand the central question of this research project I combined secondary source reading with primary source archival research. I draw on archival material in the form of newsprint from the New York Times during the respective famines. I traced the frequency of discussion of Russian famine and compared this to the relative scale of famine devastation in the form of human deaths. Ultimately this process allows for conclusions to be drawn on the role of political interests in the humanitarian endeavor of providing relief during these famines. This research has both theoretical implications for understanding the conceptual shift surrounding humanitarian aid that occurred during this time period; as well as practical implications for critically-minded citizens who are interested in the historical weight behind state-sponsored humanitarian aid.

scholarly journals A Horse Derby, A Missed Connection, and Hiking through the Alps: John Dewey's 1928 visit to the Soviet Union

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladislav Ryabyy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Department ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Soviet Russia

After December 6, 1917, the government of the United States led by President Woodrow Wilson decided not to recognize the new government of Russia, which was led by the Bolshevik Party. Some of the reasons for this lack of recognition came from the Bolshevik government’srefusal to honor prior debits owed by the Tsarist government and the seizure of American property. The next three presidents would continue this policy.1 For the next sixteen years, many Americans visited and wrote about the Soviet Union. Amongst those visitors was a delegation of twenty-five who visited the Soviet Union in the summer of 1928. Their stated purpose was to,“study methods of public instruction in Soviet Russia this summer.” 2 The most influential amongst the twenty-five was John Dewey, a professor of philosophy at Colombia University and one of the leading educational reformers in the United States. In the time during and after this trip Dewey wrote a series of articles for the “New Republic” and later collected these articles andplaced them in his book, Impressions of the Revolutionary World.3 This book also dealt with his travels to China in 1920, Turkey in 1924, and Mexico in 1926. This book does not tell the full story of the trip. By analyzing his letters that he sent during this time, one can recreate a partial itinerary of his daily activities and those that he met with. Those letters also reveal that this trip influenced not only the twenty-five educators from the United States but also had an impact on Soviet educators because they had the ability to finally meet the man that they had studied for so long. The United States Department of State was also interested in this trip and used it to learn more about the Soviet Union. The Department of State was also dealing with anticommunism at this time and this caused Dewey’s trip to be closely monitored. The New York Times and other newspapers reported on this trip and the aftermath of this trip can be seen through these reports. This trip impacted not only those within the Soviet Union but also the State Departments and the American public’s view of the Soviet Union.

Images of Groups

1975 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin E. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Soviet Union

“Last week it became apparent that the Soviet Union had determined to strike back with a diplomatic campaign of remarkably broad dimensions. Moscow's motivation appeared to be one of countering Peking's rising influence and increasing its own wherever possible” (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times, Sept. 12, 1971).

scholarly journals British Requiem for the Peasantry in the USSR: Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
Tatiana N. Krasavchenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Radical Transformation

The subject of this interdisciplinary article is the case of British journalists Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge. In 1933 they were the first and the only ones to draw the world’s attention to the tragedy in the USSR: Soviet power destroyed the foundation of traditional Russian society, i.e. the peasantry — for the sake of the rapid industrialisation of the country, the socialisation of agriculture and the radical transformation of man. The price of this new “main revolution” (according to G. Jones) or experiment, which originated in the brains of “rootless urbanists” — Bolsheviks (Muggeridge) were human-induced famine, death of millions of peasants in Ukraine, Volga, Cuban, and Rostov-on-Don regions. But fascinated by the embodiment of the idea of utopia, as well as proceeding from the interests of Realpolitik, the West ignored this tragedy. The article examines the conflict between the personality — Jones and society, Soviet and Western, as evidence to the fact that “a man can be destroyed but not defeated” (Hemingway). The subject of “famine” was developed in the works of A. Koestler, G. Orwell, research of R. Conquest, D. Rayfield, who in their ideas and opinions followed Jones and Muggeridge. Views on Russia of the latter ones and of an influential New York Times correspondent in Moscow — Walter Duranty, who in 1932 got a Pulitzer prize for his deceitful reports denying the famine in the Soviet Union, are presented here as ethically and culturally opposite: Stalin’s apologist Duranty viewed Russia as a country of Asians, of born slaves; Jones and Muggeridge saw it as a tragic country which was losing its mighty human potential — peasantry and natural course of development, and both of them anticipated the collapse of the Soviet regime. And the Soviet civilization collapsed, though 60 years later, for it was doomed: it is impossible to build Heaven on blood — to achieve world harmony at the cost of “a tear of a child” (Dostoevsky), i. e. the suffering of innocent people.

Efficiency vs. Equality and the Demise of Socialism

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Hardin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World

One of my fellow graduate students at MIT had access to the Pentagon Papers at a time when they were still classified, and he was writing a dissertation on aspects of the American involvement in Vietnam. One morning over breakfast he discovered that he had been preempted by the New York Times. Every scholar recently working on the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe must understand that student’s sensation that morning. By now, they must face newspapers with a mixture of hope and foreboding. Events outrun the most radical predictions. Not only has the Wall crumbled, with pieces of it being sold as souvenirs, but Albania has established telephone connections to the world not long after westerners came to believe Albania had been the only nation in modem times to succeed in disappearing.

Security Council

1947 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-98
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Alphabetical Order ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
One Year ◽  
United Nations Charter

Under Article 23 of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council was to be composed of representatives of five permanent Members — China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union — plus six non-permanent Members elected by the General Assembly. The election at the First Part of the First Session of the General Assembly of Egypt, Mexico, and the Netherlands for one year terms, and Australia, Brazil, and Poland for two year terms, enabled the Security Council to convene for its first meeting on January 18, 1946, at Church House, Dean's Yard, Westminster, in London. The first 23 meetings were held in London, and the balance of 87 for the period under review either at Hunter College in New York or at Lake Success on Long Island. The first President of the Council was Mr. N. J. 0. Makin (Australia) who held office for one month, and was followed for similar periods by the representatives of the other states members in alphabetical order of the names of their countries in English.

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