American Relief and the Soviet Famine of 1921–1922
(by Natalya Naumenko, Volha Charnysh, Andrei Markevich)
Abstract: This paper evaluates one of the first large-scale humanitarian aid operations: the American Relief Administration’s (ARA) intervention during the 1921–1922 famine in Soviet Russia. We compile a novel, high-resolution panel dataset and document several new facts. First, despite the politicization of aid by both Americans and the Bolsheviks, there is no evidence that local political or ethnic characteristics explain the geography of aid distribution. Second, ARA feeding led to a persistent decline in food prices, raised caloric intake among peasants, reduced the prevalence of relapsing fever, and increased the size of rural birth cohorts. The aid proved most effective in provinces with higher levels of human capital. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, in the absence of the ARA relief, the rural population in 1926 would have been approximately 3.8 million lower. We conclude that well-targeted famine relief can save lives even in the most politically and logistically challenging environments.
Andrei Markevich is a lecturer at the University of Helsinki.
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