Kate good evening and welcome to hillwood estate, museum and gardens. I know many of you know already, but in case we have not met, my name is kate markert, and i am the executive director here. I want to thank you in joining us tonight as we welcome back douglas smith, longtime friend of hillwood and author of the book the russian job the forgotten story of how america saved the soviet union from ruin. You may have noticed that the theater looks just a little bit different tonight. I am very pleased to welcome cspan. While this is their very first time in hillwood, it is not the first time that our lectures are accessible to folks at home. Many of our fantastic programs are available on the Hillwood Museum youtube channel, so check that out in case you missed something or want to see something again. Before we continue, i know you know what i am going to say next please be sure that you have silenced anything that chirps or barks or beeps. You may know that hillwoods founder, marjorie post, began her russian collection while she was posted to soviet era moscow in 1937, 1938. Over the next 30 years, she was dedicated to building the most comprehensive collection of russian imperial art outside of russia. She realized, as the collection grew, that her personal passion could inspire and educate the public and made plans for hillwood to become a museum. Posts lasting legacies, generosity. Public service, family, and lush gardens, as well as the new biography, Marjorie Merriweather post the life behind the luxury, by estella chung, inspired this years holiday decorations. I invite each of you to share hillwood with friends and family for the Holiday Season for what we are calling a very merriweather christmas. We will raise a glass to hillwood members, which i know most of you already are, at our annual members open house on december 3. And, of course, hillwood memberships are a perfect gift for everyone you know. Now it is my great pleasure to introduce douglas smith. Doug is an Award Winning historian, translator, author of rasputin and former people. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a guggenheim fellowship, doug has written for the New York Times and the wall street journal and has appeared in documentaries with the bbc, national geographic, and netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the u. S. State department in the soviet union and as a Russian Affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe radio liberty. Doug is a frequent guest here at hillwood, although it has been nearly three years since his last lecture. I am really delighted to have him back, and i want to thank especially international councilmembers and our dear friends kyra cheremeteff and Tom Richardson for hosting him this evening. Please join me in welcoming douglas smith. [applause] douglas thank you, kate, for that nice introduction. It is wonderful to be back at hillwood. I am trying to remember if this is my fourth or fifth time to give a talk. I think of myself as a repeat offender, but only in the best of sense. I also want to thank erin lourie for helping put all of this together with all her organizational skills. To cspan and richard for wanting to tape this tonight. I need to thank my local hosts, kyra cheremeteff and her husband Tom Richardson, who are taking good care of me. Last night, maybe too good of care if i am a little incoherent tonight, it is their fault. But it was a fun evening. And i want to thank you all for coming out tonight. Theres always a lot of demands on our time. I know disney is now streaming live. [laughter] so to come out and learn about a russian famine shows true dedication and intellectual curiosity. So i applaud you for that. I think the plan is im going to talk for about 30 minutes or so, and then happy to open it up to whatever questions people might have. What i want to talk tonight was about arguably one of the noblest acts in American History. Yet, sadly, something that few of us seem to remember of ever having heard about a fact that could also be said about russia itself. At its heart, it is a story of charity and compassion, two things that are, i would say, always in short supply. And, it seems to me, in recent days in particularly short supply. On the 13th of july, 1921, the russian writer maxim gorky penned an appeal to the world titled to all honest people. He wrote, gloomy days have come for the land of tolstoy, dostoevsky, mendeleev, pavlov, and mussorgsky. Russias misfortunes offer humanitarians a splendid opportunity to demonstrate the vitality of humanitarianism. I ask all honest europeans and americans for prompt aid to the russian people. Give bread and medicine. In 1921, one of the worst famines in World History descended on russia. 30 Million People, almost a quarter of the population across the vast territory, were facing starvation and death. There were several causes for the famine. In the shortterm, it was precipitated by two horrible droughts in 1920 and 1921 that decimated the harvest. But there were longer, in a sense more important, factors that led to the famine. There had been seven years in russia of unending war and revolution, beginning with 1914 and the start of world war i, when millions of peasants left the land to go off and fight, to 1917, where we had two revolutions in the span of one year, the collapse of the 300 year romanov dynasty in february followed by the bolshevik coup in november of 1917. The bolshevik seizure of power led to a civil war that lasted until 1920. Both the reds and the whites laid waste to the russian countryside and spread terror wherever they went. Now, lenin had long understood the connection between power and food. 30 years before, in 1891, a similar famine had gripped russia. Many in educated society at the time, led by the example of leo tolstoy, organized to offer help to the starving peasantry. But not lenin. Lenin did not believe in charity. He believed that the only answer for russias working class and peasants was revolution. He said, at the time, the overthrow of the tsars monarchy, this bulwark of the landowners, is their only hope for some sort of decent life, for escape from hunger and unending poverty. Lenin was convinced that hunger and misery could be used as a tool to undermine tsarist rule and lead to revolution. Now that lenin and the bolsheviks were in power, they waged a war on the peasants. They forced the peasants to hand over their grain at gunpoint. They needed the grain to feed the workers in the cities and the red army soldiers. The peasants, obviously, resisted. They hid the grain down the well or in fake walls in their cottages. They even created an army, a peasant army, to try to fight back. They also reduced the amount of land under cultivation. This meant that there was no cushion when the drought hit. There were no reserves that anyone could fall back on. By march of 1921, lenin was terrified. There was no food. The soviet state itself might collapse because, without the support of the workers and the army, starving now almost as well, there would be no more interest in a bolshevik government. He said at the time, if there is a harvest, then everybody will hunger a little and the government will be saved. Otherwise, since we cannot take anything from people who do not have the means of satisfying their own hunger, the government will perish. Herbert hoover was born in west branch, iowa in 1874 into a family of quakers. Orphaned at the age of nine, he was sent off to live with an uncle in oregon. In 1891, he enrolled in the first class at stanford university, and, four years later, graduated with a degree in geology. By all accounts, he was an average student with average grades and left with average expectations. None of his fellow students and professors held out much hope for a Bright Future for Young Herbert hoover. He proved them wrong. He went off first to the gold mines of the australian outback, a place he described as pure hell, before moving on to china. Very quickly, he rose the ranks of International Mining business. He had a rare talent as an administrator, and he had a way of finding new opportunities that no one had seen before, of turning around failing operations and making a lot of money. By 1914, he was living in london with his family. He was now the head of his own International Firm with offices around the world. He was extremely wealthy, he was extremely successful, but he was also getting bored. The fun had sort of gone out of the game, if you will. World war i gave him an opportunity to try something new. After germany invaded belgium, starvation faced the entire country. Hoover realized that somebody had to step in and try to save the country, so he created something known as the committee for the relief of belgium and ended up feeding millions of people during world war i and became known as the savior of belgium. In 1917, back in the United States, thenpresident Woodrow Wilson appointed him head of the u. S. Food administration, based on his success in belgium. Two years later, in 1919, after the war, he pushed president wilson to create an Organization Called the American Relief administration, with an appropriation of 100 million from congress that would be used to feed warravaged europe. By 1921, hoover was now secretary of commerce in the warren g. Harding administration. It was as secretary of commerce on july 22 of that year that he read, in an american newspaper, a publication of maxim gorkys appeal to the world. He immediately sprang into action, and he cabled back to gorky saying, yes, the americans would come. Not everybody was excited about the idea of American Relief to soviet russia, to red russia. There was a good many people in the United States who argued against hoovers request for additional money for the ara to go off and help the starving people on the other side of the world. Some of the criticism came from the political left, who insisted that hoover, who was a wellknown antibolshevik, was really not interested in aid but was in fact sort of coming up with some sort of scheme for counterrevolution. They insisted that the only way soviet russia could truly be helped was through official political recognition by the United States government. Most of the criticism, however, came from the right. Some insisted there was no real need to go help russia, that, in fact, what hoover was trying to do was give a sop to American Farmers who had produced too much grain and were looking for the government to buy it off their hands. Some insisted that charity needed to begin at home, that we had enough poor, hungry people in the United States that we did not need to run off to faraway russia. Henry ford put out his own spin on why we should not help and insisted that the ara, led by hoover, was in fact a corrupt organization controlled by jews and bolsheviks. We know about henry ford. [laughter] others insisted that the russians were starving due to their own fault, their own incompetence, their own stupidity. And that, in fact, the best thing was to let the russian people starve, for this would then destroy bolshevism once and for all. Hoover batted back all of these arguments against doing something. He said at the time, the sole object of relief should be humanity. It should have no other political objective or aim than the maintenance of life and order. He did agree that, in his idea, soviet russia was what he called a murderous tyranny, but felt that the United States, nonetheless, had a humanitarian obligation. He also went on to say that, in a country like the United States, which, at that time, could spend 1 billion a year on things he described as tobacco and cosmetics, an additional 20 million to the ara would not be felt by anyone. Here is a photograph of one of the ara warehouses in new york city with american grain getting ready to be shipped overseas to russia. Now, it was not just some voices in the United States who were wary of hoover and his intentions. The soviets were extremely concerned about what hoover might be up to. Lenin, and obviously the bolsheviks, had led a revolution to overthrow capitalism, to do away with the old economic political order. And here they were contemplating letting one of the Great American capitalists into their country at their weakest moment. Some were convinced that the ara, led by hoover, was in fact nothing but a trojan horse that would lead to the overthrow of their government. Lenin ordered strict surveillance placed over all the americans who were preparing to come to russia. He tasked the cheka, the notorious secret police that would later become known as the kgb, to infiltrate the ara as soon as it arrived and place agents inside. Nevertheless, he felt they had to agree to the terms the americans put had forward that without american help, they had little chance of survival. The First Americans arrived in moscow on the 27th of august, 1921. The first food shipment arrived in petrograd on the first of september. Five days after that, the first ara kitchen opened in petrograd on moika street. Four days after that, the First Kitchen opened in moscow in the hermitage restaurant, which before the revolution had been a place for the wealthy and fashionable to dine. Now, this was arguably the most spectacular of all the ara feeding locations. Some of you maybe even recognize it. This is the alexander palace at Tsarskoye Selo outside of st. Petersburg, home of russias tsars. In fact, this was the home, the last home, for nicholas and alexandra and their children. This particular kitchen was feeding, at one point, 2000 people a day. According to ara records, among the kitchen staff was one of tsar nicholass former chefs and various servants of the romanovs. The original plan when the americans went over was to feed one million children. But they fairly quickly realized that the scale of the famine was much worse than they had anticipated. By december, they realized they were going to have to be feeding somewhere around 7 million. One of the americans who was sent over, a man by the name of frank golder, was the first to explore the famine zones. He wrote at the time, the famine is bad beyond all imagination. It is the most heartbreaking situation that ive ever seen. Millions of people are doomed to die, and they are looking it calmly in the face. To see russia makes one wish that he were dead. These are the kinds of things that golder and the other americans were seeing when they arrived. This is a photograph of young refugees at a refugee camp in the samara province, victims of the famine. This is something what awaited the americans, and it was something that none of them could have prepared themselves for. Golder remembers and wrote about being particularly disturbed by a scene he that came upon in one village, where there was an old woman down in the dirt on all fours, fighting with a group of pigs for a tiny scrap of pumpkin rind. He heard tales of mothers killing their children and then killing themselves, since it was too painful to watch their children starve. The worst places were the orphanages and childrens homes and hospitals. Some of these Children Homes were set up originally for no more than 30 kids and were now crammed with 400 to 500 orphan children. The conditions were beyond description. Typically, the children just lay in rags on the floor. One ara man said, after visiting one of these orphanages, there is just enough food and heat to make their death a slow one. Around this time, another ara man wrote to his fiancee back in the United States, i often think now of how people in new york told me how they envied me the opportunity of seeing so many interesting things. Yes, interesting. that is the word. Yes, it is very interesting to move among people who, at a glance, tells you would be better off dead than alive. There is no escape, even in this railway car, for men and women come to the door begging for bread, and children can be heard whining beneath the car window whenever the light is showing. A great many of the men soon develop something they dubbed famine shock, sort of a new version of world war is shellshock. The starving peasants first ate whatever remaining grain they had. After that, they would kill and eat all of their livestock. Next, they hunted down and killed and ate every last dog or cat in the village. This was followed by trying to survive on grass, weeds, tree bark, and then the thatch off of their roofs. Finally, some succumbed to cannibalism. Sometimes, people murdered their victims after luring them into their homes. Or, more commonly, they would raid cemeteries and dig up the freshly buried and bring them back to carve up and eat. The problem became so pronounced that the local authorities typically had to put the bodies who just died in stables and sheds, lock the door, and keep a guard outside. Pitirim sorokin, then a young scholar, who later went on to become one of the famous sociologists of the 20th century and teach at harvard, toured the famine zone at the time, interested in studying what happens to people subjected to such conditions. He wrote in a memoir, not long after coming to the United States, revolution promised to save the people from despotism. The bolsheviks promised to give food to everyone. If they did not keep those vows, at least they gave the people the communion of human sacrifice, human flesh and blood. The image i am showing here was from a series of drawings and paintings done by a man we know almost nothing about that are now in the collection at the Hoover Institution out at stanford university. The russian text on the bottom says, russian village, 4 februarymarch. We know the year was 1922 that he did this. On the far right, it says lyudoyedstvo, which is russian for cannibalism. The russians have two words for cann