Between 1921 to 1923 — ten years before the Holodomor famine, Ukraine, parts of Russia and Caucasus was hit by a severe famine that killed five million people. In the middle of this, a Norwegian polar explorer started a humanitarian aid program which allowed Western organizations into Soviet and help the hunger-stricken population.
Nansen Aid and the ARA
Southern parts of USSR and Ukraine were hit by a collapse after the revolution and the First World War. In the countryside, impoverished and vulnerable farmers had their supply lines cut short, while the government were seizing the surplus grain from them to feed the Red Army and the cities. In 1921 a severe drought turned the situation into a disaster. The American President Herbert Hoover did request Soviet leader Lenin to help in 1919, if the Americans could use the Russian railways. Lenin refused and denied the famine for two years, as he saw this as a way for the Americans to involve themselves into Russian politics. But after two years of recurring drought, Lenin had no choice but to accept Hoover’s offer in the spring of 1921. The Americans then lead their own emergency aid program in the hunger-stricken areas of USSR.
The 27th of August 1921 polar explorer and League of Nations High Commissioner Fridtjof Nansen and Soviet Foreign Commissioner Georgij V. Tsjitsjerin signed an agreement to send aid, one week after the American ARA program. Nansen’s role was as follows: “Dr. Nansen has accepted the invitation of this conference (Geneva Conference) to act as High Commissioner to coordinate the various activities, governmental and private, deriving their authority from the said conference”. The American ARA program worked without interfering from the Soviet government and worked efficiently from day one. Nansen on the other hand, saw that the Soviets established their own aid program called Pomgol to hand out emergency rations, and immediately dissolved the committee which had signed the deal with Nansen in Geneva. Several non-Communists from this committee was also arrested the same day, leading to more protests against Lenin in the press in Geneva. Due to these circumstances, Nansen experienced further exclusion from European politicians and League of Nations members.
“Is there a member of this assembly who is willing to say that rather than helping the Soviet government, he will allow 20,000,000 people to suffer starvation?” (Nansen speech to the League of Nations Delegate Assembly in Geneva, 1921)
Nansen in Volga
Nansen tried to sway the League of Nations, who did not want to contribute as many member delegates saw helping the starved as directly helping the Soviet government. European governments were supposed to give loans to the Soviet regime, but in the end only Norway did so. Instead, Nansen managed to raise money through traveling and showing the horrible situation through lectures and imagery. Nansen arranged for a tour to Volga region and Ukraine in late 1921, together with his assistant Vidkun Quisling (later the leader of the Norwegian Nazi party). While touring Nansen photographed and filmed horrifying documentation of the famine in the Volga region. Many villages were left deserted, while peasants were wandering the countryside looking for food. Corpses were stacked on church yards and hospitals were full of patients suffering from severe starvation.
Ukraine
During Nansen’s travel, his office in Moscow moved slow, and it took several months before workers from Europe and Russia was gathered to start working. Meanwhile, Save the Children and the Quakers from Britain delivered food and clothing under the Nansen-Tsjitsjerin agreement. Nansen traveled around Volga and Ukraine in the meantime, and lost a significant amount of members in his staff due to typhus epidemics which spread fast in the refugee settlements. In spring of 1922 the Nansen Aid had reached Ukraine, in Odessa, Nikolajevsk, Jekaterinoslav, Zaporozje and Donetsk by boat from the Black Sea and 25 railcars from Moscow. Ukraine was split between ARA and Nansen to not cross each other, but it’s clear that ARA fed more people. The Nansen Aid had only 87 railcars while ARA had 717 of them arriving in Moscow, which evidently shows that ARA contributed ten times more in distributing supplies from January 1922. Allegedly, ARA counted to have fed 15 400 people in Ukraine alone, while Nansen aided around 4220 people, 0,33% of the total 1,3 million who were helped in Ukraine.
The end of the aid?
In spring 1922 Nansen’s Aid program suffered severe economic consequences from the lack of funding. Nansen tried to convince the new Geneva Conference in May 1922 to give aid to Soviet, but neither them nor League of Nations discussed this matter. In the end, Nansen’s Aid and his position as a High Commissioner was shut down in autumn of 1922. Fridtjof Nansen himself meant that his staff in Moscow was poorly trained and didn’t work efficiently at all. His Nansen Aid office however wished to continue to help by sending packages of food to the Soviet Pomgol, which now changed name to Posledgol. The worst of the famine was now over, and Posledgol were to follow up in the aftermath. The Soviet government accepted packages for one more year, despite they saw that much of these packages never ended up where they were intended and instead were sold on the black market. This was also one of the reasons why a new agreement with Nansen’s Aid failed in 1923. ARA witnessed the same result and informed of their departure in June 1923. In total, the ARA sent 59 100 tons of packages, each 50 kilos, while Nansen sent about 1400 tons, each 12 kilo until the spring of 1923. Both Save the Children and the Quakers who had cooperated with Nansen stayed for a bit longer after extra agreements with the Soviets, but eventually withdrew as well.
Fridtjof Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work with refugees in post-WW1 Europe, and for the famine. He continued to pay attention to USSR and wanted to start several aid programs, but he expressed in a letter that the Soviets are making it increasingly harder. The longest lasting aid he did, was to spend a large sum of the Peace Prize money to start two agriculture stations in Ukraine and Volga, which ran until 1927. Nansen himself died in 1930 and spent the last remaining years turning his attention to the Balkans and Armenia instead.
Sources:
“Fridtjof Nansens help in Russia and Ukraine, 1921–1923” https://fhs.brage.unit.no/fhs-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/99731/FS0202.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
