“Give Bread and Medicine”: American Famine Relief in Soviet Russia, 1921-1923
An online lecture by Dr. Bertrand Patenaude
PLEASE NOTE: This lecture, originally planned for February 8, has been rescheduled to February 1 due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict.
When a devastating famine descended on Soviet Russia in 1921, Maxim Gorky issued an appeal for help, asking “all honest European and American people for prompt aid to the Russian people. Give bread and medicine.” The United States—in the form of the American Relief Administration (ARA)—responded with a massive two-year relief campaign that battled starvation and disease and saved millions of lives. By the summer of 1922, American kitchens were feeding more than ten million Soviet citizens a day.
Most famine victims do not die of starvation, but of famine-related disease. While the role of food aid has been well documented, Dr. Patenaude’s talk will highlight the lesser-known story of America’s medical intervention, including a large-scale vaccination drive, and prevention and treatment of diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and typhus and hunger-related deficiency diseases, especially among children. In the end an estimated six million people perished in the the Great Famine of 1921, but millions survived thanks to America’s timely action.
About the Speaker
Bertrand M. Patenaude is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Lecturer in history and international relations at Stanford University. His first book, The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford University Press, 2002), won the 2003 Marshall Shulman Book Prize and was made into a documentary film for the award-winning PBS history series American Experience. His 2009 book, Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary (Harper), was serialized for radio by the BBC.
Dr. Patenaude most recent book, co-authored with Joan Nabseth Stevenson, is Bread + Medicine: American Famine Relief in Soviet Russia, 1921–1923 (Hoover Institution Press, 2023). Patenaude was educated at Boston College (BA, 1977) and at the University of Vienna, was a Fulbright Scholar in Moscow in 1982–83, and received his PhD in History from Stanford in 1987. He has contributed book reviews to the Wall Street Journal since 2004.
Connecting with Zoom
This virtual lecture is presented live via Zoom. Registered users will be emailed a link to join this Zoom program. To get started, please download Zoom on your chosen device and explore the Frequently Asked Questions.
This program will be recorded and posted to the museum’s YouTube channel.