Scan barcode
A review by michaelnlibrarian
The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Ruin by Douglas Smith
3.0
In the early 1920s, after the Bolsheviks defeated the White forces in a civil war, parts of southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the Urals suffered significant crop failures that were compounded by carryover problems from the civil war and the preceding revolution along with World War I. The American Relief Organization, a quasi government organization led by Herbert Hoover that had been active elsewhere in Europe was able to organize relief efforts in Russia that saved millions of Russians from dying.
It's a remarkable history that as the author suggests isn't well known. The focus is on particular American individuals who worked for ARA who documented their time in letters and other documents that the author found in archives and elsewhere. It is a mostly chronological presentation of what happened that moves from place to place in telling what happened.
Hoover is not as much a part of the telling of the story as I expected, which is fine. The larger story of the relationship between the United States and the USSR during this time is a reoccurring theme - the US did not recognize the USSR until 1933 and it is perhaps surprising that the aid program did not help with establishing diplomatic relations before that.
At the end the author draws attention to the lack of awareness among Russians and even Americans that this help was given. I'm not sure it is that surprising - how many Europeans are aware of the extent of the Marshall Plan assistance after World War II at this point? Perhaps it is more noteworthy that the almost complete lack of awareness now was in part the result of official Soviet policy to erase this from Soviet history.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374252960 includes a long excerpt from the book.
It's a remarkable history that as the author suggests isn't well known. The focus is on particular American individuals who worked for ARA who documented their time in letters and other documents that the author found in archives and elsewhere. It is a mostly chronological presentation of what happened that moves from place to place in telling what happened.
Hoover is not as much a part of the telling of the story as I expected, which is fine. The larger story of the relationship between the United States and the USSR during this time is a reoccurring theme - the US did not recognize the USSR until 1933 and it is perhaps surprising that the aid program did not help with establishing diplomatic relations before that.
At the end the author draws attention to the lack of awareness among Russians and even Americans that this help was given. I'm not sure it is that surprising - how many Europeans are aware of the extent of the Marshall Plan assistance after World War II at this point? Perhaps it is more noteworthy that the almost complete lack of awareness now was in part the result of official Soviet policy to erase this from Soviet history.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374252960 includes a long excerpt from the book.