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“Bert Patenaude has written a richly informative and unusually engaging book. In the history of a long-forgotten episode—the American famine relief effort in the new-born Soviet Union in 1921—he has found a template for understanding much of what transpired thereafter in the Soviet-American relationship. And he has done it with brio, marshalling a colorful cast of characters, Soviet as well as American—including especially Herbert Hoover who emerges in a fresh and intriguing light.”—David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
“This book is to be warmly welcomed as the first full, and admirably presented, account of this major crisis in Soviet history—important, too, as an American experience. Here is not only the dramatic story of the American rescue operation, but also of the astonishing confrontations between the lifesavers and those who resented and sabotaged them.”—Robert Conquest, author of The Great Terror and The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine
| Illustrations | ix | |
| Preface | xi | |
| Prologue: Future Corpses | 1 | |
| Part 1 | The Battlefield of Famine: Russia's Crisis and America's Response | 5 |
| 1. | Going In | 7 |
| 2. | Food and Weapons | 28 |
| 3. | The Kingdom of Hunger | 49 |
| 4. | Making the Show a Go | 74 |
| 5. | The Neck of the Bottle | 103 |
| 6. | Haskell at the Bat | 118 |
| 7. | Home Front | 133 |
| 8. | Putting the Job Over | 148 |
| 9. | The Gift Horse | 172 |
| Part 2 | Love and Death on the Volga: Dramas and Distractions at the Famine Front | 219 |
| 10. | Theaters of Action | 221 |
| 11. | Funerals | 236 |
| 12. | Travelers | 244 |
| 13. | Gunmen | 249 |
| 14. | Tales of Cannibalism | 262 |
| 15. | Flight of the Flivver | 271 |
| 16. | Entertainments | 275 |
| 17. | Entr'acte | 285 |
| 18. | Backstage | 294 |
| 19. | Entanglements | 302 |
| 20. | Denouement | 312 |
| Part 3 | Say it Ain't So, Comrade: American Adventures in the Communist Utopia | 333 |
| 21. | Red Days in Russia | 335 |
| 22. | Comrade Eiduk | 346 |
| 23. | Comrade Skvortsov | 354 |
| 24. | The Professor and the Sailor | 367 |
| 25. | And the Show Whirled Merrily On | 376 |
| 26. | Food as a Weapon | 393 |
| 27. | Shoot the Interpreter | 412 |
| 28. | Vodka as a Weapon | 429 |
| 29. | Machine Politics | 452 |
| 30. | Playing the Game | 470 |
| Part 4 | Masters of Efficiency: Youthful America Confronts Eternal Russia | 499 |
| 31. | A Taste of Power | 501 |
| 32. | Conquering New Worlds | 520 |
| 33. | From the Bell Tower | 534 |
| 34. | Time Meant Nothing | 564 |
| 35. | The Business of Relief | 586 |
| 36. | We Are All Thieves | 614 |
| 37. | The Mask of Mammon | 629 |
| 38. | Stealing the Thunder | 644 |
| 39. | Mad Monks and Holy Fools | 654 |
| 40. | Dangerous Men in Russia | 667 |
| 41. | The Wind and the Sun | 691 |
| Epilogue: Since Then | 725 | |
| Appendix | Riga Agreement | 745 |
| Notes | 751 | |
| Bibliography | 781 | |
| Index | 791 | |
| Acknowledgments | 818 |
Overview
“Bert Patenaude has written a richly informative and unusually engaging book. In the history of a long-forgotten episode—the American famine relief effort in the new-born Soviet Union in 1921—he has found a template for understanding much of what transpired thereafter in the Soviet-American relationship. And he has done it with brio, marshalling a colorful cast of characters, Soviet as well as American—including especially Herbert Hoover who emerges in a fresh and intriguing light.”—David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom From Fear: The American