American Relief Administration (ARA)

Name and Founding

The formal English name is "American Relief Administration (ARA)", rendered in Korean as "미국 구제청(ARA)"; the Russian form is "Американская администрация помощи".

Founding must be described in two distinct layers: the government relief organization and the private corporation. The US House passed the European Famine Relief bill on January 13 and the Senate on February 25, 1919, appropriating $100 million for relief in continental Europe, and Russian Wikipedia records that the ARA was created under this law on President Wilson's instruction. English Wikipedia gives February 24, 1919 as the founding date. Separately, the nonprofit corporation "American Relief Administration" was incorporated in New York on July 12, 1919 and elected Hoover as chairman; this successor body conducted the later civilian relief operations. As the $100 million appropriation ran out, Wilson established an independent ARA at Hoover's request and appointed Hoover director general, and in July 1919 the Children's Relief Bureau, a private body the ARA had funded in April, was made the successor to the government organization under the name "American Relief Administration European Children's Fund"; the last three words soon fell out of use.

The predecessor organization was the United States Food Administration led by Hoover, and some accounts state that the Food Administration was converted into the ARA. Another lineage account holds that Hoover, drawing on his Commission for Relief in Belgium experience, built a government relief organization with Wilson's approval and that it was succeeded by the private ARA in July 1919 after the budget lapsed.

European Operations

Hoover had led the Commission for Relief in Belgium during World War I, feeding seven million Belgians and two million residents of northern France. The body created by Congress on February 24, 1919 with a $100 million budget saw private donations add a further $100 million, raising the total to $200 million, and it delivered more than four million tons of relief supplies to 23 European countries after the war. Arthur Cuming Ringland was the European director in 1919–1921. By August 1919 the largest recipient was Poland ($56.9 million), followed by Armenia ($10 million), Czechoslovakia ($6.7 million) and Russia under the Kolchak government ($4.6 million).

Accounts differ on the scale of supplies. A finding aid citing Hoover's records says more than four million tons went to 22 countries, while English Wikipedia writes 23 countries. The country figure should either be given with both variants or attributed to its source.

In 1920–1921 the ARA provided one meal a day to 3.2 million children in Finland, Estonia, parts of Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Armenia; European operations ended in 1922. Poland received about 20 percent of organizational resources, and the ARA drew criticism from Russian sympathizers because it had aided Polish forces in the Soviet-Polish War. Piłsudski sent Hoover a personal letter of thanks, a street in Warsaw was named after him, and he received honorary degrees from the Jagiellonian, Warsaw and Lviv universities.

Soviet Russian Relief (1921–1923)

The ARA initially excluded Soviet Russia from relief. The European Famine Relief Act appropriation initially excluded Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, adding them late in 1919, but Bolshevik-controlled territory was excluded, and in 1919 the ARA offered aid to Soviet Russia on the conditions of full say over the Russian rail network and fair distribution to everyone, which Lenin rejected as interference in Russia's internal affairs. A Nansen committee appeal for assistance to the starving in Bolshevik-controlled areas likewise received no favorable answer.

Relief to Russia began when Lenin and Maxim Gorky issued a public appeal in the summer of 1921 asking "all honest Europeans and Americans" for bread and medicine. Hoover responded immediately to Gorky's public letter of July 13, 1921, and negotiations were held in Riga, Latvia. European-level relief at this time was handled by the International Committee for Russian Relief (ICRR) led by Nansen. The agreement's preamble states that "Maxim Gorky, acting with the knowledge of the RSFSR government, appealed through Hoover to the American people for help for the starving and sick people of the famine region, especially children".

The Riga agreement text is dated August 20, 1921, and its signatories are M. M. Litvinov, Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, for the Soviet side and Walter Lyman Brown, Director for Europe, for the American side. English Wikipedia writes that Brown negotiated with Litvinov and reached agreement on August 21, 1921, a one-day discrepancy. The ARA demanded political non-interference, freedom of movement, and control over personnel and distribution, and the Soviet side accepted because of the scale of the famine. Article 24 provided that relief was to be distributed to children and the sick "irrespective of race, religion, social or political status". The original target was about one million Russian children. The agreement specified the ARA as a charitable, not governmental, organization and required the Soviet side to distribute ARA supplies under the ARA name. Because the United States did not recognize the Soviet government, ARA operations remained separate from formal diplomatic relations.

The first relief ship, the Phoenix, arrived in Petrograd on September 1, 1921; the first ARA kitchen in Soviet Russia opened in Petrograd on September 6, and a children's nutrition kitchen opened in Moscow four days later. In the first week of September, American representatives in Petrograd organized 120 kitchens for 42,000 children. Colonel William N. Haskell directed operations inside Russia.

Distribution practice under the Riga agreement was limited to children and the sick as determined by the ARA, and kitchen meals could be received by children under 14 who had been found to be starving after medical examination. Visits had to be recorded on an Admission Ticket, and the hot lunch had to be eaten inside the kitchen at a fixed time and could not be taken home.

In May 1922 Lev Kamenev, chairman of the Moscow Soviet and vice-chairman of the All-Russian Famine Relief Committee, wrote to Haskell that "the Russian government will never forget the generous help received in this terrible disaster" and expressed thanks to the American people.

Expansion and Funding

On December 30, 1921 in London, L. B. Krasin, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (trade), signed an agreement with the ARA on behalf of the RSFSR government for feeding the adult starving population. The RSFSR undertook to transfer $10 million to the ARA, on the condition that seed and foodstuffs be bought from American farmers with these funds and shipped to points designated by the Soviet side. Substantial deliveries began in December 1921–January 1922. With adult feeding added, the program expanded from millions to a scale of ten million people.

On December 22, 1921 Congress authorized the use of $18,662,180 of Grain Corporation surplus for Russian relief, and on January 20, 1922 it authorized the provision of War Department surplus medical supplies (worth about $5 million) to Russia and Armenia. The Russian famine relief appropriation and the use of Grain Corporation surplus should be described separately: Hoover emphasized that neither came from American taxpayers' money, and their total was $81,444,298. As of February 9, 1922, ARA and US organizational and individual donations under its control stood at $42 million, the Soviet Russian contribution at about $12.2 million, and the Nansen organization and others at about $4 million. Of the roughly $78 million the ARA spent over two years, $28 million was US government funding, $13 million the Soviet government contribution, and the rest charitable donations and private organizational funds.

Private charitable funding is likewise distinct. Of the $29,556,071 raised in 1920 by the American Council for the Relief of European Children, the ARA received $15,669,899; it raised $2,556,251 beyond its own donations for intellectual relief; and relief to Armenia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland was financed from $57,782,118 in Grain Corporation trading profits.

The ARA initially agreed to feed one million people, mainly children, but within a year was providing daily meals to more than ten times that number. Peak employment was 300 Americans and more than 120,000 Russians.

Scale and Results

Example 1 (scale): at the summer 1922 peak the ARA employed about 300 Americans and more than 120,000 Russians and fed 10.5 million people a day, while the National Archives exhibit records "nearly 11 million". In May 1922 the number fed was 6,099,574.

Example 2 (infrastructure): the National Archives exhibit records that the ARA ran 21,000 kitchens and sent 125,000 medical packages (15 million pounds) on 69 ships to supply 16,000 hospitals. The same exhibit lists dilapidated railways, camels and human hauling in place of horses, the time pressure of seed distribution timed to spring planting, responses to famine-related disease, and the fact that almost all personnel spoke no Russian. The ARA maintained representative offices in 38 gubernias of the RSFSR, and by the estimate of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade imported 36.3 million poods (about 595,000 tons, worth 136 million gold rubles) of food, medicine and clothing.

Example 3 (field medicine): according to Dr. Henry Beeuwkes, head of the medical division, American relief supplied more than 16,000 hospitals treating over one million people a day. The hospitals were scattered where railways were scarce and roads poor, some more than 1,000 miles from the Moscow base. Colonel Louis L. Shapiro, ARA medical director, recalled driving 150 miles on tires stuffed with straw and lacking inner tubes. More than 2,000 essential items, including medical supplies and surgical instruments, were sent on 69 ships.

Example 4 (clothing and fuel crisis): as severe cold approached in autumn 1922, Haskell cabled Hoover that fuel was lacking and that Russian peasants were in rags, making death by freezing certain. Orphanage children had a single garment made from flour sacks and no shoes, socks or underwear, and children living with parents could not reach the kitchens for lack of clothing. Haskell cabled that at least one million children urgently needed clothing, and Hoover immediately began a plan to collect donated clothing parcels from individuals, firms and banks.

Example 5 (press and cultural resonance): a 1921 ARA poster read in Russian "a gift of the American people", and the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov wrote in "Kiev City" that "Ara is like the sun, so that Kiev revolves around it like the earth", dividing Kiev residents into the lucky ones who drank cocoa working for "Ara" (first-class humans), those receiving trousers and flour from America (second-class), and the outcast with no connection to "Ara".

Example 6 (local implementation): as of June 1, 1922, the Soviet Union's own feeding stations numbered more than 7,000 and foreign organizations' stations about 9,500; on July 2, 1922 the ARA transferred all its functions in Ukraine to the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ("Joint"); and by November 1922 it had built 138 nurseries and 46 feeding stations holding 21,570 people in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic. In May 1923, 765 feeding stations fed 118,478 people.

Example 7 (parcel unit): on October 19, 1921 a parcel (food and clothing) agreement was concluded with the ARA. A person abroad could buy a $10 food coupon at a US bank or an ARA European office, and the ARA would locate a recipient in the famine region and deliver the parcel; clothing parcels cost $20. A food parcel comprised 49 pounds of flour, 25 pounds of rice, 3 pounds of tea, 10 pounds of fat, 10 pounds of sugar and 20 cans of condensed milk (about 53 kg). According to Hoover's ARA records, total sales under the "food drafts" scheme were $24,302,916, and a "bulk draft" scheme also operated through which other American charities could draw supplies from ARA warehouses; prices ranged from $10 to $50. Total food sent by parcel was 75,000 tons and parcel program revenue about $3.6 million; another account records a total of 3.4 million pounds worth $11,636,000 delivered by summer 1923, while the ARA's own tally put the number of parcels at 930,530.

Operational Criticism

The formal approach of ARA representatives to the Riga agreement's conditions (children only, meals only in ARA kitchens, requirements hard to meet in a devastated setting) was noted as an early problem. Because food was not given out for home use, children without shoes or clothing could not walk to the kitchens in winter, and right-wing critics noted children had to be brought half-undressed 3 to 4 versts by their parents. Parcel distribution also drew criticism: the hungriest peasants had no relatives abroad and could not receive parcels, with the result that about 60 percent of parcels stayed in the cities. Critical outlets such as the London Daily Express initially denied the severity of the famine and argued the money would be better spent in Britain.

Termination

While the famine continued in 1922–1923 and the ARA was still sending relief, the Soviet government exported grain to fund industrial reconstruction, seriously threatening Western support for relief. The Soviet government asked the ARA to arrange about $10 million in foreign credits if relief were halted; the ARA could not do so, and it continued food shipments apart from the exported grain. The ARA sent the Soviet government a letter on June 4, 1923 stating that food was sufficient and ended its Russian operation on June 15, 1923; parcel shipments stopped from the United States in March 1923 and from Europe in April 1923. European operations had ended in 1922, so the 1919–1923 period reflects the end of Russian activity. However, the official period of activity in the ARA European operations records runs from June 30, 1919 to the end of September 1923, with accounting settlement and liquidation documents for individual offices continuing to 1938. Hoover's own memoir states final settlement and liquidation continued to 1937. The intellectual relief program for Poland and the Free City of Danzig continued to June 1923, with the last large shipment on June 26, 1922 (46 tons of condensed milk).

In July 1922 Gorky wrote to Hoover that "your help will be inscribed in history as a unique, gigantic achievement, worthy of the greatest glory, and will long remain in the memory of millions of Russians whom you saved from death".

Relations and Distinctions

Soviet relief had the character of an international joint effort. European organizations under the ICRR fed two million people a day, the International Save the Children Union up to 375,000, and by summer 1923 American relief to Russia was more than double the combined relief of all other foreign organizations. Comparing numbers fed in May 1922: ARA 6,099,574; American Quakers 265,000; Save the Children Alliance 259,751; Nansen Committee 138,000; Swedish Red Cross 87,000; German Red Cross 7,000; British trade unions 92,000; International Workers Aid 78,011. The ARA's Russian work proceeded alongside small Mennonite, Jewish and Quaker relief and the Vatican's papal relief mission. The ARA operated alongside the papal relief mission established by the Vatican under the ARA (led by Jesuit Father Edmund A. Walsh), and the American Committee for Relief in the Near East is also cited as a related body.

As the largest organization with its own purchasing, transport and accounting systems, the ARA provided the logistics base ("bulk draft") from which other charities could draw supplies when needed, and maintained its own warehouses across Europe. Europe's work centered on one meal a day for children, while Russia added adult feeding, producing the difference in scale. The Joint, however, drew criticism for initially not following the ARA rule of distribution without ethnic or religious distinction.

The American Relief Administration (ARA) and later bodies such as UNRRA, the Marshall Plan (ERP), and Government and Relief in Occupied Areas (GARIOA) are separate organizations and must not be described as ARA's successors or as the same body. English Wikipedia lists them only under "see also".

The Soviet government's famine response must also be distinguished from ARA relief. In 1922 the Bolsheviks conducted a campaign of church property confiscation, seizing the equivalent of 4.5 million gold rubles, of which one million gold rubles went to famine relief, and Lenin stated in a secret Politburo letter of March 19, 1922 his intention to use the famine as an opportunity to attack the church. Richard Pipes argued that the famine was used as a political pretext for persecution of the Orthodox Church.

Assessment and Records

ARA's work has been the subject of more than 50 years of debate: admirers have cast it as a charitable, nonpolitical enterprise, while critics have called it anti-Soviet intervention with no humanitarian purpose at all. Scholarship suggests both sides enabled a successful relief operation despite ideological antagonism. Hoover's relation to Bolshevism differs from a simple anti-Soviet interventionist position. Hoover strongly detested Bolshevism and believed American aid would demonstrate the superiority of Western capitalism and help block the spread of communism, and he was a leading opponent of recognizing Soviet Russia; at the same time he warned President Wilson against intervention in the Russian Civil War, considering the Whites little different from the Bolsheviks and fearing a prolonged American involvement. He said, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed." Lenin was the symbolic figure at the opposite pole from the ARA's director.

The National Archives exhibit assesses the ARA's Russian relief as "one of the greatest humanitarian efforts in history" and records that in summer 1922 it fed nearly 11 million people a day. Its "768 million tons" figure repeats the error noted below and must not be cited. The 21,000 kitchens, 125,000 medical packages and support to 16,000 hospitals are confirmed in that exhibit.

Some figures in the English Wikipedia article are clearly erroneous and must not be cited: "768 million tons of food was shipped" (768 million tons is on the scale of world grain production), the "$98 million worth" statement, and the statement that "1.6 million people had already starved to death in Petrograd" do not agree with other sources. The same paragraph's figures of 237 ships, 200 Americans, 125,000 Russians and 21,000 kitchens come from the English Wikipedia text (citing Lammey 1924), and only the 21,000 kitchens are confirmed in the National Archives exhibit. The draft body's "a total of 363,000 poods (about 595,000 tons)" is a mistranslation of the original "36,3 миллиона пудов"; the correct figure is 36.3 million poods (about 595,000 tons).

The ARA European operations records collection comprises 853 boxes held at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, and the Russian operation records are held as a separate, separately arranged collection.