Ohio History Journal

BENJAMIN D. RHODES

An Ohio Kitchen Inspector and the

Soviet Famine of 1921-1922: The

Russian Odyssey of Henry C. Wolfe

Persistence paid off for Henry C. Wolfe of Coshocton, Ohio, when he

sought a job as a relief worker in Russia during the famine of 1921-1922.

Wolfe eventually was to become internationally known as a writer and lec-

turer on foreign affairs; one of his claims to fame was that he predicted (in a

Harper's magazine article) the August 1939 alliance between Hitler and

Stalin. But in 1921 Wolfe was only twenty-three years old and was trying to

land his first civilian position abroad, despite possessing somewhat modest

qualifications. Five years previously he had completed his high school train-

ing at the Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, a school which was

usually referred to as Phillips-Andover to distinguish it from the Phillips

Exeter Academy at Exeter, New Hampshire. Wolfe then completed his

freshman year at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, but his education was

abruptly ended by America's entry into World War I. Although Wolfe never

returned to complete his degree, the college's trustees in 1938 awarded him a

consolation prize in the form of an honorary master's degree. After leaving

Kenyon in the spring of 1917, Wolfe spent a year and three months as a Red

Cross ambulance driver and attendant in France. In the final two months of

the war he served, as did Hemingway's hero in A Farewell to Arms, with an

American ambulance unit on the Italian front. Returning to his hometown at

the conclusion of the conflict, Wolfe found employment as a history instruc-

tor in the Coshocton public schools. Wolfe was tactful enough not to record

his views on teaching history as a career, but it is apparent that his two years

as a teacher convinced him to seek a new occupation.¹ And in mid-summer

1921 his attention was drawn to a vast human tragedy which unfolded in

Russia.

Wolfe first became aware of the famine in Soviet Russia from press reports

describing a mass exodus of starving refugees from the Volga. The disaster

originated in the confiscation of food by both Reds and Whites during the

Benjamin D. Rhodes is a Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

1. Employment application of Henry C. Wolfe, American Relief Administration (ARA) file

of Henry C. Wolfe, ARA Personnel Records, Box 78, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library,

West Branch, Iowa; New York Times, November 22, 1976.

192                                                          OHIO HISTORY

selected Colonel William N. Haskell, a graduate of West Point (class of

1901) who had efficiently supervised ARA relief in Rumania and Armenia.²

Perceiving that Haskell would need American personnel to supervise the dis-

tribution of relief supplies, Henry C. Wolfe swung into action.

His first step was to solicit glowing letters of recommendation from Ohio

Senator Frank B. Willis, Representative William Morgan, a county judge,

and a local businessman ("Mr. Wolfe," noted Thomas G. Brown of

Coshocton, "is a man of fine ability, high character, and with an abundance of

energy and snap."). These were then forwarded to ARA headquarters at New

York together with Wolfe's application for employment. Shrewdly Wolfe

followed up his application with a series of letters to Perrin C. Galpin, the

Secretary of the ARA. Galpin, a close friend of Frederick Daly, the football

coach at Phillips-Andover, was unable to offer immediate encouragement as

the ARA had sufficient personnel for the time being. Wolfe's prospects sud-

denly improved in December, however, when Congress approved an appropri-

ation of $20 million to be used for Russian relief. Alertly Wolfe renewed his

inquiries, writing Galpin: "It has occurred to me that possibly you might

need couriers or workers in other capacities than you have used so far. In that

event please keep me in mind for I am very eager to enter your service. I

shall be 24 on Jan 11th by the way."³

This time Wolfe's tenacity produced results. "If you [are] still available and

anxious [to] go overseas for hard work can accept you," Galpin telegraphed.

Wolfe's departure for London was scheduled for January 7, 1922, on the

Finland, and he was to share a cabin with two other young Americans. He

was given only ten days to get his affairs in order, and to purchase such win-

ter gear as heavy underwear, galoshes, and a sleeping bag. Although his em-

ployment was to last only for the duration of the famine relief operation, the

pay was at the attractive rate of $200 a month, plus a $6 a day subsistence al-

lowance with all travel costs included.⁴ Thus, through a combination of per-

2. Maxim Gorky's appeal to the American people, July 13, 1921, in Documents of the

American Relief Administration, Russian Operations, 1921-1923, ed. H. H. Fisher and Suda L.

Bane, 11 vols. (Stanford, 1931), 1, 1-2. For the background of the ARA's Russian operations

see H. H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923 (New York, 1927), Frank A. Golder

and Lincoln Hutchinson, On the Trail of the Russian Famine (Stanford, 1927), P. C. Hiebert and

Orie O. Miller, Feeding the Hungry: The Russian Famine 1919-1925 (Scottdale, Penn., 1929),

and Benjamin M. Weissman, Herbert Hoover and Famine Relief to Soviet Russia, 1921-1923

(Stanford, 1974). For a definitive account of Hoover's early career see George H. Nash, The

Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, 1874-1914 (New York, 1983), and The Life of Herbert

Hoover: The Humanitarian, 1914-1917 (New York, 1988).

3. Willis to Hoover, August 17, 1921; Morgan to Hoover, August 17, 1921; Judge James

Glenn to Willis, August 15, 1921; Brown to Willis, August 15, 1921; Wolfe to Galpin, October

8, 1921; Galpin to Wolfe, October 11, 1921; Wolfe to Galpin, December 29, 1921, all in Wolfe

personnel file, Hoover Library.

4. Galpin to Wolfe, December 29, 1921; ARA "Individual Record Sheet" of Henry C.

Wolfe, January 5, 1922, both in Wolfe personnel file, Hoover Library.

The Russian Odyssey of Henry C. Wolfe                          193

sistence and the judicious use of political pull, Wolfe embarked upon a ven-

ture that promised a tour of the exotic but barren land of the Bolsheviks, to-

gether with an opportunity to perform a humanitarian service. He was well

aware that long hours were part of the bargain, but he may not have appreci-

ated that ARA work in Russia carried with it some real dangers from brigands

and from such contagious diseases as typhus. The hazards of service in

Russia were soon brought home to Wolfe when one of his cabin mates,

Philip Sheild, mysteriously disappeared at Simbirsk without a trace, the ap-

parent victim of robbers.⁵

In common with the majority of the fellow ARA workers, the twenty-four-

year-old Wolfe was no expert about the history, geography, or language of

Russia. Another of his limitations as an observer was that he was not inured

to scenes of extreme hardship. Naturally shocked by the contrast between the

bounty of Ohio and the desolation of the Volga region, he may have exagger-

ated the smells and sights he witnessed. As late as 1959, in an article of rem-

iniscences published at the height of the Cold War, Wolfe stressed sensational

aspects of his experience and implied that the Communist leadership had been

shockingly ungrateful for the aid distributed by the ARA. For Wolfe person-

ally the most lasting result of his trip to Russia was that it left him with a

deep distaste for Communism, although he remembered the courage and gen-

uine gratitude of the long-suffering Russian people.

Galpin had not exaggerated when he told Wolfe to prepare himself for hard

physical work and the discomforts of a primitive society. The Ohioan's

Russian adventure began with his departure from Coshocton on January 5.

Two days later he was sailing across the Atlantic to London. His route then

took him by train across Germany to Riga, Latvia, where he entered a strange

and unfamiliar world. The Moscow-Riga "express" was cold, dingy, lacking

in sleeping cars, and pulled at a snail's pace by a wood-burning locomotive

through a dark and snowy landscape. The sight of miserable, evil-smelling

refugees at the Moscow station appalled Wolfe who recalled, "I was totally

unprepared for this ghastly preview of the Russian famine." At the ARA

headquarters, known as the "Pink House" because of its color, he learned his

destination was to be the city of Samara on the Volga. A final two days on a

"dilapidated, vermin-infested" train completed his twenty-four day journey

from Ohio.

Wolfe's arrival at Samara (January 31, 1922) coincided with the depths of

the famine. He found it an unnerving experience to count fourteen corpses

abandoned in the vicinity of ARA headquarters.⁶ Contrary to his initial im-

5. Fisher, Famine in Soviet Russia, 228-30.

6. Henry C. Wolfe, "The Year We Saved the Russians," This Week Magazine, February

15, 1959; "Coshocton Man Describes Famine Scenes Among Russians," Coshocton, Ohio,

194                                                  OHIO HISTORY

pression, the general population of the cities was not desperately short of

food. The most profound impact was experienced by rural areas, where the

destitute abandoned their homes and sometimes their children as they fled to

some location where food was rumored to be available. Packed together in,

on top of, and between freight cars, the refugees frequently contracted typhus

spread by lice. Most of the corpses viewed by Wolfe on his arrival-includ-

ing one being gnawed by dogs-were probably those of nomadic refugees.

For four weeks Wolfe underwent an intensive on-the-job training course

under the tutelage of District Supervisor Will Shafroth. A twenty-nine-year-

old native of Denver, Shafroth was the son of a former Democratic governor

and senator from Colorado. Shafroth had graduated from the University of

Michigan and received his law degree from the University of California at

Berkeley. More importantly, Shafroth had served with the ARA in Poland

from November, 1920 to August, 1921 as a "babyfeeder" (ARA slang for

employees engaged in children's relief). Colonel Haskell then selected

Shafroth as a member of the first party to enter Russia and he organized the

relief operation at Samara. According to a notation in his personnel file,

Shafroth served the ARA "in a most commendable manner."⁷ In accordance

with the ARA's rule "feed them first," the first priority was establishing

kitchens for feeding starving children. The distribution of rations to hungry

adults had to await the arrival of shiploads of bulk corn which were en route

to the Black Sea ports of Novorossisk, Odessa, and Theodosia.

On his arrival Wolfe went to work learning the ARA's system of opera-

tion. One of his first jobs was to undertake an inventory of food remittance

packages which had been purchased by Americans for delivery to their friends

and relatives in Russia. On average, Wolfe found that something was miss-

ing from every third package, either as the result of carelessness or theft.

Moreover, Wolfe learned the procedures whereby the ARA established and

administered child-feeding kitchens. The guiding principle was that each

child, once certified by a local committee as hungry, was issued a card permit-

ting a daily meal of corn bread, rice, and cocoa. The children were not al-

lowed to take food from the premises, on the assumption it might be sold or

distributed to so many family members as to do no real good. Possibly as a

result of eating at an ARA kitchen, Wolfe was stricken with a digestive ill-

ness diagnosed by Dr. Frederick Foucar as "entero-colitis, acute catarrhal."

But Wolfe's situation could have been far worse since both cholera and typhus

were prevalent in the region. Within a few days Wolfe was back on his feet

Tribune and Times-Age, July 3, 1922, in Henry C. Wolfe Papers, Box 1, Archives of the

Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University.

7. ARA personnel file of Will Shafroth, ARA Personnel Records, Box 65, Hoover

Presidential Library.

The Russian Odyssey of Henry C. Wolfe                           195

and able to travel to his new assignment of kitchen inspector at Melekes,

sixty miles to the north.⁸

The three-day trip by sleigh through a snow-covered forest was a dramatic

experience in itself. Wolfe carried a revolver he had borrowed from the Cheka

(the secret police) for protection from brigands, and his two drivers and the in-

terpreter carried axes in case they were attacked by wolves. Another hazard

was the extreme cold. Coming across the frozen body of a driver, the party

resolved to walk every mile or so to keep warm. Along the way Wolfe vis-

ited kitchens maintained by the ARA and interviewed, through his interpreter,

the committees which were in charge of the food preparation. All the

kitchens were in good sanitary condition except "No. 2" at Novy Booyan

"which smelled very bad." The problem, concluded Wolfe, was that "the

owner of the home was living in the dining room and I ordered them to get

him out to let some fresh air in once in a while." Visiting kitchen "No. 21"

at Eremkino, Wolfe was told by members of the kitchen committee that no

cats or dogs were left in the town as all had been eaten. The number of cows

was said to have declined from 800 in September to only 180, and they re-

ported that each day eight to ten adults died. No children had died since the es-

tablishment of the ARA kitchen, Wolfe was told, and as a result: "The

committee said that people come to the kitchen and worship America as they

do at church."⁹

An overnight stop was made at the village of Kuroyedova where Wolfe was

housed in the home of the local priest. To his surprise, Wolfe was told by

his interpreter, "The priest says there's a lovely lady in the next room to

where you are." On investigating, Wolfe found that "the lovely lady" was ac-

tually a cow which was being kept in the house for protection from hungry

neighbors.¹⁰ In this village the ARA had no kitchen, but Wolfe, on instruc-

tions from Shafroth, visited a government kitchen operated by Ukrainians.

He found both the sanitation and the quality of the food to be "very bad" and

observed the serving of "a fish soup which only people in a very bad condi-

tion could swallow and which had the appearance of the paste used to stick up

show bills back in the States." Wolfe was spared the ordeal of the fish soup

as he was served lunch at the home of one of the committee members. Before

the meal was finished, Wolfe was visited by a committee of women "who

cried and told me through my interpreter that without American aid everyone

would die before summer." Next to appear was a committee of elderly men

8. Shafroth to Haskell, February 23, 1922, Box 194, Records of the American Relief

Administration, Russian Operations (ARA Records), Archives of the Hoover Institution; Foucar

to Dr. Henry Beeuwkes, February 22, 1922, Box 197, ARA Records, Hoover Institution.

9. Wolfe, "Coshocton Man Describes Famine Scenes," Box 1, Wolfe Papers, Hoover

Institution; Wolfe to Shafroth, March 11, 1922, Box 93, ARA Records, Hoover Institution.

10. Oral history interview with Henry C. Wolfe, October 17, 1969, Hoover Presidential

Library.

196                                                  OHIO HISTORY

who forced their way into the room where they fell on their knees, crossed

themselves, and bowed so that their foreheads touched the floor. The inter-

preter explained that Wolfe had become practically an object of idolatry:

"They wanted to worship the representative of the ARA which they look

upon as all powerful and the only thing that can save them." To both groups

Wolfe tactfully gave assurances that he would do all in his power to assist

them. 11

In common with his ARA co-workers, Wolfe was particularly fascinated by

the numerous reports he received of cannibalism "all along the line." Most of

the accounts compiled by ARA workers about the delicate topic of the con-

sumption of human flesh were based on second or third-hand reports or taken

from newspapers. Wolfe, however, was shown severed limbs confiscated

from a cannibal "who had been caught eating his boy a short time ago." In a

similar case at Eremkino, Wolfe was told that "a father ate his two small

children of six and eight years of age." Wolfe was not able personally to in-

vestigate the case, but from members of the local famine committee he

learned that the man had repeatedly come to the ARA kitchen asking for food

for his "sick" children. When confronted by suspicious members of the

committee, Wolfe reported, "the father broke down and confessed he had killed

and eaten them. The committee said he told them that the children's flesh

tasted sweeter than pork." The accuracy of the account was based solely on

the statements of the committee members, but Wolfe found their sense of

horror to be convincing evidence of the gravity of the situation in the

Melekes region.¹²

Melekes' starving time continued unabated well into April. According to

Shafroth's estimate of April 12, the situation in Samara province was worse

than in any preceding month and hunger was increasing everywhere. The

spring thaw added to the misery by making the roads impassible and delaying

the distribution of relief supplies. A further concern was that epidemics

might occur due to the presence of numerous unburied corpses stored during

the winter. As Shafroth noted, "In many places the dead bodies are piled in a

warehouse of some kind in the middle of the village, and with the com-

mencement of warm weather they begin to rot and putrefy."¹³

Throughout his distressing journey to Melekes, Wolfe was sustained by the

knowledge that American bulk corn and seed grain were in the process of be-

ing shipped across the Atlantic to Russia's Black Sea ports. Novorossisk,

the entry port for shipping corn to the Volga region, was visited by fifteen

American freighters between February and May, 1922. From the ARA point

of view, the distribution of the corn proceeded at a painfully slow pace. The

11. Wolfe to Shafroth, April 12, 1922, Box 93, ARA Records, Hoover Institution.

12. Ibid.

13. Shafroth to Haskell, April 12, 1922, Box 93, ARA Records, Hoover Institution.

The Russian Odyssey of Henry C. Wolfe                         197

problem was not a lack of cooperation or manpower, but the decrepit condi-

tion of the docking facilities, warehouses, and railroads. Despite the frustra-

tions, the first corn train arrived in Samara during the first week of April.¹⁴

Back in Melekes, Wolfe and his Russian employees were in the final stage

of readiness to receive and distribute the corn. Although he was later a severe

critic of Communism, Wolfe at the time praised the local Communist offi-

cials for their helpful suggestions which speeded his work. To Wolfe one of

the most surprising aspects, considering the gravity of the situation, was the

universal cooperation displayed by all the participants, from government offi-

cials to the humblest peasant. "Although each hour was precious," noted

Wolfe, "there was perfect order and no disputes about who was to receive his

corn first." Without exception the hungry people who swarmed into Melekes

accepted Wolfe's decision to feed the worst villages first. And, when the first

corn train arrived at the Melekes station (April 22), Wolfe caught the

poignancy of the moment as he recorded the prevalent mood of eager coopera-

tion, discipline, and emotional, genuine gratitude to America.

As promised, the mill began round-the-clock operations the same day the

corn arrived. The resulting corn flour was consistently of fine quality and

when village committees were given the choice of receiving corn or flour, in

every case they chose the latter. As the loading of wagons commenced,

Wolfe, as inconspicuously as possible, observed the process: "When a sack

of the precious flour was brought out of the mill it was eagerly seized by half

a dozen volunteers who carefully carried it to the wagon, handling it with the

greatest caution and much as a mother handles a baby. The utmost care was

taken that the sacks had no holes in them. No miser ever guarded his gold

with more care than these famished peasants watched over their flour."

One of Wolfe's worries was that a lack of horses would delay the corn dis-

tribution. Many villages, he knew, had eaten all their horses during the win-

ter. But his apprehensions proved unjustified as in three nearby villages

without horses, every person not too weak to walk hiked to Melekes. Wolfe

quietly watched as the half-starved inhabitants of Yakooshki shouldered bags

of corn flour-heavy loads being assigned to adult men and lighter loads to

the women and children. To Wolfe's surprise the group returned later in the

day for a second load. Thus they managed to transport the village's entire corn

allotment in a single day, covering a total distance of twenty miles. Wolfe

admiringly recorded: "They are subnormal physically and for people in their

condition this accomplishment can only be described as wonderful."

Wolfe felt he could not leave Melekes while the distribution was in process

and so did not personally witness the arrival of the precious American corn

flour in the villages. But the next day (April 23), he was visited by the

14. J. H. Lange to Haskell, May 18, 1922, Box 174, ARA Records, Hoover Institution;

Fisher, Famine in Soviet Russia, 166-72.

198                                                      OHIO HISTORY

chairman of Novo Maina who described in the greatest detail the scene as the

ARA corn flour came into view:

When the wagons came in sight of the village all the people able to walk went

out to meet them. People so weak from hunger that they could not walk dragged

themselves after the others. The people knelt on the ground crossing themselves

and thanking God and America for this delivery from the grave. Many of the peo-

ple were crying, he said.

The best part of the description was when the chairman described the delicious

bread made from corn. It was most interesting to see this man's face as he told of

the joy and gratitude of the people of his village and the volost in general of

which he is the responsible manager. Before he left he asked me for a piece of pa-

per on which he wrote the following poem:

Translation of Poem

"TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,

Great Land, Great People,

Greetings to you from the edge of the grave,

Only in you we found our Saviour,

And at the edge of the grave you saved us!"

R.V.D.

This poem is excellent proof of the gratitude of the people in this region.¹⁵

In his final six months at Melekes, Wolfe kept active inspecting child-feed-

ing kitchens and distributing adult rations and food remittance packages sent

from America. By July he had sufficient free time available to request that

the ARA's Moscow office send him a Remington typewriter together with a

touch-typing instruction book; assuming the typewriter was to be used for

personal letters, Colonel Haskell deducted its cost from Wolfe's account.

Wolfe spent much of August touring his district inspecting kitchens and

noted a continued improvement in food conditions as a result of flourishing

local vegetable gardens. He was certain a good harvest was in prospect, de-

spite some damage caused by locusts. However, Wolfe predicted that by

January 1 the poorer residents would again run short of food, but he believed

"there will be a great improvement over the conditions of last winter."¹⁶ The

modest progress reported throughout the famine districts convinced the direc-

tors of the ARA in New York that they could not continue to feed Russia in-

definitely. On the recommendation of Hoover and Haskell, the directors con-

cluded that adult feeding should be ended with the new harvest on September 1

and that child-feeding should be carried on for another year through existing

institutions such as schools and orphanages. The phasing out of the famine

15. Wolfe, "Arrival of the First Corn in Melekes, Samara," April 22, 1922, Wolfe Papers,

Box 1, Hoover Institution.

16. Haskell to Ronald Allen, June 26, 1922, Box 197, ARA Records, Hoover Institution;

Wolfe to Haskell, August 11, 1922, Box 94, ARA Records, Hoover Institution.

The Russian Odyssey of Henry C. Wolfe                           199

relief operation meant that fewer ARA employees were needed. Thus Wolfe

and many of his colleagues had effectively worked themselves out of a job.¹⁷

Wolfe's adventure at Melekes ended on November 22 when he departed for

the more amenable climate of Greece. But his visit to the Mediterranean was

not a vacation. By the first of the year an estimated 1.2 million destitute

refugees had fled to Greece following a successful Turkish counteroffensive in

the Turkish-Greek conflict of 1921-1923. At the request of the Red Cross,

the ARA agreed to "loan" Colonel Haskell to lead a nine-man mission to

Greece to organize relief operations. Arriving in Greece two weeks after his

twenty-fifth birthday, Wolfe must have been flattered to discover that he was

the junior member of the group, which was composed primarily of physicians

and army officers. For a year he worked in the Patras region before returning

to New York where he joined the Near East Relief Committee, an organiza-

tion which furnished assistance to Armenian and Christian refugees from

Turkey. Arthur T. Daily, the ARA's assistant secretary, composed a glowing

letter of recommendation, which concluded with the words: "Mr. Wolfe's

work with us in Russia was of such a satisfactory nature that he was later

chosen by Colonel Haskell to join the Red Cross Mission to Greece. We

have a very high opinion of Mr. Wolfe and are glad indeed to recommend him

to you."¹⁸

For Wolfe his ten months in Soviet Russia had been a strange blend of hor-

ror and humanitarianism. At Melekes Wolfe saw scenes he could never for-

get, including cannibalism, parents abandoning their children, and "people eat-

ing horse manure and other horrible stuff." At the same time he was intensely

proud of having belonged to an idealistic organization whose efforts had

changed Melekes from "a land of sadness and death" to "a place of life and

happiness."¹⁹ Had Wolfe, who died in 1976, lived another fifteen years he

would surely have felt vindicated and elated by the collapse of a system he

considered to be unjust, brutal, and inefficient. His ten months in Russia had

left him with nothing but admiration for the indomitable Russian people, and

with nothing but loathing for a callous Soviet regime which, in his view, had

done little to prevent or alleviate the famine.

17. Fisher, Famine in Soviet Russia, 297-307.

18. New York Times, January 5, 1923; George I. Gay (ARA London headquarters) to

ARA, New York, December 12, 1922, and Arthur T. Dailey to Barclay Acheson, October 2,

1923, both in Wolfe personnel file, Hoover Library.

19. Wolfe, "Arrival of the First Corn in Melekes, Samara," April 22, 1922, Wolfe Papers,

Box 1, Hoover Institution.