The Politics of Soviet Famines under Lenin and Stalin

The Hoover Institution Library & Archives presents the Bread + Medicine Speaker Series. This third event is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), Stanford University and is moderated by Jovana Lazić Knežević, Associate Director, CREEES. Speakers will include Norman M. Naimark, Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies, Senior Fellow, Freeman-Spogli Institute, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Bertrand M. Patenaude, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Amir Weiner, Associate Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies, Stanford University. “America’s Famine Relief Mission in Soviet Russia at 100: Shifting Views from Lenin to Putin” is a hybrid event that will be held on Monday, February 6, 2023, starting at 4:00 pm PT | 7:00 pm ET (75 minutes).

Famine punctuated the first three decades of Soviet history. Disputes over Soviet famines have long been among the major controversies in the historical field. Historians debate the causes of Soviet famines, including to what extent they resulted from or were exacerbated by deliberate government policies, while demographers disagree about their death tolls. Three specialists will discuss similarities and contrasts of the three major Soviet famines: the so-called Volga famine of 1921-22 in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War, the famine of 1932-33 amid the campaign to collectivize agriculture — memorialized by Ukrainians as the Holodomor — and the famine of 1946-47 in the wake of the Second World War.