Famine in the United States in the 30th years of XX-th century: for and agains

The Internet has long been a dispute over the interpretation of the events that occurred in the U.S. in the thirties of the last century, called by historians of the Great Depression. Beginning of the conflict in the publication under the eloquent title "Famine-up" Boris Borisov, whose work is frequently a source of publicity. Case even came to remove an article from "Wikipedia" as flared "historic flash mob" has caused deep anger and controversy bloggers from across the Web.

Boris Borisov is the author of several controversial historical and economic articles. Unfortunately, we know very little about him. He is a graduate of the Moscow State University and became a businessman, founding the country's one of the first cooperatives. Borisov was later seen in the direction of the Board of Directors of Credit Bank of Moscow.

As a basis for its analysis given in the article arguments Borisov used the official statistics department of the USA, considering the dynamics of the population of the country, statistics on births and deaths, immigration and emigration flows in the period from 1931 to 1940th years. According to our calculations, the arithmetic, he concluded that at constant demographic trends the U.S. population in 1940 was supposed to be about 140 million. In fact, it was equal to $ 133 million to reflect the changes in the dynamics of migration. That is up to 1940, disappeared more than seven million people. And there is no explanation of the authorities to this fact.



In support of his sensational findings Borisov pointed out that the data on population growth in the United States almost immediately fell twice in the late 1930-1931's and the left on this mark for a decade, then returned to the original figure. However, the huge demographic losses can not be explained simply reducing fertility. The idea of ​​hiding the real data during the Great Depression Borisov tempting and that nowhere in the official documents do not explain, they found relatively large statistical fluctuations. Same data on the demographic situation in 1932, the year just do not exist or they are hidden. In later reports, which were compiled by statistical agencies in United States, there are clear allusions to the fraud, which deprives the government allow such action, the right to any credible comments on this issue. Trying to figure out the data from the Americans of the time is like trying to determine the number of dead civilians in Vietnam, Korea or Iraq.

Borisov cited figures obtained by the use of the laws of population statistics show not only as a mass death of people in the U.S. and give the right to claim that the processes occurring in the period under review in the United States can be compared to the famine in the Ukraine in 1932-1933-their years.

Famine in Ukraine from 1932nd to 1933rd years, according to various sources resulted in the deaths of about four million people. Historians and politicians have not yet reached a consensus about the causes of hunger. The official version of the Ukrainian authorities - the desire of Stalin "pacify" the Ukrainians. But it is also an indisputable fact that in 1931 in many parts of the Soviet Union was a crop failure due to drought, and increased grain exports made a very dangerous situation everywhere. In addition the beginning of collectivization in late 1929 led to a mass slaughter of cattle in the years to cattle were dying because of neglect it as a collective property. A similar thing happened in the agricultural collective inventory. The year 1932 was marked by a large decline in food production. Harvesting was carried out with great difficulty and reluctance because of the subsequent confiscation of food from the peasants. Collective leadership steal with impunity, resulting in a disproportionate distribution of food on the ground. Later, to avoid liability, stolen grain thrown in rivers, wells and ravines.
Peak mass death of citizens of Ukraine took place in spring 1933. People ate weeds, cotton seeds, potato peels, dried straw and other surrogates, and meat dogs and cats, dead horses. Everywhere there were cases of cannibalism, murder, family or random people.

The causes of loss of life, according to Boris Borisov, is not only adversity, but also the policy of the government led by Roosevelt for causing mass starvation in the country and unemployment. Indeed, in the early thirties in U.S. history broke out a disaster. With a population of 125 million people, including the elderly and children, by 1933 the number of unemployed th exceeded seventeen million. That is, given the family members, which is about equal to the population of large European countries. Just imagine a fully unemployed in France or England. Terrible realities crisis erupted well illustrated in the works of famous writers, Erskine Caldwell and Horace McCoy.

Another analogy of the events can be made with a carefully concealed by the British government in India, hunger, and the massive loss of life in Bengal in 1943 and it was.

According to historical records, there are about ninety cases of famine during the 2500 year history of India. The widest scope, this phenomenon has reached during the 19th century. According to the medical service of the country in 1933, eating in India starved at least eighty million people. Recent major famines occurred in Bengal in 1943, and eat in Bihar in 1966.
In Bengal, according to various estimates was lost about five percent of the population (three million people). The main cause of hunger in the deaths of rice due to cyclones, floods and fungus in 1942,. At the same time the Japanese occupation of Burma made it impossible food imports. Rumors of rice shortages have led to panic, because of which raised the price of food and the beginning of market speculation. The British administration has the means to help the people of the colonies, however, afraid of the Japanese invasion, decided to use a scorched earth. Government, which began already seeing hunger, only the first half of 1943 were taken out of Bengal, about eighty tons of grain and confiscated about seventy thousand boats of local people. It has destroyed the system of water transport, because Bengali boats used for fishing and delivery of food to markets. Some researchers also suggest that the destruction of the local population and the subsequent famine were planned policy of England as a lesson of the Indian population, who supported the anti-British movement Subhas Bose and the "August Revolution."

Outrage is the fact that, being guilty of the death of a huge number of Americans, the U.S. government does not consider it necessary to raise the subject, but does not allow the possibility to point to the same thing in the same period in the history of the USSR. After all, the U.S. Congress in 1988 raised the issue and accused Russia of genocide against the Ukrainian people, the famine in that country in 1933, and it was. But no one remembers the circumstances in which millions of American farm families (a total of five million people) were forced, deprived of their land and housing, hunger, in my country, covered by mass unemployment and gang violence, in search of at least some of . This process Borisov calls "defarmingom", drawing an analogy with the Soviet "dispossession." People were on their own, and the vaunted American democracy peacefully watched their suffering. Insurance program support of the population was already established after a large number of people, mostly elderly, have died of starvation.

But the U.S. government has destroyed surplus food that was not profitable just donated to the needy, because it contributed to further erosion of the market. So were destroyed crops on ten million acres of land, scored six and a half million pigs, which could help save the starving in that difficult period for them. Grain buried, burned and drowned in the ocean.

Public administration and civil works created labor camps, once taking up to three million people. However, according to Borisov, ostensibly organized to help the starving unemployed public works were actually hard labor in harsh conditions uninhabited, marshy areas, payment for which was just ridiculous. So out of thirty dollars, which was the last month to get each new person, by the hand he was given only a sixth of the remaining after deduction of all taxes.

Minister of the Interior U.S. at the time was a certain Mr. Ickes, which Borisov calls "American Beria." In those difficult years for America, he led the organization of public works. This man sent to special camps for unemployed two million people who were held there in hellish conditions, and then at the beginning of World War II, with a straight face, has initiated the establishment of concentration camps, which were driven ethnic Japanese from all over America. The first phase of a lightning operation, supported the army lasted only seventy-two hours. The high mortality rate in the camps for the unemployed from the stories of participants in those events stemmed from poor conditions of the people. Workers are often not able to even keep the rain because of the overflow barracks.

Harold Ickes LeKleyr was born in 1874 in Pennsylvania. Since graduating from the University of Chicago labor lawyer by profession, was in the staff of the newspaper "Chicago record" reporter. Later decided to go into the practice of law and at the same time to go into politics as an independent Republican. Harold's career went up sharply after the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt won. March 4, 1933 the year he was appointed secretary for internal affairs in the office of a new President and a member of the National Administration, to rebuild the economy of the country. In May 1941, Ickes was responsible for the safety of the national resources of the U.S., coordinating their work under the guise of national defense needs. Summer of 1943 on, he headed the oil reserves of the Corporation of America. In his own words the main merit preservation believed U.S. oil reserves for future generations. After coming to power Truman authority Ickes staggered and 1942nd he retired completely leaving politics. He died in 1952, in Washington.

In their critiques Boris Borisov urges Russians to start the reply "information attack" on the harsh words of the American Congress regarding mismanagement and failures of the Soviet leadership led to serious economic consequences and famine in the thirties of the last century. Calling the government regimes Hoover-Roosevelt "blood" and calling their policies to as "humanitarian crime", the author proposes to pinpoint the "information fire" on the weak points in U.S. policy, which has accumulated plenty in American history.
However, you should consider and the main arguments of the opponents of Borisov, who considered it a point of view unacceptable and absurd. In their view, the situation in the U.S. was by no means so terrible, and artificially exaggerated the number of victims in the historical process. The comparison of the events of the Stalin period, they did find offensive. When the economic situation in the U.S. has been a disaster, the government has severely restricted the entry of foreigners into the country, promoting the exodus of its citizens abroad. This has led to a significant decrease in population, and the difference between immigration flows in the twenties and thirties of 3.6 million people. Moreover, according to the census birth rates in the United States did not undergo major changes those relied on by Borisov. Number of babies born during the escalation of the crisis was indeed much lower than in previous periods. However, this is due to the fact that a reasonable person in a situation of instability will think twice about whether to have children. That is, these changes in the statistics are quite natural fertility across the country and is not associated with high infant mortality.

Borisov opponents do not deny that serious problems exist in the U.S. of course. The decline of the market as the result of unbridled monetary policy, the initial non-intervention, and then ignorant rude intrusion of the state in the unstable economic processes have caused a rapid increase in the number of unemployed. According to the data of the period in some major cities of unemployed by the total working population reached fifty and even eighty percent! Moreover, all attempts by the government to help those who suffer overlap reverse action in the form of increased duties, taxes and reduce tariffs on agricultural products.

But even under these conditions was observed that the number of starving to death as the result of calculations Boris Borisov. Even if the government tried to hide this information, she would have leaked through the communist organization that existed illegally in the U.S.. Information about mass starvation would be transferred necessarily valid in the U.S. territory of Soviet reconnaissance and made public in the USSR. However, the material does not exist, on the contrary, there is evidence that even in the most difficult times, people tried to help each other and are able to provide their families with food and basic necessities.

Giving readers the opportunity to make their own conclusions, I want to remind the wise words of the American philosopher George Santayana that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Eighty years later, the U.S. ruling circles continue to step on the same rake and continue to make mistakes that are made during the depression study Roosevelt, bringing the country to a catastrophe.

Also fair to say that modern historians reject methods of research, based on an assessment of demographic losses due to non-linearity of demographic processes and their dependence on the mass of factors. This in turn calls into question the estimates obtained in this way the "victims of communism" issued by the American researchers and the world death toll from famine in the Ukraine officially recognized by our authorities.