The Russian famine of 1921–22, also known as the Povolzhye famine, was a severe famine in

the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which began early in the spring of 1921 and
lasted through 1922.

This famine killed an estimated 5 million people, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River
regions, and peasants resorted to cannibalism. The famine resulted from the combined effects of
economic disturbance because of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, exacerbated by
rail systems that could not distribute food efficiently.

One of Russia's intermittent droughts in 1921 aggravated the situation to a national catastrophe.
Hunger was so severe that it was likely seed-grain would be eaten rather than sown. At one point
relief agencies had to give food to railroad staff to get their supplies moved.

Before the famine began, Russia had suffered six and a half years of World War I and the Civil
Wars of 1918–20, many of the conflicts fought inside Russia. There were an estimated 7–12
million casualties during the Russian Civil Wars, mostly civilians.

Before the famine, all sides in the Russian Civil Wars of 1918–21—the Bolsheviks, the Whites,
the Anarchists, the seceding nationalities—had provisioned themselves by seizing food from
those who grew it, giving it to their armies and supporters, and denying it to their enemies. The
Bolshevik government had requisitioned supplies from the peasantry for little or nothing in
exchange. This led peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. The rich peasants
(kulaks) withheld their surplus grain to preserve their lives, and to sell on the black market. In
1920, Lenin ordered increased emphasis on food requisitioning from the peasantry.

Aid from outside Soviet Russia was initially rejected. The American Relief Administration
(ARA), which Herbert Hoover formed to help the victims of starvation of World War I, offered
assistance to Lenin in 1919, on condition that they have full say over the Russian railway
network and hand out food impartially to all. Lenin refused this as interference in Russian
internal affairs.

Lenin was eventually convinced—by this famine, the Kronstadt rebellion, large scale peasant
uprisings such as the Tambov Rebellion, and the failure of a German general strike—to reverse
his policy at home and abroad. He decreed the New Economic Policy on March 15, 1921. The
famine also helped produce an opening to the West: Lenin allowed relief organizations to bring
aid this time. War relief was no longer required in Western Europe, and the ARA had an
organization set up in Poland, relieving the Polish famine which had begun in the winter of
1919–20.