Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

I was sure there would be no serious difficulty. Kamenev had in October recognized the need, and during our discussions had approved very heartily the A.M.R. going there to help. In signing our contract for Moscow, he had also signed for the Ukraine, because the areas were specified in the contract. But when the A.R.A. finally made its contract with the Ukraine, and the time came at last that I could go South, the notorious Eiduk objected. By this time we no longer had access to Kam- anev himself. He was too busy an official, though he did fortunately remain the head of the Government organiza- tion for relief, and in crises he was the man ta save the day. The Government had now evolved a plan to have a representative whose whole duty would be to assist all foreign relief organizations—and watch them. For this post was selected—surely not by Kamanev—a burley Lett, a former policeman, neither very capable, nor efficient, nor clever. He did possess a stubborn nature and a big fist. UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 197 He was loaded down with the title of ‘Representative Plenipotentiary of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic with All Foreign Relief Organizations.” To him I went to announce my intention of going into the Ukraine. Behind his table he sat, unshaven, hair dis- hevelled, the brutality of his heavy, glowering face ac- centuated by the huge revolver lying on the table con- veniently near his right hand. He should have added a cap of sheepskin with the shaggy fleece hanging down on all sides, such as the more formidable characters wore in Novorissisk and Rostow a year previous. But those were the frontier towns under military control where we had learned at once not to remove the hat when calling on some officials. Here in Moscow, Eiduk did not properly fit into the picture. This day he had probably been wor- ried by some A.R.A. request and his look was forbidding. I told him I was going to the Ukraine. He protested with face and fist. The Volga region was where we were needed, not in the Ukraine, he asserted. He declared vehemently that if he had it to say, he would not let any of our food be sent into the Ukraine; and furthermore, that he was “categorically opposed” to my going there; I was finally obliged to remind him that if the Government had wanted to, it could have started relief work nine months before it did. He protested that no one knew the famine was coming then, but when I named Byelborodov, Frumkin and other leading officials in the Southeast who were anxious in April to have us begin at once when Mos- cow refused, he was silenced; but he had not changed his mind about the Ukraine. The fact that we had the Ukraine written into our A.M.R. contract gave me the right to go regardless of Eiduk, whose instructions should ordinarily have been regarded. Even so, it was not prudence to draw his ill will against the A.M.R. But it was worse to let people 198 FEEDING THE