Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

when our Moscow negotiations were nearing completion. Rey. Benjamin B. Janz came to Moscow as a messenger from the Ukraine Government, bearing a letter of September 26 from the Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Kowaljew, requesting a conference with me in Khar- UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 155 kow relative to relief work in the Ukraine. Janz had been clearly informed that the Ukraine Government would positively insist on our making an agreement in Kharkow before it would permit our organization to begin relief work in the Ukraine. It must be admitted that the de- mand was not unreasonable, however inconvenient. Un- der the relationships prevailing at that time among the several republics there was more than just a theoretical basis for their contention. Had not the Communist party awakened and stimulated just such ambitions, granting self-government to the national minorities? For us to attempt to ignore this condition would have been a short- sighted policy—would have been blind folly. It would have been an utter disregard of the psychology of the time and of the country. There would have been conse- quent delay and endless friction. Even if we had then later, after being forced to it, negotiated a contract, it would quite surely have left a smouldering resentment that would subsequently reveal itself repeatedly by putting obstacles in our way, even if such petty dealing reacted most unfavorably on themselves. Rev. Janz was a Mennonite minister, formerly a teacher. He had initiated a movement seeking to build up a Mennonite organization, agricultural in. nature, which would further the general welfare of Mennonites in the Ukraine. It would become an intermediary between the Government and the Mennonites as a group and as individuals. Their organization had not yet been char- tered, but was seeking official recognition. (Later it was chartered as the Verband der Buerger Hollaendischer Herkunft in der Ukraina.) It was as the head of that organization that Janz carried on negotiations at Khar- kow, the capital of Ukraine, hoping to find some way of warding off the danger of starvation as well as alleviating the distress of the Ukrainian Mennonites who were suf- 156 FEEDING THE HUNGRY fering under confiscatory acts of petty local officials. He had received our letters sent from Novorossisk through the Kuban Mennonite officials authorizing local Menno- nites to negotiate with the government on our behalf. This had developed to the point that the Ukraine Gov- ernment had sent a telegram requesting Wilhelm Neufeld (California) and myself to come to Kharkow to make an agreement. Suddenly Janz received a telegram sent by Froese and Klassen from Moscow, stating that I was already in Moscow. Janz hurried to Kharkow with this information, and the Government offered him free trans- portation and an official Travel Order to Moscow and return, if he would undertake to induce the repre