The Russian Job, Douglas Smith
The Russian Job, Douglas Smith
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The Russian Job
The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Ruin

Author: Douglas Smith

Narrator: Natasha Soudek

Unabridged: 9 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/05/2019

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

An award-winning historian reveals the harrowing, little-known story of an American effort to save the newly formed Soviet Union from disaster.

After decades of the Cold War and renewed tensions, in the wake of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, cooperation between the United States and Russia seems impossible to imagine—and yet, as Douglas Smith reveals, it has a forgotten but astonishing historical precedent.

In 1921, facing one of the worst famines in history, the new Soviet government under Vladimir Lenin invited the American Relief Administration, Herbert Hoover’s brainchild, to save communist Russia from ruin. For two years, a small, daring band of Americans fed more than ten million men, women, and children across a million square miles of territory. It was the largest humanitarian operation in history—preventing the loss of countless lives, social unrest on a massive scale, and, quite possibly, the collapse of the communist state.

Now, almost a hundred years later, few in either America or Russia have heard of the ARA. The Soviet government quickly began to erase the memory of American charity. In America, fanatical anti-communism would eclipse this historic cooperation with the Soviet Union. Smith resurrects the American relief mission from obscurity, taking the listener on an unforgettable journey from the heights of human altruism to the depths of human depravity.

The story of the ARA is filled with political intrigue, espionage, the clash of ideologies, violence, adventure, and romance, and features some of the great historical figures of the twentieth century. In a time of cynicism and despair about the world’s ability to confront international crises, The Russian Job is a riveting account of a cooperative effort unmatched before or since.

About Douglas Smith

Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Liam on March 03, 2023

Douglas Smith exceptionally fine historian and chronicler of aspects of imperial/revolutionary Russian history have attracted masses of attention in terms chronicling in anecdotal ways but never the searching glare of historian determined to look beyond 'legend' into hard archival investigation. His......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on December 20, 2020

This was a solid history of a lesser known event. The author does a very good job of giving the details and illuminating the people involved. One area of weakness was that it presented the suspicion that the Russians had of Americans as being completely unwarranted. A few years previously, the US ha......more

Goodreads review by Olesya on September 15, 2021

A really insightful look into the American Relief Administration, U.S’s massive, federally funded relief program organized in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and subsequent famine. Douglas, as always, writes accessible nonfiction, with deep knowledge of Russia and her mentality and hi......more

Goodreads review by Kristi on April 04, 2020

In 1921 when the Soviet Union was experiencing one of the worst famines in history, a Herbert Hoover-led entity, the American Relief Agency, came to Russia and spent two years providing much needed help. They fed some 11 million people. They distributed over 1.25 million food parcels. They restored......more

Goodreads review by Mandy on February 19, 2020

Although I have read widely and studied Russian history for most of my adult life, I had never come across this somewhat forgotten interlude – and what a fascinating story it is, the story of how the American Relief Administration, under the auspices of the US Government, fed millions of starving Ru......more