Russian famine of 1891–1892

The Russian famine of 1891–1892 began along the Volga River and spread as far as the Urals and Black Sea. It caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths.^[1] The reawakening of Russian Marxism and populism is often traced to the public's anger over the tsarist government's poor handling of the disaster.

Weather[edit]

In 1891, a particularly-dry spring had delayed the planting of the fields. That winter, temperatures fell to −31 °C (−24 °F), but very little snow fell and the seedlings were totally unprotected from the frost. When the Volga River flooded, the lack of fire caused the water to freeze, which killed more seedlings and the fodder used to feed the horses. The seedlings that were not killed by frost were blown away along with the topsoil in an uncommonly-windy summer. The summer started as early as April and proved to be a long dry one. The city of Orenburg, for example, had no rain for over 100 days. Forests, horses, crops, and peasants all began to die, and by the end of 1892, about 375,000 to 400,000 people had died, mostly from the cholera epidemics that were triggered by the famine.

Other causes[edit]

Weather alone cannot be blamed, as there was enough grain in Russia to feed the starving areas. The peasants used medieval technology like wooden ploughs and sickles. They rarely had modern fertilizers or machinery (the Petrovsky Academy, in Moscow, was Russia's only agricultural school). Russia's primitive railways were not up to redistributing grain. The main blame was laid at the government, which was discredited by the famine. It refused to use the word golod (голод) but called it a poor harvest, neurozhai (неурожай), and stopped the papers from reporting on it.^[2] The main reasons that the blame fell on the government were that grain exports were not banned until mid-August and merchants even had a month's warning and so they could quickly export their reserves. Minister of Finance Ivan Vyshnegradsky even opposed the late ban.^[2] He was seen as the main cause of the disaster, as it was his policy to raise consumer taxes to force peasants to sell more grain.^[2] Even Russia's capitalists realized that the industrialization drive had been too hard on the peasants.

The government also contributed to the famine indirectly by conscripting peasant sons and sending taxmen to seize livestock when grain ran out. The government also implemented a system of redemption payments as compensation to landlords who had lost their serfs, who, across Russia, had gained their freedom as part of reforms a few years earlier that were instigated by Tsar Alexander.

Droughts and famines in Russia and the Soviet Union

Johnson, Eric M. (2015) "Demographics, Inequality and Entitlements in the Russian Famine of 1891". The Slavonic and East European Review 93, no. 1 (2015): 96–119.

Reeves, Francis B. (1917). . New York, London: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Russia Then and Now, 1892–1917; my mission to Russia during the famine of 1891–1892, with data bearing upon Russia of to-day (1917)

Robbins, Richard G. (1975). . New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-03836-4.

Famine in Russia, 1891–1892

Simms, J. Y. (1982). "Economic Impact of the Russian Famine of 1891–1892". . 60 (1): 63–74. JSTOR 4208433.

The Slavonic and East European Review

Simms, J. Y. (1982). "The Crop Failure of 1891: Soil Exhaustion, Technological Backwardness, and Russia's 'Agrarian Crisis'". . 41 (2): 236–250. doi:10.2307/2496341. JSTOR 2496341. S2CID 163328399.

Slavic Review

David P. Lilly. The Russian Famine of 1891–1992. The Student Historical Journal, 1994–1995.

(in Russian)