Pleas for Help - 1921 Famine

According to an official Rosta News Agency dispatch there is a first official report of cannibalism in these famine districts, which was made by the Samaran Delegate Ovsienko to the All-Russian Soviet Congress in late December of 1921:

'At Ramikovesky the people are eating the dead,' Ovsienko told the Congress. 'It is dangerous to bury famine victims in the presence of the people and guards must be kept over them until they are in a state that makes eating impossible.'6

That the government is alerted this early about the issues facing them in these famine areas is a fairly good example of the inefficiency of their system. When the other two articles were written in 1922, any kind of solution had yet to have been made by the Soviet government with the exception of allowing foreign organizations to provide some relief for the most affected areas.