Book Review of The Russian Job — How the U.S. Saved the Soviet Union

Democrats and Republicans working together to provide assistance to Iran would seem impossible in today’s polarized politics. Similar political divisions, due to the “red scare”, divided our nation in the early 1920’s, nevertheless, bi-partisan support provided humanitarian aid to a country that wished to overthrow our government.

Douglas Smith’s book, The Russian Job — The forgotten story of how America saved the Soviet Union from Ruin, reads like a thriller as he describes the commitment of anti-communist capitalists helping the Russian people survive one of history’s most devastating famines — in a country whose government was dedicated to the eradication of capitalism.

Smith sets the stage by introducing Herbert Hoover, not as the President, but as a humble Quaker, with a blacksmith father. Hoover eventually became a very wealthy operator and investor in mining operations around the world. He left business to be a philanthropist during World War One, creating and then managing the independent Commission for the Relief of Belgium to help their citizens fight off starvation. After the war, President Woodrow Wilson made him the director of the American Relief Foundation, which distributed over $1 billion in aid to 32 countries including the defeated…