Famine relief mobilizes children and families

Severe drought followed several years of poor precipitation. The crop failure interacted with procurement, distribution, and reconstruction policy to produce a famine that struck Ukraine and...

Archival records and survivor testimony document hunger, disease, and rising mortality in the Moldavian SSR. The crisis was especially severe in Bessarabia and southern districts, where drought,...

The General Assembly approved the creation of a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. The Soviet Union participated in negotiations over international control while pursuing its own nuclear...

The Moldavian SSR government and Communist Party bureau issued a joint resolution providing assistance to collective farms, state farms, and individual farmers after the poor 1946 harvest. Relief...

The Soviet Union joined the Paris peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. The settlement redrew borders and constrained sovereignty, particularly in Eastern Europe, where...

The U.S. Secretary of State proposed European recovery aid. Soviet leaders rejected the program and pressed governments in their sphere to do likewise, linking reconstruction to bloc competition and...

At the founding conference of the Communist Information Bureau, Andrei Zhdanov described a world divided into imperialist and anti-imperialist camps. The new body coordinated ruling communist...

Soviet security forces deported tens of thousands of people from western Ukraine to Siberia and other eastern regions, targeting families alleged to aid the Ukrainian nationalist underground....

A government and party decree exchanged old rubles for new ones and ended wartime rationing. The measure restructured household savings and cash holdings as the state sought to stabilize the currency;...

The monetary reform took effect, with exchange limits and conversion rules affecting savings, wages, and cash economies. Official claims of stabilization must be read alongside the unequal burden on...