From around 1917, at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, and due to the famine in Russia, in 1921, the bodies of children who had starved to death were piled up at the 138th collection point and loaded onto carts.

　　 From around 1917, at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, and due to the famine in Russia, in 1921, the bodies of children who had starved to death were piled up in the Samara region and loaded onto carts at the 138th collection point. Around 5 million people died from the famine, and the Volga and Ural River regions were mainly affected.

　　In May and June 1921, Lenin ordered the purchase of food from abroad. This was to feed the city dwellers, not the peasants, as the famine could have political repercussions. In June 1921, Lenin said that a “dangerous situation” was underway as a result of the famine. Lenin used the famine as an excuse to launch an attack on the Russian Orthodox Church. In July 1921, Zhuravinsky warned the Cheka that the threat of counterrevolution was imminent in the famine-stricken areas and ordered strict preventive measures. The media were forbidden to mention the crop failure at all, and even in early July they continued to report that everything was fine in the countryside. The Bolshevik leaders were keen to avoid any obvious connection with the famine. Kalinin, the Kremlin's ambassador to the peasants, was the only person to visit the affected areas. On August 2, 1921, when the famine had reached its worst, Lenin addressed the “international proletariat”. In it, he pointed out that “in some Russian provinces, there is a famine that is only slightly inferior to the misery of 1891”.

　　The Russian famine of 1921-1922 was a severe famine in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The famine was exacerbated by the economic chaos caused by the Russian Revolution, a severe drought, and the failure of government policy in the aftermath of World War I, as well as a railway system that was unable to efficiently distribute food. The famine led many people to resort to cannibalism. Epidemics of cholera and typhus were also among the casualties of the famine.