The Russian famine which began in 1921 claimed six million people and placed many more at the brink of starvation, willing to do anything–anything–to avoid succumbing to the privations. This classic 1921 photograph shows the starving who had turned to cannibalism to survive. From the June 9, 1922 New York Times:

“London–A shocking story of despair, death and cannibalism in Russia was narrated to The Associated Press today by William Shafroth, son of former Governor Shafroth of Colorado, who arrived in London after a year’s work with the American Relief Administration in the Russian famine regions.

The desperate people, he said, are eating human beings, diseased horses, dogs, and cats. Cemeteries are being dug up and long-buried bodies snatched as food. In their hunger-madness the people are stealing bodies from morgues and hospitals to eat. Mr. Shafroth, who had charge of 20,000 Russians working for the American Relief Administration in the Samara district, is emaciated after his arduous work among the starving, dying and shelterless. But he gave ample proof that the famine sufferers did not try to seize him for cannibalistic purposes, as had been reported while he was in Russia. He said, however, that a Russian member of the A.R.A., who died of typhus, was disinterred at night and eaten by crazed inhabitants. This gave rise to the report that Mr. Shafroth had been devoured.

In some respects the young American’s narrative is unequaled even by the tragic pictures in Daniel Defoe’s journal of the plague year.

‘I know one instance,’ said Mr. Shafroth, ‘where a distracted mother of five children killed the youngest in order to appease the pangs of the rest of the flock; but the oldest boy cried bitterly when he saw his mother sever his little brother’s head and place the body into a pot. He refused to eat the flesh.”