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The U.S. initiative was applauded overseas, where nearly two dozen other countries and relief organizations have already promised help, including $1 billion in credits and outright gifts and $1.4 billion in technical assistance from the European Community. So far, the Soviet Union has received more than 2,500 tons of goods, mostly food, which are being distributed to children's homes, pensioners, invalids and low-income families; all aid is under close guard to prevent pilfering.
Among the most generous rescue efforts are those from Germany. Chancellor Helmut Kohl is eager both to reward Gorbachev's support for unification and to promote stability as a way of keeping hordes of hungry Russians from heading west. The Germans have promised nearly $10 billion in aid, as well as enough meat, milk and medicine for 10 million people for a month. With a sense of irony and shame, war veterans in Leningrad find themselves awaiting CARE packages from Germany nearly 50 years after the city's population was virtually starved in the siege. Many believe Leningrad is suffering severe shortages these days at least partly because hard-line Communists are trying to undermine the democratically elected, reform-minded city council.
For outsiders seeking to help, the greatest challenge is not supply but distribution. The old centrally controlled system has crumbled, but no private market system has yet grown up in its place. An economic civil war rages between the republics and central state purchasing agents. The decrepit rail and road transportation system is grossly inefficient. In light of such fundamental weaknesses, critics of U.S. aid -- and some cynical Soviet citizens -- wonder if the relief will ever reach those who need it most.
Wary of pouring money down a sinkhole, Bush promised to send over experts in food distribution to prevent the Western supplies from rotting in warehouses alongside this year's Soviet harvest. The goal is to ease the panic of Soviet shoppers, who daily confront empty shelves in government stores. Experts believe hoarding, born of fear, is exacerbating the shortages -- and that cannot be solved by credits alone. "If the problem isn't with how much they can grow, the solution isn't going to be in how much more they can buy abroad," notes Richard Feltes, vice president of Chicago-based Refco, one of the world's largest commodities brokers.
Though there is talk of famine and reports of ever longer lines, most / experts agree that while Soviets may suffer, they will not starve this winter. State stores in Moscow and Leningrad are empty of bread, soap, matches, meat. Yet private shops are abundantly stocked and now account for as much as one- half the Soviet food supply, though they charge up to ten times state prices. With the exception of desperately poor areas like Uzbekistan, most regions are managing to feed their people. But the cost is high: nearly everyone is reduced to scavenging and hoarding, rather than working and rebuilding.