Georges Bernanos Quotes
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.
Georges Bernanos, 1888-1948, French Political Writer, Diary of a Country Priest, 1936
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In 1921, there was a terrible famine in Communist Russia. The United States was ambivalent about humanitarian relief to the leading Bolshevik county while there were Communist supporters in the U. S. who were setting off bombs and calling for the overthrow of the democratic government. Herbert Hoover persuaded President Warren G. Harding that food aid relief was a moral obligation and would do much to weaken Bolshevism. 400 ARA Americans went to Russia and hired over 120,000 Russians to implement the relief program. Rarely in human history have this few people with the resources made available to them saved as many lives as Hoover and his staff did. A number of the Americans died in Russia from disease and those who survived worked under near impossible conditions. Ironically, while it created much good will towards the United States, many including Hoover suspected that the program and the pressure that the Americans put on the Soviet Government officials for more efficient administration may have forced the Soviet Government to learn how to organize much of othe society like the railroads, thus strengthening the Communist Party’s control over the country.
Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Roman Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as defeatism. He believed this had led to France's defeat and eventual occupation by Germany in 1940 during World War II. His two major novels "Sous le soleil de Satan" (1926) and the "Journal d’un curé de campagne" (1936) both revolve around a parish priest who combats evil and despair in the world. Most of his novels have been translated into English and frequently published in both Great Britain and the United States.
