Help yourself by helping others: self-interest in appeals for Russian famine relief, 1921-23

The hypothesis of psychological egoism is a commonplace in disciplines like economics, psychology, and biology. As an explanatory model it includes prosocial behaviour such as providing aid for distant strangers. But the inclusion of self-interest in humanitarian appeals can prove difficult because the moral economy of charitable work is regulated by different standards than the liberal market economy. This paper analyses the use of self-interest in appeals for humanitarian aid during the Russian famine of 1921-23 through the lens of modern philanthropic studies, while simultaneously assessing theories of philanthropic behaviour from a historical perspective. It points out the need for the systematic inclusion of historical experience in philanthropic research and concludes that the specific conditions surrounding the international campaign favoured the widespread use of appeals to donors' self-interest. An ideal-typical categorisation of such appeals into four groups-national, economic, group-specific, and psychological-is proposed as an analytical tool for similar studies.