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| == 1932-1933 USSR Famine == | |||
| ] | |||
| The '''Holodomor''' ({{lang-ua|Голодомор}}) was a famine on the territory of ] in the years ]–]. It was the largest national catastrophe of the ] in modern history, with loss of human life in the range of millions (estimates vary); the famine was caused by the deliberate policies of the government of the ]. | |||
| Famine occurred in the USSR agricultural regions during the country’s ambitious economic campaign that included the collevticization of agriculture and the industrial Five-Year Plans. The regions affected most were Ukraine, the Volga region, and the North Caucuses. The famine resulted primarily from the drought years of 1931 and 1932. Material from Russian archives confirms that in this famine there were 2 million deaths. 97% of these deaths occurred in 1933. The successful harvest of 1933 ended the famine. | |||
| == Famine Before 1932== | |||
| The famine in ] was a part of a wider ], the term ''Holodomor'' is specifically applied to the events that took place in territories populated by the ethnic Ukrainians. As such, the Holodomor is sometimes referred to as the Ukrainian ] {{ref|USCommission}} {{ref|Monument}} {{ref|Pope}} {{ref|HR356}} , or even the ], implying that the Holodomor was engineered by the ] to specifically target the Ukrainian people in order to destroy the Ukrainian nation as a political factor and social entity,. While historians continue to disagree whether the policies that led to Holodomor fall under the ], numerous governments have officially recognized the Holodomor as such (see section '']''). | |||
| Serious famines occurred in the Russian Empire and the USSR in 1891/1892, 1918-1922, and throughout 1932-1933. The 1891/1892 famine resulted in 500,000 excess deaths; and excess deaths in the famines of 1918-1922 are estimated at as many as 10-14 million. The famine of 1932-1933 was not the last famine experienced on Soviet territory. During World War II, famine conditions existed over a large part of the USSR – the best-known famine taking place during the siege of Leningrad. In 1946-1947, a further famine involved 1 million excess deaths, affecting Moldavia, Ukraine, and a large part of Russia. It was only from 1948 onwards that the Soviet Union was free from large-scale famine. | |||
| == 1891-1892 Famine== | |||
| The term Holodomor is derived from the Ukrainian expression ''moryty holodom'' (Морити голодом), which means "to inflict death by hunger". The fourth Saturday of November is the official day of commemoration of the Holodomor victims in Ukraine. | |||
| This famine affected about 40 million people and resulted in 500,000 premature deaths. It was concentrated in the Volga region, where the death rate increased to 40 per cent above normal. Poor weather in 1890 and severe drought in 1891 led to a dramatic decline in grain output in the Volga and central agricultural provinces. The famine was recognised publicly by the tsarist government soon after its outbreak, and a committee for famine relief under the future Nicholas II was established as early as October 1891. The effects of the famine were reduced considerably by the efforts of the government, supported by local agencies and charities. By June 1892, 11 million received food aid. | |||
| == |
==Famine of 1918-1922== | ||
| While complex, it is possible to group the causes of the Holodomor. They have to be understood in the larger context of the social revolution 'from above' that took place in the Soviet Union at the time. | |||
| A serious of largely urban famines in 1918-1920 was succeeded by a largely rural famine in 1921-1922. Estimates of the number of excess deaths range from 10 million to 14 million. The urban famines during the civil war reached their peak in the spring of 1919, both in northern towns such as Petrograd and southern towns such as Saratov. The level of mortality was between 2.5 and three times the normal. High mortality recurred in the following year, and most of the identifiable deaths were attributed to infectious diseases rather than starvation. A large number of deaths was caused by the outbreak of cholera in 1918 and the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919. The Soviet government succeeded in collecting only a fraction of the grain which was transferred from village to town in normal years. For most of this period, the grain-surplus regions were under anti-Communist control. | |||
| Once the civil war was over, the situation temporarily improved. In 1920/21, the grain requisitions increased to 6 millions tons of which 4 million came from territory recently liberated by the Bolsheviks. In the spring and summer of 1921, the decision to move away from requisitioning and reintroduce the market looked as though it would set the scene for economic recovery. A severe drought in 1921, following poor weather and and a poor harvest in 1920, was the immediate background to the famine. According to Soviet data, the grain harvest in 1920 was only 60 per cent of the pre-war level and it was even smaller in 1921. In these years, the Soviet government publicly recognised the existence of famine; Vladimir Lenin acknowledged the existence of famine as early as May 1918. International agencies provided food to more than 12 million people. | |||
| In the early ], when ] needed to win the sympathy of other nations for the newly born communist state, Ukraine enjoyed a short period of revival of its national culture under the policy of ]. This was, however, ended and replaced with the a policy of effective ], as soon as the Soviet regime firmly took root, thereby causing significant social, cultural, and political conflict in the Ukrainian populated territories. | |||
| ==Collectivization== | |||
| Simultaneously, a policy of ] of agriculture was introduced. Agriculture in Ukraine was affected more strongly by this than most other agricultural areas, as Ukraine has had a long tradition of individually owned farms, while most farms in Russia, for example, had been communal (not collective) property. | |||
| From 1921 to 1929, the New Economic Policy (NEP) permitted a partial degree of commerce. Due to the economic crisis of the late 1920s, a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Joseph Stalin proposed comprehensive industrial plans and the collectivisation of agriculture. Stalin’s right-wing allies Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov split with him over this issue. When a vote on the subject was taken, the majority of the Party favoured Stalin. Thus, the NEP was discontinued. The policy of collectivisation involved the gathering of. Up to June 1933, 65% of all peasant households were collectivised. | |||
| Unexpectedly, from the Bolshevik point of view, Collectivization proved highly unpopular with the rural population. When collectivization was still voluntary, very few peasants joined collective farms. The regime therefore began to increasingly put pressure on peasants to join collective farms, and to speed up the process of collectivization, tens of thousands of officials were sent into the countryside in 1929–1930. | |||
| ==Dekulakisation== | |||
| At the same time, the "]s", industrial workers, mostly devoted Bolsheviks, were sent to help run the farms. In addition, they were to fight the increasing passive and active resistance to collectivisation by engaging in what was euphemistically referred to as "dekulakization": the arresting of ']s' — allegedly well to do farmers who opposed the regime and withheld grain — and sending whole 'kulak' families into ] and Siberia. In fact, most of the so-called 'kulaks' were no more well off than other peasants. Effectively, the term 'kulak' was applied to anybody resisting collectivization. It is estimated that around 2 million{{fact}} Ukrainians became victims of these repressions in 1929-1932. | |||
| A kulak is a land-owning peasant who exploits the labour of those less fortunate. Naturally, the kulaks were bitterly opposed by the masses and their Bolshevik representatives. Thus, a campaign aimed at eliminating the kulaks as a class was adopted. | |||
| A Politburo decision on dekulakization on January, 30, 1930 divided the kulaks into three categories. Kulaks in Category 1, the ‘counter-revolutionary kulak aktiv’, were to be confined in concentration camps; those within this Category who were organizers of terrorist acts, of counter-revolutionary disturbances and of insurrectionary organizations were to be executed. Category II consisted of the remaining elements of the kulak aktiv, especially the richest kulaks and semi-landowners. Category II households were to be exiled to remote localities in the USSR and remote districts within their own region. A further category, Category III, consisted of kulaks who were to remain within their own district, and were to be resettled on new land areas outside the boundaries of the kolkhozy. | |||
| Collectivization proved to negatively affect agricultural output everywhere, but since Ukraine was the most productive area (over 50% of ]n wheat originated from Ukraine in the beginning of 20th century), the effects here were particularly dramatic. | |||
| Dekulakization had two main objectives. First, it sought to remove from the villages those peasants who, from their economic position or their political and social outlook, might be expected to resist collectivisation. The second objective of dekulakisation was to persuade reluctant peasants to join the kolkhozy, whatever their social category. The urban officials and workers who descended on the countryside were taught that peasants who opposed collectivisation were agents of the class enemy, and that the wrath of the proletariat should be meted out to them; they soon found that the threat of exile was a very effective means of recruitment. Many of the bourgeois peasants who were not disposed by the authorities self-dekulakised by migrating to the towns. If they remained in the villages, most or all of them had sold up much of their property to pay taxes or had distributed their wealth among relatives or friends within the village. | |||
| ] | |||
| A total of 381,026 households amounting to 1.8 million total people were relocated during the dekulakization campaign. Of these, 68,159 households were of Siberia; 63,720 of Ukraine, 53,936 of the Volga, 38,404 of North Caucuses, and 28,394 of the Urals. 128,233 of these households were relocated in the Urals, 97,968 in Siberia, 58,271 in the North, and 50,929 in Kazakhstan. | |||
| Despite the decrease in agricultural output, Soviet authorities soon drastically increased Ukraine's crop production quotas (by 44% in 1932). The targets were unrealistic and many historians believe that this was intentional. On ], ], the Moscow government imposed death penalty in Ukraine for any theft of public property {{ref|Potocki-320}} {{ref|Serczyk-311}} {{ref|Gregorovich}}. The scope of this law was very wide, and included even the smallest appropriation of grain by peasants for personal use. As a result, hundreds of peasants were executed each month under the new law. Still, until October 25, Moscow received only 39% of the demanded grain supplies. When it became clear that the 1932 grain deliveries were not going to meet the expectations of the government, the decreased agricultural output was blamed on the "]s", "nationalists", and "]vites". | |||
| ==1931 Harvest == | |||
| A special commission headed by ] was sent to Ukraine in order to execute the grain contingent.{{ref|Rajca-77}} On ], a secret decree urged Bolshevik police and repression forces to increase their "effectiveness". Molotov also ordered that if no grain remained in Ukrainian villages, all beets, potatoes, vegetables and any other food were to be confiscated. On December 6, a new regulation was issued that imposed the following sanctions on Ukrainian villages: ban on supply of any goods or food to the villages, requisition of any food or grain found on site, ban of any trade, and, lastly, the confiscation of all financial resources.{{ref|Potocki-321}} Measures were undertaken to persecute upon the withholding or bargaining of grain. This was done frequently with the aid of 'shock brigades', which raided farms to collect grain. This was done regardless of whether the peasants retained enough grain to feed themselves, or whether they had enough seed left to plant the next harvest. These, combined with the ban on travel and armed quarantines by the NKVD troops along the borders of Ukraine, turned the Ukrainian countryside into a gigantic death camp. | |||
| Grain production in 1931 was disastrous. The January 1931 plan set output at 97 million and collections at 32.7 million. The final output resulted to about 60 million tons with collections totalling 22.8 million. | |||
| In contrast, the harvest of 1930 was quite good. The plan for July 1930 set the level of grain production at 88 million tons with 22.7 in collections. The actual result was approximately 75 million tons with 22.1 collected. | |||
| The famine mostly affected the rural population. In comparison to the previous ] in the ] during 1921–22, which was caused by ], and the next one in ], the famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine was caused not by ] breakdown, or ], but by deliberate political and administrative decisions (e.g., see ). | |||
| In the main grain regions it was already clear before the harvesting began that the weather was unfavourable. Russia and parts of Ukraine suffered from fairly regular serious droughts, which significantly reduced crop yields. In 1925-1929 the weather was favourable; the only break in these years of fine weather came in 1927. The weather in 1930 was excellent, and amazed those statisticians who argued that a good harvest was improbable. In 1931, however, this run of good luck came to and end. The spring weather was much colder than usual; June was warmer; and July was much hotter than usual. The cold spring and the hot July were a deadly combination. The cold spring delayed the sowing and hence the whole development of grain. The grain reached its vulnerable flowering stage later than normal, coinciding with the hot July weather. From June the south-east suffered what is known as a sukhovei (literally, ‘dry wind’). In May-July, the normal weather pattern in the Volga and Black-Earth regions and on the Ukrainian steppe was that warm, dry, south-easterly winds from Kazakhstan gave way to colder and wetter winds from the north-west. But about once in every ten or twelve years the south-easterlies predominated throughout these months, the winds became scorching, no rain fell and the earth became parched. At these times, grain yields fell significantly and there was a risk of famine if reserve stocks of grain were not available. The sukhovei of 1891 and 1921 brought famine. In 1906 massive government assistance largely alleviated the problem. The drought, which had begun in West Siberia in May, spread to the Volga regions in June and July. The huge deficit in rainfall was accompanied by temperatures much higher than average in these three regions and part of Ukraine. By August 15, 62 million hectares had been reaped but only 31.5 million had been stacked or threshed. The sukohvei continued throughout the early stages of the harvest. It was reported that in the Central Volga it had lasted thirty-five days and had been worse than in the famine year 1921. | |||
| ] | |||
| The total number of work horses in the USSR fell from 20.9 million in July 1930 to 19.5 million in July 1931, having already fallen by about 1.8 million in the preious year, a decline of nearly 15% in two years. Many of the horses that had survived were in a deplorable state. Fodder was in short supply; in many cases kolkhozy had used up their fodder in the autumn without planning for the spring. Peasants who joined the kolkhozy in the spring frequently sold off their fodder before joining or used it for their privately-owned animals. Some kolkhozy in the Lower Volga were using the straw roofs of sheds as fodder, poisoning the horses in the process. The horses were often badly treated. Those transferred to common stables were often looked after by temporary grooms who took little interest in their work. As a result of the neglect and the lack of fodder, illnesses were widespread including ringworm, mange, foot and mouth disease, and glanders. The sick were often not isolated from the healthy. | |||
| The result was disastrous. Within a few months, the Ukrainian countryside, one of the most fertile agricultural regions in the world, was the scene of a general famine. The Soviet government denied initial reports of the famine, and prevented foreign journalists from traveling in the region. Some authors claim{{ref|DaviesWheatcroft-424}} that "the Politburo and regional Party committees insisted that immediate and decisive action be taken in response to the famine such that 'conscientious farmers' not suffer, while district Party committees were instructed to supply every child with milk and decreed that those who failed to mobilize resources to feed the hungry or denied hospitalization to famine victims be prosecuted." | |||
| The spring sowing was considerably delayed. Virtually no sowing took place in March. In April, it was delayed by nearly three weeks compared with 1930. On May 1, the total sown area amounted to 13.7 million hectares, the level reached before April 15 of the previous year. The delay in Ukraine and Lower Volga was caused primarily by the unusually cold weather. In other areas, excessive rain also added to the problems and made it difficult to catch up. Another reason for the delay was the failure of the autumn ploughing. | |||
| The reality was different according to thousands of eyewitness accounts. The masses of children fleeing the countryside were arrested by the Soviet authorities and were deported to "collectors" and orphanages, where they soon died of malnutrition. Here is a typical description: "The government converted this building into a so-called "collector" for homeless children caught on the streets, and who, after sanitary inspection, were sent to orphanages. When leaving my home, I would often see how trucks would pull up there and the police would take out the filthy, bedraggled children who had been caught on the streets. A guard stood at the entrance and no one was permitted inside. During the winter of 1932-33, I often saw, five or six times, how in the early morning they took out of the building the bodies of half-naked children, covered them with filthy tarpaulins, and piled them onto trucks." | |||
| == 1932 Harvest == | |||
| ] | |||
| To further prevent the spread of information about the famine, travel from the Don, Ukraine, North ], and ] was forbidden by directives of ] ] (signed by Molotov and Stalin) and of ] ] (joint directive ] ] and ]). The directives stated that the travels "for bread" from these areas were organized by enemies of the Soviet power with the purpose of agitation in northern areas of the USSR against kolkhozes. Therefore railway tickets were to be sold only by '']'' permits, and those who managed to travel northwards should be arrested. This travel ban aggravated the disaster. | |||
| Grain production for 1932 was slightly worse than the previous year. The January 1932 plan set the target at 90.7 million tons with 29.5 million tons in collections. The plan was then lowered to The final result was about 58 million tons with 18.8 million tons collected. | |||
| The quality of the cultivation was poor. Great efforts were made to fulfill the plan in spite of the inadequacy of draught power. But the peasants cultivating the soil were demoralised, and the drivers of the tractors and those concerned with their maintenance were inexperienced. Ploughing, sowing, and harvesting were all carried out in a slip-shod manner. Shallow ploughing was quicker and easier than deep ploughing, and was normally less effective. Sowing was quicker and easier if you did not waste time regulating the density of the spread of the seed and ensuring that corners of fields and inaccessible areas were covered. Harvesting would be less efficient if there was less concern about minimising harvesting losses. Additional draught power would have allowed all these operations to have been carried out more efficiently and at the most optimal time, resulting in larger yields and lower harvesting losses. Fewer horses meant less manure and therefore poorer soil. | |||
| Meanwhile, Stalin was also centralizing political power over Ukraine. In January 1933, in response to CP(b)U complaints about the disastrous effects of forced collectivization, Stalin sent ] to Ukraine as Second Secretary in Ukraine, along with thousands of Russian officials. Postyshev ]d Ukrainian officials who opposed collectivization or had supported ] in the 1920s, although some survived, including ] and ]. He took control over the collectivization effort, and organized the confiscation of grain. | |||
| The shortage of draught power for ploughing and reaping was even more acute in 1932 than in the previous year. The number of working horses declined from 19.5 million on July 1,1931 to 16.2 million on July 1, 1932, a greater decline than in either of the two previous years. Desperate efforts to replace horses by tractors failed to compensate. Because of a foreign trade crisis, no tractors at all were imported for all of 1932. Horses were fed and maintained even more inadequately than in the previous year. The shortage of seed was a calamity in the spring of 1932. | |||
| Seed grain stocks as a result of limited famine relief were low for the 1933 planting, but due to normalized climactic conditions for 1933, the 1932-33 harvest proved adequate to avoid famine. | |||
| == Food Assistance == | |||
| In the spring of 1933, grain requisitions were stepped up even more, since the supply of grain to the cities had become precariously low. At the same time, grain exports continued as well, albeit at lower levels. Exports were seen as necessary by the Soviet government to provide hard currency for continued industrialization. The population responded to the situation with intense political resistance. However, this resistance never became organized on a wide scale owing to the scattered, low-density nature of the Ukrainian rural population. Furthermore, the Soviet authorities responded harshly to signs of dissent, often breaking up and deporting whole communities. | |||
| The Russian archives extensively document measures taken by the Soviet regime to assist regions struck by famine. Between February and July 1933, no fewer than thirty-five Politburo decisions and Sovnarkom decrees authorised in total the issue of 320,000 tons of grain for food. Food was distributed co children through the schools; existing creches and children's homes were greatly expanded; and emergency children's homes were established to accomodate the large number of homeless children who had been separated from, or discarded by, their hungry parents. In a telegram sent to an official of the Veshenskii district in concern to food assistance, Stalin remarked, "We will do everything required. Inform size of necessary help. State a figure." | |||
| ==Death Toll == | |||
| ==Estimation of the loss of life== | |||
| ] | |||
| According to Russian archives, the death toll in the entire USSR excluding Kazakhstan for which there was not a registration system for births and deaths from the 1932-1933 famine was approximately 2.3 million. Of this figure, 97% were during 1933. The total amount of registered deaths in 1933 amounted to 5.2 million compared with a 2.8 million average during 1927-1928. Subtracting the 1927-1928 average deaths from the 1933 figure results in approximately 2.3 million deaths above normal. | |||
| By the end of 1933, between five and ten million people had starved to death or had otherwise died unnaturally in Russia and Ukraine. The exact number of the victims remains unknown; the ] long denied that the famine had ever existed, and the ] (and later ]) archives on the Holodomor period have never been fully disclosed. While the course of the events as well as their underlying reasons are still a matter of debate, even the official Soviet statistics show a decrease of roughly four million people in the population of Ukraine between 1927 and 1932. (). <!--According to census of 1926 the population of the Ukrainian Soviet republic totals 31,194,976 inhabitants, according to census of 1937 the population of the Ukrainian Soviet republic is 28,070,404 inhabitants (Conquest)--> | |||
| The bulk of these deaths resulted not from starvation but from disease. The body’s immunity weakens when it does not receive a sufficient amount of nutrients. In 1929, there were 40,000 cases of Typhus and 3 million cases of Malaria. In 1933, infectious disease soared to 800,000 cases of Typhus and 6.5 million cases of malaria. | |||
| Taking an estimate of natural population growth of one to two percent, the calculated loss of population in Ukraine was over ten million during these years. When considering this number, one must also take into account the numbers involved in migration (including ]) and the ] of 1933, factors difficult to quantify. The premeditation of the mass murder can also be judged from the official Soviet figures of grain exports. The USSR exported 1.70 million tons of grain in 1932 and 1.84 million tons in 1933 (), almost a quarter of a ton in each year per each dead in the Holodomor. The Soviet authorities made sure to prevent the starving Ukrainians from traveling to areas where food was more available. It is estimated that about 81.3% of the victims were ethnic Ukrainians, 4.5% Russians, 1.4% Jews and 1.1% were Poles.{{ref|Maksudov}} Altogether, Ukraine lost 25-50% of its rural population. Since the peasantry constituted the foundation of the national identity of Ukraine,{{ref|Potocki}} the tragedy deeply affected all the Ukrainian nation beyond recovery for many forthcoming years. | |||
| == End of the Famine== | |||
| ==Elimination of Ukrainian cultural elite== | |||
| The artificial famine of 1932-33 fit well into the politics of assault on Ukrainian national culture. The events of 1932-33 in Ukraine were seen by the Soviet Communist leaders as an instrument against possible Ukrainian self-determination. At the 12th Congress of the ], Moscow's plenipotentiary Postyshev declared that "1933 was the year of the defeat of Ukrainian nationalist counter-revolution."{{ref|12thCongressCPbU}} This "defeat" encompassed not just physical extermination of a significant portion of Ukrainian peasantry, but also virtual elimination of Ukrainian clergy, mass imprisonment and executions of Ukrainian intellectuals, writers and artists. | |||
| The successful harvest of 1933 is what ended the famine in autumn of that year. The January 1933 plan set the target of grain production at 80.2 million with 26.1 in collections. The actual result was about 75 million tons with 22.7 million in collections. | |||
| == Politicisation of the Famine== | |||
| By the end of 1930s, approximately four-fifths of the Ukrainian cultural elite had been "eliminated".{{ref|Britannica}} Some, like Ukrainian writer ], committed suicide. One of the leaders of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, Mykola Skrypnyk, witnessing the results of his cooperation with Moscow, shot himself in the summer of 1933. The Communist Party of Ukraine, under the guidance of state officials like ], ], and Postyshev, boasted in early 1934 of the elimination of "counter-revolutionaries, nationalists, spies and class enemies". Whole academic organizations, such as the Bahaliy Institute of History and Culture, were shut down following the arrests. | |||
| In the Cold War, an era during which an extensive degree of anti-Soviet propaganda was espoused, the West made allegations that the famine was brought about deliberately through USSR policies. The death toll was substantially exaggerated from famine. In Ukraine alone, they claimed, about 7 million perished even though the population of Ukraine at the time numbered just 28 million. Misinformation was spread about demographics. Right-wing historian Robert Conquest whose work has been largely discredited claimed that the population of the 1937 census was 14 million below projections. However, through simple arithmetic with the net increase figures (births minus deaths) of the 1927-1928 figures, the population of the 1937 would have totalled 168 million if the birth and death rates of 1927 were to continue. The 1937 census found the population to have been 162 million, 6 million short of projections. The shortcoming of expectations was not attributed to soaring deaths. Rather, it was from a plunge in birth rates particularly during the famine. Between 1930-1933, there were 5.2 million projected births that did not take place. | |||
| Nationalists mostly from western Ukraine have gone as far as to allege the USSR of genocide towards the Ukrainian people. They have gathered various affiliates particularly amongst the right-wing of the West. However, what should be realized is that Ukraine was not alone in enduring famine. Famine in 1932-1933 affected perhaps half of USSR’s entire population. A fair portion of the Bolshevik leadership consisted of non-Russian nationalities. There was a highly disproportionate percentage of Latvians, Jews, Poles, and Georgians within the Communist Party. It is illogical to allege the Georgians Joseph Stalin and Grigory Ordzhonikidze, the Latvian Yan Rudzutak, the Armenian Anastas Mikoyan, the Pole Stanislav Kosior, and the Jews Lazar Kaganovitch and Yakov Yakovlev of Great Russian chauvinism. Ukrainian Nationalists have assembled a cult called the “Holodomor”. Like the Jewish “Holocaust, the “Holodomor” manifests ethnic exclusivity. While shutting out the perspective of other groups, there is a campaign of trying to garner attention by stressing that a particular group suffered greatly. With pressure from the Ukrainian Nationalist lobby in America, Sander Levin of the U.S Congress sponsored legislation that would acknowledge the “Holodomor” as genocide. The governments of several countries that are generally anti-Russian in outlook have classified the “Holodomor” as genocide. | |||
| In the 1920s, the ] had gained a significant following amongst the Ukrainian peasants. Mass arrests of the hierarchy and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church culminated in the liquidation of the church in 1930. Thousands of priests were tortured, executed and sent to ] in Siberia and the Far North. | |||
| The Ukrainian Nationalist lobby in America with sponsorship from members of the U.S Congress have propagated this cult manifested by the erection of a monument in honor of what they perceive as a genocide. Most serious scholars reject the 1932-1933 famine as being a manifestation of genocide. | |||
| ==Was the Holodomor genocide?== | |||
| ] | |||
| ===Sources=== | |||
| The inventor of the term "genocide", ] was a featured speaker at the manifestation of Ukrainian-Americans in September 1953 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the famine. Today, the governments or parliaments of 26 countries recognized the 1932-1933 famine as an act of genocide. Among them ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. Still the Holodomor remains a politically charged topic. | |||
| R.W Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, "The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933", Palgrave Macmillian, 2004 | |||
| R.W Davies, Mark Tauger, and Stephen Wheatcroft, "Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933", ''Slavic Review'', vol. 54, no.3, 1995 | |||
| Most historians (including ]) agree that the famine of 1932–33 was artificial—that is a deliberate ], if not genocide, committed as part of ]'s ]. Some historians maintain, however, that the famine was an unintentional consequence of ], and that the associated ] to it by the Ukrainian peasantry exacerbated an already-poor ].{{ref|weather}} The researchers state that while the term Ukrainian Genocide is often used in application to the event, technically, the use of the term "genocide" is inapplicable. <!-- They argue that since the Holodomor did not affect cities, and was limited to rural areas of Ukraine, it is not plausible to argue that the government tried to destroy the Ukrainian people as such. It has been suggested that the Holodomor be classified not as ], but as ].{{fact}} --> | |||
| Mark Tauger, "Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933" (Carl Beck Papers, University of Pittsburgh, No.1506, Pittsburgh, Pa., 2001) | |||
| In controversy, the term ], introduced by ] is "the murder of any person or people by a government, ''including'' ], ], and ]".. Moreover, arguments that the rural population (in 1932 75% to 85% of Ukrainians resided in villages) does not represent the whole nation, also what terminology to use for the designation of an event that led to the extermination of roughly one quarter of the population of the former Soviet republic of the ] in 1932-1933, as well as the dispute to what extent the Soviet government deliberately aggravated the famine is rather unreasonable and often used for confrontation and politicization of the tragedy.<ref name="Himka">"I am not saying that the famine or the other components of the victimization narratives do not deserve historical research and reflection, nor that evil should be ignored, nor that the memory of the dead should not be held sacred. But I object to instrumentalizing this memory with the aim of generating political and moral capital, particularly when it is linked to an exclusion from historical research and reflection of events in which Ukrainians figured as perpetrators not victims, and when “our own” evil is kept invisible and the memory of the others’ dead is not held sacred." {{cite journal | first = John-Paul | last = Himka | authorlink = John-Paul Himka | year = | month = | title = War Criminality: A Blank Spot in the Collective Memory of the | |||
| Ukrainian Diaspora | journal = Spaces of Identity | volume = 5 | issue = 1 | pages = 5-24 | id = | url= }} </ref> | |||
| Mark Tauger, ""Statistical Falsification in the Soviet Union: A comparative Case Study of Projections, Biases, and Trust", 2001 | |||
| Although the famine went outside Ukraine's borders into the Volga Basin and the Don and Kuban steppes of Russia, yet the full extensiveness of Stalin's intervention in crop seizure was seen only in Ukraine and Kuban - a region in Russia whose significant rural population was ] - 18th century descendants from the ], and thus with potentially significant Ukrainian lineage. | |||
| Mark Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933", ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 70-89 | |||
| According to the US Government Commission on the Ukrainian Famine () which investigated over 200 witnesses as well as documented data, the Holodomor was caused by the seizure of the 1932 crop by the Soviet authorities. The commission testified that "while famine took place during the 1932-1933 agricultural year in the Volga Basin and the North Caucasus Territory as a whole, the invasiveness of Stalin's interventions of both the Fall of 1932 and January 1933 in Ukraine are paralleled only in the ethnically Ukrainian Kuban region of the North Caucasus" (also , ). This was also confirmed by foreign observers in 1933.{{ref|Schiller}} | |||
| <!-- Unsourced image removed: ] --> | |||
| On ], ], the ] (parliament) of Ukraine passed a resolution declaring the famine of 1932–1933 an act of genocide, deliberately organized by the Soviet government against the ]. Governments and parliaments of other countries such as ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and the ] have also officially recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide {{ref|USCommission}} {{ref|Monument}} {{ref|Pope}} {{ref|HR356}}. | |||
| Matossian, M.K., "Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics, and History" (New Haven,Conn., 1989) | |||
| ==Politicization of the Holodomor== | |||
| Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization" (New York and Oxford, 1994) | |||
| The Holodomor remains a politically charged topic for many parties, especially in Russia and hence heated debates are likely to continue for a long time. Until around 1990, the debates largely were between Stalin apologists, who denied the Holodomor either ''in toto'' or claimed that it was unintentional, historians, who accepted the reality of the Holodomor but denied that it was intentional, and those who claim that it was intentional. Many Russian authors continue claiming that the Holodomor was not an act of genocide but a "mere famine".{{ref|UnifiedRus}} Some scholars denied the existence of the famine, attributed it to Nazi propaganda, poor weather conditions, post-traumatic stress {{ref|weather}} or "military needs". While generally rejected, these claims are still being disputed in some academic circles.{{ref|Marples}} | |||
| E.H Carr and R.W Davies, "Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926-1929,", vol. 1, (London, 1969) | |||
| Nowadays, the Holodomor issue is politicized within the framework of uneasy relations between Russia and Ukraine (and also between various regional and social groups within Ukraine). The anti-Russian factions in Ukraine have vested interest in advancing the interpretation that the Holodomor was a genocide, perpertrated by Russia-centric interests within the Soviet government. Russian political interests and their supporters in Ukraine have reasons to deny the deliberate character of the disaster and play down its scale. | |||
| Douglas Tottle, "Fraud, Famine Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard", Progress Books, (Toronto, 1987) | |||
| Some criticize Ukrainian communities for using the term Holodomor, or sometimes Ukrainian Genocide, or even ], to appropriate the larger-scale tragedy of collectivization as their own national terror-famine, thus exploiting it for political purposes.<ref name="Himka"/> | |||
| Stephen Wheatcroft, "New Demographic Evidence on Excess Collectivization Deaths: Yet Another Kliukva from Steven Rosefielde?", ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 505-508 | |||
| One of the biggest arguments is that the famine was preceded by the onslaught on the Ukrainian national culture, a common historical detail preceding all known mass killings. | |||
| Lynne Viola, "The Role of the OGPU in Dekulakization, Mass Deportations and Special Resettlement in 1930" (Carl Beck Papers, University of Pittsburgh, No.1400, Pittsburgh, Pa., 2000 | |||
| Nationwide the political repressions of 1937 under the guidance of ] were known for their ferocity and ruthlessness, but Lev Kopelev wrote, "In Ukraine 1937 began in 1933", referring to the comparatively early beginning of the Soviet crackdown in Ukraine. {{ref|Kopelev}}. | |||
| Stephen Wheatcroft, "Challenging the Traditional Views of Russian History" (Basingstoke, 2002) | |||
| While the famine was ], its reality has been disputed by some for reasons of ], such as the Soviet government and its spokespeople (as well as ] of the Soviet regime), by others due to being deliberately misled by the Soviet government (such as ]), and in at least one case, ], for personal gain. | |||
| R.W Davies, Mark Harrison, and Stephen Wheatcroft, "The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945" (Cambridge, 1994) | |||
| An example of a late-era Holodomor objector is ] ] ], author of ''Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard'' (1987). Tottle claims that while there were severe economic hardships in Ukraine, the idea of the Holodomor was fabricated as ] by ] and ], to justify a ]. Tottle is not a professional historian and his work did not receive any serious attention in the historiography of the subject. | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| # {{note|Potocki-320}} Potocki, p. 320. | |||
| # {{note|Potocki-321}} ibid, p. 321. | |||
| # {{note|Serczyk-311}} Serczyk, p. 311. | |||
| # {{note|Britannica}} E.g. Encyclopedia Britannica, "History of Ukraine" article. | |||
| # {{note|Rajca-77}} Rajca, p. 77. | |||
| # {{note|DaviesWheatcroft-424}} Davies, Wheatcroft, pp. 424-5 | |||
| # {{note|weather}} Tauger 1991 {{ref|Tauger}} and the acrimonious exchange between Tauger and Conquest {{ref|Tauger-Conquest-1}} {{ref|Tauger-Conquest-2}}. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| :inline | |||
| <references/> | |||
| # {{note|Monument}} | |||
| # {{note|Pope}} | |||
| # {{note|HR356}} , U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., ], ] | |||
| # {{note|SovietDoc}} , ''"Resolution Of The Council Of People's Commissars Of The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic And Of The Central Committee Of The Communist Party (Bolshevik) Of Ukraine On Blacklisting Villages That Maliciously Sabotage The Collection Of Grain"'', ], ]. | |||
| # {{note|Dalrymple}} Dana G. Dalrymple, ''"The Soviet famine of 1932-1934"'' in ''Soviet Studies'', Vol. 15, No. 3 (Jan., 1964). Pages 250-284. | |||
| # {{note|Conquest}} ], ''"The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine"'' (Chapter 16: "The Death Roll" ), University of Alberta Press, 1986. | |||
| # {{note|UnifiedRus}} {{ru icon}} Several articles from the Russian ''(Unified Rus')'' web site, e.g. , , . | |||
| # {{note|Tauger}} {{en icon}} Mark B. Tauger, ''"The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933"'' in Slavic Review 50 No 1, Spring 1991, pp. 70-89 | |||
| # {{note|Tauger-Conquest-1}} {{en icon}} Letters of Mark Tauger and ] in Slavic Review 51 No 1, pp. 192-4 | |||
| # {{note|Tauger-Conquest-2}} {{en icon}} Letters of Mark Tauger and ] in Slavic Review 53 No 1, pp. 318-9 | |||
| # {{note|Marples}} {{en icon}} David Marples, '''' in ], June 28, 2002. | |||
| # {{note|Potocki}} Robert Potocki, ''"Polityka państwa polskiego wobec zagadnienia ukraińskiego w latach 1930-1939"'' (in Polish, English summary), Lublin 2003, ISBN 8391761541 | |||
| # {{note|Serczyk}} {{pl icon}} Władysław A. Serczyk, ''"Historia Ukrainy"'', 3rd ed., Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław 2001, ISBN 8304045303 | |||
| # {{note|Gregorovich}} Andrew Gregorovich, ''"Genocide in Ukraine 1933", part 4: "How Did Stalin Organize the Genocide?"'' , Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre, Toronto 1998. | |||
| # {{note|USCommission}} U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, ''"Findings of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine"'' , Report to Congress, Washington, D.C., ] ] | |||
| # {{note|Schiller}} Dr. Otto Schiller, ''"Famine's Return to Russia, Death and Depopulation in Wide Areas of the Grain Country"'' , The Daily Telegraph, ], ], as well as . | |||
| # {{note|12thCongressCPbU}} ''"12th Congress of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, Stenograph Record"'', Kharkiv 1934. | |||
| # {{note|Dolot}} Miron Dolot, ''"Execution by Hunger. A Hidden Holocaust"'', New York 1985, ISBN 0393018865 | |||
| # {{note|Maksudov}} Sergei Maksudov, ''"Losses Suffered by the Population of the USSR 1918–1958"'', in The Samizdat Register II, ed R. Medvedev (London–New York 1981) | |||
| # {{note|DaviesWheatcroft}} R.W. Davies & Stephen G. Wheatcroft, ''"The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931-33"'', Palgrave 2004. | |||
| # {{note|Kopelev}} Orest Subtelny, ''"Ukraine: A History"'', 1st edition, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1988 ISBN 0802083900 | |||
| # {{note|Rajca}} Czesław Rajca, ''"Głód na Ukrainie"'', Werset, Lublin/Toronto 2005, ISBN 8360133042 | |||
| #{{note|Mace}} James Mace, ''"The Man-Made Famine of 1933 in Soviet Ukraine"'' in "Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933", p. 1-14, Edmonton 1986 | |||
| # {{note|Hrycak}} Ярослав Грицак (Jarosław Hrycak), ''"Historia Ukrainy 1772-1999. Narodziny nowoczesnego narodu"'', Lublin 2000, ISBN 8385854509, | |||
| # {{note|Shapoval}} Yuri Shapoval, ''"The famine-genocide of 1932-1933 in Ukraine"'', Kashtan Press, Ontario 2005, ISBN 1896354386 (a collection of source documents) | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| ===Declarations and legal acts=== | |||
| {{wikisourcepar|Joint Statement on Holodomor}} | |||
| * , U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, Report to Congress. Adopted by the Commission, ] ] | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| ===Books=== | |||
| * Robert Conquest, (1986) | |||
| * Douglas Tottle, (1987) | |||
| ===Links and sources=== | |||
| * Robert Conquest, ''The Harvest of Sorrow'', | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * , U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., ], ] | |||
| * | |||
| * {{uk icon}} at the Central State Archive of Ukraine (, ) | |||
| * {{uk icon}} | |||
| * by Dr. Dana Dalrymple | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * {{uk icon}}/{{hu icon}} | |||
| * Six part series from '']'' by Dr. Stanislav Kulchytsky, ''Why did Stalin exterminate the Ukrainians? Comprehending the Holodomor. The position of Soviet historians'': | |||
| * (the recording is of the whole session, Kuchinsky's address starts at 27 min) | |||
| * - a summary of Yuri Shapoval's lecture, 2003 | |||
| * {{en icon}} - an article by Stanislav Kulchytsky, October 2005. | |||
| *{{cite journal | author=Yaroslav Bilinsky| title= Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 Genocide?| journal= Journal of Genocide Research | year= 1999| volume= 1| issue= 2| pages= 147–156 | url=http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/bilinsky.html }} | |||
| * , author of several of the references listed above | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Revision as of 20:33, 3 May 2006
1932-1933 USSR Famine
Famine occurred in the USSR agricultural regions during the country’s ambitious economic campaign that included the collevticization of agriculture and the industrial Five-Year Plans. The regions affected most were Ukraine, the Volga region, and the North Caucuses. The famine resulted primarily from the drought years of 1931 and 1932. Material from Russian archives confirms that in this famine there were 2 million deaths. 97% of these deaths occurred in 1933. The successful harvest of 1933 ended the famine.
Famine Before 1932
Serious famines occurred in the Russian Empire and the USSR in 1891/1892, 1918-1922, and throughout 1932-1933. The 1891/1892 famine resulted in 500,000 excess deaths; and excess deaths in the famines of 1918-1922 are estimated at as many as 10-14 million. The famine of 1932-1933 was not the last famine experienced on Soviet territory. During World War II, famine conditions existed over a large part of the USSR – the best-known famine taking place during the siege of Leningrad. In 1946-1947, a further famine involved 1 million excess deaths, affecting Moldavia, Ukraine, and a large part of Russia. It was only from 1948 onwards that the Soviet Union was free from large-scale famine.
1891-1892 Famine
This famine affected about 40 million people and resulted in 500,000 premature deaths. It was concentrated in the Volga region, where the death rate increased to 40 per cent above normal. Poor weather in 1890 and severe drought in 1891 led to a dramatic decline in grain output in the Volga and central agricultural provinces. The famine was recognised publicly by the tsarist government soon after its outbreak, and a committee for famine relief under the future Nicholas II was established as early as October 1891. The effects of the famine were reduced considerably by the efforts of the government, supported by local agencies and charities. By June 1892, 11 million received food aid.
Famine of 1918-1922
A serious of largely urban famines in 1918-1920 was succeeded by a largely rural famine in 1921-1922. Estimates of the number of excess deaths range from 10 million to 14 million. The urban famines during the civil war reached their peak in the spring of 1919, both in northern towns such as Petrograd and southern towns such as Saratov. The level of mortality was between 2.5 and three times the normal. High mortality recurred in the following year, and most of the identifiable deaths were attributed to infectious diseases rather than starvation. A large number of deaths was caused by the outbreak of cholera in 1918 and the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919. The Soviet government succeeded in collecting only a fraction of the grain which was transferred from village to town in normal years. For most of this period, the grain-surplus regions were under anti-Communist control.
Once the civil war was over, the situation temporarily improved. In 1920/21, the grain requisitions increased to 6 millions tons of which 4 million came from territory recently liberated by the Bolsheviks. In the spring and summer of 1921, the decision to move away from requisitioning and reintroduce the market looked as though it would set the scene for economic recovery. A severe drought in 1921, following poor weather and and a poor harvest in 1920, was the immediate background to the famine. According to Soviet data, the grain harvest in 1920 was only 60 per cent of the pre-war level and it was even smaller in 1921. In these years, the Soviet government publicly recognised the existence of famine; Vladimir Lenin acknowledged the existence of famine as early as May 1918. International agencies provided food to more than 12 million people.
Collectivization
From 1921 to 1929, the New Economic Policy (NEP) permitted a partial degree of commerce. Due to the economic crisis of the late 1920s, a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Joseph Stalin proposed comprehensive industrial plans and the collectivisation of agriculture. Stalin’s right-wing allies Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov split with him over this issue. When a vote on the subject was taken, the majority of the Party favoured Stalin. Thus, the NEP was discontinued. The policy of collectivisation involved the gathering of. Up to June 1933, 65% of all peasant households were collectivised.
Dekulakisation
A kulak is a land-owning peasant who exploits the labour of those less fortunate. Naturally, the kulaks were bitterly opposed by the masses and their Bolshevik representatives. Thus, a campaign aimed at eliminating the kulaks as a class was adopted.
A Politburo decision on dekulakization on January, 30, 1930 divided the kulaks into three categories. Kulaks in Category 1, the ‘counter-revolutionary kulak aktiv’, were to be confined in concentration camps; those within this Category who were organizers of terrorist acts, of counter-revolutionary disturbances and of insurrectionary organizations were to be executed. Category II consisted of the remaining elements of the kulak aktiv, especially the richest kulaks and semi-landowners. Category II households were to be exiled to remote localities in the USSR and remote districts within their own region. A further category, Category III, consisted of kulaks who were to remain within their own district, and were to be resettled on new land areas outside the boundaries of the kolkhozy.
Dekulakization had two main objectives. First, it sought to remove from the villages those peasants who, from their economic position or their political and social outlook, might be expected to resist collectivisation. The second objective of dekulakisation was to persuade reluctant peasants to join the kolkhozy, whatever their social category. The urban officials and workers who descended on the countryside were taught that peasants who opposed collectivisation were agents of the class enemy, and that the wrath of the proletariat should be meted out to them; they soon found that the threat of exile was a very effective means of recruitment. Many of the bourgeois peasants who were not disposed by the authorities self-dekulakised by migrating to the towns. If they remained in the villages, most or all of them had sold up much of their property to pay taxes or had distributed their wealth among relatives or friends within the village.
A total of 381,026 households amounting to 1.8 million total people were relocated during the dekulakization campaign. Of these, 68,159 households were of Siberia; 63,720 of Ukraine, 53,936 of the Volga, 38,404 of North Caucuses, and 28,394 of the Urals. 128,233 of these households were relocated in the Urals, 97,968 in Siberia, 58,271 in the North, and 50,929 in Kazakhstan.
1931 Harvest
Grain production in 1931 was disastrous. The January 1931 plan set output at 97 million and collections at 32.7 million. The final output resulted to about 60 million tons with collections totalling 22.8 million.
In contrast, the harvest of 1930 was quite good. The plan for July 1930 set the level of grain production at 88 million tons with 22.7 in collections. The actual result was approximately 75 million tons with 22.1 collected.
In the main grain regions it was already clear before the harvesting began that the weather was unfavourable. Russia and parts of Ukraine suffered from fairly regular serious droughts, which significantly reduced crop yields. In 1925-1929 the weather was favourable; the only break in these years of fine weather came in 1927. The weather in 1930 was excellent, and amazed those statisticians who argued that a good harvest was improbable. In 1931, however, this run of good luck came to and end. The spring weather was much colder than usual; June was warmer; and July was much hotter than usual. The cold spring and the hot July were a deadly combination. The cold spring delayed the sowing and hence the whole development of grain. The grain reached its vulnerable flowering stage later than normal, coinciding with the hot July weather. From June the south-east suffered what is known as a sukhovei (literally, ‘dry wind’). In May-July, the normal weather pattern in the Volga and Black-Earth regions and on the Ukrainian steppe was that warm, dry, south-easterly winds from Kazakhstan gave way to colder and wetter winds from the north-west. But about once in every ten or twelve years the south-easterlies predominated throughout these months, the winds became scorching, no rain fell and the earth became parched. At these times, grain yields fell significantly and there was a risk of famine if reserve stocks of grain were not available. The sukhovei of 1891 and 1921 brought famine. In 1906 massive government assistance largely alleviated the problem. The drought, which had begun in West Siberia in May, spread to the Volga regions in June and July. The huge deficit in rainfall was accompanied by temperatures much higher than average in these three regions and part of Ukraine. By August 15, 62 million hectares had been reaped but only 31.5 million had been stacked or threshed. The sukohvei continued throughout the early stages of the harvest. It was reported that in the Central Volga it had lasted thirty-five days and had been worse than in the famine year 1921.
The total number of work horses in the USSR fell from 20.9 million in July 1930 to 19.5 million in July 1931, having already fallen by about 1.8 million in the preious year, a decline of nearly 15% in two years. Many of the horses that had survived were in a deplorable state. Fodder was in short supply; in many cases kolkhozy had used up their fodder in the autumn without planning for the spring. Peasants who joined the kolkhozy in the spring frequently sold off their fodder before joining or used it for their privately-owned animals. Some kolkhozy in the Lower Volga were using the straw roofs of sheds as fodder, poisoning the horses in the process. The horses were often badly treated. Those transferred to common stables were often looked after by temporary grooms who took little interest in their work. As a result of the neglect and the lack of fodder, illnesses were widespread including ringworm, mange, foot and mouth disease, and glanders. The sick were often not isolated from the healthy.
The spring sowing was considerably delayed. Virtually no sowing took place in March. In April, it was delayed by nearly three weeks compared with 1930. On May 1, the total sown area amounted to 13.7 million hectares, the level reached before April 15 of the previous year. The delay in Ukraine and Lower Volga was caused primarily by the unusually cold weather. In other areas, excessive rain also added to the problems and made it difficult to catch up. Another reason for the delay was the failure of the autumn ploughing.
1932 Harvest
Grain production for 1932 was slightly worse than the previous year. The January 1932 plan set the target at 90.7 million tons with 29.5 million tons in collections. The plan was then lowered to The final result was about 58 million tons with 18.8 million tons collected.
The quality of the cultivation was poor. Great efforts were made to fulfill the plan in spite of the inadequacy of draught power. But the peasants cultivating the soil were demoralised, and the drivers of the tractors and those concerned with their maintenance were inexperienced. Ploughing, sowing, and harvesting were all carried out in a slip-shod manner. Shallow ploughing was quicker and easier than deep ploughing, and was normally less effective. Sowing was quicker and easier if you did not waste time regulating the density of the spread of the seed and ensuring that corners of fields and inaccessible areas were covered. Harvesting would be less efficient if there was less concern about minimising harvesting losses. Additional draught power would have allowed all these operations to have been carried out more efficiently and at the most optimal time, resulting in larger yields and lower harvesting losses. Fewer horses meant less manure and therefore poorer soil.
The shortage of draught power for ploughing and reaping was even more acute in 1932 than in the previous year. The number of working horses declined from 19.5 million on July 1,1931 to 16.2 million on July 1, 1932, a greater decline than in either of the two previous years. Desperate efforts to replace horses by tractors failed to compensate. Because of a foreign trade crisis, no tractors at all were imported for all of 1932. Horses were fed and maintained even more inadequately than in the previous year. The shortage of seed was a calamity in the spring of 1932.
Food Assistance
The Russian archives extensively document measures taken by the Soviet regime to assist regions struck by famine. Between February and July 1933, no fewer than thirty-five Politburo decisions and Sovnarkom decrees authorised in total the issue of 320,000 tons of grain for food. Food was distributed co children through the schools; existing creches and children's homes were greatly expanded; and emergency children's homes were established to accomodate the large number of homeless children who had been separated from, or discarded by, their hungry parents. In a telegram sent to an official of the Veshenskii district in concern to food assistance, Stalin remarked, "We will do everything required. Inform size of necessary help. State a figure."
Death Toll
According to Russian archives, the death toll in the entire USSR excluding Kazakhstan for which there was not a registration system for births and deaths from the 1932-1933 famine was approximately 2.3 million. Of this figure, 97% were during 1933. The total amount of registered deaths in 1933 amounted to 5.2 million compared with a 2.8 million average during 1927-1928. Subtracting the 1927-1928 average deaths from the 1933 figure results in approximately 2.3 million deaths above normal.
The bulk of these deaths resulted not from starvation but from disease. The body’s immunity weakens when it does not receive a sufficient amount of nutrients. In 1929, there were 40,000 cases of Typhus and 3 million cases of Malaria. In 1933, infectious disease soared to 800,000 cases of Typhus and 6.5 million cases of malaria.
End of the Famine
The successful harvest of 1933 is what ended the famine in autumn of that year. The January 1933 plan set the target of grain production at 80.2 million with 26.1 in collections. The actual result was about 75 million tons with 22.7 million in collections.
Politicisation of the Famine
In the Cold War, an era during which an extensive degree of anti-Soviet propaganda was espoused, the West made allegations that the famine was brought about deliberately through USSR policies. The death toll was substantially exaggerated from famine. In Ukraine alone, they claimed, about 7 million perished even though the population of Ukraine at the time numbered just 28 million. Misinformation was spread about demographics. Right-wing historian Robert Conquest whose work has been largely discredited claimed that the population of the 1937 census was 14 million below projections. However, through simple arithmetic with the net increase figures (births minus deaths) of the 1927-1928 figures, the population of the 1937 would have totalled 168 million if the birth and death rates of 1927 were to continue. The 1937 census found the population to have been 162 million, 6 million short of projections. The shortcoming of expectations was not attributed to soaring deaths. Rather, it was from a plunge in birth rates particularly during the famine. Between 1930-1933, there were 5.2 million projected births that did not take place.
Nationalists mostly from western Ukraine have gone as far as to allege the USSR of genocide towards the Ukrainian people. They have gathered various affiliates particularly amongst the right-wing of the West. However, what should be realized is that Ukraine was not alone in enduring famine. Famine in 1932-1933 affected perhaps half of USSR’s entire population. A fair portion of the Bolshevik leadership consisted of non-Russian nationalities. There was a highly disproportionate percentage of Latvians, Jews, Poles, and Georgians within the Communist Party. It is illogical to allege the Georgians Joseph Stalin and Grigory Ordzhonikidze, the Latvian Yan Rudzutak, the Armenian Anastas Mikoyan, the Pole Stanislav Kosior, and the Jews Lazar Kaganovitch and Yakov Yakovlev of Great Russian chauvinism. Ukrainian Nationalists have assembled a cult called the “Holodomor”. Like the Jewish “Holocaust, the “Holodomor” manifests ethnic exclusivity. While shutting out the perspective of other groups, there is a campaign of trying to garner attention by stressing that a particular group suffered greatly. With pressure from the Ukrainian Nationalist lobby in America, Sander Levin of the U.S Congress sponsored legislation that would acknowledge the “Holodomor” as genocide. The governments of several countries that are generally anti-Russian in outlook have classified the “Holodomor” as genocide.
The Ukrainian Nationalist lobby in America with sponsorship from members of the U.S Congress have propagated this cult manifested by the erection of a monument in honor of what they perceive as a genocide. Most serious scholars reject the 1932-1933 famine as being a manifestation of genocide.
Sources
R.W Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, "The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933", Palgrave Macmillian, 2004
R.W Davies, Mark Tauger, and Stephen Wheatcroft, "Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933", Slavic Review, vol. 54, no.3, 1995
Mark Tauger, "Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933" (Carl Beck Papers, University of Pittsburgh, No.1506, Pittsburgh, Pa., 2001)
Mark Tauger, ""Statistical Falsification in the Soviet Union: A comparative Case Study of Projections, Biases, and Trust", 2001
Mark Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933", Slavic Review, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 70-89
Matossian, M.K., "Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics, and History" (New Haven,Conn., 1989)
Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization" (New York and Oxford, 1994)
E.H Carr and R.W Davies, "Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926-1929,", vol. 1, (London, 1969)
Douglas Tottle, "Fraud, Famine Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard", Progress Books, (Toronto, 1987)
Stephen Wheatcroft, "New Demographic Evidence on Excess Collectivization Deaths: Yet Another Kliukva from Steven Rosefielde?", Slavic Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 505-508
Lynne Viola, "The Role of the OGPU in Dekulakization, Mass Deportations and Special Resettlement in 1930" (Carl Beck Papers, University of Pittsburgh, No.1400, Pittsburgh, Pa., 2000
Stephen Wheatcroft, "Challenging the Traditional Views of Russian History" (Basingstoke, 2002)
R.W Davies, Mark Harrison, and Stephen Wheatcroft, "The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945" (Cambridge, 1994)