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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)