In 1932-1933 there was no drought in Ukraine, Kuban and the Volga region
What were the causes of the famine? Traditionally, famine in Russia was associated with droughts and crop shortages. Therefore, the question of weather conditions and harvest in the grain regions of the USSR on the eve of the tragedy is of fundamental importance to us. We have collected numerous facts on this matter. First of all, there is very important evidence from specialists who directly observed the weather and the 1932 harvest in the grain regions of the USSR. Thus, the Commission of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee to study the progress of Soviet economic and cultural construction in the North Caucasus, in its report written in January 1933, touching on the issue of the 1932 harvest, concluded that the weather factor did not deserve attention from the point of view of its inclusion in the final report.
In a letter to Stalin dated July 26, 1932, K.E. Voroshilov, who visited the North Caucasus region, reported: “Climatic (meteorological) conditions of the current spring and summer in S.K. were extremely favorable.” Andrew Cairns, a Scottish-Canadian wheat specialist who toured major agricultural areas, including Ukraine, in the spring and summer of 1932, pointed to rainfall and did not provide any information about natural disasters such as droughts, floods, etc. He noted that although the grain crops around Kyiv and Dnepropetrovsk were quite poor, the color of the wheat indicated that it received the required amount of precipitation on time. Cairns observed a similar situation in Kuban.
The same can be said about the Volga region, a region traditionally prone to droughts and crop shortages. In 1931–1933, meteorological specialists established next characteristic weather in the spring-summer period, which determines the ripening of crops. 1931 – moderate drought in the area of ​​the cities of Saratov and Stalingrad, severe – in the area of ​​​​Bezenchuk. In 1932 there was no drought. According to experts, this year can be described as “favorable for the harvest of all field crops.” Well-known Russian drought researchers V.F. Kozeltseva and D.A. Based on 40 weather stations located in the European part of the country, including in the regions under consideration, an aridity index was calculated, characterizing the intensity of atmospheric aridity for May–August 1900–1979.
It was found that in 1931 the index of atmospheric aridity in the area of ​​the cities of Saratov, Orenburg, and Astrakhan was significantly weaker than in 1921 and 1924. In 1932, the atmospheric aridity index did not show drought in the Volga region, Don and Kuban. At the request of the author, at the former All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Agricultural Meteorology (Obninsk) using a method developed by Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences O.D. Sirotenko, an employee of the institute V.N. Pavlova, using mathematical modeling, determined the yield of one of the main grain crops of the Volga region, spring wheat, for the period from 1890 to 1990, based on the agroclimatic conditions of these years. Hypothetically determined average level yield of spring wheat for 100 years and its deviation from this level for each of the given 100 years. It was found that in 1931, in the Lower Volga and Middle Volga regions, there should have been a significant decrease in the yield of spring wheat due to drought.
In 1932, the situation was already different. Hypothetically, the yield of spring wheat should have been equal to the 100-year average in rural areas of the modern Volgograd and Ulyanovsk regions, decreased slightly in the modern regions of Saratov (by 30%) and Samara (by 10%) regions, and fallen more seriously in the Orenburg region (by 40 %). The fact that in the Volga region in 1932 the weather could not significantly reduce the yield of grain crops is also evidenced by this fact. In Saratov, at the experimental station of the Grain Institute, the wheat harvest in 1932 averaged 15 centners per hectare, while the best farm in the entire Volga region produced a yield of 6 centners per hectare that year.
During a sociological survey of villages in the Volga region and Southern Urals, we asked old-timers a question regarding the influence of weather conditions on the onset of famine. In the questionnaire, it sounded as follows: “Was the grain harvest collected by the peasants of your village on the eve of the famine sufficient to provide their families with bread until the next harvest, or was this harvest completely or partially lost due to drought?” Of the 617 people surveyed, 293 were able to answer confidently. Of these, 206 responded affirmatively and 87 responded negatively. That is, of those who were able to answer this question, the overwhelming majority of witnesses to the events of 1932–1933 in the Lower Volga and Middle Volga regions (70.2%) did not recognize the influence of weather conditions on the onset of famine.
At the same time, almost 30% took a different position. But here it should be noted that these 30% did not deny the negative consequences of collectivization and grain procurements for the fate of the peasantry and emphasized that grain was taken out of the village, despite the drought. Thus, eyewitnesses of the events in question confirmed data from other sources about the nature of weather conditions in the Volga region and the Southern Urals in 1932.
In general, we can conclude that in 1931–1932 the weather in the grain-producing regions of the USSR was not entirely favorable for agriculture. However, while maintaining the existing level of agricultural technology, it could not cause a massive shortage of grain. In 1932, there was no drought in the grain regions, similar in its intensity and distribution boundaries to the droughts of the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries, which led to widespread destruction of crops.
We can only talk about local drought in certain areas, of average intensity. Therefore, the famine of 1932–1933 was not the result of natural disasters, but a natural consequence of the agrarian policy of the Stalinist regime and the reaction of the peasantry to it.

Cause of the 1932–1933 famine - grain procurements and collectivization policies

Therefore, the famine of 1932–1933 was not the result of natural disasters, but a natural consequence of the agrarian policy of the Stalinist regime and the reaction of the peasantry to it.
Its immediate causes were the anti-peasant policy of collectivization and grain procurement, carried out by the Stalinist leadership in order to solve the problems of accelerated industrialization of the country and strengthen its own power. In 1932–1933, famine struck not only Ukraine, but all the main grain-producing regions of the USSR, zones of complete collectivization.
A careful study of the sources points to a fundamentally unified mechanism for creating a famine situation in the grain-producing regions of the country. Everywhere this is forced collectivization, forced grain procurements and state deliveries of other agricultural products, dispossession, suppression of peasant resistance, destruction of the traditional system of survival of peasants in conditions of hunger (liquidation of the kulaks, fight against beggary, spontaneous migration, etc.). The most important thing is that there was a process of simultaneous entry of the collectivized regions of the USSR into famine. We emphasize once again simultaneous entry. The logical chain of events that led to the tragedy can be built as follows - collectivization, grain procurements, the agrarian crisis of 1932, peasant resistance, “punishing the peasants through hunger” in the name of strengthening the regime and establishing the collective farm system.
The inextricable connection between collectivization and famine can be judged at least by such an obvious fact as the cessation in 1930 of the period of stable development of the Soviet village that began after the famine years of 1924–1925. Already 1930 - the year of complete collectivization - marked the return of the specter of hunger. In a number of regions of Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Siberia, the Lower and Middle Volga, food difficulties arose as a result of the grain procurement campaign of 1929, which was used as a catalyst for the collective farm movement. It seemed that 1931 should be a satisfying year for grain growers, since in 1930, due to exceptionally favorable weather conditions, a record harvest was harvested in the grain regions of the country (according to official data - 835.4 million quintals, in reality - no more than 772 million quintals) . But no. Winter-spring of 1931 is a sad harbinger of a future tragedy.
The editorial offices of central newspapers received numerous letters from collective farmers of the Volga region, the North Caucasus and other regions about their difficult financial situation. The main reasons for the difficulties that arose in these letters were named grain procurements and collectivization policies. Moreover, responsibility for this was often placed personally on Stalin. “People are breathing fire, cursing Comrade himself. Stalin, who created this sorrow,” said one of these letters. The experience of the first two years of collectivization clearly demonstrated that Stalin's collective farms, in their essence, had nothing in common with peasant interests. They were considered by the authorities primarily as a source for commercial grain and other agricultural products. The interests of grain growers were not taken into account.
The grain procurement planning system and methods for their implementation spoke very eloquently about this. Already the first year of collectivization clearly showed the goals for which it was carried out. In 1930, state grain procurements, compared to 1928, doubled. A record amount of grain for all the years of Soviet power (221.4 million centners) was exported from villages to account for grain procurements. In the main grain regions, procurement averaged 35–40%. In 1928 they fluctuated between 20–25%. For example, in 1930 in the North Caucasus region, the gross grain harvest increased to 60.1 million centners, compared to 49.3 million centners in 1928.
At the same time, 22.9 million centners were withdrawn from grain procurements, compared to 10.7 million centners in 1928, that is, 107% more. Moreover, the North Caucasus fulfilled not only the initial plan, but also the additional one, donating part of the seed, feed and food grains to account for grain procurements. As a result, as already mentioned, some areas of the North Caucasus Territory in the spring of 1931 experienced serious food difficulties, and seeds had to be imported to them for sowing collective farm fields. The year 1931 was not entirely favorable in terms of weather conditions. Although not as severe as in 1921, drought still struck five main regions of the North-East of the country (Trans-Urals, Bashkiria, Western Siberia, Volga region, Kazakhstan). This had the most negative impact on the yield and gross grain harvests. In 1931, a reduced grain harvest was obtained, according to official data, 694.8 million centners (in 1930 - 772 million centners).
However, state grain procurements were not only not reduced compared to the harvest year of 1930, but were even increased. For example, for the drought-stricken Lower Volga and Middle Volga regions, the grain procurement plan amounted to 145 million poods and 125 million poods, respectively (in 1930 they were 100.8 million poods and 88.6 million poods).

Methods for implementing grain procurement plans

The methods for implementing grain procurement plans were in the nature of surplus appropriation. The order of the era of “war communism” returned to the village. Local authorities, under pressure from the Center, raked all available grain from collective farms and individual farms. With the help of the “conveyor method” of harvesting, counter plans and other measures, strict control was established over the harvest. Dissatisfied peasants and activists were mercilessly repressed: they were dispossessed, expelled, and put on trial.
At the same time, the initiative in the “grain procurement chaos” came from the Stalinist leadership and Stalin personally. A clear indication of this is Stalin’s speech at the October 1931 plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The requests made at the plenum by the secretaries of the Middle Volga and Lower Volga regional committees to reduce grain procurements due to shortages (at the same time specific data on yields were given) Stalin rejected in a sharp form, mocking “how precise” the secretaries had become recently... And People's Commissar of the People's Commissariat of Supply Mikoyan, who was directly responsible for supplying the population with food, was present at the plenum, summing up the reports heard, and emphasized: “The question is not about the standards, how much will be left for food, etc., the main thing is to tell the collective farms: “first of all, fulfill state plan, and then satisfy your plan.”

Reduction of livestock numbers

Thus, pressure on the collective farm village came from the very top. Stalin and his inner circle bore personal responsibility for all the actions of local authorities to implement their decisions and their tragic consequences. The result of such a policy, as well as collectivization in general, was a deep crisis in agricultural production in 1932. Its tangible manifestations were: a sharp reduction in the number of working and productive livestock, spontaneous migrations of the rural population, and a decrease in the quality of basic agricultural work. By the beginning of the 1932 sowing season, the irreparable damage that livestock farming suffered as a result of collectivization became obvious. The country lost half its livestock, losing approximately the same amount of livestock products. Only in 1958 did the USSR exceed the 1928 level for the main types of livestock.
Due to the lack of fodder caused by the consequences of grain procurements, in the winter of 1931/32 there was the sharpest reduction in the number of working and productive livestock since the beginning of collectivization: 6.6 million horses died - a quarter of the remaining draft livestock, the rest of the livestock was extremely exhausted. The total number of working horses and bulls decreased in the USSR from 27.4 million in 1928 to 17.9 million in 1932. In the Lower Volga and Middle Volga regions in 1932, a similar picture was observed. There was the largest reduction in the number of livestock in all the years of collectivization. If in 1931, compared to 1930, the number of horses in the Lower Volga decreased by 117.0 thousand, in the Middle Volga - by 128.0 thousand, then in 1932, compared to 1931, this figure in the Lower Volga was 333.0 thousand horses, in the Middle Volga - 300.0 thousand.
Therefore, according to the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR, during the spring sowing campaign of 1932, for example, in the Lower Volga region, the load per working horse averaged 23 hectares (instead of 10 hectares before the start of collectivization). Hence, it was quite natural that the quality of basic field work on collective farms would decline in 1932. The forced socialization of cows and personal livestock of collective farmers was tragic in its consequences for the village. The source of this lawlessness was the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated July 30, 1931 “On the development of socialist livestock farming.” In practice, its implementation resulted in the banal requisition of livestock from peasant farmsteads. The response to this kind of action was the mass exodus of peasants from collective farms demanding the return of their livestock, equipment, and part of the crops. Peasants destroyed livestock, thereby undermining the foundations of not only livestock farming, but also food security.

Mass migration of peasants to cities

The mass migration of the healthiest and youngest peasants to the cities, first out of fear of dispossession, and then from collective farms in search of a better life, also significantly weakened the production potential of the village in 1932. Due to the difficult food situation in the winter of 1931/32, the most active part of collective farmers and individual farmers, primarily men of working age, began fleeing from the countryside to the cities and to work. A significant part of collective farmers tried to leave the collective farms and return to individual farming. The peak of mass exits occurred in the first half of 1932, when the number of collectivized farms in the RSFSR decreased by 1370.8 thousand, in Ukraine by 41.2 thousand.
Unauthorized migration from villages to cities and industrial areas amounted to 698,342 people in the USSR for the period from October 1931 to April 1, 1932. By the beginning of the spring sowing season of 1932, the Soviet countryside approached with undermined livestock production and a difficult food situation for the population. Therefore, for objective reasons, the sowing campaign could not be carried out efficiently and on time. The lack of draft power and violations of the rules of agricultural technology during the agricultural campaign of 1932 were predetermined by the consequences of the agrarian policy of the Stalinist leadership, which was detrimental to agricultural production.

The sowing and harvesting campaigns of 1932 were disrupted

Thus, the reduction in draft power led to serious delays in all major field work and a decrease in their quality. In 1932, according to the report of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee commission, the spring sowing campaign in the North Caucasus lasted for 30–45 days, instead of the usual week or a little more. In Ukraine, by May 15, 1932, only 8 million hectares were sown (for comparison: 15.9 million in 1930 and 12.3 in 1931). The persistent efforts of the authorities to expand the acreage of grain crops to increase their marketability, without introducing progressive crop rotations, introducing sufficient amounts of manure and fertilizers, inevitably led to depletion of the land, a drop in yields, and an increase in plant diseases. A huge reduction in draft power with a simultaneous increase in sown areas could not but result in a deterioration in the quality of plowing, sowing and harvesting, and, consequently, a decrease in yield and an increase in losses.
The facts of the high prevalence of weeds in the fields sown with grain in 1932 in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and other areas, and the low quality of weeding work are widely known. A natural consequence of such objective circumstances was huge losses of grain during harvesting, the extent of which had no analogues in the past. If in 1931, according to the NK RKI, more than 150 million centners were lost during harvesting (about 20% of the gross grain harvest), then in 1932 the harvest losses were even greater. For example, in Ukraine they ranged from 100 to 200 million poods; in the Lower and Middle Volga they reached 72 million poods (35.6% of the total gross grain harvest). In the country as a whole, in 1932 at least half of the harvest remained in the field. If these losses had been reduced by at least half, then there would have been no mass starvation in the Soviet countryside. However, according to sources and eyewitness accounts, in 1932 the harvest was average compared to previous years and quite sufficient to prevent mass starvation. But it was not possible to remove it in a timely manner and without losses.
Therefore, in the end it turned out to be worse than in 1931, although official figures indicate otherwise. A huge shortage of grain in the country after the end of the harvest and grain procurement campaign of 1932 arose due to objective and subjective circumstances. Objective reasons include the above-mentioned consequences of two years of collectivization, which affected the level of agricultural technology in 1932.
The subjective reasons were, firstly, peasant resistance to grain procurements and collectivization and, secondly, Stalin’s policy of grain procurements and repression in the countryside.

Peasant resistance to collectivization is the most important factor in famine

Peasant rejection of collective farms, their active resistance to the policy of collectivization and grain procurements is the most important factor in the agrarian crisis of 1932. The bulk of collective farmers and individual farmers, having an extremely negative experience in 1931, when as a result of grain procurements they were left without bread and were forced to endure a hungry winter, did not want and, due to objective conditions (lack of tax, first of all), could not work conscientiously on collective farms and their farms. Collective farmers preferred to work on the collective farm any other way of earning money: on a personal farm, on state farms, in the city.
Already in the autumn of 1931 and especially in the spring of 1932, the so-called “bagpipes” - collective refusals to work on collective farms - swept across the country. 55,387 peasants took part in them, including 23,946 people in Ukraine. Under these conditions, in order to interest peasants in timely harvesting, in May 1932, resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks were issued, according to which the state grain procurement plan was reduced and after their implementation (from January 15) free trade in bread and meat was allowed (in the case of regular deliveries to centralized funds). In the spring and summer months of 1932, decisions were made on the inadmissibility of the liquidation of personal subsidiary plots of collective farmers, on the return of livestock previously requisitioned for public farms, on the observance of the law and the end of lawlessness in the countryside.
However, all these measures of the so-called “neonep” could not produce results, since they were taken too late. In particular, the decree on “free trade” that the Soviet government was counting on did not work, since at the beginning of May 1932 the collective farmers simply did not have any grain left to sell to the market. It was not enough for his own consumption. The starving peasants were obsessed with one thought: how to survive winter and spring. The Cossacks and peasants, crushed by many years of tyranny, no longer trusted the authorities. Therefore, in the summer of 1932, from the beginning of the harvesting campaign on collective farms, previously unprecedented theft of collective farm grain from the fields, and the mass exodus of the working population from villages to work became widespread.
Self-dissolution of collective farms continued, accompanied, as stated in the OGPU reports, by “the dismantling of livestock, property and agricultural equipment”, “the unauthorized seizure and division of land and crops for individual use.” Collective farmers and individual farmers refused to work in the fields without public catering. Mass unrest broke out in a number of places, which the authorities suppressed with armed force. According to the OGPU, from April to June 1932, 949 mass protests were registered in rural areas of the USSR, compared to 576 in the first quarter. In addition, with the beginning of the harvest season, the theft of collective farm grain by peasants became a widespread phenomenon. The scale of the phenomenon was so great that the Soviet state, on Stalin’s personal initiative, on August 7, 1932, adopted the “famous” Resolution on the Protection of Public (Socialist) Property, providing for a sentence of 10 years and execution for caught thieves.
Local authorities, for the edification of others, published lists of executed peasants under this, aptly called by the people, “the law of five ears of corn.” This situation was natural, since its severity was due to the beginning of the grain procurement campaign, the nature of which convinced the peasants of the correctness of their behavior. The plans issued from above were unsustainable for collective farms and individual farms from the point of view of their organizational and economic state. Thus, the reduced harvest of 1932 was determined by a combination of objective and subjective reasons. Their ratio was not equal throughout the year.
In the spring of 1932, objective factors were dominant - the consequences of forced collectivization and grain procurements, which led to violations of agricultural technology during the sowing and weeding period. Although the subjective factor - the reluctance of the peasants to work conscientiously, also manifested itself. However, it was largely determined by objective circumstances (food difficulties, reduction of taxes, labor, etc.). With the beginning of the harvesting work, a subjective factor became dominant - peasant resistance to grain procurements. The peasants did not want to conscientiously harvest the crops in fear of hunger, which intensified as the grain procurement campaign unfolded.
But here, too, objective reasons of the same kind as during the sowing and weeding period made themselves felt. The entire set of circumstances listed above was based on Stalin’s collectivization policy, which was carried out consciously and decisively. Therefore, the main blame for the agrarian crisis of 1932 lies with the country's political leadership. It was this that gave rise to the crisis and bears the main responsibility for subsequent events. Therefore, in the broad sense of the word, we can say that the reduced harvest of 1932 was the result of a subjective factor - the policy of forced modernization carried out by the Stalinist regime through the ruthless exploitation of the countryside.

The grain procurement campaign of 1932, which left the village without bread, received sufficient coverage in historiography. Its regional features are related only to the size of the territories and the specific personalities of the performers. Otherwise, in its essence, it was the same for Ukraine, and for the Volga region, and for other zones of complete collectivization. In Ukraine, the Volga region, the Central Black Sea Region, the Don and Kuban, approximately the same processes took place. The October 1931 Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on grain procurements concerned all grain regions, and not just Ukraine. Extraordinary commissions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of 1932 on grain procurements were created almost simultaneously, and not only in Ukraine, but also in the Kuban and Volga region. “Black boards” for regions that failed to fulfill the grain procurement plan were introduced not only in Ukraine, but also in the North Caucasus Territory and the Volga region.
The confiscation of all food from peasants for failure to fulfill the grain procurement plan took place in 1932–1933 not only in Ukraine, but also in Russian regions, as evidenced, for example, by the resolution of the Starominsky district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of the North Caucasus Territory regarding the Novoderevenskaya village. The arbitrariness of the local authorities there in relation to rural workers during the grain procurement period was no less than in Ukraine, which can be judged, at least, from the letters of M.A. Sholokhova I.V. Stalin about the situation in the Veshensky district.

P forced confinement of peasants in famine-stricken areas

The infamous Stalin-Molotov directive of January 22, 1933 on the forced placement of peasants in starving areas did not apply only to Ukraine. It should not be forgotten that the Russian regions also had things that did not exist in Ukraine. These are the floggings of peasants on collective farms in the Lower Volga region during the agricultural campaign of 1931, as well as the general eviction of Cossack villages in the Kuban for “sabotage of grain procurements.” At the same time, Ukrainian specifics were present in the events of 1932–1933, just as all regions have their own specifics, especially in Kazakhstan, if we talk about the consequences of the tragedy.

Lack of “national specificity” of hunger

In the multinational Volga region, for example, the specificity of the famine was the absence of its “national specificity.” This means that in the zone of complete collectivization, Russians, Tatars, Mordovians, and representatives of other peoples equally starved. In this context, it should be noted that, despite the mountains of documents, researchers have not yet discovered a single resolution of the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government ordering death by starvation certain number Ukrainian or other peasants!
Returning to the Ukrainian factor in the events of 1932–1933, we point out, in our opinion, one very important circumstance that influenced their course and to a large extent predetermined their tragic consequences. In the summer of 1932, famine in Ukraine played the role of a destabilizing factor for neighboring regions, primarily the North Caucasus region and the Central Black Sea region. The hungry Ukrainian peasants who poured in there stimulated “panic sentiments” among the Cossacks and peasants, thereby disrupting the harvesting campaign and grain procurements.
The very fact of famine in Ukraine came as a shock to Russian peasants. The reaction of the Belarusians was indicative in this regard. In the summer of 1932, Belarus was filled with starving rural residents of Ukraine. Amazed Belarusian workers wrote to Pravda and the country’s top leadership that they did not remember that “Belarus had ever fed Ukraine.” However, a fundamental point should be noted - the famine in the neighboring grain regions of Russia arose simultaneously with the Ukrainian one, and the latter only acted as a catalyst for events, but not their cause. In our opinion, it was the mass flight of Ukrainian peasants from collective farms in the spring and summer of 1932 that, to a large extent, determined the tightening of the policies of the Stalinist leadership in the countryside as a whole, in all regions, including Ukraine. As evidenced by the published correspondence of I.V. Stalin and L.M. Kaganovich, at the beginning of 1932, Stalin believed that the main blame for the difficulties that arose in Ukraine lay with the local leadership, which did not pay due attention to agriculture, because it was carried away by the “giants of industry” and spread out the grain procurement plan in an egalitarian way across regions and collective farms. That is why in the spring of 1932 assistance from the Center was provided: seed and food loans.
However, after Stalin was informed that the leaders of Ukraine (G.I. Petrovsky) were trying to blame the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the difficulties that had arisen, and Ukrainian collective farmers, instead of being grateful for the help provided, abandoned collective farms, traveled around the European part of the USSR and ruining other people's collective farms “with their complaints and whining,” his position began to change. From the practice of providing food loans, Stalin moved on to the policy of establishing strict control over the rural population. Moreover, this trend intensified as peasant opposition to grain procurements grew in the form, first of all, of massive harvest theft in all grain-producing regions of the USSR without exception. Thus, the basis of Stalin’s firmness was the desire to strengthen the collective farm system and break peasant resistance to grain procurements both in Ukraine and other regions. To a certain extent, such a policy was also determined by the international situation.

External factor

The literature on the topic of collectivization somehow silently talks about this, and, meanwhile, the external factor, in our opinion, played a significant role in the events of 1932–1933 in Ukraine and the Soviet countryside as a whole. In December 1931, at a session of the Central Executive Committee V.M. Molotov spoke in strong terms about “the growing danger of military intervention against the USSR.” These were not empty words. As a result of the major failure of the Comintern's policy in China and the aggressive policy of Japan, a real hotbed of military threat arose on the Far Eastern borders of the USSR. In September 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria and occupied it a year later. On December 13, 1932, Japan rejected the non-aggression pact proposed by the USSR. At the beginning of 1933, the Japanese army reached directly the Far Eastern borders of the Soviet Union. The Stalinist leadership anxiously awaited Japan's further steps. And in Germany, Hitler came to power, and during the election campaign he initiated a fundraising circle to help the starving Germans in the USSR.
In the context of Japanese aggression in Northern China and the emerging Nazi threat in Europe, a firm and decisive position was important for the Stalinist leadership. “A confident and dismissive tone towards the great powers, faith in one’s own strength,” as V.M. expressed its essence in January 1933 at a session of the Central Executive Committee. Molotov. The external threat factor and the desire to preserve the international prestige of the USSR also predetermined the uncompromising nature of the confrontation between the Stalinists and the peasantry during the grain procurement campaign of 1932 both in Ukraine and in other regions. At the same time, we do not deny that the Stalinist regime had an accompanying motive in its policy in Ukraine in 1932–1933 - the desire to take advantage of the situation and neutralize those layers of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and the party-Soviet bureaucracy that advocated preserving the originality of Ukrainian culture and education in conditions of the beginning of unification of national cultures.

The famine of 1932–1933 helped Stalin eliminate opposition to his regime

What happened was approximately what happened during the famine of 1921–1922, when the Bolshevik leadership, under the pretext of saving the starving, dealt with dissident priests who resisted the disorderly confiscation of church valuables (remember the famous letter of V.I. Lenin to V.M. Molotov dated March 19, 1922 ) . The famine of 1932–1933 helped Stalin eliminate in Ukraine, in his opinion, potential opposition to his regime, which could grow from cultural to political and rely on the peasantry.

There are facts on this score, including those given in the 3rd volume of the documentary collection “The Tragedy of the Soviet Village,” dedicated to the Holodomor, which characterizes the activities of the OGPU bodies in the Ukrainian village. In particular, the organs of the OGPU waged a determined struggle against the so-called “nationalist counter-revolution.” Only in the period from January to August 1932, the OGPU of Ukraine discovered and neutralized 8 “nationalist groups of the Ukrainian chauvinist intelligentsia” with 179 participants. By the end of August 1932, 35 such groups with 562 participants had already been liquidated. In addition, the OGPU recorded facts of anti-Soviet agitation among party and economic activists in rural areas by former Ukapists, who claimed that the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government were “strangling Ukrainian national culture.”

In the same vein, one can consider the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated December 14, 1932 “On grain procurements in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Western Region,” which provided for the expulsion of “Petlyura and other bourgeois-nationalist elements from party and Soviet organizations” , as well as the translation in the North Caucasus of the paperwork of Soviet and cooperative bodies of the “Ukrainian regions”, all newspapers and magazines published there with Ukrainian language into Russian, translation of teaching subjects from Ukrainian into Russian in schools in these areas. However, there were other reasons behind the tragedy in Ukraine, primarily the anti-peasant policy of the Stalinists, Stalin’s distrust of the peasantry as a class, regardless of its nationality.

Characteristic in this regard was Stalin’s order, voiced in his letter from Sochi to Kaganovich and Molotov on June 18, 1932, about the prohibition of bringing the reduced grain procurement plan to the villages, so as not to discourage the peasants. In the same vein, there is an almost anecdotal story about the procurement of eggs in Ukraine, the plan of which assumed that for every hen counted, based on the logic of peasant behavior, there would be at least two, hidden from accounting. Therefore, they launched a plan, the implementation of which was possible if each chicken laid one egg per day. Stalin’s strategy of “insurance against peasant cunning” aggravated the situation, which M. Khataevich was not afraid to point out to Stalin in a letter dated December 27, 1932. He noted that if Ukraine had immediately received a reduced grain procurement plan, it would have been implemented, since people would have been confident in its reality. Peasants in Russia and Ukraine were punished by the 1933 famine for their unwillingness to work conscientiously on Stalin's collective farms.

All the blame for the collapse of the country's agriculture was laid by Stalin and his entourage on the local authorities, “kulaks” and “idler collective farmers”. This was announced to the whole world in the speeches of the leader and his associates at the January 1933 United Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission and the First All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers (February 1933). The scale of the famine of 1932–1933 is comparable to the situation during the “Tsar Famine” of 1921–1922.

Horrors of hunger

Famine gripped the main breadbaskets of the country and was accompanied by all its horrors. Numerous documents paint a gruesome picture of the suffering of millions of rural residents. The epicenters of the famine were concentrated in the grain regions - zones of complete collectivization, where the situation of the starving population was approximately the same. This can be judged from OGPU reports, reports from MTS political departments, and closed correspondence local authorities authorities with the Center, eyewitness accounts.

In particular, only we have established that in 1933 in the Volga region such settlements of the Lower Volga region as the village of Ivlevka in the Atkarsky district, the village of Starye Grivki in the Turkovsky district, and the collective farm named after Sverdlov in the Semenovsky village council of the Fedorovsky canton of the ASSRNP were almost completely depopulated. Numerous cases of corpse eating and burials in common pits of famine victims have been identified in the villages of the Saratov, Penza, Samara, and Volgograd regions. As you know, the same thing was observed in Ukraine, the Don and Kuban. There are official figures for the starvation mortality of the rural population in 1932–1933 registered by the registry office.

We do not share the opinion widespread in historiography about the lack of reliable information on mortality in the starving regions of the USSR due to the ineffective work of accounting bodies (registry offices). Our analysis of the primary documentation of 65 district registry office archives and four regional ones, located in the territory that in 1933 was part of the Lower Volga and Middle Volga regions, convincingly proved the fact of high mortality due to hunger and related diseases in the period under review at this time. territories. This was also evidenced by a significant drop in the birth rate in 1932–1934 in the studied areas. An analysis of the civil registry records of death contained in the archives of registry offices for 895 rural Soviets for the period from 1927 to 1940 showed that the registered mortality rate of the population in 1933 in the Lower Volga region exceeded the level of 1931 - 3.4 times, 1932 year - by 3.3 times, in the Middle Volga region, respectively, in 1931 - by 1.5 times, in 1932 - by 1.8 times.

The fact that the sharp jump in mortality in 1933 and the drop in the birth rate of the rural population were due to the ensuing famine is indicated by the records of causes of death available in death certificates, which directly or indirectly indicate famine. First of all, in the death registers there are direct indications of the death of peasants in 1933 from hunger. In particular, the “cause of death” column of the death certificate contains entries like: died “from hunger”, “exhaustion”, “starvation”, etc. In the registry office archives we studied, we found 3,296 records of similar content. The onset of famine and the extent of the hardships that befell the village are evidenced by the records available in the death certificates for 1933 about the death of peasants from diseases of the digestive system.

In particular, in the “cause of death” column of death certificates, such entries as “stomach exhaustion”, “inflammation of the intestines”, “bloody diarrhea”, “surrogate poisoning”, etc. are widespread. They convincingly illustrate a characteristic feature of the famine disaster - the death of starving people as a result of eating various surrogates. Documents from the registry office archives record numerous facts of peasant deaths in 1933 from diseases such as “typhoid”, “dysentery”, “dropsy”, “malaria” - constant companions of hunger.

Thus, the demographic statistics of registry offices clearly indicate the enormous scale of the famine disaster, comparable to the main grain-producing regions of the USSR. As the studied sources show, the famine in its epicenters equally affected villages with Russian and non-Russian populations and did not have “national specificity” as such, that is, directed against any one people. This situation is especially convincingly illustrated by the example of the Volga region, one of the most multinational regions of Russia. In particular, it is confirmed by the results of our survey of eyewitnesses of the famine, during which representatives of the main peoples traditionally living in the Volga region were interviewed (449 Russians, 69 Ukrainians, 42 Mordvins, 39 Chuvash, 10 Germans, 7 Tatars, 4 Kazakhs and 4 Lithuanians) . They recorded that the severity of hunger was determined by the territorial location of the village in the region and its economic specialization.

Demographic catastrophe

First of all, the epicenter of the famine were villages located in areas that specialized in commercial grain production. In them, famine equally struck Russian, Mordovian, Ukrainian and other villages. The famine of 1932–1933 was a real demographic catastrophe for the village and the country as a whole. A memorandum from the deputy head of the population and health care sector of the TsUNKHU of the USSR State Planning Committee dated June 7, 1934 indicated that the population of Ukraine and the North Caucasus as of January 1, 1933 alone decreased by 2.4 million people.

Among researchers, there are different estimates of the number of victims of this famine. Expert calculations made in recent years, based on a reliable source base, paint the following picture of demographic upheavals in the territory former USSR in 1932–1933. Thus, based on an analysis of census data from 1926 and 1937, as well as current civil registry records, demographic losses from the raging famine in Ukraine were calculated. Its direct losses amounted to 3,238 thousand people, or, adjusted for imperfect calculations, they can range from 3 to 3.5 million people. Taking into account the shortage of those born in 1932–1934 (1,268 thousand people) and the decline in the birth rate, the total losses range from 4.3 to 5 million people. According to our calculations, based on the analysis of materials from 65 archives of the registry office of the Volga region and data central authorities TSUNKHU USSR, the total demographic losses of villages and hamlets of the Volga region during the famine of 1932–1933, including direct victims of famine, as well as indirect losses as a result of the fall in the birth rate and migration of the rural population, amounted to about 1 million people.
The number of peasants who died directly from hunger and the diseases caused by it was determined to be 200–300 thousand people. In the North Caucasus region, the number of Cossacks and peasants who directly died from hunger and diseases caused by it, according to official data, is estimated at 350 thousand people. However, in relation to this region, it is also necessary to take into account the fact that during grain procurements, the mass eviction of “saboteurs” became widespread in the region. Just one grain procurement campaign in 1932 in the North Caucasus region was accompanied by human losses (victims of hunger, repression and deportations) of 620 thousand people, that is, about 8% of the population of the Don and Kuban.
By analyzing changes in gender and age structure of the population of Kazakhstan between two censuses (1926 and 1939), the number of Kazakhs who died of hunger and irrevocably migrated in 1931–1933 was determined to be between 1750–1798 thousand people, or 49% of its original number. In our opinion, modern development of the problem of demographic losses of the population of the USSR in the 1930s allows us to estimate them at 5 - maximum 7 million. Of these, according to calculations by V.B. Zhiromskaya, at least 2.5 million people live in the RSFSR. At the same time, Kazakhstan, which was part of the RSFSR with autonomy rights in the early 1930s, should also be taken into account in the general martyrology of victims. At least 1 million people died there from starvation. Thus, in 1932-33. On the famine-stricken territory of the USSR, which was comparable in terms of rural population density, approximately the same picture of starvation mortality was observed. In the RSFSR, at least 3 million people became victims of famine. The most important question of the topic is the reasons really huge casualties Ukraine during the Holodomor, compared with other regions of the USSR.

Demographic losses of Ukraine in 1932–1933

Peasants were deprived of traditional means of survival during famine

By 1933, in the collective farm village there were no insurance reserves of grain in case of famine, traditional for pre-revolutionary times.
During collectivization, they were not discussed at all, since grain was considered only as a source of funds for the needs of the state. This is especially eloquently evidenced by the grain loans issued to collective farms in 1932–1933. Unlike the pre-collective farm period, they pursued one goal - to force collective farmers to conscientiously fulfill state duties. As is known, at the peak of the famine, from February to July 1933, no less than 35 resolutions of the Politburo and decrees of the Council of People's Commissars were adopted on the issuance of a total of 320 thousand tons of grain for food needs. 1.274 million tons of bread were allocated for seeds, including secret supplies. However, the overwhelming majority of collective farmers, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses and other sources, did not consider them a fact of assistance to the starving population from the state, since the help came late, its size was meager, and it was selective.
First of all, food aid was intended only for those collective farmers who went to work on the collective farm. Both central and local authorities used bread as a tool for agricultural work. During the spring and harvest periods of 1933, the issuance of food loans was suspended on collective farms if collective farmers failed to complete agricultural work. For those going into the field, it was often significantly reduced when they failed to meet the planned production standards. Indicative in this regard is one of the resolutions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)U regarding what to do with the peasants of the Kiev region who ended up in the hospital as a result of hunger: “Divide all those hospitalized into sick and recovering, significantly improve the nutrition of the latter so that as soon as possible let them go to work.” Collectivization destroyed one of the traditional systems of survival of farmers during famine, associated with the existence in the village of a kulak, or, more precisely, a wealthy, economic grain grower, who was a constant guarantor for the poor in case of famine.
The main result of the agrarian policy of the Soviet government in the countryside by the beginning of 1933 was that, as a result of dispossession, peasants were deprived of the opportunity to receive private assistance within their village - a traditional form of survival in conditions of famine in the pre-collective farm village. Another means of village survival in conditions of famine at all times was begging. In 1932–1933, the government used every means at its disposal to prevent starving peasants from collecting alms. The poor were sent outside the region. In addition, urban workers, military personnel and residents of neighboring regions were prohibited from sharing their food rations with starving collective farmers. The traditional means of survival of peasants in conditions of famine was the sale of personal property, primarily livestock and agricultural implements.
In previous years, when the harvest was low due to drought and the villages were threatened with famine, peasants usually sold draft animals already in the first summer months. Farmers thereby saved bread for family food consumption, since it no longer needed to be used to feed livestock. The catastrophic reduction in the number of working and productive livestock during the years of collectivization and its socialization had the most negative impact on the situation of the peasants. In 1932–1933, peasants found themselves in worse conditions than in previous famine years, since, on the one hand, their draft animals were socialized and could not be sold for grain, and on the other, the livestock remaining at their disposal all cows died from lack of food. The most important means of survival for grain-growing families during famine are vegetable gardens and orchards on their plots, which allow them to obtain food supplies. But in 1932–1933 it was installed state control and over this source of existence for the peasant family. There is a huge amount of evidence of the confiscation of products grown on the personal plots of collective farmers and individual farmers, as well as preserved gifts of nature as punishment for failure to fulfill state obligations in all regions of the USSR.
For centuries, a proven tradition of salvation during famine was the ability of peasants to leave the disaster zone, go to work, or simply find a safer place and bide their time. Even without government assistance, the flight of starving people from the epicenter of the disaster to less affected areas significantly increased individual chances of salvation. During the famine, unlike previous years, the outflow of population from famine-stricken areas was difficult due to measures taken by the Soviet state to suppress spontaneous migration from the countryside. The most striking evidence of this was the “famous directive” of Stalin and Molotov of January 22, 1933 to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the North Caucasus Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the need to take measures to stop the flight of collective farmers from collective farms.
The very flight of hungry people was regarded as new form“kulak sabotage” with the aim of disrupting the spring sowing campaign. It is known in the literature that by the beginning of March 1933, the OGPU and the police detained 219,460 people. Of these, 186,588 people were returned back, the rest were prosecuted and convicted. In the same vein, there were measures to change the rules of otkhodnichestvo and introduce a passport system. In particular, according to the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated March 17, 1933, in order to retire, a collective farmer had to register an agreement with the collective farm board with the economic body that needed his services. In practice, this procedure was almost impossible to implement, since it required a preliminary agreement with the enterprise, state farm, etc. If a collective farmer left the collective farm without permission to work, he and his family were expelled from the collective farm and thus deprived of the right to receive a food loan, as well as those funds that they had earned on the collective farm or transferred to its indivisible funds. The certification of the urban population, which began in 1933, significantly complicated the employment of collective farmers who left the collective farms without permission. The police now received the right to expel peasants from the cities who did not have employment contracts with industrial enterprises, as well as to prevent unauthorized departure from the village.
Thus, the measures taken by the Soviet state actually attached peasants to collective farms, dooming them to hunger and starvation. They affected all regions and caused a significant increase in the mortality rate of the rural population. Speaking about the reasons for the high hunger mortality rate in 1932–1933 in the Soviet countryside, special mention should be made of the fact that the Stalinist leadership refused international assistance, as well as its policy of hungry grain exports at the peak of the famine. This situation fundamentally distinguished the famine of 1932–1933 from the first “Soviet famine” of 1921–1922 and mass hunger strikes in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Not a single gram was allocated from state reserves to the hungry; grain was sold abroad

Historians have established that in 1933, the Stalinist government did not allocate a single gram from the country's reserve grain fund (1.9997 million tons) for the needs of the village. It is not difficult to calculate that if in the first half of 1933, at the very peak of the famine, this bread had been supplied to the hungry in the amount of a six-month norm per person of 100 kg, at least it would have been enough for 20 million people not to die of hunger. But the matter did not stop there. The same can be said about the hungry grain exports. During the famine, Stalin and his entourage pursued an export policy according to the well-known formula of the tsarist government - “we won’t finish it, but we’ll export it.” Thus, in 1932, 1.6 million tons were exported. In January–June 1933, 354 thousand tons of grain were exported from the starving country.
Two authoritative Russian researchers - N.A. Ivnitsky and E.N. Oskolkov rightly believe that the 1.8 million tons of grain exported abroad in 1933 would have been quite enough to prevent mass starvation. According to N.A. Ivnitsky, the Soviet government, while exporting grain, could simultaneously sacrifice part of the country’s gold reserves for the purchase of other food products abroad. However, this did not happen. And the scale of the famine acquired monstrous proportions.

Stalin's leadership hushed up the famine

Historiography has proven that in 1932–1933, the Stalinist leadership kept silent about the famine, continued to export grain abroad and ignored attempts by the world community to help the starving population of the USSR based on its political course.
Acknowledging the fact of the famine would be tantamount to admitting the collapse of the model of modernization of the country chosen by Stalin and his entourage, which was unrealistic in the conditions of the defeat of the opposition and the strengthening of the regime. Nevertheless, in our opinion, even within the framework of the policy chosen by the Stalinist regime, he had real alternatives to mitigate the scale of the tragedy he created. For example, according to D. Penner, shared by the author of this article, hypothetically, Stalin could take advantage of the normalization of relations with the United States and purchase surplus food there at cheap prices. This step would also be evidence of goodwill on the part of the United States towards the USSR, in connection with the establishment of official diplomatic relations. The act of recognition seemed to “cover” the possible ideological and political costs of the USSR, which agreed to accept American assistance. The high parties would be able to “save their face.” In addition, this step would undoubtedly benefit American farmers.
Also, D. Penner and the author believe that the Stalinist leadership did not use the opportunities for international worker solidarity very rationally. The Soviet government could purchase food as a reward to its workers for their dedicated labor from their “class comrades” who were experiencing severe economic depression abroad. In particular, oranges could be imported from California, where they would be doused with kerosene and destroyed because it was cheaper than selling them on the market. Thus, the workers of the Californian ranches and their colleagues in distant Russia would receive support. This would be a manifestation of true international solidarity, which Stalinist propaganda trumpeted.

Main conclusion

The main conclusion that the author came to as a result of many years of research on this topic is the following: The onset of famine in 1932–1933 in the USSR (in Russia and Ukraine) was not associated with weather conditions and the level of agricultural development prior to collectivization as such. The famine was the result of collectivization, forced grain procurements and the suppression of peasant resistance to the Stalinist regime. All decisions concerning the development of the agricultural sector of the USSR economy in 1931–1933 were consciously made by the Stalinist leadership. The situation was aggravated by his policy of limiting and eliminating traditional methods of survival of peasants during famine, as well as the USSR's refusal of international assistance. Therefore, we can call the famine of 1932–1933 in Russia and Ukraine an organized, man-made famine.
At the same time, as world practice shows, the element of “man-made” was present in all hunger strikes, and the Stalinist regime was not original here. But it is impossible to justify it from the standpoint of humanism and religious morality.

Was the Holodomor a genocide of the Ukrainian people?

We do not support the opinion of Ukrainian historians about national genocide by famine in Ukraine in 1932–1933. There are no documents on this subject that would indicate that the Stalinist regime had a plan to destroy the Ukrainian people or reduce their numbers. In the cases of genocide of peoples known in the 20th century (the Armenian massacre of 1915, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in Rwanda), the regimes that unleashed it acted consciously, that is, they set a similar goal and carried it out with the help of the repressive bodies of the state, which received appropriate orders at the level of the highest political leadership , about which relevant archival documents and eyewitness accounts have been preserved. There was nothing like this in Ukraine. Moreover, there are documents that clearly indicate that Stalin did not have the idea to destroy the Ukrainian people and Ukraine through “terror,” “genocide,” and starvation. They are associated with food and seed loans, and other types of state assistance provided to Ukraine with the personal participation of Stalin in 1933, which is described in great detail in the fundamental monograph by R. Davis and S. Wheatcroft that we mentioned. Here are just a few of them. June 27, 1933 11 p.m. 10 min. Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)U M.M. Khataevich sent Stalin a coded message with the following content: “The continuous rains that have continued for the last 10 days have greatly delayed the ripening of grain and harvesting. On collective farms in a number of districts, all the bread we were given has been completely eaten up; the food situation has greatly worsened, which is especially dangerous in the last days before harvesting. I beg you, if possible, to give us another 50 thousand poods of food loans.” The document contains I. Stalin’s resolution: “We must give.”
At the same time, the request of the head of the political department of the Novouzensk MTS of the Lower Volga region Zelenov, received by the Central Committee on July 3, 1933, for food assistance to the collective farms of the MTS zone was refused. According to the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated June 1, 1933 “On the distribution of tractors produced in June - July and half of August 1933”, out of 12,100 tractors planned for delivery to the regions of the USSR, Ukraine was supposed to receive 5,500 tractors, the North Caucasus - 2,500 , Lower Volga - 1800, Central Black Sea Region - 1250, Central Asia - 550, ZSFSR - 150, Crimea - 200, Southern Kazakhstan - 150. Thus, the Russian regions taken together received 5,700 tractors (47%), and Ukraine alone - 5,500 (45.4%) .
The decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of December 20, 1933 on the purchase of 16 thousand work horses for Ukraine in the BSSR and the Western region should be viewed in the same light. Considering the real situation in the USSR in 1933, including the spread of famine to the territory of Belarus and the Western region, it can be assumed that Ukraine received an undoubted advantage in this regard, compared to other regions of the country. And finally, even the decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of December 23, 1933 and January 20, 1934 on the development of individual gardening, which was extremely necessary in the conditions of the permanent famine that began in the USSR in the 1930s, look “pro-Ukrainian.” “To meet the wishes of the workers - to acquire small vegetable gardens for working on them with their own labor in their free time from work in production,” the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided in 1934 to allow 1.5 million workers to start their own individual vegetable gardens.
The following sizes of deployment in the regions of individual working gardens were planned for 1934: Ukraine - 500 thousand people (including in the Donbass - 250 thousand people); Moscow region – 250 thousand people; Ivanovo region – 150 thousand people; Western Siberia – 100 thousand people; Eastern Siberia – 60 thousand people; Gorky region - 50 thousand people; DCK – 50 thousand people; Kazakhstan – 50 thousand people; Leningradskaya - 50 thousand people; Northern region – 40 thousand people. Thus, the “Ukrainian share” of garden workers in the total mass of USSR workers allowed to engage in gardening amounted to 500 thousand people, or 33.3%! We do not support the point of view of V.P. Danilov about the social genocide of the peasantry in 1932–1933. It seems that to some extent the policy of dispossession of the village can be called social genocide, since it eliminated the layer of wealthy peasants that existed there. But, again, only with a stretch, since the Stalinist regime did not set the goal of the physical destruction of the dispossessed.

There was no social genocide

As for the situation of 1932–1933, it could not be a social genocide, since the actions of the Stalinists in the countryside were not limited to repressive measures, although they dominated. Along with them, the policy of tractorization and mechanization of collective farms and the cultural revolution continued. In addition, as already noted, in the spring of 1933, the starving regions of the USSR received seed and food loans, which made it possible to conduct a generally organized spring sowing campaign and end mass hunger.
Finally, in 1935, the new collective farm charter expanded the possibilities of saving the rural population in case of famine, allowing collective farmers to have personal plots. All these measures look strange and illogical within the framework of the theory of social genocide. In our opinion, the theory of genocide is not applicable at all to the Soviet period in the history of Russia and Ukraine. If we talk specifically about the events of 1932–1933 in the Soviet countryside, then during these years the Stalinist regime simply punished the peasants with hunger for their reluctance to work conscientiously on collective farms and resistance to collectivization. At the same time, we are in solidarity with V.P. Danilov in terms of his assessment of the famine of 1932–1933 as one of the crimes of the Stalinist regime. There is no other way to evaluate the death of millions of rural workers, plunged into misfortune by the current politicians.
On the other hand, we believe that Stalin and his circle did not plan the famine as an operation against the peasants in advance. The famine was the result of their short-sighted, erroneous agricultural policy, based on anti-peasant ideas. It might not have existed if the Stalinists had not defeated their opponents who opposed forced collectivization. Therefore, Stalin's famine is bad experience what ill-conceived political decisions that rely only on the power of state power, but not on the support of the majority of the people, lead to. This historical experience must be taken into account, including by real politicians in Russia and Ukraine.
Modern knowledge of the circumstances of the tragedy, in our opinion, gives grounds for the conclusion that it is more accurate and scientifically correct, turning to the events of 1932–1933 in the USSR, to talk not about the Holodomor in Ukraine, but the famine in the Soviet village, considering the situation in Ukraine as part of the general tragedy of the Soviet peasantry, including the Russian one. And this tragedy should not divide, but unite peoples! It is our deep conviction that the discussion on the topic of which people suffered more from the Stalinist regime is scientifically unproductive and morally and politically dangerous.

An alternative interpretation of the causes of famine according to V.S. Alliluyev

The famine of 1932-1933, which struck the breadbaskets of the country - Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Volga region, Black Earth regions and Central Russia. Today many argue that it was caused by collectivization. Perhaps in some specific areas the famine was deliberately “organized” in order to discredit collectivization and arouse the anger of the peasantry. But the claim that this famine has nothing to do with a natural disaster is untrue. Famine years are the scourge of Russia (which, however, had little effect on grain exports). In the 18th century, for example, there were thirty-four such famine years, in the 19th century - over forty. The famine was especially severe in 1833, 1845-1846, 1851, 1855, 1872, 1891-1892. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were famine years: 1901, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911 and 1912, 1921-1922. The territory of the hungry lands expanded in the same sequence. If in 1880-1890 the number of famine-stricken provinces ranged from six to eighteen, then in 1911-1912 the number of such provinces rose to sixty. The famine of the early twenties claimed about five million lives. One can imagine what a terrible tribute Russia paid to this gluttonous ruler! And how could the statists of the Soviet era come to terms with this terrible scourge?! Unfortunately, history has not given us enough time for various searches for more or less painless ways to transform the countryside; even the original idea of ​​step-by-step collectivization was adjusted towards more stringent deadlines: the process of industrialization of the country, the process of rearmament of the army, which required a decision, turned out to be too rapid and large-scale food task in a shorter period of time.

19. Turchin Valentin Fedorovich (1931 - 2010)
20. Motovilova S.N.: temporary food difficulties throughout life 1961
21. Shnol S.E. about Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov
22. Karpacheva S.M.: distribution and practice at the coke plant in K
23. Aleksandrov A.P.: meeting and marrying M.A. Balashova 1933
24.

And finally, after the Great Patriotic War, the population of the USSR was gripped by the last mass famine in the history of the Soviet Union in 1946/47.

Subsequently, there was no mass famine with starvation deaths in the USSR and Russia, however, the problem of hunger still remains relevant: according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2000-2002 in Russia 4% of the population (5.2 million) suffered from hunger Human).

At the same time, as historian V.V. Kondrashin notes in his book dedicated to the famine of 1932-1933: “In the context of the hungry years in the history of Russia, the uniqueness of the famine of 1932-1933 lies in the fact that it was the first in its history.” organized famine,” when the subjective, political factor became decisive and dominated over all others. ... In the complex of causes that caused it, there was no natural factor, as equivalent to others, characteristic of the famines of 1891-1892, 1921-1922, 1946-1947. In 1932-1933, there were no natural disasters similar to the great droughts of 1891, 1921, 1946."

In Ukraine

In Kazakhstan

Famine in Kazakhstan 1932-33- part of the all-Union famine of 1932-33, caused by the official policy of “destruction of the kulaks as a class”, collectivization, an increase in the food procurement plan by the central authorities, as well as confiscation of livestock from the Kazakhs. According to various sources, from one to two million people became victims of the famine. During 1931-1933, 48% of the indigenous population died or left the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In Kazakhstan it is also customary to call this famine “Goloshchekinsky”.

Prerequisites for the famine of 1932-1933

Map of the main famine areas in the USSR. The thicker the shading, the greater the size of the disaster. A - areas of the consuming band, B - areas of the producing band. C - the former territory of the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks, C1 - the former territory of the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks. 1. Kola Peninsula, 2. Northern Territory, 3. Karelia, 4. Komi Region, 5. Leningrad Region, 6. Ivanovo Industrial Region, 7. Moscow Region, 8. Nizhny Novgorod Territory, 9. Belarus, 10. Republic of Belarus, 11 Central Black Earth Region, 12. Ukraine, 13. Middle Volga Region, 14. Tataria, 15. Bashkiria, 16. Ural Region, 17. Lower Volga Region, 18. North Caucasus Region, 19. Georgia, 20. Azerbaijan, 21. Armenia.

Collectivization

From 1927-1929, the Soviet leadership began to develop a set of measures for the transition to complete collectivization of agriculture. In the spring of 1928, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and the Kolkhoz Center of the RSFSR prepared a draft five-year plan for the collectivization of peasant farms, according to which by 1933 it was planned to unite 1.1 million farms (about 4%) into collective farms. The Resolution of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated July 10, 1928, “Grain Procurement Policy in Connection with the General Economic Situation,” stated that “despite the achievement of 95% of the pre-war norm of sown areas, the marketable yield of grain production barely exceeds 50% of the pre-war norm.” In the process of finalizing this plan, the percentage of collectivization changed upward, and the five-year plan approved in the spring of 1929 already provided for the collectivization of 4-4.5 million peasant farms (16-18%).

With the transition to complete collectivization in the fall of 1929, the party and state leadership of the country began to develop a new policy in the countryside. The planned high rates of collectivization suggested, due to the unpreparedness of both the bulk of the peasantry and the material and technical base of agriculture, such methods and means of influence that would force the peasants to join collective farms. Such means were: strengthening the tax pressure on individual farmers, mobilizing the proletarian elements of the city and countryside, party, Komsomol and Soviet activists to carry out collectivization, strengthening administrative-coercive and repressive methods of influence on the peasantry, and primarily on its wealthy part.

According to some researchers, this created all the prerequisites not only for economic, but also for political and repressive measures of influence on the peasantry.

As a result of collectivization, the most productive mass of healthy and young peasants fled to the cities. In addition, about 2 million peasants who fell under dispossession were evicted to remote areas of the country. Therefore, the village approached the beginning of the spring sowing season in 1932 with a serious lack of draft power and a sharply deteriorated quality of labor resources. As a result, the fields sown with grain in 1932 in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and other areas were overgrown with weeds. Even units of the Red Army were sent to weeding work. But this did not help, and with the harvest of 1931/32 sufficient to prevent mass starvation, grain losses during harvesting grew to unprecedented proportions. In 1931, according to the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, more than 15 million tons (about 20% of the gross grain harvest) were lost during harvesting; in 1932, the losses were even greater. In Ukraine, up to 40% of the harvest was left standing; in the Lower and Middle Volga, losses reached 35.6% of the total gross grain harvest. Data from grain balances of the USSR in the early 1930s, reconstructed by Robert Davis and Stephen Wheatcroft from archival sources, indicate that there was a sharp drop in grain harvests for two years in a row - in 1931 and especially in 1932, when the harvest was at best, a quarter less than the 1930 harvest and 19% less than the official figure.

Grain procurement

According to research by Dr. historical sciences V. Kashin, in a number of regions of the RSFSR and, in particular, in the Volga region, mass famine was created artificially and arose “not because of complete collectivization, but as a result of forced Stalinist grain procurements.” This opinion is confirmed by eyewitnesses of the events, speaking about the causes of the tragedy: “There was a famine because the grain was handed over,” “every grain, down to the grain, was taken away to the state,” “they tormented us with grain procurements,” “there was a surplus appropriation, all the grain was taken away.” The villages were weakened by dispossession and mass collectivization, losing thousands of repressed individual grain farmers. In the Volga region, the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on grain procurement issues, headed by the Secretary of the Party Central Committee P. P. Postyshev, decided to confiscate grain reserves from individual farmers and bread earned by collective farm workers. Under the threat of reprisals, collective farm chairmen and heads of rural administrations were forced to hand over almost all the grain produced and in stock. This deprived the region of food supplies and led to widespread famine. Similar measures were taken by V. M. Molotov and L. M. Kaganovich in Ukraine and the North Caucasus, which caused corresponding consequences - famine and mass mortality among the population.

It should be noted that the grain procurement plan for 1932 and the volume of grain actually collected by the state were significantly less than in the previous and subsequent years of the decade. In fact, the total volume of grain alienation from the village through all channels (procurement, purchases at market prices, collective farm market) decreased in 1932–1933 by approximately 20% compared to previous years. The volume of grain exports was reduced from 5.2 million tons in 1931 to 1.73 million tons in 1932. In 1933, it decreased further - to 1.68 million tons. For the main grain-producing regions (Ukraine and the North Caucasus), grain procurement quotas were repeatedly reduced during 1932. As a result, for example, Ukraine received only a quarter of all grain handed over to the state, whereas in 1930 its share was 35%. In this regard, S. Zhuravlev concludes that the famine was caused not by an increase in grain procurements, but by a sharp drop in grain collection as a result of collectivization.

Grain procurement policy

Repression of the rural population

Peasants who resisted the confiscation of grain were subjected to repression. This is how Mikhail Sholokhov describes them in a letter to Stalin dated April 4, 1933.

Witnesses in a peasant's yard while searching for bread in one of the villages of the Grishinsky district of the Donetsk region.

But eviction is not the most important thing. Here is a list of the methods by which 593 tons of bread were produced:

1. Mass beatings of collective farmers and individual farmers.

2. Planting “in the cold”. "Is there a hole?" - "No". - “Go, sit in the barn!” The collective farmer is stripped down to his underwear and placed barefoot in a barn or shed. Duration of action - January, February, often entire teams were planted in barns.

3. On the Vashchaevo collective farm, collective farm women’s legs and hems of their skirts were doused with kerosene, lit, and then extinguished: “Tell me where the pit is!” I’ll set it on fire again!” On the same collective farm, the interrogated woman was placed in a hole, buried halfway, and the interrogation continued.

4. At the Napolovsky collective farm, the representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a candidate member of the bureau of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Plotkin, during interrogation, forced him to sit on a hot bench. The prisoner shouted that he could not sit, it was hot, then water was poured from a mug under him, and then he was taken out into the cold to “cool off” and locked in a barn. From the barn back to the stove and interrogated again. He (Plotkin) forced one individual farmer to shoot himself. He put a revolver in his hands and ordered: “Shoot, but if you don’t, I’ll shoot you myself!” He began to pull the trigger (not knowing that the gun was unloaded), and when the firing pin clicked, he fainted.

5. In the Varvarinsky collective farm, the secretary of the Anikeev cell at a brigade meeting forced the entire brigade (men and women, smokers and non-smokers) to smoke shag, and then threw a pod of red pepper (mustard) onto the hot stove and did not order them to leave the room. This same Anikeev and a number of workers of the propaganda column, the commander of which was a candidate member of the bureau of the Republic of Kazakhstan Pashinsky, during interrogations at the column headquarters, forced collective farmers to drink in a huge number water mixed with lard, wheat and kerosene.

6. At the Lebyazhensky collective farm they stood him up against the wall and shot past the interrogated person’s head with shotguns.

7. In the same place: they rolled me up in a row and trampled underfoot.

8. In the Arkhipovsky collective farm, two collective farmers, Fomina and Krasnova, after a night interrogation, were taken three kilometers into the steppe, stripped naked in the snow and released, with orders to run to the farm at a trot.

9. In the Chukarinsky collective farm, the secretary of the cell, Bogomolov, selected 8 people. demobilized Red Army soldiers, with whom he came to a collective farmer - suspected of theft - in the yard (at night), after a short questioning, he took them to the threshing floor or to the levada, lined up his brigade and commanded “fire” on the tied up collective farmer. If the person, frightened by the mock execution, did not confess, then they beat him, threw him into a sleigh, took him out to the steppe, beat him along the road with rifle butts and, having taken him out to the steppe, put him back and again went through the procedure preceding the execution.

9. (The numbering was broken by Sholokhov.) In the Kruzhilinsky collective farm, the authorized representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kovtun, at a meeting of the 6th brigade, asks the collective farmer: “Where did you bury the grain?” - “I didn’t bury it, comrade!” - “Didn’t you bury it? Oh, well, stick out your tongue! Stay like that! Sixty adults, Soviet citizens, by order of the Commissioner, take turns sticking out their tongues and stand there, drooling, while the Commissioner makes an incriminating speech for an hour. Kovtun did the same thing in both the 7th and 8th brigades; the only difference is that in those brigades, in addition to sticking out their tongues, he also forced them to kneel.

10. In the Zatonsky collective farm, a propaganda column worker beat those interrogated with a saber. On the same collective farm, they mocked the families of Red Army soldiers, opening the roofs of houses, destroying stoves, and forcing women to cohabitate.

11. In the Solontsovsky collective farm, a human corpse was brought into the commissar’s room, placed on a table, and in the same room the collective farmers were interrogated, threatening to be shot.

12. In the Verkhne-Chirsky collective farm, Komsomol officers put those interrogated with their bare feet on a hot stove, and then beat them and took them out, barefoot, into the cold.

13. At the Kolundaevsky collective farm, barefoot collective farmers were forced to run in the snow for three hours. The frostbitten victims were taken to the Bazkovo hospital.

14. Ibid: the interrogated collective farmer was put on a stool on his head, covered with a fur coat on top, beaten and interrogated.

15. At the Bazkovsky collective farm, during interrogation, they stripped people, sent them home half naked, returned them halfway, and so on several times.

J. V. Stalin - M. A. Sholokhov

Dear comrade Sholokhov!

Both of your letters have been received, as you know. The help that was required has already been provided.

To analyze the case, Comrade Shkiryatov will come to you, in the Veshensky district, to whom I ask you very much to provide assistance.

This is true. But that’s not all, Comrade Sholokhov. The fact is that your letters make a somewhat one-sided impression. I want to write you a few words about this.

I thanked you for your letters, because they reveal the sore point of our party-Soviet work, they reveal how sometimes our workers, wanting to curb the enemy, accidentally hit their friends and descend into sadism. But this does not mean that I agree with you on everything. You see one side, you see well. But this is only one side of the matter. In order not to make mistakes in politics (your letters are not fiction, but pure politics), you need to look around, you need to be able to see the other side. And the other side is that the respected grain growers of your region (and not only your region) carried out the “Italian” (sabotage!) and were not averse to leaving the workers and the Red Army without bread. The fact that the sabotage was quiet and outwardly harmless (without blood) does not change the fact that respected grain farmers were essentially waging a “quiet” war with the Soviet regime. A war of attrition, dear comrade. Sholokhov...

Of course, this circumstance cannot in any way justify the outrages that were committed, as you assure us, by our employees. And those responsible for these outrages must suffer due punishment. But it is still clear as daylight that respected grain growers are not such harmless people as it might seem from afar.

Well, all the best and I shake your hand.

Yours I. Stalin

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 11. D. 827. L. 1-22. Script; Questions of History, 1994, No. 3. P. 14-16, 22

Socialization of livestock

Some researchers consider one of the reasons for the occurrence of famine to be the policy of forced socialization, which caused a response from the peasantry - the mass slaughter of livestock, including workers, in 1928-1931 (since the autumn of 1931, the number of livestock among individual farmers decreased significantly, and the decline began to occur due to collective and state farm herds (lack of feed/poor living conditions and irresponsibility of collective farms).

In 1929 there were 34,637.9/23,368.3 thousand horses/of which there were workers; in 1930 - 30,767.5/21,524.7; in 1931 - 26,247/19,543; in 1932 - 19,638/16,180; in 1933 - 16,645/14,205.

Cattle began to be slaughtered a year earlier (oxen/cows/total): 1928 - 6896.7/30,741.4/70,540; 1929 - 6086.2/30 359.6/67 111.9; 1930 - 4336.4/26,748.8/52,961.7; 1931 d./24 413/47 916; 1932 - present d./21 028/40 651; 1933 - present d./19667/38592 (its predominant holders were the wealthy strata of the village).

Goats, sheep and pigs were slaughtered according to the “horse” scenario: 1929-146,976.1/28,384.4; 1930-113 171/13 332; 1931 - 77,692/14,443; 1932 - 52,141/11,611; 1933 - 50,551/12,086.

To compensate for the “kulak slaughter,” the government increased the import of horses/cattle/small livestock (heads): 1929 - 4881/54,790/323,991; 1930 - 6684/137 594/750 254; 1931 - 13,174/141,681/713,434; 1932 - 26,691/147,156/1,045,004; 1933 - 14,587/86,773/853,053.

To a large extent, the deepening of the crisis was facilitated by the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, adopted on July 30, 1931, “On the development of socialist livestock farming,” which provided for the creation of livestock farms on collective farms.

This resolution, in particular, proposed transferring livestock from those received for meat procurement to collective farms. It was supposed to organize the purchase of young animals from collective farmers for public livestock breeding of collective farms. In practice, this led to the fact that livestock began to be socialized forcibly, which led to their mass slaughter and sale. Socialized livestock died due to lack of food and suitable premises. There was nothing to feed the socialized livestock, since grain resources for industrial centers were obtained, among other things, from feed grain. According to the grain balance compiled by Davis and Wheatcroft, in 1932 there was half as much grain available for livestock feed as in 1930.

According to some authors, this policy of socialization of livestock and meat procurement led to an even greater reduction in livestock numbers in 1932 (compared to 1931, the number of cattle decreased by 7.2 million heads, sheep and goats - by 15.6 million, pigs - by 2.8 million and horses - by 6.6 million heads, the rest of the livestock was extremely depleted). The decline in the number of working and productive livestock and the spontaneous migration of the rural population predetermined a sharp decline quality of basic agricultural work. In the context of identifying the causes of famine, the most significant, in the opinion of these authors, is the removal of livestock from the personal farms of individual farmers and personal “auxiliary” farms of collective farmers, which significantly reduced the “food” base, already so significantly reduced by grain procurements. This was especially significant for Kazakhstan, whose population was primarily engaged in livestock farming.

The fact that the authorities sought to correct such an intolerable situation is evidenced by the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of March 26, 1932 “On the forced socialization of livestock,” which condemned this vicious practice on the ground.

At the same time, by the decree “On Meat Procurement” (September 23, 1932), from the beginning of the next month, the presentation of obligations “with the force of a tax” for the supply (delivery) of meat to the state began to be handed over to collective farms, collective farm households and individual farms.

Estimates of the scale of hunger

The scale of the incident can only be estimated approximately.

The famine affected an area of ​​about 1.5 million km² with a population of 65.9 million people.

The famine was most severe in areas that in pre-revolutionary times were the richest in terms of the amount of grain produced and where the percentage of collectivization of the peasant economy was highest.

The population of the countryside was more affected by famine than the population of the cities, which was explained by the measures taken by the Soviet government to confiscate grain from the countryside. But even in the cities there were a significant number of hungry people: workers fired from enterprises, employees purged, who received special passports that did not give the right to food rations.

General estimates of the number of victims of the 1932-1933 famine made by various authors vary significantly and reach up to 8 million people, although the latest estimate is 7 million people. The topic of the 1932-1933 famine first appeared in the Soviet information space only towards the end of perestroika. By now, a clear idea has formed in the post-Soviet information space about the famine of 1932-1933 as one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the Soviet period.

Regarding the scale of the famine “caused by forced collectivization,” there is an official assessment prepared by the State Duma of the Russian Federation in an official statement issued on April 2, 2008. According to the conclusion of the commission under the State Duma of the Russian Federation, in the Volga region, Central Black Earth region, North Caucasus, Urals, Crimea, part of Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus, “about 7 million people died from hunger and diseases associated with malnutrition” in 1932-1933 people, the reason for which was “repressive measures to ensure grain procurements,” which “significantly aggravated the severe consequences of the crop failure of 1932.” Objectively, the harvest in 1932 was sufficient to prevent mass starvation.

The electronic version of the Encyclopedia Britannica gives a range from 4 to 5 million ethnic Ukrainians who died in the USSR in 1932-1933 from total number victims of 6-8 million. The Brockhaus Encyclopedia (2006) provides data on losses: from 4 to 7 million people.

Memory of the victims

Since 2009, the National Museum “Memorial of the Victims of the Holodomor in Ukraine” has been operating in Kyiv. In the Hall of Memory of this Memorial, the National Book of Memory of the Victims of the Holodomor is presented in 19 volumes, compiled by regions of Ukraine, and in which 880 thousand names of people whose death from hunger is documented today are recorded.

see also

• Black boards - events in Kuban

Notes

1. Was there a Holodomor in Belarus? - Charter’97:: News from Belarus - Belarusian news - Republic of Belarus - Minsk
2. The Alliance is right - Galadamor in Belarus (1932-1934)
3. MENSK.BY (Minsk region) - Belarus had its own Holodomor
4. // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
5. Hunger. New encyclopedic dictionary. Under general ed. acad. K.K. Arsenyeva. T.14. St. Petersburg: F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron, 1913.
6. Domain registration has expired
7. http://www.history.org.ua/Zbirnyk/10/12.pdf
8. http://www.history.org.ua/Journal/2006/6/4.pdf
9. Resolution of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of April 2, 2008 N 262-5 State Duma “On the statement of the State Duma of the Russian Federation “In memory of the victims of the famine of the 30s on the territory of the USSR”
10. The famine was especially raging in the villages...
11. About the facts of cannibalism due to hunger
12. V. V. Kondrashin ( Doctor of History sciences). The famine of 1932-1933: the tragedy of the Russian village. M.: “Rosspan”, 2008, scientific publication. Chapter 6 “The famine of 1932-1933 in the context of world famine disasters and famine years in the history of Russia - the USSR,” page 331.
13. Opinion of historian Nefedov S.A.
14. Nefedov's answer to S. A. Mironov B. N.
15. Opinion of historian B. N. Mironov
16. Mironov’s answer to B.N. Nefedov S.A.
17. Law of Ukraine on the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine dated November 28, 2006
18. Kulchitsky S.V. “Famine 1932. in the shadow of Holodomor-33"
19. New graves of victims of the 1930s famine have been found in Kazakhstan.
20. 1932–1933: real and imaginary reasons
21. Victor Kondrashin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor. “The famine of 1932-1933 in the villages of the Volga region”
22. Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933 as a result of collective farm construction and de-peasantization of the Ukrainian countryside
23. In the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the forced socialization of livestock” dated March 26, 1932, it was noted that “only enemies of collective farms can allow the forced socialization of cows and small livestock from individual collective farmers.” It was said that this “has nothing to do with the party’s policy,” that “the party’s task is to ensure that each collective farmer has his own cow, small livestock, and poultry.” It was proposed: “1) to suppress any attempts to forcefully socialize cows and small livestock from collective farmers, and to expel those guilty of violating the directive of the Central Committee from the party; 2) organize assistance and assistance to collective farmers who do not have cows or small livestock in purchasing and raising young animals for personal needs” (Pravda newspaper, March 26, 1932).
24. Russian Economic Bulletin. No. 9.
25. Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. 21. Aufl. in 30 Bde. Leipzig-Manheim, 2006. - Bd. 28, S.243. ISBN 3-7653-4128-2
26. An article about the history of Ukraine was presented by the manuscript editor of the Canadian “Encyclopedia of Ukraine” Andriy Makuch of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto. It also provides information about the establishment of “impossibly high food requisition quotas for Ukraine”, “Moscow refused to provide assistance even in the spring when there was a peak in mortality”, “The USSR exported more than a million tons of food during the famine” and “the traditional ethnic Ukrainian village was was practically destroyed, and in its place immigrants from Russia were brought"

One of the most tragic pages in the history of the Volga village was the famine of 1932-1933. For a long time, this topic was taboo for researchers. When the bans were lifted, the first publications concerning this topic appeared. However, sources unconventional for historians have not yet been used to reveal it. These are civil registration books of death, birth and marriage for the period from 1927 to 1940 for 582 rural Soviets stored in the archives of the Civil Registry Office of the Saratov and Penza regional executive committees and 31 archives of the Civil Registry Office of the district executive committees of these regions. In addition, in 46 villages of 28 rural districts of the Saratov and Penza regions, a survey of those who experienced all its hardships and hardships was conducted using a specially compiled questionnaire “Witness of the famine of 1932-1933 in a village in the Volga region.” It contains three groups of questions: the causes of famine, life in the village during the famine, and the consequences of famine. A total of 277 questionnaires were received and processed.

The regions of the Saratov and Penza regions occupy approximately a third of the Volga region. In the early 30s, their territory was divided between the Lower Volga and Middle Volga regions; over a significant part of the modern territory Saratov region The cantons of the Autonomous Republic of Volga Germans (NP ASSR) were located. Specializing in grain production and being one of the most fertile regions of the country, this part of the Volga region in 1932-1933. found herself in the grip of hunger. The mortality rate on the territory of all the rural Soviets studied in 1933, compared with the immediate previous and subsequent years, increased sharply. In 40 former districts of the Lower Volga and Middle Volga territories, on average in 1933 compared to 1927-1932 and 1934-1935. it increased 3.4 times. Such a jump could be caused by only one reason - hunger.

It is known that in starving areas, due to the lack of normal food, people were forced to eat surrogates and this led to an increase in mortality from diseases of the digestive system. Register books for 1933 show a sharp increase (2.5 times). In the column “cause of death” the following entries appeared: “from bloody diarrhea”, “from hemorrhoidal bleeding due to the use of surrogate”, “from poisoning with grout”, “from poisoning with surrogate bread”. Mortality has also increased significantly due to such reasons as “inflammation of the intestines,” “stomach pain,” “abdominal disease,” etc.

Another factor that caused an increase in mortality in 1933 in this region of the Volga region was infectious diseases: typhus, dysentery, malaria, etc. Entries in the register books allow us to talk about the occurrence of outbreaks of typhus and malaria here. In the village Kozhevino (Lower Volga region) in 1933, out of 228 deaths, 81 died from typhus and 125 from malaria. The following figures speak about the scale of the tragedy in the village: in 1931, 20 people died there from typhus and malaria, in 1932 - 23, and in 1933 - over 200. Acute infectious (typhoid, dysentery) and massive infectious diseases (malaria) always accompany hunger.

The register books indicate other causes of death of the population in 1933, which were absent in the past, but now determined the increase in mortality and directly indicate hunger: many peasants died “from hunger”, “from hunger strike”, “from lack of bread”, “from exhaustion” the body due to starvation”, “from malnutrition of bread”, “from starvation”, “from hunger edema”, “from complete exhaustion of the body due to insufficient nutrition”, etc. In the village. In Alekseevka, out of 161 deaths, 101 died from hunger.

Of the 61,861 death certificates available in the reviewed registers, only 3,043 reports mention hunger as a direct cause in 22 of the 40 surveyed districts. This, however, does not mean that in other areas in 1933 no one died of hunger; on the contrary, here too the sharp jump in mortality indicates the opposite. The discrepancy between the entry in death certificates and its real cause is explained by the fact that the work of civil registry offices in famine-stricken areas was influenced by the general political situation in the country. Through the mouth of Stalin, it was announced to the whole country and the whole world that in 1933 “collective farmers forgot about ruin and hunger” and rose “to the position of wealthy people.”

Under these conditions, the majority of registry office workers who registered deaths simply did not enter the forbidden word “hunger” in the appropriate column. The fact that it was illegal is evidenced by the order of the OGPU of Engels to the city registry office to prohibit it in 1932-1933. record the diagnosis “died of hunger.” This was justified by the fact that “counter-revolutionary elements” who allegedly clogged the statistical apparatus “tried to motivate every case of death with hunger, in order to thicken the colors necessary for certain anti-Soviet circles.” Civil registry office workers, when registering those who died of hunger, were forced to change the cause of death. According to the Sergievsky village council in 1933, 120 out of 130 deaths were registered as dying “for unknown reasons.” If we take into account that in 1932 only 24 people died there and the causes of their death were precisely determined in the register books, and the next year the mortality rate increased more than 5 times, then the conclusion suggests itself about the onset of severe famine, the victims of which were those who died from “ for unknown reasons."

The fact of the onset of famine in 1932-1933. in the studied areas is also confirmed by such a demographic indicator, which always indicates famine, as a drop in the birth rate. In 1933-1934. The birth rate here has dropped significantly compared to recent previous years. If in 1927 148 births were registered on the territory of the Pervomaisky village council, in 1928 - 114, in 1929 -108, in 1930 - 77, in 1931 - 92, in 1932 - 75, then in 1933 there were only 19, and in 1934 - 7 births.

In Novoburassky, Engelssky, Rivne, Krasnoarmeysky, Marksovsky, Dergachevsky, Ozinsky, Dukhovnitsky, Petrovsky, Baltaysky, Bazarno-Karabulaksky, Lysogorsky, Ershovsky, Rtishchevsky, Arkadaksky, Turkovsky, Romanovsky, Fedorovsky, Atkarsky, Samoilovsky districts of the Saratov region. and in Kameshkirsky, Kondolsky, Nyakolsky, Gorodishchensky and Lopatinsky districts of the Penza region. in 1933-1934 the birth rate fell 3.3 times compared to its average level for 1929-1932. The reasons for this phenomenon were the high mortality rate of potential parents during famine; the outflow of the adult population, which has reduced the number of potential parents; a decrease in the adult population's ability to reproduce offspring due to physical weakening of the body as a result of starvation.

Influenced the birth rate in 1933-1934. The increased mortality rate in 1933 for this category of potential parents, such as young people, is confirmed by a significant decrease in the number of registered marriages in rural areas in those years. For example, the number of marriages registered in 1927-1929. in Petrovsky, Atkarsky, Rivne, Kalininsky, Marksovsky, Balashovsky, Ershovsky, Turkovsky, Arkadaksky districts of the Saratov region. decreased by an average of 2.5 times.

The epicenter of famine, characterized by highest level mortality and the lowest birth rate were apparently located on the territory of the Saratov region, on the Right Bank and in the left bank cantons of the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans. In 1933, the mortality rate of the rural population on the Right Bank compared with the average mortality rate in 1927-1932 and 1934-1935. increased by 4.5 times, on the Left Bank - by 2.6 times, in the territory of the studied areas of the NP ASSR - by 4.1 times. Birth rate in 1933-1934 compared to its average level in 1929-1932. fell on the Right Bank by 4 times, on the Left Bank by 3.8 times, in the areas of the NP ASSR by 7.2 times. As a result of the famine, the vitality of the Volga village was significantly undermined. This is evidenced by a sharp drop in the birth rate in many Saratov and Penza villages: judging by the entries in the register books, in many villages as many weddings were no longer held and as many children were not born as in the years preceding collectivization and famine.

Famine 1932-1933 left a deep mark in people's memory. “In 1933, we ate all the quinoa. Hands and feet were swollen, dying on the move,” old-timers of Saratov and Penza villages recalled a ditty that reflected the people’s assessment of this tragedy. During the questionnaire survey, 99.9% confirmed the existence of a famine in 1932-1933, and also confirmed that it was weaker than the famine of 1921-1922, but stronger than the famine of 1946-1947. In many areas the scale of famine was very great. Villages such as Ivlevka, Atkarsky district, Starye Grivki, Turkovsky district, collective farm named after. Sverdlov of the Fedorov canton of the NP ASSR, almost completely died out. “During the war, not as many people died in these villages as died during the famine,” eyewitnesses recalled.

In many villages there were common graves (pits), in which, often without coffins, sometimes entire families buried those who died of starvation. 80 of the more than 300 respondents had close relatives who died during the famine. Eyewitnesses witnessed facts of cannibalism in such villages as Simonovka, Novaya Ivanovka of the Balandinsky district, Ivlevka - Atkarsky, Zaletovka - Petrovsky, Ogarevka, Novye Burasy - Novoburassky, Novo-Repnoye - Ershovsky, Kalmantai - Volsky districts, Shumeika - Engelssky and Semenovka - Fedorovsky cantons NP ASSR, Kozlovka - Lopatinsky district.

The American historian R. Conquest expressed the opinion that on the Volga famine broke out “in areas partially inhabited by Russians and Ukrainians, but the German settlements were most affected by it.” On this basis, he concludes that the NP ASSR “apparently was the main target of terror by famine.” Indeed, in 1933, the mortality rate of the rural population in the studied areas of this republic was very high, and the birth rate in this and subsequent years fell sharply. A team of writers led by B. Pilnyak, who probably visited there in 1933, reported about severe famine and facts of mass mortality of the population in a special letter to Stalin. In the famine-stricken cantons, cases of cannibalism were recorded. Memories of the famine of both Germans and representatives of other nationalities living on the territory of the republic at that time speak of the mass famine that occurred there in 1932-1933.

Comparative analysis of personal data obtained as a result of a survey of witnesses of the famine in the Mordovian village. Settlement of the Baltai district, Mordovian-Chuvash village. Eremkino, Khvalynsky district, Chuvash village. Kalmantai Volsky district, Tatar village. Osinovyi Gai and Lithuanian village. Chernaya Padina of the Ershovsky district, in the Ukrainian villages of Shumeika of the Engelssky and Semenovka of the Fedorovsky cantons and in 40 Russian villages, showed that the severity of hunger was very strong not only in the areas of the NP ASSR, but also in many Saratov and Penza villages located outside its borders .

“What was it: organized famine or drought?” - this question was asked in a letter to the editor of the journal “Questions of History” by A. A. Orlova. The onset of famine in the Volga region, including in the studied areas, was usually (in 1921 and 1946) associated with droughts and crop shortages. Drought is a natural phenomenon here. 75% of respondents denied the existence of a severe drought in 1932-1933; the rest indicated that there was drought in 1931 and 1932, but not as severe as in 1921 and 1946, when it led to shortages and famine. Special literature mainly confirms the assessment of climatic conditions of 1931-1933 given by witnesses of the famine. In publications on this topic, when listing a long series of dry years in the Volga region in 1932 and 1933. fall out. Scientists noted a drought that was average according to the accepted classification and weaker than the droughts of 1921, 1924, 1927, and 1946 only in 1931. The spring and summer of 1932 were typical for the Volga region: hot, in places with dry winds, not ideal for crops, especially in the Volga region, but in general the weather is assessed by experts as favorable for the harvest of all field crops. The weather, of course, influenced the decrease in grain yields, but there was no mass crop shortage in 1932.

Interviewed old-timers of Saratov and Penza villages testified that, despite all the costs of collectivization (dekulakization, which deprived the village of thousands of experienced grain growers; a sharp reduction in the number of livestock as a result of their mass slaughter, etc.), in 1932 it was still possible to grow a crop quite sufficient to feed the population and prevent mass starvation. “There was bread in the village in 1932,” they recalled. In 1932, the gross harvest of grain crops in all sectors of agriculture in the Lower Volga region amounted to 32,388.9 thousand centners, only 11.6% less than in 1929; in the Middle Volga Territory -45,331.4 thousand centners, even 7.5% more than in 1929. Overall, the 1932 harvest was average for recent years. It was quite enough to not only prevent mass starvation, but also to hand over a certain part to the state.

Collectivization, which significantly worsened the financial situation of the peasantry and led to a general decline in agriculture, did not, however, cause mass famine in this Volga region. In 1932-1933 it occurred not as a result of drought and crop shortages, as was previously the case in the Volga region, and not because of complete collectivization, but as a result of forced Stalinist grain procurements. This was the first artificially organized famine in the history of the Volga village.

Only 5 out of more than 300 interviewed eyewitnesses of the events of 1932-1933. did not recognize the connection between grain procurements and the onset of famine. The rest either named them as the main cause of the tragedy, or did not deny them negative influence on the food situation of the village. “There was a famine because the grain was handed over,” “every grain, down to the grain, was taken out to the state,” “they tormented us with grain procurements,” “there was a surplus appropriation, all the grain was taken away,” the peasants said.

By the beginning of 1932, the village was weakened by collectivization, grain procurements in 1931, and not entirely favorable weather conditions of the past year, which caused crop shortages in some areas. Many peasants were already starving then. Basic agricultural work was very difficult. An intensive exodus of peasants to cities and other parts of the country began, resembling a flight. And in this situation, the country's leadership, which was aware of the situation in the Volga region, approved in 1932 clearly inflated plans for grain procurements for the Lower and Middle Volga. At the same time, the difficulties of the organizational and economic development of the newly created collective farms were not taken into account, as eloquently evidenced by the mass protests of the chairmen of collective farms and village councils, district party and Soviet bodies, sent to the regional leadership.

Despite the energetic efforts of the party and economic leadership, which practiced in September - November the removal from work and expulsion from the party of district leaders who “thwarted the plan”; putting on “black boards” collective farms, settlements, and districts that do not fulfill the plan; he declared an economic boycott and other measures; grain procurement plans were not fulfilled. The situation changed in December 1932, when, at the direction of Stalin, a commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on grain procurement issues, headed by the Secretary of the Party Central Committee P. P. Postyshev, arrived in the region. It seems that the assessment of the work of this commission and its chairman, which is available in the literature, requires clarification, if not revision.

The commission and Postyshev personally (as well as V. M. Molotov, who visited Ukraine, and L. M. Kaganovich - in Ukraine and the North Caucasus) are responsible for the artificially organized famine in the Volga region in question. It was under pressure from the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (its members, in addition to Postyshev, included Zykov, Goldin and Shklyar) that the local leadership, fearing reprisals for disrupting grain procurements, in order to fulfill the plan, confiscated the bread earned by collective farmers for workdays and available to individual farmers. This ultimately led to mass famine in the village.

The following facts speak about the methods of work of Postyshev and his commission, which demanded that the grain procurement plan be fulfilled at any cost. Only in December 1932, for failure to fulfill the grain procurement plan, by the decisions of the bureau of the Lower Volga Regional Party Committee, at whose meetings were members of the Central Committee commission and Postyshev himself, 9 secretaries of district committees and 3 chairmen of district executive committees were removed from their jobs; many were subsequently expelled from the party and put on trial. During meetings with local party and economic activists on grain procurement issues (participants of such meetings in the city of Balashov, I. A. Nikulin and P. M. Tyrin spoke about this) right in the hall where these meetings were held, on the instructions of Postyshev, for failure to comply During the grain procurement plan, secretaries of district party committees were removed from their jobs and OGPU workers arrested collective farm chairmen. In words and in the press, Postyshev opposed the confiscation of grain from collective farms that fulfilled the plan, against violations of the law during grain procurements, but in reality he took a tough position that pushed the local leadership to take illegal measures against those who did not fulfill the plan.

At the end of December 1932 - beginning of January 1933, a real war began against collective farms and individual farms that did not fulfill the plan. The decision of the bureau of the Lower Volga regional party committee dated January 3 stated: “The regional committee and the regional executive committee demand from the district executive committees and district committees of districts that have disrupted the plan, unconditional fulfillment of the grain procurement plan by January 5, without stopping at additional procurement in collective farms that have fulfilled the plan, allowing partial refunds from collective farmers' advances." District Soviet authorities were allowed to begin checking the “stolen grain” by collective farmers and individual farmers.

Numerous eyewitness accounts indicate how these directives were implemented in Saratov and Penza villages. The peasants were confiscated from the bread they had earned during their workdays, including what was left over from previous years; they did not give out bread for workdays; seed grain was exported. Violence was often used against peasants during grain procurements. In the village Botsmanovo, Turkovsky district, grain procurement commissioner from Balashov Shevchenko, in order to “knock out” bread, locked up almost the entire village in a barn (testifies M.E. Dubrovin, who lives in the working-class village of Turki, Saratov region). “They came, they forcibly took the bread and took it away,” “they gave it, and then took it away,” “they went from house to house, taking away bread and potatoes; those who resisted were put in a barn for the night,” “[bread] was pulled out of the oven,” recalled old-timers of Saratov and Penza villages.

To fulfill the plan, grain was exported not only on horses, but also on cows. The chairman of the Studeno-Ivanovsky collective farm of the Turkovsky district, M. A. Goryunov (lives in Turki), was ordered by the grain procurement commissioner to allocate collective farm horses to assist the neighboring collective farm in exporting grain. The horses made two flights and covered over 100 km; The chairman did not agree to send them on a third voyage: “We’ll kill the horses!” He was forced to comply, and soon 24 horses had died. The chairman was put on trial because he refused to find the collective farm grooms guilty of the death of horses (they say they were poorly fed), as the commissioner advised him. Violence was also used in carrying out the plan to pour seeds into public barns. Local activists often walked around the yards and looked for bread; everything that was found was taken away.

The organizers of the procurement explained to the peasants that the grain would go to the working class and the Red Army, but there were persistent rumors in the villages that in fact the grain was being taken away in order to export it abroad. It was then that sad ditties and sayings appeared in the village: “Rye and wheat were sent abroad, and the gypsy quinoa was sent to collective farmers for food,” “Shingles, stillage, corn were sent to the Soviet Union, and rye and wheat were sent abroad,” “Our burner.” the grain-bearing woman gave away the bread, she was hungry.” Many peasants associated grain procurements and the ensuing famine with the names of Stalin and Kalinin. “In 1932, Stalin made a fill, and that’s why famine occurred,” they said in the villages. In the ditties, the singing of which was punishable by imprisonment, the words sounded: “When Lenin was alive, we were fed. When Stalin arrived, they starved us.”

In 1933, in the Volga region there were rumors that a “Stalinist pumping of gold” was being carried out: a hunger strike was carried out in order to take gold, silver and other valuables from the population through Torgsin stores for next to nothing, in exchange for food. The peasants explained the organization of the famine through grain procurements by Kalinin’s desire to punish them for their unwillingness to work conscientiously on collective farms and to accustom the peasants to collective farms. In Saratov and Penza villages in 1933, there was a rumor that, like the famous trainer Durov, who taught animals to obey by hunger, Kalinin decided to use hunger to accustom the peasants to collective farms: if they endure hunger, it means they will get used to collective farms, will work better and appreciate collective farm life.

During the grain procurements of 1932, which doomed the village to famine, there was no open mass resistance from the peasants. The majority of respondents explained this by fear of the authorities and the belief that the state will provide assistance to the village. And yet there were exceptions. In the village Red Key of the Rtishchevsky district, testifies S. N. Fedotov (lives in the city of Rtishchevo, Saratov region), having learned about the decision to export seed grain, almost the entire village gathered at the barn where it was stored; The peasants tore down the castle and divided the grain among themselves. In the village In the darkness of the same area (told by I. T. Artyushin, who lives in the city of Rtishchevo), there was a mass uprising of peasants, which was suppressed by the police.

The main forms of peasant protest against forced grain procurements were hidden actions: attacks on the “red convoys” that were transporting grain from villages, the theft of grain from these convoys, and the dismantling of bridges. Some peasants openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the organizers of grain procurements; repressive measures were applied to them (testimony of M.A. Fedotov from the working-class village of Novye Burasy, S.M. Berdenkov from the village of Trubechino, Turkovsky district, A.G. Semikin from the working-class village of Turki, Saratov region).

Thus, data from archival documents and interviews with eyewitnesses of the events indicate that the forced grain procurements of 1932 left the Volga region village without bread and became the main cause of the tragedy that took place there in 1933. The mass famine caused by grain procurements carried out in violation of the law and morality, which claimed tens of thousands of peasant lives and undermined the health of the survivors, is one of the gravest crimes of Stalinism, its organized inhumane action.

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Notes

1. See, for example, I. E. ZELENIN. About some “blank spots” of the final stage of complete collectivization. - History of the USSR, 1989, No. 2, p. 16-17; Problems of oral history in the USSR (abstracts of a scientific conference on November 28-29, 1989 in Kirov). Kirov. 1990, p. 18-22.

2. Archive of the Civil Registry Office of the Petrovsky District Executive Committee of the Saratov Region, death certificate books for the Kozhevinsky Village Council for 1931-1933.

3. Archive of the Civil Registry Office of the Novoburassky District Executive Committee of the Saratov Region, death certificate book for the Novo-Alekseevsky Village Council for 1933.

4. Lenin and Stalin about labor. M. 1941, p. 547, 548, 554, 555.

5. Central State Archives of National Economy (TSGANH) of the USSR, f. 8040, op. 8, no. 5, pp. 479, 486.

6. Archive of the Civil Registry Office of the Arkadak District Executive Committee of the Saratov Region, death certificate books for the Sergievsky Village Council for 1932-1933.

7. Archive of the Civil Registry Office of the Rtishchevsky District Executive Committee of the Saratov Region, civil registration books of births for the Pervomaisky Village Council for the years 1927-1934.

8. CONQUEST R. Harvest of sorrow. Soviet collectivization and terror by famine. London. 1988, p. 409, 410.

9. TsGANKH USSR, f. 8040, op. 8, no. 5, pp. 479-481, 483, 485, 486, 488.

10. Central party archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU (CPA IML), f. 112, op. 34, d. 19, l. 20.

11. Questions of History, 1988, No. 12, p. 176-177.

12. Dry winds, their origin and the fight against them. M. 1957, p. 33; Droughts in the USSR, their origin, recurrence and impact on the harvest. L. 1958, p. 38,45,50,166-169; KABANOV P. G. Droughts in the Saratov region. Saratov. 1958, p. 2; Climate of the southeast of the European part of the USSR. Saratov. 1961, p. 125; KABANOV P. G., KASGROV V. G. Droughts in the Volga region. In the book: Scientific works of the Research Institute of Agriculture of the South-East. Vol. 31. [Saratov]. 1972, p. 137; Agriculture of the USSR. Yearbook. 1935. M. 1936, p. 270-271.

13. Agriculture of the USSR. Yearbook. 1935, p. 270-271.

14. CPA IML, f. 17, op. 21, no. 2550, pp. 29 vol., 305; d. 3757, l. 161; d. 3767, l. 184; No. 3768, pp. 70, 92; d. 3781, l. 150; d. 3782, l. eleven; Volzhskaya commune, 12-14. XI. 1932; Povolzhskaya Pravda, 15.29. X. 1932; Saratov worker, 2.1. 1933; Struggle, 30.XI. 1932.

15. See History of the USSR, 1989, No. 2, p. 16-17.

16. CPA IML, f. 17, op. 21, no. 3769, l. 9; No. 3768, pp. 139.153.

17. Ibid., no. 3768, pp. 118 vol., 129,130 ​​vol., 148,153.

18. Ibid., no. 3769, l. 9.

19. Ibid., no. 3768, pp. 139.153.

By the beginning of the 30s, it was clear to the leadership of the USSR that great war it will not work with the imperialist states. Stalin wrote about this in the article “On the tasks of business executives” like this: We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do this or we will be crushed.”

Having set the task of industrializing the country in 10 years, the leadership of the USSR was forced to accelerate the collectivization of the peasantry.
If initially, according to the collectivization plan, only 2% of peasant farms should have been collectivized by 1933, then according to the accelerated collectivization plan, collectivization in the main grain-producing regions of the USSR should have been completed in a year or two, that is, by 1931-1932.

By collectivizing peasants, Stalin sought to enlarge farms. It was relatively easy to seize produce from large farms. Agricultural products were the main export, providing currency for accelerated industrialization. And most importantly, only large, mechanized farms in the climatic conditions of our country could produce marketable grain.

The main problem of Russian peasants was weather and climatic conditions, a short warm season, and, consequently, the high burden of agricultural labor.

Chayanov, through a thorough statistical analysis of labor effort, income and expenses of peasant farms, proved that excessive labor can become a significant limiter on the growth of labor duration and productivity.

The law of A.V. Chayanov, if expressed in simple language, says that the burden of labor prevents the peasant from increasing labor productivity, and when prices for his products rise, he prefers to curtail production.

In accordance with Chayanov's law, under the NEP the average peasant began to eat better than in tsarist times, but practically stopped producing marketable grain. During the NEP, peasants began to consume 30 kg of meat per year, although before the revolution they consumed 16 kg per year.

This indicated that a significant part of the grain was redirected from supplies to the city to improve their own nutrition. By 1930, small-scale production had reached its maximum.

According to various sources, from 79 to 84 million tons of grain were harvested (in 1914, together with the Polish provinces, 77 million tons).

The NEP allowed a slight increase in agricultural production, but the production of commercial grain decreased by half. Previously, it was provided mainly by large landowner farms that were liquidated during the revolution.

The shortage of marketable grain gave rise to the idea of ​​consolidating agricultural production through collectivization, which, in the geopolitical conditions of that time, became a necessary necessity, and was taken up with Bolshevik inflexibility.

For example, by October 1, 1931, collectivization in the Ukrainian SSR covered 72% of arable land and 68% of peasant farms. More than 300 thousand “kulaks” were expelled outside the Ukrainian SSR.

As a result of perestroika economic activity peasants, associated with collectivization, there was a catastrophic decline in the level of agricultural technology.

Several objective factors of that time worked to reduce agricultural technology. Perhaps the main thing is the loss of incentive to work hard, as the peasant’s work has always been during the “suffering”.

In the fall of 1931, more than 2 million hectares of winter crops were not sown, and losses from the 1931 harvest were estimated at up to 200 million poods; threshing in a number of areas took place until March 1932.
In a number of areas, seed material was submitted to the grain procurement plan. Most collective farms did not pay the collective farmers for workdays, or these payments were meager.

Labor activity fell even more: “they’ll take it away anyway,” and food prices cooperative network became 3-7 times higher than in neighboring republics. This led to a mass exodus of the working population “to buy bread.” In a number of collective farms, from 80 to 100% of able-bodied men left.

Forced industrialization led to a much larger outflow of people to cities and industrial areas than expected. The population of cities grew by 2.5 - 3 million per year, and the overwhelming majority of this increase was due to the most able-bodied men of the village.

In addition, the number of seasonal workers who did not live in cities permanently, but went there for a while in search of work, reached 4-5 million. The shortage of labor has noticeably worsened the quality of agricultural work.

In Ukraine, one of the important factors was the sharp reduction in the number of oxen, used as the main tax, during the process of collectivization. Peasants slaughtered livestock for meat in anticipation of their socialization.

Due to the growth of the urban population and the increased shortage of grain, the procurement of food resources for industrial centers began to be carried out at the expense of feed grain. In 1932, half as much grain was available for livestock feed as in 1930.
As a result, in the winter of 1931/32 there was the most dramatic reduction in the number of working and productive livestock since the beginning of collectivization.

6.6 million horses died - a quarter of the remaining draft animals; the rest of the livestock was extremely exhausted. The total number of horses decreased in the USSR from 32.1 million in 1928 to 17.3 million in 1933.

By the spring sowing of 1932, agriculture in the zones of “complete collectivization” came virtually without draft animals, and there was nothing to feed the socialized livestock.
Spring sowing was carried out in a number of areas manually, or plowed with cows.

So, by the beginning of the spring sowing season of 1932, the village approached a serious lack of draft power and a sharply deteriorated quality of labor resources. At the same time, the dream of “ploughing the land with tractors” was still a dream. The total power of tractors reached the figure planned for 1933 only seven years later; combine harvesters were just beginning to be used

A decrease in the incentive to work, a drop in the number of working and productive livestock, and spontaneous migration of the rural population predetermined a sharp decline in the quality of basic agricultural work.
.
As a result, the fields sown with grain in 1932 in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and other areas were overgrown with weeds. But the peasants, herded into newly created collective farms, and having already had experience “they will take it away anyway,” were in no hurry to show miracles of labor enthusiasm.

Even parts of the Red Army were sent to weeding work. But this did not save, and with a fairly tolerable biological harvest in 1931/32, sufficient to prevent mass starvation, grain losses during harvesting grew to unprecedented proportions.

If in 1931, according to the NK RKI, about 20% of the gross grain harvest was lost during harvesting, then in 1932 the losses were even greater. In Ukraine, up to 40% of the harvest remained standing; in the Lower and Middle Volga, losses reached 35.6% of the total gross grain harvest.

By the spring of 1932, severe food shortages began to appear in the main grain-producing areas

In the spring and early summer of 1932, in a number of areas, starving collective farmers and individual farmers mowed down unripe winter crops, dug up planted potatoes, etc.
Part of the seed aid provided to the Ukrainian SSR by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in March-June was used as food.

As of May 15, 1932, according to Pravda, 42% of the total sown area was sown.
By the beginning of the harvesting campaign in July 1932, more than 2.2 million hectares of spring crops were not sown in Ukraine, 2 million hectares of winter crops were not sown, and 0.8 million hectares were frozen.

The American historian Tauger, who studied the causes of the 1933 famine, believes that the crop failure was caused by an unusual combination of a set of reasons, among which drought played a minimal role, but the main role was played by plant diseases, an unusually wide spread of pests and grain shortages associated with the drought of 1931, rains in time of sowing and harvesting grain.

Are there natural causes or low level agricultural technology, due to the transition period of the formation of the collective farm system, but the country was threatened with a sharp drop in the gross grain harvest.

Trying to rectify the situation, by decree of May 6, 1932, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks lowered the grain procurement plan for the year. In order to stimulate the growth of grain production, the grain procurement plan was reduced from 22.4 million tons to 18.1 million, which is only a little more than a quarter of the predicted harvest.

But the grain yield forecasts that existed at that time, based on their biological productivity, significantly overestimated the actual indicators.

Thus, the grain procurement plan in 1932 was drawn up based on preliminary data about a higher harvest (in reality it turned out to be two to three times lower). And the party and administrative leadership of the country, after lowering the grain procurement plan, demanded strict adherence to the plan.

Harvesting in a number of areas was carried out ineffectively and belatedly, the ears stopped growing, crumbled, stacking was not carried out, loaf warmers were used without grain catchers, which further increased considerable grain losses.
The intensity of harvesting and threshing of the 1932 harvest was extremely low - “they will take it away anyway.”

In the fall of 1932, it became clear that in the main grain-producing regions the grain procurement plan was catastrophically not being fulfilled, which threatened the urban population with starvation and thwarted plans for accelerated industrialization.
So in Ukraine, at the beginning of October, only 35.3% of the plan was fulfilled.
The emergency measures taken to speed up the procurement helped little. By the end of October, only 39% of the annual plan had been fulfilled.

Waiting as in last year, non-payment of workdays, members of collective farms began to steal grain en masse. In many collective farms, advances in kind were issued that significantly exceeded the established norms and inflated standards for public catering were indicated. Thus, the collective farm management circumvented the norm for the distribution of income only after the plans were fulfilled.

On November 5, in order to strengthen the struggle for grain, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) proposes to the People's Commissariat of Justice, regional and district committees, along with the deployment of broad mass work, to ensure a decisive increase in assistance to grain procurements from the justice authorities.

It was necessary to oblige the judicial authorities to consider cases of grain procurements out of turn, as a rule, in mobile sessions on the spot with the use of severe repressions, while ensuring a differentiated approach to individual social groups, applying especially harsh measures to speculators and grain resellers.

In pursuance of the decision, a decree was issued, which stated the need to establish special supervision by prosecutors over the work of administrative bodies regarding the use of fines in relation to farms that fall far behind the grain delivery plan.

On November 18, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine adopted a new tough resolution, which planned to send 800 communist workers to villages, where “kulak sabotage and disorganization of party work were most sharp character" https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Resolution_of_the_Politburo_of_the_Central_KP_KP (b) U_18_November_1932_"On_measures_to_strengthen_grain procurements"

The resolution outlines possible repressive measures against collective farms and individual farmers who do not fulfill grain procurement plans. Among them: 1. Prohibition of the creation of natural funds on collective farms that do not fulfill the procurement plan

2. A ban on the issuance of advances in kind on all collective farms that are unsatisfactorily fulfilling the grain procurement plan, with the immediate return of illegally issued grain in advance.

3. Confiscation of bread stolen from collective farms, from various kinds of grabbers and loafers who do not have workdays, but have reserves of grain.

4. To bring to court, as plunderers of state and public property, storekeepers, accountants, bookkeepers, supply managers and weighers who hide grain from accounting and compile false accounting data in order to facilitate theft and embezzlement.

5. The import and sale of all manufactured goods, without exception, must be stopped in districts and individual villages, especially those that perform grain procurements unsatisfactorily.

After the release of this decree, excesses began in the localities with its implementation, and on November 29, the Politburo of the Central Committee (b) U issued a decree indicating the inadmissibility of excesses. (Annex 1)

Despite the adopted resolutions, both the delivery plan and
threshing of bread was significantly delayed. According to data as of December 1, 1932, in Ukraine, on an area of ​​725 thousand hectares, grains are not threshed.

Therefore, although the total volume of grain exports from the village through all channels (procurement, purchases at market prices, collective farm market) decreased in 1932–1933 by approximately 20% compared to previous years, due to low harvests, and with such exports Cases of virtually complete confiscation of collected grain from peasants were practiced. Famine began in areas of mass collectivization.

The question of the number of victims of the famine of 1932-1933 became the arena of a manipulative struggle, during which anti-Soviet activists in Russia and the entire post-Soviet space sought to increase the number of “victims of Stalinism” as much as possible. Ukrainian nationalists played a special role in these manipulations.

The theme of the mass famine of 1932-1933 in the Ukrainian SSR actually became the basis of the ideological policy of the leadership of post-Soviet Ukraine. Monuments to victims of the famine, museums and exhibitions dedicated to the tragedy of the 1930s were opened throughout Ukraine.
Exhibition displays sometimes became scandalous due to obvious manipulations with historical material (Appendix 3)

In 2006, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine declared the Holodomor a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out with the aim of “suppressing the national liberation aspirations of Ukrainians and preventing the construction of an independent Ukrainian state.”

IN Russian Federation anti-Soviet forces widely used the famine of 1932-33 as a weighty argument for the justice of transferring the country to capitalism. During Medvedev's presidency The State Duma adopted a resolution condemning the actions of the Soviet authorities who organized the famine of 1932-33.

The resolution states:
“As a result of the famine caused by forced collectivization, many regions of the RSFSR, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus suffered. The peoples of the USSR paid a huge price for industrialization... About 7 million people died in the USSR from hunger and diseases associated with malnutrition in 1932-1933.”

Almost the same number of deaths from the famine of 1932-33 was given by Goebbels propaganda during the Second World War

The famous Russian historian-archivist, V. Tsaplin, who headed the Russian State Archive of Economics, calls the figure 3.8 million people

In the school textbook on Russian history, in use since 2011, edited by Sakharov, the total number of famine victims is determined to be 3 million people. It also states that 1.5 million people died of hunger in Ukraine

The venerable ethnographer Professor Urlanis, in his calculations of losses from famine in the USSR in the early 1930s, gives a figure of 2.7 million

According to V. Kozhinov’s calculations, collectivization and famine led to the fact that in 1929–1933 the mortality rate in the country exceeded the mortality rate in the previous five years of NEP (1924–1928) by one and a half times. It must be said that a similar change in mortality rates in Russia took place starting in 1994 compared to the second half of the 80s.

According to Doctor of Historical Sciences Elena Osokina, the number of registered deaths exceeded the number of registered births, in particular, in the European part of the USSR as a whole - by 1975 thousand, and in the Ukrainian SSR - by 1459 thousand.

If we are based on the results of the All-Union Census of 1937 and recognize the natural mortality rate in Ukraine in 1933 as the average natural mortality rate for the years 1927-30, when there was no famine (524 thousand per year), then with a birth rate in 1933 of 621 years, in Ukraine there was natural population growth equal to 97 thousand. This is five times less than the average increase in the previous three years

It follows that 388 thousand people died from famine.

Materials “On the state of population registration of the Ukrainian SSR” for 1933 give 470,685 births and 1,850,256 deaths. That is, the number of residents decreased due to famine by almost 1,380 thousand people.

Zemskov gives approximately the same figure for Ukraine in his famous work"On the question of the scale of repression in the USSR."

The Institute of National Memory of Ukraine, naming the increasing number of Holodomor victims every year, began collecting a martyrology, “Books of Memory,” of all those who died of hunger. Requests were sent to all settlements Ukraine on the number of deaths during the Holodomor and their national composition.

It was possible to collect the names of 882,510 citizens who died in those years. But, to the disappointment of the initiators, among those people whom the current Ukrainian government is trying to present as victims of the famine of the 30s, not the most died from hunger or malnutrition. most of. A significant proportion of deaths were from domestic reasons: accidents, poisonings, criminal murders.

This is described in detail in the article by Vladimir Kornilov “Holodomor. Falsification on a national scale." In it, he analyzed data from the “Books of Memory” published by the Institute of National Memory of Ukraine.

The authors of the regional “Books of Memory”, out of bureaucratic zeal, entered into the registers all the dead and deceased from January 1, 1932 to December 31, 1933, regardless of the cause of death, sometimes duplicating some names, but were unable to collect more than 882,510 victims, which is quite comparable to the annual (!) mortality rate in modern Ukraine.
While, increasing every year, the official number of “Holodomor victims” reaches 15 million.

The situation is even worse with evidence of the “genocide of the Ukrainian people.” If we analyze the data for those cities of Central and Southern Ukraine, where local archivists decided to meticulously approach the matter and not hide the nationality column, which is “inconvenient” for the east of Ukraine.

For example, the compilers of the “Book of Memory” classified 1,467 people as “victims of the Holodomor” in the city of Berdyansk. Nationalities are indicated on the cards of 1,184 of them. Of these, 71% were ethnic Russians, 13% were Ukrainians, 16% were representatives of other ethnic groups.

As for villages and towns, you can find different numbers there. For example, data for the Novovasilievsky Council of the same Zaporozhye region: of the 41 “Holodomor victims” whose nationalities were indicated, 39 were Russian, 1 was Ukrainian (2-day-old Anna Chernova died with a diagnosis of “erysipelas,” which can hardly be attributed to hunger ) and 1 – Bulgarian (cause of death – “burnt”). And here is the data for the village of Vyacheslavka in the same region: of the 49 deaths with the specified nationality, 46 were Bulgarians, 1 each was Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan. In Friedrichfeld, of the 28 “victims of the Holodomor,” one hundred percent are Germans.

Well, the lion’s share of the “Victims of the Holodomor”, of course, came from the most populated industrial eastern regions. There were especially many of them among the miners. Absolutely all deaths from injuries received in production in Donbass or in mines are also attributed by the compilers of the “Book of Memory” to the results of hunger.

The idea of ​​compiling “Books of Memory,” which obliged regional officials to search for documents related to the “Holodomor,” led to an effect that the initiators of the campaign did not expect.

Examining the documents that local executive officials included in the regional “Books of Memory of Holodomor Victims,” you do not find a single document confirming the thesis that then, in the 30s, the authorities took actions the purpose of which was to deliberately cause famine, and even more so completely exterminate the Ukrainian or any other ethnic group on the territory of Ukraine.

The authorities of that time - often on direct orders from Moscow - made sometimes belated, sometimes clumsy, but sincere and persistent efforts to overcome the tragedy and save people's lives. And this in no way fits into the concepts of modern falsifiers of history.

Annex 1
Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee (b) U dated November 29 “On the progress of implementation of Politburo resolutions of October 30 and November 18”,
1. The resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) U on funds in local collective farms is being simplified and distorted. The Central Committee once again warns that the application of this decision is a matter that requires great flexibility and knowledge of the actual situation on the collective farms.

Simply and mechanically transporting all funds to grain procurement is completely wrong and unacceptable. This is especially wrong with regard to the seed fund. The seizure of collective farm funds and their inspection should not be carried out indiscriminately, not everywhere. It is necessary to skillfully select collective farms in such a way that abuses and hidden grain are really discovered there.

A more limited number of inspections, but inspections that yield serious results, exposing saboteurs, kulaks, their accomplices, and decisive reprisal against them will put much more pressure on other collective farms, where the inspection has not yet been carried out, than a hasty, unprepared inspection of a large number of collective farms with insignificant results .

It is necessary to apply various forms and methods of this verification, individualizing each collective farm. In a number of cases, it is more profitable to use a hidden verification of funds without informing the collective farm about the verification. Where it is known that the check will not give serious results and is not beneficial to us, it is better to refuse it in advance.

The removal of at least part of the seed material should be allowed only in particularly exceptional cases, with the permission of the regional party committees and with the simultaneous adoption of measures that actually ensure the replenishment of this fund from other intra-collective farm sources.

For the unauthorized removal of at least part of the seed fund, the regional committees in relation to the PKK, and the PKK in relation to their authorized representatives, must apply strict penalties and immediately correct the mistakes made.

2. In the application of repression both to individual farmers, and especially against collective farms and collective farmers, in many regions they are already straying into mechanical and indiscriminate use, counting on the fact that the use of naked repression itself should provide bread. This is incorrect and certainly harmful practice.

Not a single repression, without the simultaneous deployment of political and organizational work, can give the result we need. While well-calculated repressions applied to skillfully selected collective farms, repressions carried through to the end, accompanied by appropriate party-mass work, give the desired result not only in those collective farms where they are applied, but also in neighboring collective farms that do not fulfill the plan.

Many grassroots workers believe that the use of repression frees them from the need to carry out mass work or makes it easier for them to do this work. Just the opposite. It is the use of repression as a last resort that makes our party work more difficult.

If we, taking advantage of the repression applied to the collective farm as a whole, to the directors or to the accountants and other officials of the collective farm, do not achieve the consolidation of our forces on the collective farm, do not achieve the unity of the activists in this matter, do not achieve real approval of this repression from the mass of collective farmers, then we will not get the necessary results regarding the implementation of the grain procurement plan.

In cases where we are dealing with an exceptionally unscrupulous, stubborn collective farm that has fallen entirely under kulak influence, it is necessary first of all to ensure support for this repression from the surrounding collective farms, to achieve condemnation and to organize pressure on such a collective farm from the public opinion of the surrounding collective farms.

All of the above does not mean at all that enough repression has already been applied and that at present in the regions they have organized really serious and decisive pressure on the kulak elements and the organizers of the sabotage of grain procurements.

On the contrary, the repressive measures provided for by the resolutions of the Central Committee in relation to kulak elements both on collective farms and among individual peasants have yet to be used very little and have not given the necessary results due to indecision and hesitation where repression is undoubtedly necessary.

3. The fight against kulak influence on collective farms is, first of all, a fight against theft, against the concealment of grain on collective farms. This is a fight against those who deceive the state, who directly or indirectly work against grain procurements, who organize sabotage of grain procurements.

Meanwhile, completely insufficient attention is paid to this in the regions. Against thieves, grabbers and grain plunderers, against those who deceive the proletarian state and collective farmers, at the same time as using repression, we must raise the hatred of the collective farm masses, we must ensure that the entire mass of collective farmers brand these people as kulak agents and class enemies.

Appendix 2.
Discussion of falsifications of the Holodomor topic on social networks.

1. The falsifications of the “Holodomor” continue to this day and take the form of a spectacle that is no longer even criminal, but something like a procession of feeble-minded, backward clowns. So recently, the Security Service of Ukraine was caught falsifying the “Ukrainian Holocaust” exhibition held in Sevastopol - the photographs were passed off by scammers from the Ukrainian special services as photographs of the “Holodomor”.

Without blinking an eye, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Valentin Nalyvaichenko, admitted that “part” of the photographs used in Sevastopol at the “Holodomor” exhibition were not authentic, because allegedly Soviet time all (!) photographs from 1932-33 from Ukraine were destroyed, and now “they can be found with great difficulty and only in private archives.” This suggests that even in the archives of the special services there is no photo evidence

2. Cases of well-confirmed hunger are characterized by nutritional dystrophy. Most patients do not die, but become emaciated and turn into living skeletons.

The famine of 1921-22 showed mass degeneration, the famine of 1946-47 - mass degeneration, the Leningrad siege famine - also mass degeneration, prisoners of Nazi concentration camps - total degeneration.

The swelling of the starving people of 1932-33 is recorded everywhere, while dystrophy is very, very rare. There is evidence that swelling indicates poisoning by grain stored in improper conditions.

The grain was hidden in earthen pits; the grain was not cleaned of fungi, which is why it spoiled, becoming poisonous and life-threatening. So, often, people died from grain poisoning by grain pests such as smut and rust.

Introduction

One of the blind spots of Soviet history for a long time There was the Great Famine of 1932-1933, which, according to undoubtedly reliable sources, claimed 6 million lives. This catastrophe does not fit into the scale of other protracted famine years or periods that befell Russia at different intervals. The Great Famine was a direct consequence of the new system of farming in the countryside, the “military-feudal method of government,” as one of the Bolshevik leaders who opposed Stalin, Nikolai Bukharin, put it. The famine arose during the period of forced collectivization and became a tragic illustration of the monstrous social regression that accompanied the forced policy of Soviet power in the countryside in the late 20s.

Unlike the famine of 1921-1922, during which the Soviet government turned to other states for help, the famine of 1932-1933 was denied by the Soviet regime, moreover, it used propaganda to silence those voices that tried to draw attention to this tragedy . In this, the Soviet government was greatly helped by the “personal impressions” of the French deputy and leader of the radical party, Edouard Herriot, who traveled around Ukraine in the summer of 1933 and found out that there were now only “collective farm gardens and orchards, perfectly cultivated and irrigated.” Herriot hastened to make the following statement: “I traveled through the whole of Ukraine. And what! I saw a large fruit-bearing garden." This dazzle was partly the result of a stunning staging organized by the OGPU for foreign guests, whose route ran through exemplary collective farms and exemplary kindergartens. This position was probably also supported by political considerations on the part of the French leaders who were in power at that time: from their point of view, the emerging process of rapprochement with the Soviet Union should not be interrupted in the face of an increasingly tangible threat from Germany, where it had recently come to power Adolf Hitler came.

However, some high political leaders, especially German and Italian, were aware of the famine of 1932-1933. Reports from Italian diplomats from Kharkov, Odessa and Novorossiysk, recently discovered and published by the Italian historian Andrea Graziosi, show that Mussolini read these texts with particular care and was well aware of the state of affairs in Russia. However, he never used the information received for anti-communist propaganda; on the contrary, the summer of 1933 was marked by an agreement on Italian-Soviet cooperation in the field of trade, followed by a treaty on friendly relations and non-aggression. Denied or hushed up in the interests of state, the truth about the great famine, previously known only to a few publications in publications of Ukrainian organizations abroad, began to be realized only in the second half of the 80s after the publication of the series research work both Western historians and historians of the former Soviet Union. It is probably impossible to understand the famine of 1932-1933 outside the context of the new “economic relations” between the state and the peasantry, which resulted from the forced collectivization of the countryside. In villages where the socialization of farms took place, the role of collective farms was strategic. The goal of socialization was to ensure fixed supplies of agricultural products, and the lion's share of all agricultural supplies was to be occupied by collective farm products. Every autumn, the collectivization campaign turned into a real test of the strength of relations between the state and the peasantry, who tried by all means to hide part of their harvest. The game was large-scale: the state only thought about increasing the production received from the peasants, while it was important for the peasant to survive.

The origins of the famine of 1932-1933.

The causes of the famine of the early 1930s were rooted in the achievements of forced collectivization. During the NEP Soviet authority confiscated 20 - 25% of the grain grown from the village. With the beginning of collectivization, the share of state grain procurements jumped to 35 - 40%. In 1930 a large harvest was harvested. Grain procurements kept increasing, and by 1932, rural Russia began to fall into real chaos of disorganization of agricultural production, in which the lower classes (peasants) sought primarily to sabotage the collective farm system imposed on them, and the upper classes (bureaucracy), through strengthening the dictatorship of collective farms, sought to pump out more grain from the villages, to ensure the industrialization and militarization of the USSR.

As a result, in comparison with 1931, in 1932 there was a significant reduction in sown areas: according to various estimates, from 15 to 25%. As a result, in the country as a whole, grain losses amounted to at least 30% of the harvest. The peasantry en masse and by all means, from sabotage to theft, opposed collectivization. The Stalinist leadership justifiably believed that in 1932 the theft of “socialist property” had acquired the scale of a true epidemic

The Bolsheviks began to knock out the wedge with a wedge. On August 7, 1932, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted the law written by Stalin “On the protection of the property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperation and the strengthening of public socialist property,” popularly called the “Five Ears of Ears” law. This was Stalin's answer to the so-called barbers of collective farm fields. The law provided for execution for theft of state and collective farm property, and in extenuating circumstances - imprisonment for a term of at least 10 years. By January 1, 1933, about 54,645 people had already been convicted under this law, of which 2,100 were executed. At the same time, Stalin’s secretaries Molotov, Kaganovich, Postyshev mobilized the party organizations of the most grain-producing regions of Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and the Volga region to extort bread from collective farms. And although there was no terrible drought in 1932 - 1933, the unprecedented three-year conflict between the bureaucracy and the peasantry turned into a terrible famine.

Another important reason for the terrible famine was the destruction of the traditional system of peasant survival in times of famine. Typically, each peasant family and each village had its own emergency grain reserves for a rainy day. By the end of 1932, the Soviet government confiscated virtually all of these insurance reserves en masse. In winter and spring, the party distributed grain only for the collective farm sowing campaign and necessary public works. The hunger was aggravated by the absence of kulaks in the village. Usually, in years of famine, strong, wealthy peasants provided all possible food assistance to poor fellow villagers, saving them from starvation. But by 1932, not only bread, but also kulaks were taken out of the village.

Scale of famine

Despite such innovations and the new rampant violence in the countryside, many collective farms were unable to fulfill the 1932 targets for delivering grain. Farms that fulfilled the plan were subject to additional taxes until the grain was completely harvested. On November 4, 1932, the board of the collective farm named after. Molotov Kameshkir region accepts the grain procurement plan sent “from above” in the amount of 100 centners. The collective farm fulfills it. But already on December 29, 1932, the board adopted an additional plan in the amount of 30 centners. The attempt to refuse is nipped in the bud by the demand of the district authorities: to immediately begin shipping grain.

A number of heads of farms and districts tried to leave sowing funds to collective farms to help the peasants overcome the impending famine. But on December 7, 1932, a circular was sent out signed by Stalin, in which these leaders were declared “deceivers of the party and swindlers who skillfully pursue kulak politics under the banner of their “consent” with the general line of the party.” Stalin demanded the immediate arrest of such leaders for a period of 5 to 10 years.

Commissions headed by L.M. Kaganovich and V.M. Molotov were sent to areas with similar cases of “sabotage.” and other members of the top party elite. The commissions carried out not only the forced confiscation of grain from collective farms that did not fulfill procurement plans, but also mass repressions against local party, Soviet, collective farm workers, ordinary collective farmers / dissolution of party organizations and mass expulsions from the party, widespread arrests, removal of all products from villages listed on “black boards”, as malicious saboteurs of grain procurements/.

The theoretical justification provided by Stalin for these repressions is interesting. “From the point of view of Leninism, collective farms, like the Soviets, taken as a form of organization, are weapons and only weapons. This weapon can, under certain conditions, be directed against the revolution. It can be directed against counter-revolution. The whole point is in whose hands these weapons are.” From here degenerates and saboteurs were brought out and severely punished.

The village was overwhelmed by a new wave of administrative arbitrariness and violence. As with dispossession, punitive functions are assumed by all administrative workers. The OGPU authorities and especially the police lost their sense of proportion in such conditions and acted on the principle: first arrest, and then sort it out.

However, all this pales in comparison with a new disaster - the massive famine that broke out in the winter of 1932 - 1933. The famine swept through literally all the grain-producing regions of the country - Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga, the Southern Urals and Kazakhstan. There have been cases of extinction of entire villages here. There are no official documents on the famine, and this topic was closed until recently, so the scale of the disaster and its forms can only be judged from indirect sources, the memories of contemporaries. Thus, in the Penza region in 1933, mortality increased sharply compared to previous and subsequent years, especially due to infectious diseases. In 1933, diagnoses appeared for the first time - he died from hunger, from malnutrition. Telegrams asking for help with grain and seeds to the center can also indicate famine.

But the size of food loans was insignificant and they could not improve the situation. Attempts by the hungry to find salvation in more prosperous areas and cities were unsuccessful. They either stumbled upon cordons, or were ruthlessly caught and returned to where hunger reigned. And the situation of peasants in starving areas was truly terrifying, although this can only be judged by the recollections of eyewitnesses, surviving reports and reports of various organizations, comparison of indirect statistical figures, etc.

Of great interest are the MTS reports for 1933, which contain, in particular, the following facts: A. Ponomarev, the head of the Lopatin MTS, reports that in the first half of 1933, 80 people in 3 villages of the Lopatinsky district did not go to work for several days due to overeating mushrooms, grass while waiting for the grain to be threshed. V. Gerasimov from the Kolyshley MTS reports on the absence of collective farmers from work due to hunger.

In the Kameshkir region, 400 people died from exhaustion in just 4 months. Tamalinskaya MTS - in the 1st section in 1933, a total of 525 collective farmers did not go to work, in the 2nd section – 250 collective farmers.

According to the testimony of now pensioner E. Bezverkhov, in the village of Sorokino, Lopatinsky district, the dead were dumped in a common pit, because the living did not have the strength to bury everyone separately. N. Natina, a resident of the village of Akhmatovka, Nikolsky district, recalls that people, going to extremes, ate everything that even remotely resembled food, even cats and dogs. They ate and died in large numbers from disease, simply from hunger.

The village of 1933 was mostly a terrible, depopulated village, with people dying right on the streets. All this was carefully hidden by official propaganda and statistics. There is still no more or less accurate answer to the question about the number of people who died from the famine of 1932-1933. Various estimates are emerging, up to 7 million people. However, V.P. Danilov considers the most objective estimates of statistical data to be 3-4 million people. Historians have yet to clarify this issue in order to give a truly complete picture of the scale and consequences of the famine, for which the full responsibility lies with the Stalinist leadership. It is not for nothing that already in 1933, rumors about the “Kalinin famine” circulated in the Penza region. The fact that bread was confiscated from collective farms for the needs of industrialization cannot justify or at least somehow justify the violence during the creation of collective farms, much less mass starvation. “The famine of 1932-1933 cannot be assessed other than as the most serious crime of the Stalinist leadership against the Soviet people.”

Consequences of the famine of 1932-1933.

The result of these percentage victories was the complete and long-term disorganization of agricultural production. The threat of collectivization encouraged peasants to slaughter livestock (the number of cattle decreased by a quarter between 1928-1930). The shortage of seeds for spring sowing, caused by the confiscation of grain, foreshadowed catastrophic consequences.

In his article “Dizziness from Success,” which appeared in Pravda on March 2, 1930, Stalin condemned numerous cases of violation of the principle of voluntariness in the organization of collective farms, “the bureaucratic decree of the collective farm movement.” He criticized excessive “zealousness” in the matter of dispossession, of which many middle peasants became victims. Small livestock, poultry, equipment, and buildings were often socialized. It was necessary to stop this “dizziness from success” and put an end to “paper collective farms, which do not yet exist in reality, but about the existence of which there are a lot of boastful resolutions.” The article, however, had absolutely no self-criticism, and all responsibility for the mistakes made was placed on the local leadership. The question of revising the very principle of collectivization did not in any way arise. The effect of the article, which was followed by the resolution of the Central Committee “On the struggle against the distortion of the party line in the collective farm movement” on March 14, had an immediate impact. While local party cadres were in complete disarray, a massive exodus of peasants from collective farms began (5 million people in March alone). By July 1, no more than 5.5 million peasant farms (21% of the total number of peasants) remained collectivized, or almost 3 times less than on March 1. Resumed from new strength By the autumn of 1930, the grain procurement campaign contributed to the growth of tensions, which had temporarily subsided in the spring. Exceptionally favorable weather 1930 made it possible to collect a magnificent harvest of 83.5 million tons. Grain procurement, carried out by proven methods, brought the state 22 million tons of grain, or twice as much as was possible to obtain in the last years of the NEP. These results, achieved in fact at the cost of huge levies from collective farms (reaching up to 50-60% and even 70% of the harvest in the most fertile areas, for example in Ukraine), could only encourage the authorities to continue the collectivization policy. On the peasants again different ways pressure was exerted: areas that resisted collectivization were excluded from the supply of manufactured goods; Collective farms were given not only confiscated kulak lands, but also all pastures and forests that were in the common use of the peasants; finally, a new wave of dispossession swept through, affecting 12-15% of peasant farms in Ukraine. The peasants' reaction to this robbery in broad daylight was fierce: during the grain procurements of 1930-1931. GPU departments registered tens of thousands of cases of arson of collective farm buildings. Despite this, by July 1, 1931, the percentage of collectivized farms had returned to the level of March 1, 1930 (57.5%).

The grain taken from the peasants was intended for export, mainly to Germany. This country undertook, within the framework of the German-Soviet trade agreement signed in April 1931, to provide the Soviet Union with significant loans (more than 1 billion marks). In exchange for the equipment necessary for industrialization (from 1931 to 1936, half of all equipment imported into the USSR was of German origin), the Soviet side assumed obligations to supply Germany with agricultural raw materials and gold. Since the beginning of the 1930s, the extraction of this metal has reached unprecedented levels, primarily in Kolyma and in the regions of the Far North, where work force prisoners were used - mostly dispossessed peasants.

Conclusion

Over the course of five years, the state managed to carry out a “brilliant” operation to extort agricultural products, buying them at ridiculously low prices, barely covering 20% ​​of the cost. This operation was accompanied by an unprecedentedly widespread use of coercive measures, which contributed to the strengthening of the police-bureaucratic nature of the regime. Violence against peasants made it possible to hone the methods of repression that were later applied to others community groups. In response to coercion, the peasants worked increasingly worse, since the land essentially did not belong to them. The state had to closely monitor all processes of peasant activity, which at all times and in all countries were very successfully carried out by the peasants themselves: plowing, sowing, reaping, threshing, etc. Deprived of all rights, independence and any initiative, collective farms were doomed to stagnation. And collective farmers, ceasing to be owners, turned into second-class citizens.