Famine in the USSR (1932-1933). Holodomor in Ukraine

"The Law of Five Spikelets"

First the bad. A terrible famine that broke out in the south of the country claimed many lives. Its main reason was the ruthless seizure of grain from peasants, mainly for export. Entire villages of people died, and horrific cases of cannibalism occurred.

A law on the protection of socialist property, called by the people “the law of five ears of corn,” was adopted. The theft of collective farm property was punishable by execution with confiscation of property or imprisonment for at least 10 years, also with confiscation of property. If, of course, there was one...

Now about the little joys. On the Day of Defense of the Red Capital, skating was held in gas masks. Simple but exotic! “Evening Moscow” told about another new entertainment - Canadian hockey: “The match is played on a field almost half the size of our hockey fields. There are six people in a team. Hockey players play not with a ball, but with a flat puck.”

It’s hard to imagine, but already in the early thirties, some people had televisions! Stalin, for example, and a dozen or two of his comrades. Therefore, this newspaper article is for them: “On May 1, 1932, a festive broadcast about the parade and demonstration of workers took place. Filming took place on Pushkinskaya Square, Tverskaya Street and Red Square. On the evening of May 1, the film was shown to television viewers.”

Now about literary matters: Nikolai Ostrovsky completed the novel “How the Steel Was Tempered,” and Mikhail Sholokhov put the finishing touches on “Virgin Soil Upturned.” Nobody, not even the authors themselves, know that they have created masterpieces. But Andrei Platonov’s book “Happy Moscow” has been lost in time, and its title is painfully outdated...

Valery Burt

—Mendel and Isaac violated traffic rules. A traffic police inspector stops them and asks them to pay a fine. - And the Nobel Prize laureates... Mendel and Isaac violated traffic rules. A traffic police inspector stops them and asks them to pay a fine. - Do Nobel Prize laureates also pay a fine? - asks Mendel. The inspector apologizes and lets them go. -Are you a Nobel Prize laureate? - Isaac is surprised. - No, of course, but can I ask?

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—This happened a long time ago when Mao Zedong himself died. Then a whole batch of Chinese carpets was brought to stores in one city. The carpets were very beautiful,… This happened a long time ago when Mao Zedong himself died. Then a whole batch of Chinese carpets was brought to stores in one city. The carpets were very beautiful, all in colors and patterns; people quickly bought them up and hung them on their walls. Only after this did cases of sudden death at night become more frequent. Very often people began to die from heart failure. And the ambulance did not have time to come to them. A woman and her son lived in this city. The son was already an adult. And their apartment was two-room. And so the mother slept in the large room, and the son in the small one. And then one day a woman bought such a large Chinese carpet. She, of course, hung it on the wall in the large room and admired it all day with her son. And at night a terrible scream was heard from the large room. The son got scared and called the police. The police enter a large room and see: a dead woman lying on the bed; and she has no wounds or bruises, only an expression of mortal horror on her face. Nobody understands anything, but one policeman, an experienced lieutenant (he was later hired as an investigator), guessed to turn off the light. It became dark and everyone saw a terrifying picture. On the wall the coffin glows, Mao Zedong lies in it. In his hands, folded on his chest, a candle burns with green fire. And the eyes are open and looking at people. The experienced lieutenant immediately turned on the light. And again there is nothing, only a carpet hanging on the wall, shimmering in different colors. Then everyone understood that it was from fear that people died when they saw the coffin with Mao Zedong at night. And the Chinese used specially phosphorescent threads to embroider on their carpets. In the light you can’t see anything, but in the dark it glows. So they said goodbye to their leader.

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The end of 1932 - the beginning of 1933 were one of the most difficult times for the USSR. The process of industrialization of the country proceeded rapidly at an accelerated pace. But for industrial giants they did not have time to simultaneously create the appropriate infrastructure, problems arose with the delivery of raw materials and sales of products. For a number of construction projects, due to the redistribution of resources, there were not enough resources, due to the emergency regime, labor safety standards were violated, because of this, people became crippled. Working conditions were still very bad; due to overcrowding and disgusting living conditions in barracks and temporary shelters, illnesses began. But, despite all the difficulties, the country was transformed before our eyes.

In agriculture, things were worse. The peasants could not immediately rebuild their psychology and work on collective farms in the same way as for themselves, plus the meager incomes of collective farmers, which did not stimulate an increase in productivity. In addition, the priority direction for the development of the national economy was heavy industry, so funds from the sale of timber, grain, oil, etc. went there. 1932 was a lean year.

Map of the main famine areas in the USSR. The thicker the shading, the greater the size of the disaster

Before the “strike,” they organized an information campaign in the media: in the fall of 1932, journalist Stavsky from Pravda visited Kuban, where he found a complete “counter-revolution” from the “hidden” remnants of the Cossacks, the “White Guard,” who carried out “organized sabotage.” He was supported by the Rostov newspaper “Molot”. They immediately reacted to it, three special forces were sent from Rostov, and the squads were formed in advance from “internationalists” (Latvians, Hungarians, Chinese." Yagoda and Kaganovich personally came from Moscow to lead the operation. Moreover, the punitive detachments acted in the “best traditions "The Civil War: there were mass arrests and executions, including public ones. Thus, in Tikhoretskaya, 600 people were executed - for three days in a row, 200 people were taken to the square and shot. The executions took place in the villages of the Kuban, Stavropol, Kuban. At the same time, a “purge” was carried out "party ranks, expelled party members who "connived with saboteurs", only in the North Caucasus Territory, 45% of communists in rural areas, 26 thousand people, were expelled. Some were sent into exile, property was confiscated. On November 4, 1932, the North Caucasus Regional Committee accepted A resolution to carry out a series of punitive measures against a number of villages for the failure of grain procurements: all goods were removed from them, shops were closed, and all debts were collected ahead of schedule. As a result, these events were extended to other regions of the Kuban and even to the Don.

Then the operation was repeated in Ukraine, where journalists also exposed the “kulak counter-revolution.” On December 14, 1932, a joint resolution of the Central Committee and the government “On grain procurements in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Western Region” was adopted, and the deadline for completing procurement was set to the Sami by mid-January 1933. The Ukrainian authorities, led by Postyshev, Kosior, and Chubar, introduced measures similar to those in the North Caucasus region. Trade was prohibited, general searches were carried out, food was taken away, and everything was wiped clean, money and valuables were taken to pay off the “debt”. If hidden food was found, fines were imposed. If there was nothing, houses were taken away, people were kicked out into the streets in winter. As a result, several villages in the Kuban rebelled, naturally this became an excellent reason to further intensify the repression.

So, the so-called “Holodomor”, and it cannot be said that the plan was to deliberately destroy the population of Ukraine; Russians and other nationalities of New Russia, Central Russia, and the Volga region also perished. And people could not leave those regions where there was famine; these areas were cordoned off by troops, special detachments, so that people would not run away. Plus, in 1932, a passport system was introduced, it made it difficult to move around the USSR, and the rural population did not have passports. People gathered in cities, at stations, but markets there were also closed, supply was only by ration cards, but it was poorly organized. As a result, the famine became a terrible disaster, hundreds of thousands died, and special military teams were dispatched to bury the corpses. People ate cats and dogs, caught rats and crows, on the Don they dug up carrion from cattle burial grounds, and cases of cannibalism occurred. OGPU soldiers and police killed the cannibals on the spot, without trial. Plague began in some places.

As a result, the situation sharply worsened, the supply of cities deteriorated, hunger threatened to spread to other regions, circles of a “Trotskyite”, “Bukharinist” character were created. The sabotage was very powerful, the country could be blown up again - terror and famine could cause a new peasant war, a wave of chaos. This fact is confirmed by the correspondence between the writer Sholokhov and Stalin. Thanks to Sholokhov’s data, a commission headed by Shkiryatov was sent from Moscow to the Don. It is clear that Stalin was not interested in disrupting the plans for industrialization, collectivization, or a new war with the peasantry; this was needed by the internal and external enemies of the USSR. Besides Sholokhov, apparently, there were other “signals” about the organization of the “Holodomor”, so it quickly stopped. Shops opened, food appeared, that is, there was food, even in the same areas where there was famine. However, the investigation by Shkiryatov and other investigators from the center did not reveal the perpetrators, the crime was hushed up, and only an “excess” was reported.

Only a few years later, during the “Great Purge”, a number of figures (including Yagoda) would answer for the “Holodomor”, albeit under other charges. And Sholokhov in Pravda will call the leaders who organized this “enemies of the people” - because “under the pretext of fighting sabotage... they deprived the collective farmers of bread.”

Results:

- The “Holodomor” was organized by “internal enemies” (the so-called “Trotskyists”) with the aim of stopping the rise of the USSR, causing destabilization of the state, undermining trust in the supreme power, returning to the “swamp” of the 20s. Remove Stalin and other “statists” from power.

The people of the USSR were dealt a terrible blow; according to various estimates, 6-8 million people died.

Blaming Stalin personally for the “Holodomor” is stupid; he was not a “cannibal”; he did not need destabilization of the country, disruption of industrialization and other projects.

To believe that the Holodomor was organized for the purpose of genocide of the Ukrainian people is stupid and baseless; the first blow was struck in the Kuban, North Caucasus region, then the famine was organized in other regions, including Ukraine, the Volga region, the Central Black Earth Region, the Urals, Crimea, part Western Siberia, Kazakhstan.

Sources:
Murin Yu. Writer and leader. Correspondence between M. A. Sholokhov and I. V. Stalin. M., 1997.

Shambarov V. E. Anti-Sovietism. M., 2011.
Shambarov V. E. Cossacks. History of free Rus'. M., 2007.
Shubin A. Leaders and conspirators: Political struggle in the USSR in the 1920-1930s. M., 2004.

Famine in the USSR 1932-1933.- mass famine in the USSR on the territory of Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, the Southern Urals, Western Siberia, and Kazakhstan.

The origins of famine in Russia

The history of Russia represents a long series of famine years.

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 “organized famine” in its history, when the subjective, political factor was 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.".

During the second half of the 19th century, the famine years caused by crop failures in 1873, 1880, 1883, 1891, 1892, 1897 and 1898 were especially cruel. In the 20th century, the mass famines of 1901, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911 and 1913 particularly stood out. The causes of mass famine in the 20th century were not in the sphere of exchange, but in the sphere of grain production, and they were caused primarily by extreme fluctuations in Russian harvests due to with their low absolute value and insufficient land provision for the population, which, in turn, did not give it the opportunity to accumulate cash or grain reserves in good years. The exceptional instability of Russian harvests is primarily the result of unfavorable climatic conditions. The most fertile areas are characterized by particularly uneven precipitation. Along with low yields, one of the economic prerequisites for mass famine in Russia was the insufficient supply of land to peasants. A possible reason for this phenomenon was the abolition of serfdom. In addition, the topic of hunger was also discussed by L.N. Tolstoy in his article “On Hunger.”

The devastation, economic chaos, crisis of power and refusal of foreign aid after the Civil War caused a new mass famine in 1921/22. This famine was the first in the nascent USSR. Regional and local food problems and hunger among certain segments of the population, caused by various factors, periodically arose during 1923-31. The second mass famine in the USSR broke out in 1932/33. During the period of collectivization, about 7 million people died from hunger and diseases associated with malnutrition. 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 famine 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

The Holodomor is a mass famine that engulfed the entire territory of the Ukrainian SSR in 1932-1933, causing significant human casualties, the peak of which occurred in the first half of 1933 and, according to opponents of proving the deliberate nature of the famine, is part of the general famine in the USSR of 1932-1933.

Prerequisites for the famine of 1932-1933

Collectivization

From 1927-1929 The Soviet leadership begins 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.

On January 3, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was presented with a draft resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction, which provided for reducing the period of collectivization in the most important grain regions (Middle and Lower Volga, Northern Caucasus) to 1-2 years , for other grain regions - up to 2-3 years, for the most important regions of the consuming belt and other raw material areas - up to 3-4 years. On January 4, 1930, this draft resolution was edited by Stalin and Yakovlev. It shortened the terms of collectivization in the grain-growing regions, and in relation to the wealthy part of the peasantry it was said that the party moved “from a policy of limiting the exploitative tendencies of the kulaks to a policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class.” On January 5, 1930, the draft resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction” was approved at a meeting of the Politburo and published in Pravda on January 6.

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.

Grain procurement

According to the research of Doctor of 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 reasons for 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.” In particular, in the Volga region, in the conditions of a village weakened by dispossession and mass collectivization, deprived of thousands of individual grain growers who were subjected to repression, 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. In fact, under the threat of reprisals and blackmail, collective farm chairmen and heads of rural administrations were forced to transfer almost all volumes of bread produced and in reserve as part of grain procurement. These measures deprived the region of food supplies and led to mass starvation. 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

Grain procurement policy

Already in 1928-1929. Grain procurement took place with great stress. Since the beginning of the 30s, the situation has worsened even more. Objective reasons that caused the need for grain procurements:

population growth in cities and industrial centers (from 1928 to 1931 the urban population increased by 12.4 million);
industrial development, increasing industrial needs for agricultural products;
supplies of grain for export in order to obtain funds for the purchase of Western engineering products.

To meet these needs at that time it was necessary to have 500 million poods of grain annually. Gross grain harvests in 1931-1932, even according to official data, were significantly lower compared to previous years.

A number of foreign researchers (M. Tauger, S. Wheatcroft, R. Davis and J. Cooper), based on official data on gross grain harvests in 1931-1932, note that they should be considered overestimated. To assess the harvest in those years, it was not the actual grain harvest that was determined, but the species (biological) yield. This assessment system overestimated the true yield by no less than 20%. Nevertheless, based on it, grain procurement plans were established, which increased annually. If in 1928 the share of grain procurements was 14.7% of the gross harvest, in 1929 it was? 22.4%, in 1930 - 26.5%, then in 1931 - 32.9%, and in 1932 - 36.9% ( for individual regions, see Table. 1).

Grain yields were declining ( see Table. 2). If in 1927 the average for the USSR was 53.4 poods. per hectare, then in 1931 it was already 38.4 poods. per hectare. However, grain procurements grew from year to year ( see Table. 3).

As a result of the fact that the grain procurement plan in 1932 was drawn up on the basis of preliminary data on a higher harvest (in reality it turned out to be two to three times lower), and the party and administrative leadership of the country demanded strict compliance with it, virtually complete confiscation of collected grain from peasants.

Repression of the rural population

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

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 candidate member of the bureau of the Republic of Kazakhstan Pashinsky, during interrogations at the column headquarters, forced collective farmers to drink huge quantities of 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.

16. The authorized representative of the RO OGPU Yakovlev and the operational group held a meeting at the Verkhne-Chirsky collective farm. The school was heated to the point of stupor. They were not ordered to undress. There was a “cool” room nearby where they were taken out of the meeting for “individual processing.” Those who held the meeting took turns, there were 5 of them, but the collective farmers were the same... The meeting lasted without a break for more than a day.

These examples can be multiplied endlessly. These are not isolated cases of bending, this is a “method” of grain procurements legalized on a regional scale. I either heard about these facts from the communists, or from the collective farmers themselves, who experienced all these “methods” on themselves and then came to me with requests to “write about this in the newspaper.”

Do you remember, Joseph Vissarionovich, Korolenko’s essay “In a calm village?” So this “disappearance” was carried out not on three peasants suspected of stealing from a kulak, but on tens of thousands of collective farmers. And, as you can see, with a richer use of technical means and with greater sophistication.

A similar story happened in the Verkhne-Donsky region, where the same Ovchinnikov, who was the ideological inspirer of these terrible abuses that took place in our country in 1933, was the special commissioner.

...It is impossible to pass over in silence what was happening in the Veshensky and Verkhne-Don regions for three months. There is only hope for you. Sorry for the verbosity of the letter. I decided that it was better to write to you than to use such material to create the latest book of “Virgin Soil Upturned.”

With greetings M. Sholokhov

J. V. Stalin - M. A. Sholokhov
May 6, 1933
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

The repressions were managed by two emergency commissions, which on October 22, 1932, the Politburo sent to Ukraine and the North Caucasus with the aim of “accelerating grain procurements.” One was headed by Molotov, the other by Lazar Kaganovich, and the latter included Genrikh Yagoda.

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 at the expense of collective and state farm herds (lack of feed/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 ?6896.7/30741.4/70540; 1929 - 6086.2/30359.6/67111.9; 1930 ?4336.4/26748.8/52961.7; 1931 n.d./24413/47916; 1932 - n.d./21028/40651; 1933 - n.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; 1930-113,171/13,332.0 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) 1929-4881/54790/323991; 1930-6684/137594/750254 1931 - 13174/141681/713434/ 1932- 26691/147156/1045004; 1933- 14587/86773/853053.

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. The fact that this became a mass phenomenon and 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 locally.

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

According to some authors, such a policy of socialization of livestock and meat procurement led to an even greater reduction in the number of livestock 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). 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.

In this regard, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sharply issued a statement that “only enemies of collective farms can allow the forced socialization of cows and small livestock from individual collective farmers,” this “has nothing to do with the policy of the party,” that “the task of the party is so that each collective farmer has his own cow, small livestock, and poultry.” The corresponding resolution proposed immediately: “1) to stop 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.”

Estimates of the scale of hunger

The scale of the incident can only be estimated approximately.

An area of about 1.5 million square meters was affected by famine. kilometers with a population of 65.9 million people. Both in terms of the size of the territory and the number of people affected by famine, it significantly exceeded the famine of 1921-1923.

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 “In memory of the victims of the famine of the 30s on the territory of the USSR.” 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 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.”

The Electronic version of the Encyclopedia Britannica gives a range of 4 to 5 million ethnic Ukrainians killed in the USSR in 1932-1933, out of a total of 6-8 million victims. The Brockhaus Encyclopedia (2006) provides data on losses: from four to seven million people.

Memory of the victims

On April 29, 2010, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on honoring the memory of those who died as a result of the famine of 1932-1933 in the USSR. The document notes that the mass famine was created by the “cruel and deliberate actions and policies of the Soviet regime.”

On September 3, 1932, construction of the Moscow-Volga canal began. It was opened on July 15, 1937. In 1947 it was renamed the Moscow Canal.
The canal route has 240 structures, including 11 locks, 40 dams, 8 reservoirs, 5 pumping stations, 8 hydroelectric power stations, three main piers (Bolshaya Volga, Dmitrovskaya and in Khimki - the Northern River Port of Moscow), as well as numerous piers of local lines.
***
By the early 1930s, Moscow lacked drinking water. The Rublevsky water supply system could not meet the growing needs of the capital for water. The Moscow River became so shallow that it was possible to ford it opposite the Kremlin in the place where the Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge now stands. The entire water supply network supplied 15 million buckets of water to the city. And the population increased to 3 million people.

And then our eyes turned to the Volga, far from Moscow. Only this full-flowing mother river could save the growing city from lack of water. But the Volga flowed beyond the hill, north of the Klinsko-Dmitrovskaya ridge, the height of which reached almost sixty meters above the level of the Moscow River. Digging a canal of such depth seemed like a crazy idea, especially since the distance is 128 kilometers in a straight line!

Where does one get such a mass of water? Engineers decided to block the Volga with a dam near the village of Ivankovo, near the mouth of the Dubna River. During the spring flood, the river will hit the dam and overflow, forming a new man-made lake - the Ivankovskoye Reservoir, the first “Moscow Sea”. Part of its water will continue its path along the old Volga channel, the other part will turn sharply to the south, into an artificial channel, and along a high water staircase will begin to climb to the height of a nine-story building in order to then pass along a flat and wide water bridge and again descend along the steep southern staircase to Moscow River.

Several options for the canal route have been proposed. After much debate, on May 20, 1932, the Moscow City Party Committee chose the “Dmitrovsky” project, and the next day engineering groups were already marking the future route with pegs.

The canal route was supposed to follow the shortest route between the Volga and Moscow rivers: the distance from the ancient village of Tushina to the mouth of the Dubna River, which flows into the Volga, was 130 km. The high ridge of hills with the sources and valleys of small rivers was planned to be turned into a continuous multi-kilometer water bridge. Water ladders had to be raised to it on both sides - from the Volga and from the Moscow River - in order to direct water and ships from the Volga to the Moscow River along this path.
***
On March 23, 1937, the decision was made to “stop the Volga,” that is, to begin filling the Moscow Sea and the canal. On this day, the full-flowing spring Volga angrily carried its waters through the spans of the dam. The Chief Engineer calmly, as if he did this every day, ordered the Volga to close the road to the east. One by one, the heavy metal shields came down. And when the last shield slowly and powerfully came down, the Volga was locked. For the first time in many millennia of her life, the mighty river was stopped by the will and work of man.

After 13 days, the chief engineer was told: “The Moscow Sea is full!” Then he gave the order to open the shields of the concrete dam in order to let excess Volga waters flow to the east. The Volga was finally conquered.

So the Volga came to Moscow. The water level near the Kremlin has risen by almost 3 m.

Since 1947, the channel bears the modern name of the Moscow Canal.

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.

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%).

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 the research of Doctor of 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 candidate member of the bureau of the Republic of Kazakhstan Pashinsky, during interrogations at the column headquarters, forced collective farmers to drink huge quantities of 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.

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 in the 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.

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 of 4 to 5 million ethnic Ukrainians killed in the USSR in 1932-1933, out of a total number of victims of 6-8 million. The Brockhaus Encyclopedia (2006) gives 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.

Notes

Was there a Holodomor in Belarus? - Charter’97:: News from Belarus - Belarusian news - Republic of Belarus - Minsk
The Alliance is right - Galadamor in Belarus (1932-1934)
MENSK.BY (Minsk region) - Belarus had its own Holodomor
// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
Hunger. New encyclopedic dictionary. Under general ed. acad. K.K. Arsenyeva. T.14. St. Petersburg: F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron, 1913.
Domain registration has expired
http://www.history.org.ua/Zbirnyk/10/12.pdf
http://www.history.org.ua/Journal/2006/6/4.pdf
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”
The famine was especially raging in the villages...
About the facts of cannibalism due to hunger
V.V. Kondrashin (Doctor of Historical 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.
Opinion of historian Nefedov S.A.
Nefedov's answer to S. A. Mironov B. N.
Opinion of historian B. N. Mironov
Mironov’s answer to B.N. Nefedov S.A.
Law of Ukraine on the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine dated November 28, 2006
Kulchitsky S.V. “Famine 1932. in the shadow of Holodomor-33"
New graves of victims of the 1930s famine have been found in Kazakhstan.
1932–1933: real and imaginary reasons
Victor Kondrashin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor. “The famine of 1932-1933 in the villages of the Volga region”
Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933 as a result of collective farm construction and de-peasantization of the Ukrainian countryside
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).
Russian Economic Bulletin. No. 9.
Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. 21. Aufl. in 30 Bde. Leipzig-Manheim, 2006. - Bd. 28, S.243. ISBN 3-7653-4128-2
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"

Famine in the USSR (1932-1933). Holodomor in Ukraine

The origins of famine in Russia

In Ukraine

Prerequisites for the famine of 1932-1933

Collectivization

Grain procurement

Grain procurement policy

Repression of the rural population

Socialization of livestock

Estimates of the scale of hunger

Memory of the victims

In Ukraine

In Kazakhstan

Prerequisites for the famine of 1932-1933

Collectivization

Grain procurement

Grain procurement policy

Repression of the rural population

Socialization of livestock

Estimates of the scale of hunger

Memory of the victims

see also

Notes