The Soviet Famine of the early nineteen thirties brought the deaths of millions of people over the course of three years. The tragedy, localized mainly in the Ukrainian region of the Soviet Union was brought on by a series of events that would leave the villages of this Soviet nation with nothing to nourish the extensive population. Women, children, and men alike starved to death as the crops of their villages were taken away, leaving them with nothing, not even small scraps of food or grain to survive on through the seasons between harvests. When harvest came, the grain and other crops would be taken away before the local population could feed their own bodies, leaving people to steal anything that they could to feed themselves and their families. The question that has plagued historians for decades is who exactly is at fault for causing a tragedy of this nature to occur. The purpose of this paper is to bring to light a possible factor of guilt for this event, and give supporting evidence from both eyewitness accounts and research, done since the occurrence of the events in 1931-1933, to prove that there is indeed guilt to be placed on a party. It is this authors viewpoint that suggests that criminal charges be brought against the government of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party as a whole. It is important to mention that no one person was responsible for the famine, and this paper will cover the parties responsible for the atrocities that took place from 1932-1933. Before the start of the famine, there were a few aspects of the changes in government that affected the economy of the Soviet Union. Scholars concur that in terms of the number of victims—between 3 and 10 million 28—the famine of 1932–1933 constitutes an event of great enormity and significance in the history of the twentieth century and one that devastated Ukraine as well as Ukrainians who lived in the North Caucasus and Kuban regions” (Marples 2009). First of all, the wealthier families with any sense made sure to protect their wealth when they realized that the communist leaders would take away the riches that they owned. Therefore the wealthier populations made sure to move their money to foreign countries so that it could not be taken by the state, and than moved to the new locations themselves to protect against the upcoming overthrow of the bourgeois society. In an interview taken from an eyewitness account from an anonymous person who lived through the famine, it is stated that, “the big landowners deposited their money in banks before the revolution and fled” (United States: Commision on the Ukraine Famine 1988). This left any of the money that could have gone to those people from the lower classes, still in the hand of the wealth who were now going to spend it on other country’s economies. Any of the rich that stayed within the country had their wealth and goods taken away by order of the Soviet Union officials, as within a communist regime, all people must have equal wealth and everything must be shared to create a perfect society. All of the research in this topic remains inconclusive on the causes for the events of the famine, but the research and the eyewitness accounts all agree on a few specific facts. First of all, there were crops harvested that could have been left to the starving population of the Soviet Union, but instead of using the crops to feed their own people, the Soviet Communist government instead removed every last grain from the harvest stores in the peasant towns of the rural soviet union, and stored them elsewhere where they were heavily guarded. Not only were the harvests of the collective farms taken away, but also the homes of individual families were raided looking for any left over food stores that could be taken. This is a topic upon which there are ample amounts of information. One interviewee, S. Lozovy, spoke about when men came through his town in search of grain and other crops he remembered, “They would walk all over fields, probing the latter with the sharp pikes. The pike was into the ground and pulled up. If any grains of wheat were picked up, the conclusion was that grain was being hidden from the state. The men with the pikes were everywhere” (Lozovy n.d.). From all of the interviews that one can look at from people who lived through the famine, statements like the one just mentioned are extremely common. Most of the peasants who survived remember the years where their food was taken away from them.
During the years of the collective farms, the state would send quotas to each demanding a certain amount of grain to be yielded and sent away for use as to be determined at a later point in time by the government. In another interview taken from a man who lived in the Poltava region of Ukraine he states, “And the famine began. There was a good harvest that year, but it was removed” (United States Commission on the Ukraine Famine 1988). Another interviewee stated that, “the best grain was sent away, taken away, and the collective farm was given higher quotas” (United States: Commision on the Ukraine Famine 1988). This just goes to show that the amount of food harvested was ample for the peasants in the Ukrainian region, but instead of using the food to feed the population at hand, the government removed all sources of sustenance. David Marples mentions in his paper Ethic Issues in the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, Terekhov went on to say that nationalists and petty bourgeoisie both concurred that the Ukrainians had been robbed, that everything had been taken from their villages, and that the grain procurement plans submitted to Ukraine could never have been fulfilled” (Marples 2009). All of the eyewitness accounts and data from this period of time just go to show that there was a clear disregard from the Soviet government in terms of properly assessing the situation and keeping its population fed. Whether or not it was done with meaningful intent or was just a gross oversight, the government is to blame for sending these quotas and then not taking the necessary actions to make sure that the people who were harvesting the crops were being taken care of as well.
Many other sources quote that the Soviets estimated that there would be far more crops grown than what was yielded in 1932, and because the yield was so low, the government took the right amount of crops, but there was not enough left for the peasants to feed themselves. Mark Tauger writes in his article Arguing from Errors, “Soviet government used their high pre-harvest estimates to justify grain procurement quotas from the farms, the much smaller annual report data must be seen in part as an attempt by the kolkhozy, and the millions of peasants in them, to communicate to the government how much worse conditions were in the villages than the official harvest figures implied” (Tauger 2006). There was a clear lack of communication between the farms and the government officials. Where the government did send people to do their bidding in the small communities, there were no representatives from the farms themselves to convey the needs of the people on them. Where there was plenty of communication going down the ladder, there was essentially no communication going up. One source, The Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 Reconsidered states, “the state had plenty of grain in reserve, but preferred to keep it in reserve rather than feed the starving peasants. He claims that in 1946–1947 only 11.6 million tons of grain were required for the internal needs of the state and that this left 5.9 million tons, of which 4.8 million tons were directed towards state reserves and 1.1 million tons was exported” (Kuromiya 2008). Given these data points, it shows that there was more than enough grain to feed those in need, but the government refused to release the crop to the public, therefore condemning millions upon millions of people to death by starvation. Instead of sharing the extra crops, the state instead exported them to other countries making sure to protect its economy instead of its people.
There was also a fair amount of pomp and circumstance shown by the Soviet leaders in terms of the lack of communication, though it would appear that the methods that they used proved no results for the peasants, but lead them to believe that work was being done in the favor of the people as well as the state. One interviewee, when talking about his brothers role in this system as an appointed Soviet secretary stated, “when he was chosen, he had to obey, because otherwise he would be punished” (United States Commission on the Ukraine Famine 1988). He was forced to do the bidding of the government officials, though when he had the chance, he would warn his wife and family of the impending raids. The people were forced to do work that was against their greater interests, and were given nothing in return. In fact, the few things that they did have were taken away from them in the name of the state. There were many other underhanded methods that the government would use in order to take things away from the peasants and the farmers, all while trying to convince them that this was all for the best. In an interview of a man named S. Lozovy a man who lived in a small town with his family, he remembers, “In October 1932, comrades Shukhman and Kolotov organized a "Red Column." …”Coming to a village, the toughs would scatter, go to the houses of the collective farmers and ask how much grain each had, pretending this was only for registration purposes. When the information was in hand, teams would come up to each house and the grain would be taken away. When all the farmers had been robbed of their grain, the wagons would be decorated with banners and slogans, which proclaimed that the farmers had voluntarily, and in an organized manner, given their grain to the state” (Lozovy n.d.). These things were done as a form of propaganda to show that people were willingly giving their food to the state, while in fact their things were being stolen and used against the Ukrainian society on the whole. So not only was the government unrightfully taking away the possessions and food of the people, they were doing so knowing that it was all that they had to survive. A crime can be done unknowingly, and someone can still be at fault, but the crimes against the soviet people in the Ukrainian region were done knowingly and with purpose.
The fact that all of these things were done knowingly takes this paper to its next point, which is to look at the officials higher up on the ladder, specifically the leader of the Soviet nation, Joseph Stalin. There is endless research on this man’s harsh and cruel policies in regards to the ruling of his nation, even to the point that when the next leader of the country came into power, he sought to destroy the cruel policies that Stalin created during his time as leader of the USSR. In terms of Stalin’s role in the guilt of the famine that was created due to the installment of his policies, it is clear that whether or not he had a direct role in issuing orders, or simply turned a blind eye to the whole situation, he knew what was going on and took no measures to stop it. In Michael Ellman’s journal article Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 Revisited he mentions, “Stalin ‘was more concerned with the fate of industrialization than with the lives of the peasants” (Ellman, 2007). While Stalin had his hands busy in the center of the Russian cities converting to industrial powerhouses, he let the rural communities go by the wayside, taking all the resources they had to offer, letting them fend for themselves. Ellman also mentions later in the same paper, that Stalin had a full understanding of what was happening to the people living in the realm of his control, and when confronted with the question as to the cause of the famine he would simply put the blame on others. Ellman indicates, “Stalin was particularly concerned about two groups of peasants who—according to him—had played a major role in ‘causing’ the famine: the ‘class enemies’ (or ‘counter-revolutionaries’ or ‘anti-Soviet elements’), and the ‘idlers’” (Ellman, 2007). Where Stalin should have been more worried about his government’s role in the heavy death toll occuring in his country, he let the blame rest on the shoulders of those suffering the most. Not only did Stalin do nothing to remedy the situation, but it seemed that he believed that those suffering deserved the fates they had found themselves in.
There are other arguments that state that Stalin himself played a huge role in the famine, going as far as to use it as a strategy to control his people and rid himself of any possibility of uprising from within the Soviet realm. In an eyewitness account by a man named Whitting Williams, an American journalist traveling through the famine-area Soviet country, he had many interesting things to say about what he saw along his journeys. One piece of information he shared seems to show the length to which the government went to sugar coat the extent of the famine. He discusses, “Officially, no one dies of hunger in the land of the Soviets. The doctors are Government employees, and they dare not report any death as caused by starvation” (Whiting 1934). In another paper by Ellman, The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934, he puts forth many possibilities as to the actions of Stalin in direct correlation to the famine taking place in the Ukrainian region of his country. Ellman states, Stalin’s 27 November 1932 speech, of course, is certainly not proof of the use of starvation as a weapon, but it is evidence of Stalin’s intention to deal the peasants an unspecified ‘knockout blow’. He goes on to put forth to his reader, “Many prosecutors and some juries would consider it —delivered as it was at a time of widespread starvation and shortly before the peak of the famine—as at any rate circumstantial evidence of the intentional use of starvation as a weapon in the war against the peasants” (Ellman,2005). This further goes to give evidence to the argument that there were intentional crimes commited against the people of the Soviet Union and if indeed charges were presented to either the state, or Stalin himself, their only arguments would be that the data regarding grain yeild concluded that there would be enough to both feed the people of Union, and to export from the country to help feed the economy. Clearly this argument would not stand up in court, as when so many millions of people die, a clerical error would not suffice in bringing justice to the victims at hand. Stalin was known to be a harsh leader who would use tactics that most would consider inhumane in order to keep control over the people of his country, and to instill fear in those he ruled over. Ellman goes on to state, “There would be nothing surprising or out of character about Stalin’s use of starvation. Stalin explicitly stated that he was engaged in a ‘war’ (started naturally—in his understanding—by his peasant enemies), and in a war one aims to kill or otherwise overcome one’s enemies” (Ellman, 2005). Ellman’s argument states that Stalin felt that the peasants were his enemies, and what better way to rid oneself of enemies than to starve them to death, and blame it on their own misgivings about agriculture.
In the end, arguing that there is not enough evidence to prove the guilt of any given party related to this occurrence is obscene. It is clear that the government took what they could from people who could not defend themselves, and knowling refused to send help to them as they were dying by the millions. Whether or not it was a direct order from their leader, or whether it was a combined effort of the government officials in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, there was most definitely enough information to convict a large number of people of immoral acts resulting in the genocide of millions of members of the Soviet population. In the end, there was little done on the subject, and justice may never be found for the victims of this tradgedy, but the people of the world can look back and know that this was not a blameless tradgedy.
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