Famine in the Ukraine

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

1921 peasant revolts through war communism – grain hoarding – protests for it, major famine- Bolsheviks taking grain. Red

In the beginning of 1932, the Soviet government had sharply increased the Ukraine's production quotas in the collectivized farms. This ensured that the people would not be able to meet them. This resulted in an even larger widespread of starvation. In the summer of 1932, Stalin ordered a decree that called for the arrest or execution of any person that was caught taking any amount of grain or food item from their place of work. This led to military blockades stationed around many Ukrainian villages, preventing food from coming in and the starving people from going out in search of food. Soviet guards were brought into the villages to confiscate any hidden grain. Eventually all food from any farmer’s home was taken. When news of the Famine reached the outside world, food supplies were sent from the United States and Britain, however through Stalin, the shipments were denied and new policies from the Soviet Union that denied their part in the famine refused all outside aid were instilled. Stalin refused entry even to journalists, as he feared the media would reveal the Soviet Unions’ crimes against the Ukraine.

Holodomor occurred during 1932-1933, but corrupt events and poor leadership led up to the famine and starvation. Vladimir Lenin, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924, declared Ukraine as an independent nation. Sadly, the new country’s government was very unstable and could not withstand. So, the country became a part of the Soviet Union once again. As a result of getting a taste of independence, a new pride and patriotism rose among the Ukrainians along with a political elite group. Joseph Stalin, who rose to power in 1924, saw that this wave of nationalism in Ukraine as a threat. So Stalin set up a new form of economic production called collectivism. Collectivism is where individual farmers were

These effects however were more severe under Lenin and Stalin as they sought to increase grain production by coercion. While Lenin under War communism used grain requisitioning to forcefully collect peasant surpluses from them Stalin used collectivisation to force peasants to collaborate to produce as much food as possible. Similarly in both cases the peasants refused to conform; knowing that any surplus would be confiscated the peasant produced the barest minimum to feed themselves and their family and even less food was available for Russia. One of the greatest impacts were the famines that occurred in 1921 under Lenin where the grain harvest produced less than half the amount gathered in 1931 and Russia had international help from countries such as the USA. However these impacts were the greatest under Stalin. The amount of bread produced fell from 250.4 (kilograms per head) in 1928 to 214.6 in 1932. The impacts of collectivisation were at its worst in 1932-32 when occurred what many people describe as a self-made national famine. Stalin’s ‘’official silence’’ of the situation meant it wasn’t addressed and thus collectivisation killed between 10-15 million peasants and failed to increase agricultural output. Though a similar devastating famine occurred under

Collectivization was peasants being forced to give up their goods to the government. Collectivization started at the end of 1929 by Joseph Stalin. He began collectivization as part of the 5 year plan because he feared the invasion from the Allied countries in the west. He increased industrialization so he could earn more money just in case there was a war. This impacted the peasants of Ukraine because majority of the farmers had their own land it was their only way of income. They became slaves for the government which they now had no way to make money or eat which began famine.

The Ukraine took years to recover, and there are still groups who do not accept the famine as a genocide. Most communists say the cause of the obviously arranged famine on bad harvesting seasons. Russia also refuses to recognise Holodomor as a genocide, as there was also starvation in a few other areas, so they claim the Ukraine was not directly targeted. However, most of the world considers it as a genocide. The United States of America, Poland, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Hungary, Georgia, Ecuador, Estonia, Colombia, Canada, Brazil, and Australia call Holodomor a genocide, while Vatican, Slovakia, Spain,Czech Republic, Chile, Balearic Islands, and Argentina acknowledge it as a coordinated act of famine. The Parliament of Ukraine created a law that recognises Holodomor as an act of carnage against the people, made denial of it in public illegal, and made November 26th Holodomor commemoration day after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in

“The Ukrainian grain harvest in 1932 resulted in below average production but it was more than enough to sustain the population,” (Britannica) but because the Soviet Union continued to export in high amounts there was not enough for the people. Then in August 1932 a law was passed making theft of socialist property a crime, therefor it became very difficult for people to get any type of food. “Around six to eight million people died due to starvation in the Holodomor, four to five million were Ukrainians and the famine directly affected the Ukrainian peasantry”

They didn't have any control of their lives. The 1st 5 year plan, the communist state begins. According to the literacy as percent of the population of russia throughout the years the population has went up. The literacy rate goes up around 74.08% from 1897 to 1979. The Russian people had no control on where they worked and how many hours they worked. The communist government controlled where they lived. The Russian peopled learned early on punishment for disobeying was death or prison. The 2nd 5 year plan including all the social impact on the people as the 1st but prison now became Siberian work camps, famine happened in Ukraine. The testimony of a famine Victim Tatiana Pawlychka explains how her whole village was dieing of Starvation. There was even cannibalism in the village. The communist treated the famine victims dreadful by sending them to Siberia or even killing them. When the villagers would try to go look for grain they would be shot at on the spot and the communists took the bodies to the ravine. There was higher education for those selected by the government. Standard of living of poor. The farm plan basically took any private land ownership away from the people. The farm plan had people work on land that use to be theirs and obtain no social gain. The Russian people did not all agree with Stalin plans, and many rebelled. Those against the government or rebel against the

As a part of this Five Year Plan the Soviet leaders conducted a massive reorganization of privately owned farms into collective (state-owned) farms and imposed high crop requisition allocations. It was the sale of the crop yields that was to pay for industrialization and independent farmers were forced to give up their private land to the state along with their livestock and equipment, without compensation. These independent farmers became workers of the collective farm, and they would only be paid if the “collective farm” (Sazonova, 2007) met the standardized

The genocide in the USSR is connected with the policies of social engineering carried out under Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s against the Kludks. Kludks are farmers or peasants that were referred to as vampires by the previous leader Lenin. On January 1990 communist party of Ukraine adopted a policy. Stalin felt that Ukrainian nationalism through religion and culture could overpower the people's loyalty to the USSR (Soviet par. 2). Later the law of “Five Ear of grain” was put into act, anyone who was caught stealing would be shot or imposed for stealing from the “socialist party” (par. 3). Quotas for grains were raised and blockades were formed around villages blocking any imports or exports leaving the villages

According to (Ascher, 1988) in the early 1900s, approximately 90% of the population, in Russia, lived under a peasant life style. They were considered as country people who depended mostly on agrarian economy. The peasants were given a common terminology, serfs and, they worked as slaves to the landowners. However, as the population increased, the demand for land increased, and there was less land for farming activities, and settlement. The author believes that the slaves or peasants found it harder to provide for their households, hence, they to make redemption transactions for the land they never owned (Ascher, 1988). During this era, there was approximately 50% of infant mortality, and life expectancy was reduced to 50 years. Other effects included malnutrition and disease outbreaks. These were

This was an economic plan initiated by the Soviet government. This involved rapidly industrialization by constructing factories to produce goods. Then a collectivization policy was introduced, this forced the peasantry to give up their private farms and combining into larger farmers that are controlled by the government. This “charity” form of government (socialism) turned into tyranny. Anyone who opposed the Soviet government was thrown into the gulags, which was a prison camp system.

Adding to the deplorable oppression borne by the proletariat during the Five Year Plans, Stalin introduced a collectivisation campaign which not only sparked a persecution of kulaks, but also induced a widespread famine. The Stalin government’s compulsory agricultural policy was largely a failure with regard to its goals. Beginning in 1929, all farms were to be collectivised, with the aim of improving agricultural output and hence, industrialisation. The USSR’s initial system of farming was inefficient, but the introduction of fertilisation and tractors modernised agricultural techniques, increasing the nation’s capacity for production, supporting Historian Jamieson’s statement. However, the policy was catastrophic due to the mass movement of peasant resistance that saw farmers defiantly burning crops and slaughtering livestock, regarding the campaign as a violation of their freedom. By 1933, agricultural production fell dramatically; grain by 17 million tonnes and cows and pigs by a total of 23 million, to below what it was in 1913 (Downey, 1989, p. 19). This

The Soviet economy heavily depended on its agricultural sector. From 1929 onwards Stalin began the enforced system of state and collective farms, known as sovkhozy and kolkhozy respectively. These collectivized farms ‘soon proved both impracticable and too costly’ (Davies 1980). A number of factors contributed to the level of inefficiency of the Soviet collectivized system throughout its history, and this essay will discuss these factors and ultimately comment on the key factors responsible for these inefficiencies. Primarily, this essay will concentrate on, the poor treatment of peasants who worked on the collective farms, and the impacts this treatment had on their incentives to produce. Throughout this essay there will be a strong focus on the labour market as the main cause of inefficiencies, along with the inability of the Soviet Union to correctly manage the sizeable farms. I will show that these two factors working in union strongly support the argument of why agriculture was considered to be such an inefficient sector of the Soviet Economy. There are other factors which also contribute to these inefficiency problems, they will be touched upon, but only briefly. Despite the pressures put on the agricultural industry to thrive and the movement toward a more machine based production process, it became evident that large deficiencies existed within the industry.