“The Organized Preparation of the Famine” (433-470)

 

            “Six-part Plan” (433-434)

           

1.      Grain Collection

2.      Entire Economy, even of “smallest peasant”

                  3.   Forbidden use of products of their labor

4.   Commercial blockade

5.   Passport System that confined peasantry to their villages

See Also: “Passport  System of the USSR” (458-465)

6.       Transportation Blockade—no one in; no one out.

7.      Conceal Facts—campaign of dezinformatsia

 

“Anti-collective protestors same category as traitors” (441)

An especially critical factor in the ability of the peasantry to protest

Effectively, and a further example of the insidiousness of the ways in which the law helped “legalize” their starvation.

 

            “Guarding fields” (445-452, 581-83)

 

            “List of Districts involved in Commercial Blockade” (455-457)

           

            “Molotov Orders Starvation” (469-470)

 

“Central Authorities [including Molotov] Witness Famine (488-494)

 

            “Concealment of Grain and Grindstones” (483-486)

See also: Encyclopedia of Ukraine article about “Food Storage.”

 

“Mortal Famine in the Ukrainian Village” (515-570)

 

“People and Horses” (516-526)

Includes regulations passed to save the lives of horses, rather than people.

 

“Testimonies” (526-604)

Primary source descriptions of the Famine and its causes and effects.

 

“Wages and Prices of Food During the Famine” (561)

 

“Types of Eating Establishments” (565)

 

“Foraging for Food Locally in the Villages” (571-609)

 

“No Famine for Soviet Hogs” (573-574)

Collectivized farm hogs were fed. People ate the grain given to hogs for feed.

 

“Buried Alive” (585-587)

See also page 20 of Woropay, Olexa. The Ninth Circle: In Commemoration of

the Victims of the Famine of 1933.

 

            “Poisoning” (605-606)

See also pages 3-4, The Ninth Circle: In Commemoration of the Victims of the

Famine of 1933, by Olexa Woropay.

 

            “Torgsin Stores” (606-610)

See also The Artificial Famine, 1932-1982, by Lesia Kot-Samp.

                       

            “The Suppression of the Effects of the Famine and the Strengthening of the

Collective Slave System” (681-710)

             

“Excerpts from Statements of Communist Party Policy Concerning the Famine”

(683-703)

 

            “Russians Replace Unkrainian Hunger Victims” (703-710)

The Soviet government brought in Russian settlers to repopulate those villages

whose populations were decimated by the Famine. The work of these new well-fed settlers accounts for increased production figures often used to denigrate the amount of work accomplished earlier by starving peasants.

 

            “Firing Squad Victims’ List” (687-689)

 

 

 

Popovsky, Mark. The Vavilov Affair.  With a foreword by Andrei Sakharov. Hamden,

Connecticut: Archon Books, 1983. viii + 216 pp. Portrait of Vavilov on the front cover, Notes, Index. ISBN: 0208020357 (alk. paper); LCCN: 84-9342.

 

Popovsky explores the scientific side of Soviet agriculture of the time period surrounding the Famine. Referring to Soviet Commissar for Agriculture, Yakovlev,

he writes that Lysenko’s vernalization technique “be extended to some 250,000 acres on state farms and to be applied extensively on the collective farms” (59). Suspicions of kulak sabotage being responsible for the failure of his technique, Lysenko charged, “The class enemy always remains an enemy…” (66).  The question of harvest figures of the time has been a matter of some conjecture.  Popovsky writes, “most people were uninformed, because the true figures of the harvests in those years were kept secret” (78).  He continues:

 

Acadamician  Konstantinov, supported Lisitsyn’s questions with hard figures. Citing data from fifty-three plant-breeding stations in the Soviet Union that had carried out the vernalization of wheat from 1932-1936, he reported that in half the cases vernalization had slightly increased the yield, while in the other half it had actually reduced it. To take such an agronomic process seriously, he said, was to indulge in self-deception” (81).

 

Pidhainy, S. O., Editor-in-Chief, et al. The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Vol.

Two. The Great Famine in Ukraine. With an introduction by Charles J. Kersten. Detroit: The Globe Press; The Democratic Organization of Ukrainians Fomerly Persecuted by the Soviet Regime in U.S.A. (DOBRUS); the World Federation of Ukrainian Fomer Political Prisoners and Victims of the Soviet Regime (FUP), 1955. xxv + 710 pp.  Editor’s Preface. Photostatic copies of Documents, Black-and-White Photographic Illustrations, Charts. Endpapers comprised of a collage of four Chicago American newspaper articles. National Library of Canada: 95019509X.

 

“Famine as a Political Weapon,” Petro Dolyna (5-135).

           

“Planning and Preparation of Famine” (29-66)

           

State Ownership of Livestock:

The law protected not only the physical untouchability

of kolkhoz-owned pigs, but even their nerves. A young collective farm worker was given a ten-year term in jail

for ‘joking with a girl in a pigpen nearby, thereby

disturbing the peace of the collective hogs (32-33).

 

Subscription lists to Ukrainian magazines used to find Ukrainian nationalists to be arrested (57)

 

Comparison with Famine of 1920’s Russia and China with Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 (59-65)

International aid programs were drastically different in these earlier Famines, and provides the researcher perspective into the feelings of those suffering the 1932-33 Famine during which very little help from any quarter was available to provide life-sustaining assistance.

 

“Organizing the Famine” (67-118)

                                   

                                    Chart:

 

Comparison of Diet in Regions and Districts of Ukraine: “poppy, weeds, crows, children, bark, carrion, offal, hedgehogs, anything’” (70-71).

 

Valuables taken to Torgsin store (84

 

Percent of Death by Famine (121)

 

“NKVD freight trains of corpses” (79)

           

Masquerade clothes to be returned (93-94)

This in reference to the clothing provided during the staged deceitful performance of apparently well-fed persons shown to foreigners touring Ukrainian cities in order to deceive them about the realities of the Famine.

 

            Grain stores smouldering “from internal combustion,” H. Hang (102)     

Grain was improperly heaped in piles that were burning by internal combustion. [See related Pravda article (266-267)]

 

Guardtowers over crops, shooting of starving trying to reach food (107-108)

Children were among those shot as they attempted to reach food..

 

            World Opinion (109-118)

 

Source List (134-135)

 

“The Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933” by Ivan Dubynets, et al (141-710)

 

            “Ivan Dubynets: A Memorial” (141)

           

“The Village ‘Active’ and the ‘Thousanders’” (143-151)

Referring to the  approximately 25,000 Party members sent from Moscow and Leningrad to enforce collectivization and grain confiscations. Includes statistics from Pravda 24 January 1930.

 

“De-kurkulization and Deportation of the De-kurkulized” (153-204)

 

            List of Families Sent to Camps (172-175)

           

                        Photo-Documents:

           

“Orders Threatening Punishment for Betrayal of Denouncers” (183)

“Snitches” were a legally protected group.

 

“Instruction of the Application of Terror Against Farmers” (193)

 

                                    “Threat for Not Supplying Grain,” (196)

                                   

                                    “Additional Requisition of Grain,” (199, and 227, 352)

Some farmers were able to pay the initial tax, so an extra levy was applied to break them completely.

 

                                    “Order to Control De-kurkulized Farmers,”  (207)

 

                                    “Kurkul Farm Sold at Auction,” (213)

                                   

                                    “Kurkul Children Deprived of Education,” (221)

 

                        “Annihilating the Church and Destruction of Religious Life” (205-236)

Includes world opinion and actions to support religion in the USSR, as well as Metropolitan Alexei’s interview with the Soviet press in which he hid the facts of the ongoing religious persecution.

                                   

            “Owner’s Destruction of the Stock,” (237-243)

                       

“Salt Prices Escalate” (237)

 

                       

Photo-Document:

 

“Order Forbidding Destruction of Livestock,” (241, 259)

           

“Ruin of Co-operative Trade and the Paralysis of the Distribution of Consumer

Goods” (245-260).

 

                        Photo-Document:        

 

Requisitioning of Seed” (248)

 

“Grain Collecting” (261-272)

 

            “Pravda Notes Grain Confiscated Rottting” (266-267)

 

“All Sunflower Seed for the State,” (270)

 

                        “A Self-Imposed Tax for Cultural Purposes,” (271)

                        An additional 50% of regular farm tax

 

“Complete Collectivization and its Downfall” (273-290)

 

                        Photo-Documents:

                       

                                    “The Milk and Livestock Requisitioned” (283)

 

                                    “Compulsary Savings Banks for Peasants” (285)

 

                                    “A List of the Dekulakized” (287)

           

            “Retreat and Collapse of Collectivization” (291-307)

 

                        Photo-Documents:

 

                                    “Requisitioning of Potatoes, Poultry, and Hay,” (297)

 

“Call to Arms Against the Kurkuls” (301)

 

            “Reorganizing the Forces” (309-322)

           

                        “Order for the Widespread Sale of Liquor” (316)

                       

“The Return of the De-kurkulized Children” (319-320)

 

            “Saving Distribution; Trade and Agricultural Industries” (323-342)

                       

                        “Penalties for Irregular Meat Supply” (327-328)

 

                                    Quoted from Visti 12 February 1933

 

                        “Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of Ukraine” (328-330)       

 

                                    Visti 21 June 1933

 

                        “Speculators and Black Markets” (333-334)

                       

“Gifts of Merchandise to Those Who Give All Their Grain” (334-335)

 

“The Hide Industry” (340-342)

Shortages occurred in livestock products of hides and furs as well as a result of the animals dying of neglect or eaten so entirely for food.  Leather or fur clothing and shoes were unavailable, and often removed from the dead victims of the Famine. Hunger was so great that pieces of leather, shoes, and boots were eaten for the nutrient value of the leather.  

 

            “Farmers Terrorized by Politcal and Economical Campaigns” (343-374)

 

                        Photo-Document:

 

“The De-kurkulized Are Given Poorest Land” (345)

 

                        “All the Grain Seized, None Left for Seed” (361-362)

 

                                    Quoted from Visti 19 March 1932

 

                        Photo-Document:

 

“Ban on the Manufacture of Sunflower Seed Oil” (365)

           

            “Complete Collectivization” (375-389)

           

                        Photo-Document:

 

                                    “More liquor to be sold” (379)

 

                                    “Kurkul’s livestock confiscated for collective farms” (383)

           

                                    “Peasant’s goods confiscated” (385)

 

            “Victims Seek Protection from the Government” (380-381)

                       

Appeal written to Visti 23 September 1932

           

            “Resistence of Famers and the Women” (391-411)

It is important to note that the people did not just willingly submit to their tormentors, but did try to save themselves—and this against the overwhelming superiority of force applied against them by the government.

                       

Photo-Documents:

 

                                    “Demand for Confidential Report on Peasant Morale” (393)

                                   

                                    “Deprived of franchise” (397)

 

            “The Women Revolt” (398-403)

 

“The Growing Conflict between the Collective Farmers and the Government, the Communist Party of Ukraine and  the All-Union Communist Party, and between Ukraine and Moscow” (413-429)

           

                        Photo-Document:

                       

                                    “Demand for Weekly Reports on the Kurkuls” (417)

 

“The Organized Preparation of the Famine” (433-470)

 

            “The Struggle of Ukrainian Peasants for Bread” (471-483)

           

            “The Growing Conflict Between the Collective Farmers and the Government, The

Communist Party of Ukraine, the All-Union Communist Party, and Between Ukraine and Moscow” (413-429)

 

                        Photo-Documents:
                       

                                    “Demand for Weekly Reports on the Kurkuls” (417)

 

“A Daughter of De-kurkulized Parents Works in a Collective Farm       

Under an Assumed Name” (425)

 

See Also reference to the diary of a kulak’s son, who decried his familial heritage in Stalinism: New Directions

 

“The Organized Preparation of the Famine” (433-470)

 

            “Six-part Plan” (433-434)

           

3.      Grain Collection

4.      Entire Economy, even of “smallest peasant”

                  3.   Forbidden use of products of their labor

4.   Commercial blockade

5.   Passport System that confined peasantry to their villages

See Also: “Passport  System of the USSR” (458-465)

8.       Transportation Blockade—no one in; no one out.

9.      Conceal Facts—campaign of dezinformatsia

 

“Anti-collective protestors same category as traitors” (441)

An especially critical factor in the ability of the peasantry to protest

Effectively, and a further example of the insidiousness of the ways in which the law helped “legalize” their starvation.

 

            “Guarding fields” (445-452, 581-83)

 

            “List of Districts involved in Commercial Blockade” (455-457)

           

            “Molotov Orders Starvation” (469-470)

 

“Central Authorities [including Molotov] Witness Famine (488-494)

 

            “Concealment of Grain and Grindstones” (483-486)

See also: Encyclopedia of Ukraine article about “Food Storage.”

 

“Mortal Famine in the Ukrainian Village” (515-570)

 

“People and Horses” (516-526)

Includes regulations passed to save the lives of horses, rather than people.

 

“Testimonies” (526-604)

Primary source descriptions of the Famine and its causes and effects.

 

“Wages and Prices of Food During the Famine” (561)

 

“Types of Eating Establishments” (565)

 

“Foraging for Food Locally in the Villages” (571-609)

 

“No Famine for Soviet Hogs” (573-574)

Collectivized farm hogs were fed. People ate the grain given to hogs for feed.

 

“Buried Alive” (585-587)

See also page 20 of Woropay, Olexa. The Ninth Circle: In Commemoration of

the Victims of the Famine of 1933.

 

            “Poisoning” (605-606)

See also pages 3-4, The Ninth Circle: In Commemoration of the Victims of the

Famine of 1933, by Olexa Woropay.

 

            “Torgsin Stores” (606-610)

See also The Artificial Famine, 1932-1982, by Lesia Kot-Samp.

                       

            “The Suppression of the Effects of the Famine and the Strengthening of the

Collective Slave System” (681-710)

             

“Excerpts from Statements of Communist Party Policy Concerning the Famine”

(683-703)

 

            “Russians Replace Unkrainian Hunger Victims” (703-710)

The Soviet government brought in Russian settlers to repopulate those villages

whose populations were decimated by the Famine. The work of these new well-fed settlers accounts for increased production figures often used to denigrate the amount of work accomplished earlier by starving peasants.

 

            “Firing Squad Victims’ List” (687-689)

 

 

 

Popovsky, Mark. The Vavilov Affair.  With a foreword by Andrei Sakharov. Hamden,

Connecticut: Archon Books, 1983. viii + 216 pp. Portrait of Vavilov on the front cover, Notes, Index. ISBN: 0208020357 (alk. paper); LCCN: 84-9342.

 

Popovsky explores the scientific side of Soviet agriculture of the time period surrounding the Famine. Referring to Soviet Commissar for Agriculture, Yakovlev,

he writes that Lysenko’s vernalization technique “be extended to some 250,000 acres on state farms and to be applied extensively on the collective farms” (59). Suspicions of kulak sabotage being responsible for the failure of his technique, Lysenko charged, “The class enemy always remains an enemy…” (66).  The question of harvest figures of the time has been a matter of some conjecture.  Popovsky writes, “most people were uninformed, because the true figures of the harvests in those years were kept secret” (78).  He continues:

 

Acadamician  Konstantinov, supported Lisitsyn’s questions with hard figures. Citing data from fifty-three plant-breeding stations in the Soviet Union that had carried out the vernalization of wheat from 1932-1936, he reported that in half the cases vernalization had slightly increased the yield, while in the other half it had actually reduced it. To take such an agronomic process seriously, he said, was to indulge in self-deception” (81).