The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931 – 1934

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I am grateful for help, comments, discussion and criticism to K. Berkhoff, R. Binner, R.W. Davies, P. Ellman, M. Jansen, J. Keep, L. Viola and E. van Ree. The author alone is responsible for the interpretation and for the remaining errors. V. Vodovozov, 'Moe znakomstvo s Leninym', Na chuzoi storone, vol. XII (Prague, 1925), pp. 176 – 177. Vodovozov knew Lenin personally in 1891 – 92, but was writing more than 30 years after the event in an émigré journal. A heavily edited version of Vodovozov's account of Lenin's attitude to the famine and the anti-famine NGO was included in the booklet published by the Marx – Engels – Lenin Institute, Lenin v Samare 1889 – 1893 (Moscow, 1933), pp. 98 – 101. The editor argued (pp. 98 – 99) that Vodovozov's account had 'a particularly tendentious character' and was quite misleading. According to the editor, Lenin did not oppose bourgeois-liberal elements feeding the hungry, organising public works etc., but did oppose seeing these activities as suitable for political exiles and revolutionary youth, as a contribution to the revolution and the overthrow of the autocracy. Lenin, according to the editor, saw these activities as a distraction from the revolution and advantageous for the ruling class since they lessened peasant dissatisfaction and despair. However, even this publication agrees that Lenin thought that feeding the starving was not appropriate for him and his comrades and was politically harmful. According to Belyakov, who did not know Lenin personally and was writing in a Soviet book in the Khrushchev era, it was not the famine which Lenin regarded as progressive but the consequences of the famine. 'Vladimir Il'ich had the bravery to declare that the consequences of the famine [of 1891 – 92]—the growth of an industrial proletariat, this gravedigger of the bourgeois system—were progressive, because they facilitated Russian industry and brought us to our final goal, to socialism via capitalism… The famine, in destroying the peasant economy, simultaneously destroys faith not only in the Tsar but also in God and in time without doubt pushes the peasants on the path of revolution and makes the victory of the revolution easier'. (A. Belyakov, Yunost' vozhdya (Moscow, 1960), pp. 78 – 79). The relevance of Lenin's position in 1891 in understanding the position of the Soviet leadership in 1932 – 33 was long ago argued by Conquest; see R. Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow (London, 1986), p. 234. Quoted from V. Kondrashin & D. Penner, Golod: 1932 – 1933 gody v sovetskoi derevne (na materialakh Povolzh'ya, Dona i Kubani) (Samara-Penza, 2002), p. 210. R.W. Davies & S. Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931 – 1933 (Basingstoke, 2004), passim. However (p. 441), Davies & Wheatcroft 'do not at all absolve Stalin from responsibility for the famine. His policies towards the peasants were ruthless and brutal'. Actually, the structural decision was not rapid industrialisation as such but rapid industrialisation by means of levying a tribute on the peasantry, i.e. the tribute/coercive/dictatorial model of industrialisation; see M. Ellman, Socialist Planning 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 96 – 110; P. Gregory, The Political Economy of Stalinism (Cambridge, 2004), chapter 2. At the time, the tribute model was opposed by the Bukharinists. Subsequently, some economists have argued that it was economically unnecessary; see H. Hunter & J. Szyrmer, Faulty Foundations. Soviet Economic Policies, 1928 – 1940 (Princeton, 1992), chapter 6; R.C. Allen, Farm to Factory (Princeton, 2003), pp. 165 – 171. This remains controversial. However, for many Bolsheviks it was politically necessary. It seems likely that a majority of the party would have endorsed Trotsky's criticism of Bukharinist policies. These policies, he wrote in 1929, might well yield fruits, but they would be 'capitalist fruits which at no distant stage will lead to the political downfall of Soviet power' (Byulleten' Oppozitsii, 1929, 1 – 2, p. 22). Other models of rapid industrialisation would have had different consequences. For example, in the early 1980s China launched rapid industrialisation based on strategic integration in the world economy (the 'open door' model). This model of rapid industrialisation produced some results similar to, but other results very different from, the tribute model. It was the tribute model of rapid industrialisation, not rapid industrialisation as such, which contributed to the 1931 – 34 famine. Some other model of rapid industrialisation might not have done so. The conventional view is that deviations from the trend in grain yields in this period were basically determined by the weather and the availability of traction power (mainly horses); see for example Hunter & Szyrmer, Faulty Foundations…, chapter 6. However, the cause(s) of the poor 1932 harvest is/are controversial. Tauger argued that the main cause was plant diseases such as wheat rust (M. Tauger, Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931 – 1933 (Carl Beck Papers no.1506, Pittsburg, 2001)). This seems implausible for the reasons given by Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, footnote 137, pp. 131 – 132. Davies & Wheatcroft (pp. 119, 128 and 439) argue that the weather was adverse, with low temperatures during the sowing period, high temperatures in the initial flowering stage, and great humidity during early flowering. D. Penner, 'Stalin and the Ital'ianka of 1932 – 1933 in the Don Region', Cahiers du monde russe, 39, 1 – 2, 1998, rejects poor weather as a cause of the bad harvest. She argues that there were four direct causes, a reduction in sown acreage, inadequate seed per hectare of planted land, lengthy spring sowing and the unusual number of weeds. She argues that these direct causes were a result of three shortages (of well motivated and experienced farmers, of traction power and of grain). These shortages in turn were the result of the policies of the party and the peasantry's responses to them. Penner also stresses the large harvest losses resulting from peasant attitudes. Penner's argument overlaps with that of Davies & Wheatcroft—both draw attention to the structural role of party policy, the shortage of traction power resulting from the decline in horse numbers, and the abundance of weeds. However, Penner rejects poor weather as a factor in 1932, at any rate in the North Caucasus. In her 2002 book (with Kondrashin) she extends this rejection to the Volga region. Penner relies heavily on two well-informed contemporary sources, the January 1933 report of a committee of the presidium of the all-Union TsIK, and the August 1932 report of the British-Canadian agricultural specialist Cairns, neither of which considered the weather as the cause of the bad harvest. Nevertheless, the statement by Penner & Kondrashin, Golod…, p. 424, that the 1932 – 33 famine 'was not connected with weather conditions' is too strong. Whatever caused the bad 1932 harvest, this statement ignores the effect of the 1931 drought on the 1931 harvest. Peacetime famines usually require two successive bad harvests. A proposal that the regions affected by acute food shortages should be opened up to famine relief operations by international charities was made by the Ukrainian President Petrovsky in February 1932 – about a year before the peak of the famine. Had it been accepted, it might have saved a considerable number of lives. However, it seems to have got no further than Kosior, the Ukrainian party leader. It was not passed on to the leadership in Moscow. Probably Kosior thought that, given the political mood in the central party leadership, it had no chance of being accepted. However, in March 1932 Kosior did obtain for Ukraine a seed loan (mainly from the centre but also from better-off regions) of 110,000 tons; see Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. 113 – 114. N. Pianciola, 'Famine in the Steppe', Cahiers du monde russe, 45, 1 – 2, 2004. O.V. Khlevnyuk, 1937-i: Stalin, NKVD i sovetskoe obshchestvo (Moscow, 1992), p. 46. The same thought had earlier been expressed by Conquest. Discussing Stalin's possible role in the deaths of Kuibyshev and Gorky, Conquest wrote that 'Nor does it seem very probable that more [evidence] will be forthcoming even when the Soviet archives are opened up. For it is rather unlikely that plans for this style of killing are committed to paper' (R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (London, 1990), p. 389). See Stalin's letter to Sholokhov of 6 May 1933, Voprosy istorii, 1994, 3, p. 22. The Stalin – Sholokhov correspondence is discussed by Davies & Wheatcroft, but their main emphasis is on Khrushchev's falsification of the whole story and the positive steps (grain deliveries, an inquiry) that Stalin took to respond to Sholokhov's account of the situation in his area. Stalin's idea that he had faced a peasant strike was not an absurd notion indicating paranoia. It seems that there really were numerous collective refusals by collective farmers to work for the collective farms in 1932; see Kondrashin & Penner, Golod…, chapter 3. Kondrashin & Penner, Golod…, pp. 214 – 215. R. Mucchielli, Psychologie de la publicité et de la propagande (Paris, 1970), pp. 79 – 80. A.D. Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story (New York, 1999), pp. 66, 70, 80, 171, 227, 256 and 649. Ibid., p. 66. The propagandist cited was familiar with Mucchielli's book. The propagandist's first proposal was to 'create' events to lend credence to propaganda. This of course was one of the purposes of the Stalinist show trials, which 'created' large-scale wrecking, sabotage and spying, which could then be used to explain economic difficulties and justify the harsh repressive measures of the state. They seem to have been quite effective in achieving these aims. For example, at the time of the Promparty trial, Gorky took the accusations and confessions at face value and wrote that 'they [i.e. the accused in the Promparty trial] artificially created a famine in the USSR (Strana sovetov)' (M. Gorky, 'K rabochim i krest'yanam', Pravda, 25 November 1930). He repeated this accusation in M. Gorky, 'Gumanistam', Pravda, 11 December 1930. R.F. Baumeister, EVIL. Inside Human Cruelty and Violence (New York, 1997), pp. 43 – 45. This was pointed out to me by Karel C. Berkhoff. Prior to this I too belonged to the 'unintentional' school. Voprosy istorii 1995, 3, p. 5. For example, it seems that the British government was involved in the assassination of Darlan in 1942; see D. Reynolds, In Command of History (London, 2004), p. 330. C. Andrew & V. Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive (London, 1999); P. Sudoplatov, Razvedka i kreml' (Moscow, 1996); I. Starinov, Superdiversant Stalina (Moscow, 2004); E.P. Sharapov, Naum Eitingon—karayushchii mech Stalina (St Petersburg, 2004); Yu.N. Paporov, Akademik nelegal'nykh nauk (St Petersburg, 2004). This decree seems to have been first published in Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1992, 1, pp. 125 – 128. It was reprinted in V.N. Khaustov, V.P. Naumov & N.S. Plotnikova (compilers), Lubyanka. Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie gosbezopasnosti NKVD 1937 – 1938 (Moscow, 2004), pp. 607 – 611. The latter publication includes a number of related documents not previously published. Commenting on the August 1931 decisions to improve conditions for the deportees, Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. 45, rightly note that they 'followed the pattern familiar from Stalin's "Dizzy with success" article of March 2, 1930. Economic agencies, local authorities and to some extent the OGPU itself were blamed for the inhumane consequences of the Politburo's own decisions'. Actually the use of torture did not begin in 1937. It began earlier. For example, torture was used in the grain procurement campaign in the winter of 1932 – 33, as is known from Sholokhov's letter about it to Stalin of 4 April 1933 (Voprosy istorii, 1994, 3, pp. 7 – 18). This well – known document was quoted in the 1956 Pospelov report (A. Artizov, Yu. Sigachev, I. Shevchuk & V. Khlopov, Reabilitatsiya: kak eto bylo, vol. 1, p. 347) and subsequently in Khrushchev's speech 'O kul'te lichnosti i ego posledstviyakh', at the closed session of the 20th Congress (Izvestiya TsK KPSS, 1989, 3, p. 145). It has been printed in full several times, e.g. in Iz istorii zemli tomskoi. God 1937 … (Tomsk, 1998), pp. 309 – 310, and 1936 – 1937 gg. Konveier NKVD (Tomsk and Moscow, 2004), pp. 343 – 344. Stalin was, of course, quite right about the use of torture by bourgeois intelligence services, as recent events in the 'war on terror' have highlighted. These figures come from the Pavlov report; see A.I. Kokurin & N.V. Petrov, GULAG: Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei. 1918 – 1960 (Moscow, 2000), p. 433. The figure given in this source for the number of shootings in 1931 is obviously a misprint. The correct figure is given in the version of the Pavlov report printed in Artizov, Sigachev, Shevchuk & Khlopov, Reabilitatsiya: kak eto bylo, vol. 1 p. 76. According to an OGPU document published in Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. 2 (Moscow, 2000), p. 809, in 1930 OGPU troikas sentenced 18,996 people to death, excluding East Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. This is the figure cited in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. 22. In his telegram to Stalin of 10 February 1933 Eikhe pointed out that to accept the planned 100,000 deportees prior to the thawing of the rivers would require mobilising huge numbers of horses, which would severely disorganise forestry and agriculture. He also argued that even to accept the reduced number of deportees for West Siberia that he proposed would require massive preparatory efforts, one aspect of which would have to be building additional boats. For the text of the telegram see 1933 g. Nazinskaya tragediya (Tomsk, 2002), pp. 27 – 28. It is also printed in V. Danilov & S. Krasil'nikov (eds), Spetspereselentsy v Zapadnoi Sibiri 1933 – 1938 (Novosibirsk, 1994), p. 78. The latter also includes the related decision of the byuro of the kraikom of 9 February 1933. Allen, Farm to Factory, chapter 4. The usefulness—to the government—of the famine in bringing consumption and production into line was apparently pointed out by dr.Otto Schiller, the agricultural attaché of the German Embassy in Moscow, already in 1933; see J. Koshiw, 'The 1932 – 33 Famine in the British Government Archives', in W. Isajiw, Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, 1932 – 1933 (Toronto, 2003), p. 60. V.P. Danilov & I.E. Zelenin, 'Organizovannyi golod. K 70-letiyu obshchekrest'yanskoi tragedii', Otechestvennaya istoriya, 2004, 5. The idea that one of the motives of the party leadership was to punish the peasants for their poor work (or as the party leadership perceived it, sabotage) is also argued in Kondrashin & Penner, Golod …, pp. 209 – 210, 377 – 378. The importance of policy is not in dispute. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. 434, write that 'The fundamental cause of the deterioration in agriculture in 1928 – 33 was the unremitting state pressure on rural resources'. What is in dispute is the role of exogenous factors (two bad harvests) and of intent. Danilov & Zelenin differ from Davies & Wheatcroft on both these and the on the Davies & Wheatcroft are quite right in that two successive bad the conditions in the Russian and in the USSR prior to to famine. their about the size of the 1931 and 1932 are and their for these are the However, it is to not only there was a famine but also the number of was Davies & Wheatcroft a of the first than of the in and the harvest to was only and with – and – (the Davies & Wheatcroft for 1931 and Nevertheless, the number of deaths in – was only about of that in 1931 – In the number of deaths in one has to not only the size of the harvest but also the policies and of the state. without two bad the policy of the of the without for their might have a famine in Kazakhstan it would have to had the availability of grain been In The no is at the time it seems but in the it yields for who have been by it the harvest of an The to the collective farmers, and to use measures to were in the early For example, in 1931 during the spring sowing campaign the use of and to seems to have been This of the of was used by of the for the for However, the local responsible seem subsequently to have been & Penner, Golod…, p. were some The initial 1932 grain procurement for the USSR of was reduced to by the of November 1932; see Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. – The party leadership did some famine see Ibid., pp. 214 – – and Ibid., p. In to the economic acute of probable effect of out and likely effect on the was also a political It would have the image in the In August and to Stalin 100,000 of grain from the simultaneously 100,000 of grain to This would have been a of reduced the on the and been Stalin, it on the that 'The of grain when they are about the shortage of grain in the might a political i 1931 – 1936 gg. (Moscow, pp. – A of attention has been given in recent years to the activities of and in the West in such as Gorky also in the Stalinist A to grain out of about political by is an example of the could be on to Soviet grain for also had a effect on the of the Soviet Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. Penner, 'Stalin and the pp. – S. in Ukraine December 2004, p. 66. report was published in 1932 – 1933 1990), pp. – the are on p. This report seems not to be in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Quoted from The (London, 1960), p. In 1933 in the Volga there was a peasant to the effect that the government used the famine in the that some used food The of the latter was to in the and to be The of the was to the peasants and collective farmers & Penner, Golod…, pp. 214 – not the whole this well have elements of the from the of Stalin and at this were published in V. R. & L. Viola (eds), Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. (Moscow, pp. – Stalin's speech is discussed in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. – & Wheatcroft as rather than See for example the OGPU of August 1932, 1932 and 1932 sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, pp. – – and – S. i v Zapadnoi Sibiri v gody (Moscow, 2003), p. 1933 g. Nazinskaya pp. – as the of the 1933 is The History of the (New 2004), pp. – has that is possible that the of the the of a large of the in the of the USSR as a means both to and to the acute food See 1933 g. Nazinskaya pp. – i p. The 1933 are not discussed in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of i p. has that the for the of the 1933 was the to the see The History of the p. For the text see Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, pp. – Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. argue that the famine was for the Soviet a about the situation (the international image of the this is obviously as a about the it is correct for the The and on were for the However, for the rural this ignores the in more than It also ignores the contribution to the grain made by rural It also ignores the contribution to the rural I. Stalin, Voprosy edn (Moscow, pp. – published in Pravda, 6 May The was published in Stalina and Petersburg, 2003), pp. – For the of a very similar speech Stalin made the see pp. – What is (London, p. to not the famine, but the and he to well have included not but also the famine. They are as of the same is also some Pravda, in p. Ibid., p. For a of the very to the during the famine see & i (Moscow, 2004), p. 119, two by about in the …, vol. 3, book 1, pp. – Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, p. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. 'The of the state to the peasants to the of was as a – 1932 – p. This was not to the v (Moscow, 2004), p. a and who being in prior to to but did not any for them. she wrote in her at the time, are but are In other the as inhumane were not really people at even their and and they and their did not the of appropriate to O.V. et (eds), Stalin i 1931 – 1936 gg. (Moscow, pp. – For a well-informed discussion of the the famine and Soviet policies towards Ukraine see The chapter and 'The 1932 – 33 Ukrainian Terror: on and the of in Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, 1932 – 1933 (Toronto, For an of the role of the famine and the discussion of it in contemporary Ukraine see 1932 – 1933 v i 2004, 3. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. – famine which was was the – 43 famine in see Berkhoff, Harvest of (Cambridge, 2004), chapter This is in the Davies & Wheatcroft of the number of famine They in the of deaths from famine in 1930 – 33 about in the OGPU These will have been and their who during in the responsibility of the state for these deaths was than for who in their own in from them. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, also an chapter on the 1930 – In the of some of the deaths to one of these three might be the and their who to in to from them. The policy of which they were was the of the as a This did not require all to be and their in was but their the of the In March at the of the trials, was accused of the in a one could this as that Stalin However, this in the of this and additional Conquest that the Stalin with to was (R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (London, 1990), p. 389). This that the in a of argument has been regarded as only it is only This article does not to on it but it with to the 1931 – 34 famine by and contemporary 2. a number of it is correct to Stalin's the in a 3. also several of 4. that the attitude of Bolsheviks to famines in and to that of 1931 – 34 in was quite different from that of the public 5. out that on the effect of does not but is in of industrialisation and was also of the conventional of the British ruling class during the British industrial 6. attention to the to explain both the of a famine in 1931 – 34 and the large number of of that famine, and the Davies & Wheatcroft argument that for the Soviet leadership the famine was by out that in rural it had a number of for the Soviet The author that these that a policy was one of the factors to the famine of 1931 – In to the in this there is also the argument from (the V.P. on I am grateful for help, comments, discussion and criticism to K. Berkhoff, R. Binner, R.W. Davies, P. Ellman, M. Jansen, J. Keep, L. Viola and E. van Ree. The author alone is responsible for the interpretation and for the remaining errors.

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