Chapter 1

In 1930, which produced a bumper harvest of 23.1 million tons of Ukrainian grain, 7.7 million metric tons were extracted from the Ukrainian countryside—more grain than ever before or since. In order to meet this quota, state requisitioned sometimes took the seed grain and all the grain that had been stored in previous years. In 1931, at which time 71% of all Ukraine’s peasant households had been collectivized, the same quota was to be extracted from a harvest officially reckoned at only 183 million tons, and 30% of this was lost during the harvest In spite of the unprecedented pressure applied in the course of the 1931-1932 procurements campaign, only 7.0 million tons were actually collected, and in the Spring of 1932 even the Soviet Ukrainian press had to admit that there were outbreaks of hunger. Under pressure from officials in Ukraine, Stalin on May 6, 1932, lowered the quotas throughout the Soviet Union, reducing Ukraine’s to 6.6 million tons. 69

The Ukrainian communists continued to press for further concessions. A major fight took place at the Third All-Ukrainian Party Conference in July 1932. The Ukrainian officials argued that the quotas were too high, that the Ukrainian peasants were starving, and that the agricultural crisis was “objective.” Molotov and Kaganovich, Stalin’s representatives, blamed the Ukrainians for the crisis, ruled out any further concessions, and ordered the plan be fulfilled unconditionally by January 1,1933. The resultant “struggle for bread” was one of life and death. One hundred and twelve thousand communists were sent to the villages, as opposed to 40,000 in 1930. The membership of the Communist Party (bolshevik) of Ukraine dropped from 520,000 in June 1932 to 470,000 in October 1933; that of the Ukrainian Communist Youth League (Komsomol) from 1.3 million in 1932 to 450,000 in 1934. In February 1933 alone, 23.5% of all party and 27% of all Komsomol members in Ukraine were purged for violating party discipline and arrested. 70

Holubnychy pointed out that the 1932 Ukrainian grain harvest was officially estimated at between 13.4 and 14.6 million tons, with 40% being lost during harvesting. In spite of every effort to seize everything possible the 6.6 million ton quota could not be met. As of December 27, 1932, only 4.7 million tons were procured. Because of a lack of draught power and lack of working hands, the sugar beet crop also failed, producing only 4.3 million tons instead of the planned 16.8 million. The Famine now assumed massive proportions, but the press was forbidden to make any mention of it Holubnychy gave the exceedingly conservative estimate of 3,000,000 victims. He also pointed out that, since three-fourths of all Ukrainian peasants had already been collectivized when the Famine began, it was not organized in order to drive peasants into the collective farms. He saw no evidence either that Stalin specifically planned the Famine or that Pavel Postyshev, who was appointed de facto dictator of Ukraine in January 1933, Le., after it began, was its organizer. It was artificial in the sense that it could have been avoided by lowering the quotas and slowing down Soviet plans for industrialization. Both Stalin and Postyshev bore personal responsibility for their failure to do so. But it was caused, in Holubnychy’s view, by “external and internal economic factors and the situation in which the USSR found itself.” 71
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69 Ibid, p. 23
70 Ibid,pp.23-24.
71 Ibid, pp. 23-24. Quotation from p. 24.