Chapter 1
Fainsod’s book is rivaled only by Leonard Shapiro’s 1960 masterpiece, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Robert Conquest’s 1968 study of Stalin’s purge of the later 1930s, The Great Terror. Neither had much to do with the Famine, and Shapiro gave it but a passing mention. Conquest, who later turned his full attention to the Famine, devoted a few pages to the issue in The Great Tenor, calling it “perhaps the only case in history of a purely man-made famine.” 78
Hryhory Kostiuk’s 1960 monograph, Stalinist Rule in the Ukraine, by far the most rigorous study of the period up to that time, relied almost exclusively upon the Soviet press of the period in order to reconstruct the political struggle within the context of which the Famine took place. Kostiuk introduced the issue by reminding his readers “that in seven years the question of Ukrainian national opposition was discussed five times by the leaders of the Comintern”.79 Kostiuk attempted to assess Stalin’s motives:
The consolidation of absolute power in the Kremlin resulted in the gradual transformation of the non-Russian republics into administrative and economic provinces of Russia. Therefore the destruction of all national opposition in local Party organizations was conducted simultaneously with the liquidation of the inner opposition within the CPSU… In subduing the various opposition movements (within the Communist Party—JM) by terror and by use of the Party apparatus, Stalin must have realized that in order to maintain his position and to carry out his further plans, he must transform the Party into his tool. This was difficult as long as the old cadres, familiar with Stalin’s insignificant role in the early history of the Party, were still alive. The relations between the Soviet republics and Moscow also had to be altered and the entire structure of the Soviet state had to be drastically changed. In order to fulfill Stalin’s objectives, three conditions had to be met:
1) Centralization of the Party apparatus and elimination from it of the Bolshevik “Old Guard.”
2) Complete subordination of the State administration to the Party.
3) Economic unification of all the national republics and their subordination to the Kremlin.
The Soviet history of the thirties bears witness to the execution of these plans. The
resistance which arose was ruthlessly crushed. The Bolshevik “Old Guard'’ was exterminated in Russia and the national republics, all traces of national autonomy were wiped out and those who could not or would not comply with Stalin’s policies were branded as “enemies of the people,” “spies,” “saboteurs” or “foreign agents” and were subsequently dispatched to oblivion by the GPU-NKVD.
While still further concentrating all power in his hands, Stalin embarked on the industrialization of the country in order to bolster its economic strength and defensive capacity. To achieve this, it was necessary to “find the means.” The means, indeed, were crucial. They had to be sought “only within the country itself.” Workers and peasants alike were asked to sacrifice all their efforts, and often their lives, to enable Stalin to fulfill his dream. 80
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77 “As the years wore on, to an ever-mounting crescendo of self-congratulation from the party leaders, exaggerated claims of success, faked statistics and exhortation to yet greater efforts, the more sober realities of the situation produced a corresponding depression. In place of the promised plenty, there was food shortage, accompanied by strict rationing, especially marked during the famine year of 1932-3.” Leonard Shapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York, Random House, 1971), pp. 391-392.
78 Robert Conquest, The Great Terror. Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties (N.Y. , Collier, 1971), p. 45.
79 Hryhory Kostiuk, Stalinist Rule in the Ukraine: a Study of the Decade of Mass Terror (1929-1939) (London, Atlantic Books, 1960), p. 1.
80 Ibid., pp.3-4.