Executive Summary

Of course, in 1932 we also had some harvest losses because of bad weather in the Kuban and the Terek regions and also in some districts in Ukraine. But there can be no doubt that these losses do not amount to even half of the losses which occurred in 1931 because of the drought in the Northeastern districts of the USSR. 20

The losses allegedly related to inclement weather did not lead to a relaxation of grain seizures in the areas Stalin mentioned.

5) In 1931-1932, the official Soviet response to a drought-induced grain shortage
outside Ukraine was to send aid to the areas affected and to make a series of concessions to the peasantry. 21

After Molotov’s February 1932 acknowledgement of drought related difficulties in the Transvolga areas, at least some aid was mobilized. In the second half of March Pravda announced that after the complete fulfillment of the procurements quota for the 1931-1932 crop year in the North Caucasus Territory, “shock work methods” had been employed to obtain an additional 40,000 tons of seed grain, which had been shipped to the regions affected by the drought. 22
In Kazakhstan, where mass starvation had begun as early as 1930 in connection with the forced “sedentarization” of nomadic herdsmen, 2,000,000 poods of grain (72 million pounds) were also released from government stores in 1932 to nomads and semi-nomads as seed and food aid.23

The broader official response to the difficulties of the 1931-1932 crop year was a series of concessions known collectively as the “May Reforms.” These included a decrease in the grain quotas to roughly what had actually been procured from the 1931 crop, the legalization of private grain trade after procurement quotas had been met (i.e., not before January 15, 1933) as an incentive to peasants, as well as a campaign “for socialist legality,” which promised to end administrative abuses in dealing with peasants.24

6) In mid-1932, following complaints by officials in the Ukrainian SSR that excessive grain procurements had led to localized outbreaks of famine, Moscow reversed course and took an increasingly hard line toward the peasantry. 25

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20 I. V. Stalin, “O pabote v derevne” (On Work in the Countryside), Sochineniia (Works) (Moscow, Gosizdat, 1946-1952), vol XII, pp. 216-217.
21 See chapter three below.
22 Pravda, March 20,1932.
23 A. B. Tursunbaev, Torzhestvo kolkhoznogo stroia v Kazakhstane” (The Triumph of the Collective Farm Structure in Kazakhstan), Ocherki istorii kollektivizatsii sel’skogo khoziaistva v Soiuznykh respublikakh (Sketches of the History of the Collectivization of Agriculture in the Union Republics) ed. V. P. Danilov, (Moscow, Gospolitizdat, 1963), p. 295.
24 Vazhneishie resheniia po sel’skomu khoziaistva (The Most Important Decisions on Agriculture) (Moscow, Sel’khozgiz, 1535), pp. 533-536. Simultaneously with the May decrees, Pravda blamed difficulties with the Spring sowing in Ukraine in part on the local authorities there, who had allegedly permitted ” left-wing distortions” and excessive administrative force in the forcible procurement of grain. Pravda, May 18,1932, p. 3.
25 See chapter three below.