Executive Summary

upcoming sowing campaign. 56 At the same time he called for “substantial strengthening” of “repressive measures against kulaks, subkulak, Petliurists, wreckers, and other anti-Soviet elements. 57 These enemies were to be sought not only among the peasants, but also within the Party, and loyal Bolsheviks were obliged to be vigilant in rooting out “wreckers” and “saboteurs” who had wormed their way into Party posts. 58

CP(b)U First Secretary Stanislav Kossior joined Postyshev in blaming all difficulties on “enemies”—now defined as anyone who dared to state the obvious fact that there was nothing left to take.59 Even districts that had once been among Ukraine’s most disciplined had failed to notice that many collective farms had fallen “under the influence of kulak, Petliurist, Makhnovist, and other elements,” and that “as a result of our complacency and lack of Bolshevik vigilance, even in the best districts kulaks and wreckers have wormed their way into the leadership of many collective farms and organize there the sabotage of the grain procurements.” 60 Kossior also stressed the unacceptability of leaving grain for food or seed in the face of unfulfilled quotas, “A very large amount of grain was lost to so-called communal food consumption. In this connection, there was no serious struggle whatsoever against this evil until September.” Those who had diverted grain from procurement to seed reserves were also “opportunists” and “agents of the class enemies.” The policy was clear: ‘The state must be given grain first, and only later are reserves to be created… “61 In other words, the greatest sin had consisted in leaving the peasants something to eat or to plant

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Central Committee journal published a lead editorial, which called the breakdown of the grain procurements “shameful,” blamed it on the failure to “force” the peasants from the first days of the harvest to fulfill “the very first of their obligations—the obligation to the state in the matter of grain deliveries.” The editorial also specifically denounced the practice of leaving a seed reserve before the procurements target had been met. 62

It soon became apparent that everything that could be taken had been. On February 25, 1933, this led to a seed loan from Union stockpiles of 20,300,000

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56 P. P. Postyshev, “Pro zavdannia sivby ta postanovu TsK VKP(b) vid 24 sichnia 1933 r.” (On the
Task of the Sowing and the All-Union Central Committee Decree of January 24, 1933), Bil’shovyk
Ukrainy 1933, No. 3, p. 73.
57 Ibid., p. 75.
58Ibid., p. 82.
59 S. Kosior, “Pidsumky khlibozahotiveP i zavdannia KP(b)U v borot’bi za pidnesennia sil’s’koho hospodarstva Ukrainy” (Results of the Grain Procurements and the CP(b)U’s Task in the Struggle to Raise Ukraine’s Agriculture), Bil’shovyk Ukrainy, 1933, Na 3, pp. 26-27.
60Ibid, p.28..
61 Ibid, pp. 33,34.
62 “Postanova TsK VKP(b) z 24 sichnia 1933 r. ta zavdannia biPshovykiv Ukrainy” (The January 24 1933 All-Union Central Committee Decree and the Task of Ukraine’s Bolsheviks), Bil’shovyk Ukrainy.
1933, No. 3, pp. 3-20.