The Harvest of Sorrow

The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine by Robert Conquest, Oxford University Press, 1986. 

Holodomor

During 1929-1932, several million Ukrainians died in a man-made famine. Joseph Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture was the primary cause of the famine.

Stalin's Motives

• A desire to move property from private ownership to government ownership,

• A belief that large collective farms would operate more efficiently than small, individual farms,

• The suppression of Ukrainian nationalism,

• The diversion of resources from agriculture to industry, so that the Soviet Union could more quickly become an industrial and military power.

Ukraine

While they speak similar slavic languages, the Russians and the Ukrainians have different histories. The Russians spent time under the rule of the Mongols, but the Ukrainians did not. The Ukrainians instead had ties with Lithuania and Poland. Russia conquered Ukraine in the late 18th century. During the 19th century, Ukraine became Russified. Many Russian immigrants settled in the cities of Ukraine. In 1863, Russia declared that the Ukrainian language was merely a dialect of Russian. Schools were then taught in Russian only, and most Ukrainian-language publications were banned. Ukrainian was spoken by the Ukrainian peasants, while city dwellers spoke Russian.

Grain Requisitions

Stalin sent the Red Army into Ukraine to steal a large fraction of the grain that the Ukrainian peasants grew, and the Red Army brought the grain back to Russia. These taxes were called grain requisitions. Stalin knew that excessive grain requisitions caused famine, because that is what had happened during the Russian Civil War and subsequent peasant rebellions (1918-1921). Ukrainians were stopped from visiting Russia and bringing back food. Ukrainian peasants were prevented from escaping to Russia, Poland and Rumania. 

Kulaks

Peasants who were better off than average were classified as kulaks. Stalin feared that they might become leaders resisting collectivization. The Communists fanned the flames of class warfare by saying that the kulaks were exploiting the poorer peasants. In 1930 Stalin began confiscating the property of the kulaks. Stalin deported about ten million kulaks to remote parts of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party blamed the famine on kulaks and other counter-revolutionaries who were sabotaging production.

Denial and Cover Up

Stalin dismissed reports of famine; he called them fables and Trotskyite rumors. Stalin said that the grain shortage was the result of peasants hoarding their grain to drive up prices. Anyone in Russia who reported that there was a famine in the Ukraine was subject to arrest for anti-Soviet propaganda and possible deportation to a forced-labor camp. Stalin also banned foreign reporters from the famine areas.

Major Villains

• Joseph Stalin,

• Lazar Kaganovich,

• Vyacheslav Molotov,

• Nikita Khrushchev,

• Anastas Mikoyan,

• Pavel Postyshev,

• Stanislav Kossior,

• Vlas Yakovlevich Chubar.

Opponents of Forced Collectivization

• Nadezhda Alliluyeva (Stalin’s wife, suicide),

• Nikolai Bukharin (executed),

• Iona Yakir (executed),

• Roman Terekhov (outlived Stalin). 

Don Cossacks and Kazakhs

Stalin also brought famine to the Don Cossacks, who lived in the northern Caucasus. Dead corpses from the famine were stuffed into railway cars and dumped in secret graves by the NKVD. One million Kazakhs died from confiscation of land, deportation, confiscation of cattle and sheep, forced settlement of nomads, forced collectivization of farms, and the deportation of kulaks.

Utopian Dreams

Many Communists who had to enforce Stalin’s policies felt bad about the suffering they were causing, but believed it would be justified by the eventual attainment of a Communist utopia in the future. But this utopia never arrived. These sacrifices ended up being pointless sacrifices.