Holodomor Resources

[Nah Revisionism]

Hello, I am going to be having a debate on the holodomor some time soon, and I would like to ask my fellow comrades for good resources on the holodomor.

[Laika]

Hello, I am going to be having a debate on the holodomor some time soon, and I would like to ask my fellow comrades for good resources on the holodomor.

I had a look on wikipedia and it would appear that the American Party of Labour is a Marxist-Leninist Party. So I'm going to guess you may be looking for resources that *deny* that the holomodor was a genocide.
https://stalinsocietypk.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/another-view-of-stalin1.pdf
https://stalinsocietygb.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/the-ukrainian-famine-genocide-myth/

I would strongly advise against taking such a position and say it is better to read round the topic and get an idea of what (western) historians think on it. You can then weigh it up what you think from that. I think you can safely say that the famine itself was an unintentional consequence of the sudden collectivisation of agriculture. I'd use maybe a few quotes here to illustrate that such a position is not incompatable with Communism and that a single failure doesn't mean communists cannot learn from their mistakes and improve on the basis of criticism and self-criticism:

"If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who, may point out our shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit the people, we will act upon it." https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch27.htm

"The attitude of a political party towards its mistakes, is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it in practice fulfills its obligations towards its class and the toiling masses.Frankly admitting a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analyising the conditions which led to it, and throughly discussing the means of correcting it- that is the earmark of a serious party; that is the way it should perform its duties, that is the way it should educate and train the class, and then the masses." https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch13.htm

The evidence would suggest that the hunger was deliberately targeted to certain areas. As there not enough food to go around, the Soviet government *had* to make a decision about who got the food. That is *still* genocide but I think you can raise a variety of questions over exactly how much ability the Soviets had to deal with the food shortages. if you don't have enough food to feed people- you can't feed people or save lives based on wishing there was more food than there is.

e.g. Could the Soviets have asked for famine relief given the international situation in 1933? With the rise of fascism and the great depression in the west with people effectively starving in western countries? Should the Soviet Union rely on people who had invaded it a decade early as part of the allied intervention in the Russian Civil War such as the french, british and americas? (There was red cross aid in the 1921 famine but still- the point stands).
Given the rise of Nazism, could Stalin have really afforded to post-pone exporting grain and reduce the speed of industrialisation if it was motivated by putting the USSR on an effective war footing? was the deaths in ukraine ultimately *still* a sacrifice that had to be made?

"We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." (Stalin, 1931- in 1941, the USSR was invaded by the Nazis). http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/TEE31.html

its a tricky question. show some humility and say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure, maybe". there is a big difference between debating a decision like this and making it because peoples lives were at stake and a decision of some kind had to be made.

I don't think you can stop people calling it a genocide, but you can probably soften the blow a bit by showing the difficulty and complexity of the situation involved. Given that is relatively factual, I think people will be more receptive to it. Publicly lying to defend a dictatorship or repeating lies probably won't go down very well if you are still going to spend time with these people afterwards. Its probably better to say that there is another "side" to this and it is not as simple as it may at first appear. whatever you may feel (and I know the temptation to deny it is tempting because it hurts our pride), You can at least walk away from the debate saying you told the truth even though it is going to be hard to swallow. thats a little more heroic because you stood up for the truth and not just blindly commit to party loyalties.

Try and stay away from the "numbers game" of "how many people died". Its not as important as whether the Soviets intentionally tried to kill people. The quote "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" is wrongly attributed to Stalin but does sum up the problem. debating numbers of people who died is ultimately de-humanising and pretty insulting. let the other side make that mistake because it means they have cheapened the argument by turning body counts in to a propaganda tool for its emotional value.

Most people are willing to accept that people should be killed *under some circumstances*. Its a little horrific if you think about it, but maybe 50 million people died in the Second World War are people would typically regard it as a "just war" to defeat Nazism. People would say it is justified for the America to win independence from the British as an acceptable price to pay. By drawing such comparisons, it puts you on safer ground and means they can't just attack you for being a "Communist". It will make it harder for people to say "Communists are evil for killing people" because you've shown that there *are* some instances where the audience would agree that people should be killed. Only a handful of people- mainly pacifists or religious people- will argue against this and you can say "its impractical" even if you sympathise with the ideas behind it. try and strike a tone of "it may have been a necessary evil". Maybe bring up the 1943 bengal famine in british india as an instance in which the british government accepted people dying from famine in order to get food for the war effort as something to compare the holomodor with.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bengal_famine_of_1943

At the same time the Nazis also came up with the "Hunger Plan" to starve 20-30 million people if they had successfully conquered eastern Europe. This *does* mean you have to deal with Soviet comparisons to the Nazis, *but* it also begs the question of how do you fight people without using the same methods as them? it could create more ambiguity and more space for discussion. The more ambiguity- the better. it will mean people feel less defensive and less threatened and may be more open to the possibility of another view. drawing such a comparision can perhaps help you highlight the difference between the two (The nazis "intended" to starve people, whereas the Soviets were at worst opportunistically trying to starve their "enemies". its ugly but its something.)

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hunger_Plan

If possible- stay away from "it was ok for the soviets to kill people because that's what americans/brits/etc did". Its not a "winning" argument and will result in a stalemate as well as being pretty insensitive and could expose you to arguments about individual events you are not familiar with. (e.g. if you say "americans killed native americans so its ok for the soviets to kill people too" you would have to answer questions about *if* the death of native Americans was a genocide, and you may not have time to research it and therefore lose the argument because you can't defend your own statement.)

If it was me, be prepared to lose the debate, so lose gracefully by being on the side of what you think is the "truth". It may actually make for a much more interesting, thoughtful and adult discussion about communism than people are familiar with. the trick it to not fall into black and white thinking that its a battle between good and evil. Getting people to think for themselves if often more important than getting them to agree with you and is more valuable in the long-run. This is a "revisionist" approach in many ways and is not going to be orthodox. trying to cut through the propaganda coming from both sides never is. Its how I'd want to do it but its up to you. :)

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Holodomor_genocide_question

[Ismail]

* https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/vv.html
* http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-russia&month=0205&week=a&msg=G9gRj0I/eXnblGCPQyYXlA&user=&pw
* https://archive.org/details/FraudFamineAndFascsim
* http://b-ok.org/book/2666475/d4452f

"The Soviet government did not intentionally cause a famine" isn't even a fringe position. Robert Conquest, Orlando Figes, Terry Martin, Michael Ellman and Hiroaki Kuromiya are among the many mainstream historians of the USSR who argue the famine was unintended.

As I wrote elsewhere,

Why would the Soviet state deliberately starve rural Ukrainians and not include urban Ukrainians? Why would the Soviet state continue to allow the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to function? Why wouldn't it close down the Ukrainian-language press and universities? Why would the "genocide" of Ukrainian peasants stop around the same time as collectivization itself was complete, rather than continue on indefinitely until everyone was dead? Why would the Soviet state ten years later call on the Ukrainians to rise up in defense of their motherland against the fascist invaders? Where was the demonization of Ukrainians as subhuman or otherwise worthy of extermination?

It's an asinine attempt by far-rightists to create a "Soviet Holocaust" to minimize the Nazi Holocaust.

[Nah Revisionism]

Thanks dude, I have read the first three links actually, but I am going to read the fourth one and magnificent quote.

[willowtooth]

I have to question why you would debate the holodomor at all, more countries recognize the Armenian genocide than the holodomor, it wasn't until 2003 that the Bush administration admitted it ever even happened. Most governments still don't. It's almost impossible to find something about it not sourced from Robert Conquest one of the biggest anti-communist writers in history.

So if you're arguing with some far right crank who is just using the holodomor as some strawman argument to cover up the holocaust, then you should argue about the holocaust or better yet dont debate him at all, there is likely nothing you can learn from debating him anyway

[Nah Revisionism]

I have to question why you would debate the holodomor at all, more countries recognize the Armenian genocide than the holodomor, it wasn't until 2003 that the Bush administration admitted it ever even happened. Most governments still don't. It's almost impossible to find something about it not sourced from Robert Conquest one of the biggest anti-communist writers in history.

So if you're arguing with some far right crank who is just using the holodomor as some strawman argument to cover up the holocaust, then you should argue about the holocaust or better yet dont debate him at all, there is likely nothing you can learn from debating him anyway

You would think....the truth is most people don't know about the famine in Ukraine, but for those that do it is often considered a genocide by liberals and conservatives. I am debating somebody who is non-politically affiliated (centrist) and a right wing libertarian, not crazy fascist cranks.

[willowtooth]

You would think....the truth is most people don't know about the famine in Ukraine, but for those that do it is often considered a genocide by liberals and conservatives. I am debating somebody who is non-politically affiliated (centrist) and a right wing libertarian, not crazy fascist cranks. You mean a white moderate and a paranoid crypto-fascist....

I think Ive heard the "socialism causes famine" trope atleast 20 times this month, not just from strangers on the internet but from the news. North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba are all apparently in a famine right now. With absolutely no evidence, meanwhile no mention of the dozen or so, countries in africa and asia that are all actually in a famine and all in "capitalist" countries. Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Kenya...

http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/



and a week doesn't go by without some right wing rag "reminding" everyone about the holodomor
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4897164/The-forgotten-Holocaust-Ukraine-famine-1932-33.html

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

"Forgotten"

The reason they wrote that is precisely because it has not only been forgotten it is mentioned more than ever, and the worst is that it's not by some well intentioned people, just look at the comments, everyone knows about it and has more to add!

And the reduction of history to death tolls (usually from the right to which the left also replies in the same way, e.g Indian famine, victims of american wars etc ) is disgusting, revealing of theoretical and intellectual poverty, but this is public discourse today on comments and posts on the web.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I mean, it's pretty obvious that the holodomor was a massive fuck-up on the part of the Stalinist regime. Robert Allen in 'A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution' says:

"Calories are the most basic dimension of the standard of living, and their consumption was higher in the late 1930s than in the 1920s. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization has estimated per capita calorie availability for many countries since the 1950s, and I have applied its methodology to Russia and the Soviet Union in earlier years. In 1895-1910, calorie availability was only 2100 per day, which is very low by modern standards. By the late 1920s, calorie availability advanced to 2500. It dropped in 1932 to 2022 calories due to the output losses during collectivization. While low, this was not noticeably lower than 1929 (2030) when there was no famine: the collectivization famine, in other words, was the result of the distribution of calories (a policy decision) rather than their absolute scarcity. By the late 1930s, the recovery of agriculture increased calorie availability to 2900 per day--a significant increase over the late 1920s. The food situation during the Second World War was severe, but by 1970 calorie consumption rose to 3400, which was on a par with western Europe. "

Whether Stalinist policy gave rise to a famine is not in question, it's pretty obvious that hundreds of thousands of peasants died due to the policies of distribution the Stalinists decided upon. What is in question is whether or not it was some sort of targeted genocide against Ukrainians. I don't think it was, even if there was certainly a concerted effort to crush Ukrainian nationalism and certainly an attempt by the authorities to quell news of what was happening. The organised Belarusian workers sent a letter to the CCP:

"Letter from Belarusian workers to the CC CP(b)U on starving Ukrainians in their republic

July 15, 1932
When has Belarus ever fed Ukraine? There were bad years, but Ukraine always fed Belarus; now it’s the other way around. Belarus is not against helping Ukrainian collective farms and worker-peasants in an organized manner, [but] not the way it’s happening right now: in Belarus [we] cannot go anywhere, travel on the railways and roads because of the Ukrainians. Starving and destitute Ukrainians are everywhere, lying on the streets of Belarusian towns: Zhlobin, Homiel, Bakhmuch, Bykhaw, Mahimt, Orsha, Minsk, Sirotsino. Some live in the woods…
Many Ukrainians are looking for bread near the very border of bourgeois feudal Poland and people are saying that [the government] wants to starve Ukrainians to death, while the newspapers write that everything’s fine. Why don’t they write the truth: millions are starving and grain is rotting in the fields, many of which have been overgrown with grass and left untilled, because able men and women have run off into the world for a piece of bread, to avoid dying from famine.
And it’s a real pity to see the starving Ukrainians and when you ask them: “Why don’t you work at home?” they answer that there is no seed, there’s nothing to do in collective farms and provisions are bad. But fact remains fact: millions of people are wandering naked, starving in the forests, stations, towns and collective farms of Belarus, and begging for a piece of bread. How is the bread problem being solved in Ukraine? Where is the Ukrainian party’s Central and Central Executive Committees? What are the measures? Our hearts hurt for this dismal state of affairs.
Belarus - workers
Petro, Savin, Kuduk
TsDAHO Ukrayiny, fond 1, list 20, file 5255, sheets 68-69;"

It's not that the Stalinists set out to starve people, although Molotov did give Kosior the right to suspend the delivery of goods to raions that were refusing to comply with grain procurement, but it's clear that the policies of collectivisation as conceived by the Stalinists definitely were badly implemented leading to many peasants fleeing their homes in search of food and work and which also led some peasants to slaughter cattle and horses for meat and to sell hide which had a knock-on affect for future agricultural stabilisation. Hundreds of thousands died and many of those who were fleeing in search of sustenance were simply arrested.

[Nah Revisionism]

You are repeating bourgeois narratives on collectivization, it was not the "stalinists" fault that the famine happened, the main cause was environmental and from kulak sabotage:

Nonetheless, two studies discuss the harvests in those years. Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft argue that the 1931 and 1932 harvests were small due to drought and difficulties in labor and capital, especially the decline in draft animals….Tauger, Mark. Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933 Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2001, p. 6

From this we can conclude that the death of draft animals was a cause in the famine ^

kulaks threw themselves into a struggle to the end. To sabotage collectivization, they burnt crops, set barns, houses and other buildings on fire and killed militant Bolsheviks...Of the 34 million horses in the country in 1928, there remained only 15 million in 1932. A terse Bolshevik spoke of the liquidation of the horses as a class. Of the 70.5 million head of cattle, there only remained 40.7 million in 1932. Only 11.6 million pigs out of 26 million survived the collectivization period.
Charles Bettelheim. L’Economie sovietique (Paris: editions Recueil Sirey, 1950), p. 87.
Martens, Ludo. Another View of Stalin. Antwerp, Belgium: EPO, Lange Pastoorstraat 25-27 2600, p. 79 [p. 66 on the NET]

From this we can determine that the kulaks had caused the death of the farm animals ^

Soviet agronomic literature and other published and archival sources from the 1930s, however, which no previous scholarship on the famine has discussed, indicate that in 1932 Soviet crops suffered from an extraordinarily severe combination of infestations from crop diseases and pests.
The most important infestation in 1932 came from several varieties of rust, a category of fungi that can infest grains and many other plants.
Tauger, Mark. Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933 Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2001, p. 13

drought, rain, and infestations destroyed at least 20% of the harvest, and this would have been sufficient on its own to have caused serious food shortages or even famine. If these factors had not been in evidence in 1931 and 1932 agricultural production would have been considerably larger, and while procurements could have caused shortages in specific regions, they would not have caused a famine like that of 1933….
Tauger, Mark. Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933 Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2001, p. 20

On the basis of the above discussion, I contend that an understanding of the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 must start from the background of chronic agricultural crises in the early Soviet years, the harvest failures of 1931 and 1932, and the interaction of environmental and human factors that caused them. In 1932, extremely dry weather reduced crops in some regions, and unusually wet and human weather in most others fostered unprecedented infestations. These conditions from the start reduced the potential yield that year, as drought had…in 1931. At the same time, the regime’s procurements from the 1931 harvest left peasants and work livestock starving and weakened. Crop failures, procurements that reduced fodder resources, peasant neglect, overuse of the limited number of tractors, and shortages of spare parts and fuel all combined to reduce available draft power. Farm work consequently was performed poorly in many kolkhosi and sovkhozy, often even when peasants were willing to put in the effort. Finally, farming activities combined with other environmental problems–soil exhaustion, weeds, and mice–to further reduce the 1932 harvest to famine levels.
Tauger, Mark. Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933 Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2001, p. 45

Throughout the history of the famine-genocide campaign, the factors of drought and sabotage have been ignored, denied, downplayed or distorted. Soviet excesses and mistakes, in contrast, are emphasized, given an “anti-Ukrainian” motivation, described as deliberately and consciously planned, and the results exaggerated in depictions of starvation deaths in the multi-millions. The central event–the collectivization of agriculture as part of socialist development–is never given anything but a classically anti-Communist interpretation….For some promoters of “famine-genocide,” anything other than man-made causes are ignored or denied. Natural causes, such as drought, are alleged never to have taken place; claims that drought was a contributing factor are denounced as Soviet inventions. One might then expect that no non-Soviet source could be cited to substantiate drought. However, A History of Ukraine by Mikhail Hrushevsky–described by the Nationalists themselves as “Ukraine’s leading historian”–states: “Again a year of drought coincided with chaotic agricultural conditions; and during the winter of 1932-33 a great famine, like that of 1921-1922 swept across Soviet Ukraine….” Indeed, nowhere does History of Ukraine claim a deliberate, man-made famine against Ukrainians, and more space is actually devoted to the famine of 1921-1922. More recent histories can also be cited on the subject of drought. Nicolas Riasnovsky, former visiting professor at Harvard University’s Russian Research Center, notes in his History of Russia that drought occurred in both 1931 and 1932. Michael Florinsky, immediately following a description of the mass destruction wrought by kulak resistance to collectivization, states: “Severe droughts in 1930 and 1931, especially in the Ukraine, aggravated the plight of farming and created near famine conditions.” Professor Emeritus at Columbia and a prolific writer on the USSR, Florinsky can hardly be accused of leftist sympathies: born in Kiev, Ukraine, he fought against the Bolsheviks in the Civil War.While drought was a contributing factor, the main cause of the famine was the struggle around the collectivization of agriculture which raged in the countryside in this period.
Tottle, Douglas. Fraud, Famine, and Fascism. Toronto: Progress Books,1987, p. 91-92
Soviet mistakes and excesses, drought and the organized campaign of sabotage and resistance resulted in the famine of 1932-1933. There was no plan to wipe out Ukrainians as a people; the mistakes–even when accompanied by tragic and unforgivable excesses– do not constitute “pre-planned genocide.”

Any study that asserts that the harvest was not extraordinarily low and that the famine was a political measure intentionally imposed through excessive procurements is clearly based on an insufficient source base and an uncritical approach to the official sources. The evidence cited above demonstrates that the 1932-1933 famine was the result of a genuine shortage, a substantial decline in the availability of food caused by a complex of factors, each of which decreased the harvest greatly and which in combination must have decreased the harvest well below subsistence. This famine therefore resembled the Irish famine of 1845-1848, but resulted from a litany of natural disasters that combined to the same effect as the potato blight had 90 years before, and in a similar context of substantial food exports. The Soviet famine resembles the Irish case in another way as well: in both, government leaders were ignorant of and minimized the environmental factors and blamed the famines on human actions (in Ireland, overpopulation, in the USSR, peasant resistance) much more than was warranted….
If we are to believe that the regime starved the peasants to induce labor discipline in the farms, are we to interpret starvation in the towns as the regime’s tool to discipline blue and white-collar workers and their wives and children? While Soviet food distribution policies are beyond the scope of this article, it is clear that the small harvests of 1931-1932 created shortages that affected virtually everyone in the country and that the Soviet regime did not have the internal resources to alleviate the crisis.
Tauger, Mark. Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933 Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2001, p. 46

…the famine resulted directly from a famine harvest, a harvest that was much smaller than officially acknowledged, and that this small harvest was in turn the result of a complex of natural disasters that [with one small exception] no previous scholars have ever discussed or even mentioned. The foot notes in the Carl Beck Paper contain extensive citations from primary sources as well as Western and Soviet secondary works, among others by D’Ann Penner and Stephen Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies that further substantiate these points and I urge interested readers to examine those works as well.
Tauger, Mark. His comments at random.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

You are repeating bourgeois narratives on collectivization, it was not the "stalinists" fault that the famine happened, the main cause was environmental and from kulak sabotage:
My criticism of Stalinism has never been from a bourgeois perspective but since you're new to this forum you might not understand my perspective. I have read many of the Stalinist works on the subject and not found them compelling. One does not look at the multitude of famines in history and think 'this is the work of sabotage against the regime', you have to consider the broader economic and agricultural policies that led to the situation. Hundreds of thousands of people starved to death, this is not the work of individual saboteurs this is the work of rank incompetence. And even if the famine was the fault of the kulaks alone then it was absolutely the fault of the Stalinists that the kulaks were able to grow in influence. Members of the Party who would go on to be murdered by Stalin were warning of the threat of the kulaks and the NEPmen as early as 1923, when Lenin was still alive. In contrast as late as 1928, the year before he began his forced collectivisation programmes, Stalin said “There are people who think that individual farms have exhausted their usefulness, that we should not support them ... These people have nothing in common with the line of our party". Bukharin literally advocated a propaganda programme amongst the peasantry with the slogan 'Get Rich!' and Rykov, in the 15th party congress that "We not slip down into poor peasants illusions about the collectivization of the broad peasant masses. In the present circumstances it is no longer possible” yet the next year saw forced collectivisation begin in earnest. Yakov Yakovlev, who would go on to become People's Commisar for Agriculture during the five year plan, wrote in 1927 that collective farms "are now, and will for a long time undoubtedly remain, small islands in a sea of individual peasant holdings". Of course the kulaks were bold in such an atmosphere, Stalinist zigzagging of policy was giving peasants and state officials mixed messages.

[ckaihatsu]

[P]eople are saying that [the government] wants to starve Ukrainians to death, while the newspapers write that everything’s fine.


The latter part is probably the most disturbing action of Stalinism since it indicates culpability on the part of its bureaucracy and media.





[I]t's clear that the policies of collectivisation as conceived by the Stalinists definitely were badly implemented leading to many peasants fleeing their homes in search of food and work and which also led some peasants to slaughter cattle and horses for meat and to sell hide which had a knock-on [effect] for future agricultural stabilisation. Hundreds of thousands died and many of those who were fleeing in search of sustenance were simply arrested.


So the policy of forced socialism-in-one-state-no-matter-what had no wings to begin with -- my takeaway is that with our 20/20 hindsight we revolutionaries should be as detail-oriented as possible, to address and approach what a (worldwide) socialist system of administration and cooperation *could* feasibly look like, under contemporary material conditions.

[willowtooth]

"Forgotten"

The reason they wrote that is precisely because it has not only been forgotten it is mentioned more than ever, and the worst is that it's not by some well intentioned people, just look at the comments, everyone knows about it and has more to add!

And the reduction of history to death tolls (usually from the right to which the left also replies in the same way, e.g Indian famine, victims of american wars etc ) is disgusting, revealing of theoretical and intellectual poverty, but this is public discourse today on comments and posts on the web.
gotta love the daily mail right this is probably my favorite quote from that article
"But Stalin argued that collectivisation was simply good Marxism. If they wanted to build socialism on earth, he said, they needed to smash the peasants. How, after all, could they have a truly socialist society if they still allowed people to farm for themselves and make money?'

[Ismail]

The latter part is probably the most disturbing action of Stalinism since it indicates culpability on the part of its bureaucracy and media.In fairness, one of the main reasons the famine occurred was due to the lack of info the Soviet leadership had on actual conditions in the area.


The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.

Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
Comrade Kosior!

You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?

Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.

Sincerely, J. Stalin
[…] in his conversations with collective farmers, comrade Budyenny said: “Your predicament is that the authorities do not know that you have no bread, your “Ukrainian” and local leaders are to blame, they over-promised [to the Central authorities] all these ‘self-imposed extensions’ of quotas for grain procurement, and took your grain, and left you without bread”.The sources for these are Famine in the USSR, 1929-1934: New Documentary Evidence.

As for GiantMonkeyMan's quotes showing a supposed "flip-flop" in policy, in 1932 more than 60% of the peasantry were in collective farms, which still meant a substantial private sector (Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, 1966, p. 249.) Collectivized agriculture gradually increased as the decade went on, going up to 90% in 1936 and just under 97% in 1940 (Rothstein, Man and Plan in Soviet Economy, 1948, p. 175.) In addition there were private plots on collective farms throughout the existence of the USSR, which were certainly significant in the life of the peasant.

Bukharin's "get rich" talk was repudiated as early as 1925 with Stalin saying, "That is not our slogan, it is incorrect, it gives rise to a whole series of doubts and misunderstandings and has no place in a leading article in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Our slogan is socialist accumulation. We are removing the administrative obstacles to an improvement of the welfare of the countryside. That operation will undoubtedly facilitate all accumulation, both private-capitalist and socialist. But the Party has never yet said that it makes private accumulation its slogan. We are giving NEP full scope and permitting private accumulation in order to facilitate the implementation of our slogan of socialist accumulation within the framework of our national economy." (Works Vol. 7, 1954, p. 155.)

[GiantMonkeyMan]

As for GiantMonkeyMan's quotes showing a supposed "flip-flop" in policy, in 1932 more than 60% of the peasantry were in collective farms, which still meant a substantial private sector (Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, 1966, p. 249.) Collectivized agriculture gradually increased as the decade went on, going up to 90% in 1936 and just under 97% in 1940 (Rothstein, Man and Plan in Soviet Economy, 1948, p. 175.) In addition there were private plots on collective farms throughout the existence of the USSR, which were certainly significant in the life of the peasant.
Yes, after forced collectivisation there was an increase in collective farms. Around 1927, for example, there were only roughly 8% of peasant families on collective farms and then there was a marked increase following collectivisation policies. The zigzagging of Stalinist policy was always that during the 1924-1928 period, despite numerous individuals pointing to the growth of a section of the peasant population that was rich enough to exploit poor agricultural workers - at one stage 6% of the peasant population controlled near 60% of grain - the Stalinists continued to enshrine the individual peasant farm and downplay the collective farms. Stalinists in this period opportunistically dismissed their critics, then expelled, murdered or exiled them before appropriating the majority of their policies without a thought to how those policies should have been best implemented to disastrous consequences.

[Nah Revisionism]

You literally addressed nothing I said....I gave tons of evidence to how the famine was caused by agricultural factors. Also Lenin chose stalin for all major jobs.

I well remember that in one of my conversations with Lenin in 1921 he referred to Stalin as “our Nutcracker” and explained that if the “political bureau were faced with a problem which needed a lot of sorting out Stalin was given the job.”
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 72
…wherever the situation seemed most hopeless, wherever incompetence and disloyalty were weakening the cause, on no matter what front and under any conditions, there Stalin was sent, with the results we have seen outlined above.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin, Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 50
…Taking advantage of the traditional hatred felt in the province for everything Russian, the social revolutionaries and their Mensheviks allies were agitating for secession from the USSR and the setting up of an independent state of Georgia.
As usual the task of cleaning up other peoples failures descended on Stalin. Taking Ordjonikidze with him, he hurried to Tiflis to settle the problem once and for all.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin; Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 59
Voroshilov states, “During 1918-1920, Comrade Stalin was probably the only person whom the Central Committee dispatched from one fighting front to another, choosing always those places most fraught with danger for the revolution. Where it was comparatively quiet, and everything going smoothly, where we had successes, Stalin was not to be found. But where for various reasons the Red Army was cracking up, where the counterrevolutionary forces through their successes were menacing the very existence of the Soviet Government, where confusion and panic might any moment develop into helplessness, catastrophe, there Stalin made his appearance. He took no sleep at night, he organized, he took the leadership into his own strong hands, he relentlessly broke through difficulties, and turned the corner, saved the situation.”
Life of Stalin, A Symposium. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930, p. 49
In 1919 Stalin, then Commissar of Nationalities, was also made Commissar of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, an organization created by Lenin to have teams of workers and peasants inspect government functioning in order to check corruption and bureaucracy. This method of mass democratic control embodied the essence of Lenin’s concept of how a proletarian state should function. The fact that he appointed Stalin as its director shows his faith in him–as he testified in 1922 when Stalin’s control of two commissariats was questioned.
“We are [Lenin wrote] solving these problems, and we must have a man to whom any representative of the nationalities may come and discuss matters at length. Where are we to find such a man? I think that even Preobrazhensky could not name anybody else but Comrade Stalin.
This is true of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Directorate. The work is gigantic. But to handle the work of investigation properly, we must have a man of authority in charge, otherwise we shall be submerged in petty intrigues.”
That the Inspectorate could ever have worked, given the state of the inherited bureaucratic apparatus, is doubtful, and the degree of Stalin’s responsibility for its failures is not clear. But Lenin’s open attack, regardless of his motive, could not but serve to undermine Stalin’s authority as General Secretary and hence disrupt the Party.
Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 49-50
Lenin made no bones about his support of Stalin in that ministry of the ministries, when, replying to the objections of oppositionists, he said:
“Now about the Workers’-Peasants’ Inspection. It’s a gigantic undertaking…. It is necessary to have at the head of it a man of authority, otherwise we shall sink in a morass, drown in petty intrigues. I think that even Preobrazhensky could not name any other candidature than that of Comrade Stalin.
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941, p. 346

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You are such an idiot, collectivization was voluntary except during 1930 when individual leaders in the USSR abandoned the policy of voluntary collectivization. But after Stalin's article "dizzy with success" he stopped forced collectivization and made it voluntary. Peasants were to join freely by their own will, pressured not through brutality but the econoic incentive of better technology and more efficiency. Also referring to the NEP, Stalin was completely justified in doing so. Class struggle against the kulaks which would be known to be violent, as kulaks ended up murdering half the cattle int he country, could not have been done when the country was just recovering from famine. Also you talk about collectivization being evil and what not yet you support Trotsky a man who proposed forceful collectivization during the 20s.

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That was a bourgeoisie historian that had it wrong, as only kulaks were the only ones slaughtering their cattle, we can see this form them being the only one to participate in the protests about collectivization.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

You literally addressed nothing I said....I gave tons of evidence to how the famine was caused by agricultural factors.
What was there to address? Not only is Tauger's methodology largely dismissed by the majority of Russian historians, I previously pointed to the fact that per capita calorie production was vastly lowered in contrast to previous years. What caused that drop comes from multiple directions, crop diseases being one of them, but it doesn't change the fact that despite per capita calories being lower, it wasn't so low as to not be comparable to other years where there wasn't a famine. So then it becomes a question of distribution and not simply the state of the harvest. There was comparable per capita calories before 1910 so why was a regime as horrible and incompetent as the Tsarists able to distribute food to avoid a famine whilst the Stalinists weren't? Why was the response of the Stalinists to peasants fleeing their homes due to a lack of food, a poor harvest etc, to round the peasants up, arrest some of them and send others back to their homes where there was no food?


Also Lenin chose stalin for all major jobs.
You might as well be quoting the aviator Tchalkov: “Wherever Stalin appears there is no longer darkness: the sun shines.” For you and Tchalkov, clearly the sun shines out of Stalin's arse. I'm not sure what all this proves except that in a period of economic and political turmoil an individual accumulated a horrendous amount of power.


You are such an idiot, collectivization was voluntary except during 1930 when individual leaders in the USSR abandoned the policy of voluntary collectivization. But after Stalin's article "dizzy with success" he stopped forced collectivization and made it voluntary. Peasants were to join freely by their own will, pressured not through brutality but the econoic incentive of better technology and more efficiency. Also referring to the NEP, Stalin was completely justified in doing so. Class struggle against the kulaks which would be known to be violent, as kulaks ended up murdering half the cattle int he country, could not have been done when the country was just recovering from famine. Also you talk about collectivization being evil and what not yet you support Trotsky a man who proposed forceful collectivization during the 20s.
There are numerous reports of poor women peasants taking cattle into their homes to protect them from procurement or slaughtering cattle to sell the meat and hide, numerous reports of poor peasant workers being forced with violence into kolkhoz, numerous reports of peasants complaining about the collectivisation process and then being arrested - all this regardless of whether these peasants were kulaks or not. The question is not one about whether or not the kulaks and the NEPmen were an anachronism to a society trying to build towards socialism. You're right to suggest that Trotsky and the Opposition were pointing out the dismal situation of the growing power of the kulak population and were advocating collectivisation in order to neuter their growth and power - all the while Stalin and his supporters were suggesting that individual farms were a necessity and collective farms would remain a small part of agriculture, directly laying the groundwork for the kulak population to grow. You could suggest two groups might have plans to build a road to a fantastic destination with one group trying to take into account resources, local communities and further the involvement of the road-builders themselves in the project whereas the other might just bulldoze through a bunch of houses with the inhabitants still inside, stall halfway through and pretend that they succeeded. Those two groups are not the same.


That was a bourgeoisie historian that had it wrong, as only kulaks were the only ones slaughtering their cattle, we can see this form them being the only one to participate in the protests about collectivization.
You'll never be able to prove that only kulaks killed cattle and draught animals. Of course official Stalinist statements will make that claim but that, frankly, suited their narrative. There's evidence of multiple poorer peasants and agricultural workers complaining to their local state officials about the state of affairs and being arrested for their trouble.

[Ismail]

Yes, after forced collectivisation there was an increase in collective farms. Around 1927, for example, there were only roughly 8% of peasant families on collective farms and then there was a marked increase following collectivisation policies. The zigzagging of Stalinist policy was always that during the 1924-1928 period, despite numerous individuals pointing to the growth of a section of the peasant population that was rich enough to exploit poor agricultural workers - at one stage 6% of the peasant population controlled near 60% of grain - the Stalinists continued to enshrine the individual peasant farm and downplay the collective farms. Stalinists in this period opportunistically dismissed their critics, then expelled, murdered or exiled them before appropriating the majority of their policies without a thought to how those policies should have been best implemented to disastrous consequences.The point is that individual farms continued to play a not-insignificant role in the Soviet economy until the mid-30s. There was not a situation where representatives of the Central Committee said "we will never collectivize agriculture, ever" only to say a year later "we will collectivize every single square inch of land in the USSR." There were those (the followers of Bukharin) who were outright opposed to collectivization and advocated the strengthening of the kulaks, but they were repudiated by the Central Committee.

The Trotskyists proposed struggling against the kulak at a time when the Soviet state wasn't in a position to do so, and demagogically attacked their opponents who refused to go along with this as "bureaucrats," "conservatives," or whatever. Then, when collectivization actually did occur, Trotsky wrote a pamphlet called The Soviet Economy in Danger in which he prophesied an end to struggle against the kulak as the only logical step forward to help end the USSR's supposed economic crisis: "First of all, a retreat is inevitable in the sphere of collectivization. . . . The policy of mechanically 'liquidating the kulak' is now in effect discarded. A cross should be placed over it officially. And simultaneously it is necessary to establish the policy of severely restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak."

Trotsky went from calling for the destruction of the kulaks when it was not yet feasible to calling for their salvation when they were actually being liquidated as a class.


You are such an idiot, collectivization was voluntary except during 1930 when individual leaders in the USSR abandoned the policy of voluntary collectivization. But after Stalin's article "dizzy with success" he stopped forced collectivization and made it voluntary.Stalin's article, which he delivered on behalf of the Central Committee, indeed helped overcome many cases of arbitrariness, but he did share initial blame for what happened. For instance, as Maurice Dobb notes in the aforementioned Soviet Economic Development since 1917, "In discussion of a report by a special commission presided over by Y.A. Yakovlev in the Politburo on 22 Dec. 1929 amendments had been pressed by Stalin and Riskulov which, inter alia, removed the report's emphasis on adhering to the principle of 'voluntariness' (cf. Voprosi Istorii K.P.S.S., 1964, No. 1, 32-43)."

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Trotsky wrote a pamphlet called The Soviet Economy in Danger in which he prophesied an end to struggle against the kulak as the only logical step forward to help end the USSR's supposed economic crisis: "First of all, a retreat is inevitable in the sphere of collectivization. . . . The policy of mechanically 'liquidating the kulak' is now in effect discarded. A cross should be placed over it officially. And simultaneously it is necessary to establish the policy of severely restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak."

Trotsky went from calling for the destruction of the kulaks when it was not yet feasible to calling for their salvation when they were actually being liquidated as a class.
The most interesting thing here is not the quote but what your selective quoting misses out. Trotsky wasn't calling for the 'salvation' of kulaks, he is calling for a year for the economy to catch a breather, to better organise and develop what has already been implemented. In a year following harsh famine, displaced peasantry, an increase in workers strikes and a glut of frustrated workers and peasants unable to get access to basic supplies, Trotsky is suggesting that the improvements in the economy should be put in order and the living standards of the poor peasants and workers developed in preparation for the next five year plan. This isn't a capitulation, this is a recognition that the Central Committee fucked up with their poorly implemented plan and that order had to be restored rather than just continuing ever onwards without a care.


Many managers, as is shown by the papers, have arrived independently at the opinion that 1933 must differ in some essential way from this year. But they do not draw their ideas to the conclusion, in order not to expose themselves to danger.

In regard to rail transport, Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn writes: “One of the most important tasks of 1933 must be the task of a full and final liquidation of each and every imperfection, non-completion, poor tie-up, and disproportion in the functioning of the different integral parts of the transport mechanism.” Well spoken! This formula should be accepted in full, and be expanded to apply to the economy as a whole.


In regard to the tractor plant in Stalingrad, Pravda writes: “We must decisively dispense with defective methods of workmanship, we must put an end to fever along the conveyor in order to guarantee a regulated output of production.” That is absolutely correct! Planned economy, taken as a whole, represents in its class a conveyor on a state scale. The method of plugging up holes is incompatible with planned production. Nineteen thirty-three must “put an end to fever along the conveyor,” or at least we must considerably lower the temperature.


The Soviet government itself has proclaimed a “turn” from quantity to quality in agriculture. That is correct but the question must be approached on a much wider scale. The matter concerns not only the quality of the cultivation of the soil, but the entire collective- and state-farm policy and practice. The turn from quantity to quality must be carried over into the functioning of the administration itself.

First of all, a retreat is inevitable in the sphere of collectivization. Here more than anywhere else the administration is the captive of its own mistakes. While on the surface continuing to autocratically command, to specify under the signature of Stalin and Molotov the precise number of acres for grain tillage, the bureaucracy in reality is now being carried along by the stream of events.


In the villages, in the meantime, a new stratum of the so-called “retired,” that is, former collective farmers, has appeared. Their number is growing. It is utter insanity to forcibly keep within the collectives peasants who pilfer the crops, who sell the seed in bazaars and then demand it from the government for sowing. It is no less criminal, however, to let the process of disintegration take its own course. The tendency to downgrade the collectivization movement is evidently now raising its head even within the party ranks. To allow this would be to throw out the baby with the bath water.


Nineteen thirty-three must serve to bring the collectivized agriculture into line with the technical, economic, and cultural resources. This means the selection of the most viable collectives and their reorganization in correspondence with the experience and wishes of the peasant masses, first of all the peasant poor. And, at the same time, conditions for leaving the collective farms must be formulated so as to reduce to a minimum the disruption of the rural economy, not to speak of the danger of civil war.


The policy of mechanically “liquidating the kulak” is now in effect discarded. A cross should be placed over it officially. And simultaneously it is necessary to establish the policy of severely restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak. With this goal in mind, the lowest strata of the villages must be welded together into a union of the peasant poor.


In 1933 the farmers will till the land, the textile workers will produce cloth, the blast furnaces will smelt metal, and the railroads will transport people and the products of labour. But the highest criterion of this year will lie not in producing as much as possible as fast as possible but in putting the economy in order; in checking over the inventories, separating the healthy from the sick and the good from the bad; in clearing away the rubbish and the mud; in building the needed houses and dining rooms, finishing the roofs, installing sanitary ventilation. For in order to work well, people must first of all live like human beings and satisfy their human needs.


To set aside a special year of capital reconstruction is a measure which of course solves nothing whatever by itself. It can attain its major significance only by a change in the very approach to the economy, and, first of all, to its living protagonists, the workers and peasants. The approach to the economy belongs to the domain of politics. The weapon of politics is the party.


Our task of tasks is to resurrect the party. Here as well we must take an inventory of the onerous inheritance of the post-Lenin period. We must separate the healthy from the sick, the good from the bad; we must clear away the rubbish and the mud; we must air and disinfect all the offices of the bureaucracy. After the party come the Soviets and the trade unions. Capital reconstruction of all Soviet organizations is the most important and most urgent task of 1933.

[Ismail]

So does "a cross should be placed over" the supposedly "mechanical" policy of "liquidating the kulak" not mean what anyone would assume it means? When Trotsky called for "severely restricting" the activities of the kulaks rather than abolishing them, after having spent years accusing the Central Committee of capitulating to the kulaks, is that not an obvious about-face? There's no reason to think that struggling against the kulaks would have been easier in 1925 than it was in 1929-1932, or that the Soviet economy wouldn't have been "in danger" had the Trotskyists' demagogic call for super-industrialization been attempted that same year.

The "bureaucracy" ignored Trotsky's pamphlet, secured the abolition of the kulaks, and stabilized the situation in both industry and agriculture. Trotsky then wrote The Revolution Betrayed where he gloried in the achievements of an evidently danger-less Soviet economy that was supposedly the result of the "bureaucrats" stealing from the "Left" Opposition's own platform.