Chapter 6

THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE

by Lyman H. Legters

On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, European In the mind of Stalin, the problem of the Social Democrats, including their Russian branch, held Ukrainian peasants who resisted collectivization generally to two items of received doctrinal wisdom was linked with the problem of Ukrainian that would bear ultimately on the calamity of the early nationalism. Collectivization was imposed on the 1930s in the Ukraine. One of these was the belief that Ukraine much faster than it was on other parts the rural agricultural economy, along with its associated of the Soviet Union. The resulting hardship in social order, was to undergo capitalist kinds of develop­ the Ukraine was deliberately intensified by a ment as a necessary prelude to the introduction of policy of unrelenting grain procurement. It was socialism in the countryside. That expectation could this procurement policy that transformed be traced directly back to Marx and Engels. The other hardship into catastrophe. Famine by itself is not belief had been fashioned more recently in the multina­ genocide, but the consequences of the policy were tional empires of Habsburg and Romanov and taught known and remedies were available. The that ethnic diversity, presumed to be a vestigial social evidence is quite powerful that the famine could fact that would eventually disappear, might be accom­ have been avoided, hence the argument turns on modated in a centralized political system by permitting, Stalin's intentions. perhaps even encouraging, cultural autonomy. 1 In the Russian case, the first of these propositions was confounded initially in two ways. Capitalist development had not occurred to any significant degree in rural areas, so a socialist program could only be premature at the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power. And, more decisively, Lenin's revolutionary strategy was based in part on appealing to the immedi­ ate interests of the peasantry, and the peasants for their part responded by simply seizing the land, making in effect a smallholder's revolution. Consequently, the Bolsheviks in power, at least as soon as initial socializ­ ing fervor had abated, could contemplate socialism in the countryside only as a long-term development. The matter of ethnic diversity, the nationality problem, was also complicated by tension between the proclaimed principle of self-determination and the

The Ukrainian Famine 107 ambition to retain as much of Russian territory as ment struggle a kind of preview of, and dress rehearsal possible for the impending socialist experiment. The for, the collectivization drive that Stalin launched the result, which was attained only with Bolshevik success following year. in the Civil War of the post-revolutionary period, was that self-determination gave way to territorial expan­ "Primitive Accumulation" sion. The urge to secure the greatest possible terrain for the socialist cause was thwarted in such places as The argument for proceeding with measures of Poland and Finland, but not so in other peripheral lands socialization in the countryside had so far come mainly of the USSR such as the Ukraine. 2 Once the boundaries from elements of the party usually referred to as the were secure and the party apparatus in place throughout Left and associated with opposition to Stalin's increas­ the federation, however, policy could revert to a less ing control over the party. Preobrazhensky in particular contentious approach to nationality, except of course had advocated a deliberate exploitation of the peasantry, in places where active resistance continued. what in Marxian terms would be called "primitive accumulation," as the best way to finance economic Lenin's New Economic Policy development in general. His ideas had been renounced by the party officially, and Stalin was supposed to be Broadly speaking, then, most of the decade of the among those rejecting such measures. By the time of 1920s, characterized by Lenin's New Economic Policy the procurement crisis, Stalin's dominance within the (NEP), featured a comparatively permissive attitude party had been secured, as demonstrated by the on the part of the Bolshevik leadership toward both reluctance of party leaders to do or say anything that peasants and the nationalities in their respective might identify them as defenders of the kulaks, the republics. As between these two strands of thinking more prosperous peasants who now figured as the and policy, the nationalities problem seemed the more enemy in this phase of class struggle. And Stalin's shift settled in this period. The Ukraine, for example, in position by 1928-29 was perhaps less abrupt than enjoyed a veritable flowering of its national culture it seemed. under the program of "Ukrainization" led by party That shift revealed itself as a sudden adoption of leader Mykola Skrypnyk from 1927 to 1933.3 On the the Preobrazhensky line, whereby peasants would be other hand, there was a more or less continuous debate underpaid for their output while paying excessive prices about economic policy, notably between those favoring for the purchases they had to make, the whole enter­ the abandonment of NEP for the sake of socialization prise masked as an attack on the kulaks for their of the countryside and the defenders of a very gradual exploitation of less favored segments of the peasant departure from NEP, thereby making it clear that the population. The emergency measures of 1928 produced respite of NEP for the peasantry would be reversed a deepening division within the party, Bukharin joined sooner or later. 4 At the same time, some party leaders, by Tomsky, Rykov, and others in advocating modera­ Stalin prominent among them, regarded the two issues tion while Molotov and Kaganovich supported Stalin as indissolubly linked, suggesting that measures in his draconian approach to procurement.5 The split designed to cope with the peasantry and agricultural became more evident toward the end of the year and sector would address the nationality question also. early in 1929 as Stalin took an increasingly explicit Even the defenders of NEP could not deny the stand on rapid industrialization at the expense of continuing problem of grain procurement in the agriculture, as reflected in the upward movement of countryside, a problem the intensity of which varied the targets stipulated in the Five Year Plan, drafted in with success or failure of harvest and with the uncertain 1927 and intended to run through 1931-32. At the same tractability of the peasants. A downward trend in time, he intensified his effort to isolate the opposition procurements in 1927-28, sufficiently drastic to threaten and mobilize the party behind his program. Yet as late supplies to the cities and to other sectors of the econo­ as April 1929, the crucial Sixteenth Party Conference my, set in motion a campaign to extract the needed appeared to maintain the essence of NEP with respect agricultural products, employing techniques that were to agriculture. Though the socialized sector, state and reminiscent in their severity of the Civil War period. collective farms, was to be developed further, ninety Peasants found to be withholding surplus grain were percent of agricultural production was still expected treated as speculators and their supplies subject to from individual farmers. Given the renewed emphasis confiscation. The rhetoric accompanying the campaign on industrial development, this cautious outlook for tended to be couched in the terms of class struggle, agriculture contained a serious contradiction. focusing on allegations that the more favored agricultur­ al producers were profiting at the expense of poorer peasants and ofurban workers. This made the procure-

108 GENOCIDE Collectivization seems to have been exceptionally strong, as indicated by numbers of punishable offenses. The contradiction began to be resolved late in 1929 Questionable as the forced collectivization program as the party moved to a more coercive campaign of may have been from an economic point of view, by collectivization. Until then, although collectivization itself it would not necessarily have led to famine. had been favored officially, it had been largely volun­ Enormous hardship was inflicted on the peasantry in tary and involved mostly the poorer peasants. But as the course of it, especially in the winter of 1929-1930, the campaign of dekulakization intensified, larger and of course not only in the Ukraine. Enormous losses numbers joined the collective farms out offear that they were also recorded as the peasants responded with might be labeled kulaks and become subject to dispos­ sabotage, destruction of grain and livestock. Further­ session. At this stage, too, the "encouragement" of more, the impact was by no means restricted to the collectivization fell increasingly to police organs and kulaks , for the sheer scale and recklessness of the drive to the brigades of militant workers sent out to the inflicted severe damage on whole regions, including countryside from the cities.6 The result, in which many middle and even poor peasants who were caught political motives and perceived economic requirements up in the "dizziness" ofunchecked coercion. Neverthe­ can scarcely be disentangled, was a massive overfulfill­ less, famine was not inevitable. ment of Five Year Plan goals for collectivization and the effective destruction of the NEP orientation of Unrelenting Grain Procurement agricultural policy. Stalin appeared to acknowledge the shortcomings of the campaign with his "Dizzy with A policy of unrelenting grain procurement made Success" article of March 1930, in which he deplored the critical difference between hardship and catastrophe. certain excesses and, in effect, introduced a pause in The Ukrainian harvest of 1930 was exceptionally good the process of collectivization. In the confusion that and could meet the quota (of about one-third) imposed followed for most of 1930, and in the face ofuncertain­ by Moscow with no great difficulty. The same 7. 7 ty among the agents of collectivization who had not million ton quota for 1931 could not be met, however, been warned of Stalin's shift, Stalin's admissions were because of the poorer harvest, and central authorities, confirmed as to the shallowness of peasant "conversion" while applying great pressure, began to attribute the by the movement of vast numbers out of the kolkhozes. shortfall to deliberate withholding of grain. The 1932 Nevertheless, after this interlude the drive for further harvest was poorer still but, even with a modest collectivization resumed. reduction in the quota, Moscow demanded nearly half of the total-which by itself would have met bare Peasantry and Nationality requirements in the Ukraine for people and livestock. Ukrainian party officials issued numerous warnings From the Ukrainian point of view, there was much about the dire consequences to be expected if Moscow to confirm Stal in' s Iinkage of peasantry and nationality did not relent, recounting stories of villages where as problems to be addressed. Indeed, despite the nothing had been left for the populace to eat, and this autonomy that the Ukraine continued to enjoy in the at a time when the Soviet Union was exporting grain. cultural realm, it was very possible to view the policies The official response to all warnings was indiffer­ pronounced in Moscow as twin onslaughts on Ukrainian ence or disbelief, coupled with new regulations impos­ nationality and peasantry. The percentage of Ukrainian ing stern penalties for withholding or pilfering. In farms collectivized rose from 8.6 in December 1929 November 1932 the Ukrainian Soviet regime prohibited to 65.0 in March 1930 to 70.0 in mid-1932; corre­ the distribution of food and the creation of reserves sponding percentages for Russia were 7.4, 59.0, and (seed grain) until quotas were met. Even so, effective 59 .3. The 90 percent mark was reached by 1935 in the control over the Ukraine was transferred to Stalin's Ukraine, not until late 1937 in Russia. Moreover, the non-Ukrainian lieutenant, Pavel Postyshev, who ruled urban workers sent forth to implement collectivization against the provision of aid to the starving countryside introduced an ethnic issue; many came from outside and sent brigades to collect what little was left of grain the Ukraine, and even in Ukrainian cities many workers distributed to collective farm members. At the same were Russian, or at any rate non-Ukrainian. With time, Postyshev brought the nationality issue into play collectivization taking priority over Ukrainization, the by blaming shortfalls in collections on Skrypnyk and Ukrainian party organization was profoundly affected . other Ukrainian "nationalist wreckers. "7 Skrypnyk's regime was undermined, and lower party echelons were transformed as party secretaries were purged, often for real or imagined opposition to collectivization. At the same time, Ukrainian resistance

The Ukrainian Famine 109 Terror-Famine famine does fall within the UN definition as an attempt to destroy the basis for continued existence of a Memoir literature and interviews conducted long nationality. The Ukraine survives as a self-conscious after provide a grim picture of the consequences: ethnic community, but a genocidal policy does not have corpses in the streets of the villages, deliberate cruelty to succeed in its final aim before it can be counted as by enforcement authorities, starving children, canni­ a genocide. balism, in short, all of the accompaniments of deep and prolonged famine. 8 Demographic evidence yields less graphic but no less startling demonstration of the NOTES terrible outcome of Stalin's policies. One estimate, by Maksudov, arrives at a figure of 4.5 million deaths in 1. In the Marxian tradition the classic treatment of the Ukraine as a result of famine, a bit over half of the the subject is Otto Bauer, Die Nationalittltenjrage und premature deaths he estimates for the Soviet Union as die Sozialdemokratie (Wien: I. Brand, 1907); Joseph a whole.9 Noting that this estimate disregards the Stalin, Marxism and the National-Colonial Question resettlement of depopulated villages by non-Ukrainians, (New York: International Publishers, 1935) is a Mace suggests the higher figure of 7 .5 million. 10 theoretically inferior effort, partly derived from and Demographic evidence also helps to locate the areas partly at odds with Bauer; for a modern study, see Ian of greatest suffering, the Ukraine ranking first accord­ Cummins, Marx, Engels and National Movements (New ing to most accounts. Also telling is a comparison of York: St. Martin's Press, 1980). two districts facing each other across the Russian­ Ukrainian boundary, the Ukrainian side showing 2. On these events, see Richard Pipes, The Formation extreme devastation and the Russian side roughly of the Soviet Union; Communism and Nationalism, normal mortality. 1917-1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, "Terror-famine" is the term Robert Conquest uses 1954). for the whole episode, suggesting not just the nature of the events but also the deliberate intent that pushed 3. James E. Mace, "Famine and Nationalism in the misery associated with collectivization across the Soviet Ukraine," Problems of Communism (May-June line to outright devastation. 11 Famine by itself is of 1984): 41 ff. course not a genocide, nor is massive loss of life. But by demonstrating that the consequences of pol icy were 4. M. Levin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power known and remedies available, the argument turns on (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975), 148-158. the intentions of those responsible. The evidence is quite powerful that the famine could have been avoided; 5. The episode is described in detail against the it is overwhelming that the worst consequences could background of the leadership struggle in Stephen F. have been ameliorated at least. It is equally hard to Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (New disregard the evidence, not least from the statements York: A. A. Knopf, 1973), 270 ff. of Stalin and other party leaders, that the entire policy had a nationality dimension as well as an economic one. 6. Lynne Viola, The Best Sons of the Fatherland; The Ukraine would have suffered terribly, by its very Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization nature as an agricultural stronghold, from collectiviza­ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). tion and the manner of its imposition. But there is no adequate explanation, apart from the nationality 7. The foregoing account relies heavily on James E. question, for the singling out of the Ukraine for Mace, Communism and the Dilemmas of National exceptionally dire consequences. 12 Liberation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1983) and Robert Conquest, The The UN Definition of Genocide Harvest of Sorrow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). It can be argued that the UN definition of genocide is deficient in its failure to allow for murderous 8. For example, Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger onslaughts on strata-such as the kulaks-of a given (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987). population, whether real or invented. 13 Were this extension to be admitted, then the program of dekulaki­ 9. Cited in Mace, "Famine," 38. zation, given the extreme loss of life that its implemen­ tation entailed, would count as a genocide. In any 10. Mace, "Famine," 38. event, what is beyond doubt is that the Ukrainian

110 GENOCIDE 11. Conquest, 322-330. standing and Prevention of Genocide, ed. by Israel W. Charny (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984). The 12. Conquest, 272. discussion is pursued further in Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide 13 . An argument made in Lyman H. Legters, "The (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 12-23. Soviet Gulag: Is It Genocidal?" in Toward the Under-

Chapter 6: Annotated Bibliography

• 6.1 • others, mounted a successful effort to transform the Allworth, Edward, ed . Soviet Nationality Problems. "peasant dialect" into a fully developed literary lan­ New York and London: Columbia University Press, guage, a language that could claim equality with 1971. LC 77-166211. ISBN 0-231-03493-8. Russian in all respects. It will be recalled that in the The nine papers that make up this volume were late 1920s, Strypnyk, the Ukrainian commissar of originally presented to the Seminar on Soviet education, called a conference to rid the Ukrainian Nationality Problems, which was held at Columbia language of Russianisms. This is a measure of the University during the academic year of 1968-1969. In extent to which Ukrainian was not a mere peasant the context of understanding Ukrainian nationalism, dialect. Marc Raeffs paper, "Patterns of Russian Imperial Policy Toward the Nationalities," is both the most • 6.2 • illuminating and the least dated by recent events in the Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror, a Reassessment. Soviet Union. London, Sydney, Auckland, and Johannesburg: The traditional methods of Imperial territorial Hutchinson, 1990. ISBN 0-09-174293-5. expansion were 1) conquest or acquisition of non­ In Chapter 10 of this revised edition of his 1968 Russian territories; 2) incorporation; and 3) assimila­ publication, Conquest designates the era of the Great tion. This three-fold process is unexceptionably applica­ Terror as "a holocaust of the things of the spirit." By ble to the Ukraine. In 1654 Ukrainian leaders turned "things of the spirit," he refers to the cultural and to Petersburg in an appeal for protection against the scientific institutions, and their representatives, that aggressive designs of Poland. Thus at firstthe Ukraine flourished in pre-1917 Ukraine. The Stalinist purpose was a protectorate of Imperial Russia. In one hundred­ was to purge and then to destroy the Ukrainian intelli­ twenty-one years, Russia was able to consummate the gentsia, universities, and publishers. The Stalinist Ukraine's incorporation into the Czardom of Muscovy. method consisted of widespread arrests, interrogations, Raeff sets forth the steps which led to eventual incorpo­ and torture. Conquest also examines the horror oflabor ration: camps as ideological re-education centers for ideologi­ cally unsound peasants and intellectuals . . . . [I]n the Ukraine the Cossack Host man­ aged to preserve its autonomy and organiza­ • 6.3 • tion at least until 1709, and it even lingered Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow; Soviet on in a limited way until 1775. In 1709, as Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. New York: a consequence of Hetman's Mazepa's siding Oxford University Press, 1986. LC 86-2437. ISBN 0- with Charles XII [of Sweden] at Poltava, the 19-504054-6. autonomy of the Dnieper Cossack Host was Conquest makes use of a wide range of evidence drastically curtailed. In 1775-following the to substantiate claims, including testimonies from Pugachev rebellion-Catherine II abolished survivors and primary demographic data. He identifies the Zaporozhian Sich altogether. two distinct Stalinist policies that, being merged, resulted in the decision to impose famine and ethnocide The Czars sought to assimilate the Ukraine on the Ukraine in 1932-33. Dekulakization and collec­ through policies of Russification. Of primary impor­ tivization from 1929-1932 was a policy in agricultural tance for Russification was the imposition of the production designed to achieve socialism in the country­ Russian language on the Ukrainians, along with the side in accordance with Marxist-Leninist doctrine; the prohibition of the Ukrainian language as a publishing second policy was put in place to reverse Stalin's vehicle. Russians have persisted in what is a delusion, previous leniency toward the renewal and revitalization namely, that the Ukrainian language is only a peasant of Ukrainian nationalism. The famine, preceded by the dialect. In the 1820s, folklorists and poets, among conspiracy trial in 1931, was imposed to destroy the

The Ukrainian Famine 111 independence and viability of the Ukrainian language, on his accomplishments. Koestler contrasts this pretty culture, intelligentsia, and autocephalous church. fantasy with the unspeakably ugly truth: Ukrainian national ism has had a long history. The birth of the Ukrainian people, as distinct from the Travelling through the countryside was like Russian people, can be dated from 1240 when Kiev, running the gauntlet: the stations were lined the capital of all the East Slavs, fell to the advancing with begging peasants with swollen hands Mongols. Those of the east Slavs who were pushed and feet, the women holding up to the car­ west became Ukrainians while those who lived North riage windows horrible infants with enor­ of Kiev became the great Russians. mous wobbling heads, sticklike limbs, swol­ Stalin succeeded in his designs to crush Ukrainian len, pointed bellies. nationalism, but only temporarily. "With the extirpation of so many of its natural leaders and adherents at every • 6.7 • level," national feeling was numbed during the remain­ Kravchenko, Victor. I Chose Freedom: The Personal ing years of the 1930s. Yet ultimately the Stalinist drive and Political Life of a Soviet Official. New York: failed, as events in 1990 and 1991 have unmistakably Scribners, 1946. LC 46-2999 rev. revealed. Kravchenko was a young communist official in the Ukraine at the time of the famine. In Chapter 10, • 6.4 • "Harvest in Hell," he explains the decision to deploy Dolot, Miron. Execution by Hunger,· the Hidden trusted communist cadres in the Ukrainian countryside Holocaust. New York and London: W.W. Norton, to safeguard the new harvest: 1985. LC 84-16568. ISBN 0-393-30416-7. Execution by Hunger is his horrifying memoir of Everything depended on the new harvest. the Ukrainian famine. Dolot, a survivor of the famine, Would the starving peasantry have the strongly suggests that it was artificially induced as a strength and the will to reap and to thresh special Stalinist measure to eradicate Ukrainian national in the midst of millionfold death. To make aspirations. sure the crops would be harvested, to prevent the desperate collective farmers from eating • 6.5 • the green shoots, to save the kolkhozes from Kingston-Mann, Esther. Lenin and the Problem of breaking down under mismanagement, to Marxist Peasant Revolution. New York and Oxford: fight against enemies of collectivization, Oxford University Press, 1985. LC 82-14314. ISBN special Political Departments were set up in 0-19-503278-0. the villages, manned by trusted commu­ Kingston-Mann offers a scholarly and theoretically nists-militarymen, officials, professionals, sophisticated examination of the relationship between N.K.V.D. men, students. An army of more Leninist and Bolshevik thought and the role and status than a hundred thousand stalwarts, selected of the peasantry. The book is useful background for by the Central Committee of the Party, was the collectivization strategy Stalin adopted at a later thus deployed through the collectivized areas, stage. charged with the duty of safeguarding the new harvest. • 6.6 • Koestler, Arthur. "Soviet Myth and Reality." In The He then describes the consequences of "safeguarding Yogi and the Commissar and Other Essays. New York: the harvest" as they affected the most vulnerable part Macmillan, 1945. LC 45-4437. of the Ukrainian population: Koestler was in Kharkov during the winter of 1932-33, as he tells us in "Soviet Myth and Reality." The most terrifying sights were 1ittle children He was appalled to discover the grotesque incongruity with skeleton limbs dangling from balloon- that existed between anyone's observation of mass 1ike abdomens. Starvation had wiped every starvation in the streets and what the local newspapers trace of youth from their faces, turning them were reporting about 1ife in the Ukraine. Koestler notes into tortured gargoyles; only in their eyes that Stalin's control of the press was total, in contrast still lingered the reminder of childhood. to Hitler's, which was only partial. Hence the local Everywhere we found men and women lying newspapers were boasting of over-fulfillment of prone, their faces and bellies bloated, their economic plans. They were filled with pictures of eyes utterly expressionless. smiling, happy peasants who praised Comrade Stalin

112 GENOCIDE In 1943, Kravchenko was assigned to duty in the • 6.11 • United States as a member of the Soviet Purchasing Mace, James E. "Famine and Nationalism in Soviet Commission. In 1944, he defected while on a trip to Ukraine." Problems of Communism 33:3 (May-June New York. He says that he began to lose faith in the 1984): 37-50. Party when he was ordered to safeguard "the harvest Mace argues that Stalin had singled out the in hell." Ukraine for especially harsh treatment because of the secessionist threat it posed for the Soviet Union. Mace • 6.8 • reminds us that during the 1918 German occupation Legters, Lyman H. "The Soviet Gulag: Is It Genocid­ of the Ukraine: al?" In Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide. Ed. by Israel W. Charny. Boulder, CO: Even Mennonite German communities wel­ Westview Press, 1984. LC 84-15241. ISBN 0-86531- comed their co-nationals and provided volun­ 843-3. teers to fight the Bolsheviks, despite old Legters argues that the Gulag meets the UN pacifisttraditions .... The Ukrainians not only definition of genocide by reason of its disproportionate formed their own nation-state but after their involvement of national minority groups, but also that military defeat and incorporation into the the UN definition is deficient when applied to a society USSR, became what Poland would become that uses class categories, such as kulaks, as a basis in the Soviet bloc after World War II: that for differential, murderous treatment of citizens: part of the larger entity that was most con­ scious of its national distinctiveness, most If an allegedly socialist society, whose assertive of its prerogatives, and least willing primary form of classification is that of class, to follow Moscow's model in arranging its either targets or invents a class with extermi­ own affairs. nation in prospect, that program must count as genocide lest the term lose its continuing In 1923, Moscow permitted a certain limited pertinence for the contemporary world in all Ukrainization, a policy designed to give the Soviet of its variety. Ukrainian state a veneer of national legitimacy. Still later in the 1920s Mykola Skrypnyk became the • 6.9 • Ukrainian party leader, he being a strong advocate of Lewin, M. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power, a Study his Republic's national interests. With respect to the of Collectivization. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., national language, "one of his first acts as education 1975. ISBN 0-393-00752-9. commissar was to chair an orthography conference. 11 Based to a considerable extent on Soviet sources, He brought experts from Europe, Russia, and the Lewin's careful and highly detailed study examines the Ukraine together "to standardize Ukrainian spelling and decision for collectivization and the process of its purge the language of Russianisms. 11 execution in 1928-1929. Despite the fact that he does Evidently the movement toward Ukrainian nation­ not single out the Ukraine and though he ends the alist legitimacy went far beyond what Stalin had ever treatment before the onset of famine, this is an essential intended or authorized; it also went far beyond what text for the prelude to the famine. he would tolerate. The "terror-famine" of 1932-33 was the result of Stalin's decision to reverse his previous • 6.10 • policies favoring limited Ukrainization . Mace, James E. Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation: National Communism in Soviet • 6.12 • Ukraine, 1918-1933. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Mace, James E. "The Man-Made Famine of 1933 in Ukrainian Research Institute, 1983. LC 83-4361. ISBN the Soviet Ukraine: What Happened and Why?" In 0-916458-09-1. Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide. Mace's book is the fundamental scholarly investi­ Ed. by Israel W. Charny. Boulder, CO: Westview gation of the Ukrainian problem in the Soviet Union. Press, 1984. LC 84-15241. ISBN 0-86531-843-3. He lays the groundwork for an assessment of the Mace depicts the Ukrainian famine in which five genocidal implications of collectivization and the to seven mil I ion perished as a deliberate Stalinist assault ensuing famine. on the Ukraine as a center of nationalism and as a potential threat to Moscow's centralizing authority. To document this charge, Mace describes the indictments made in a conspiracy trial held in the Ukraine in 1930:

The Ukrainian Famine 113 So many members of the All-Ukraine Acade­ he constantly juxtaposes Stalin's "mistakes" and Stalin's my of Sciences were placed in the dock that "crimes," with mistakes being construed as errors of whole institutions had to be closed. The calculation or reasoning. In the example given above, Ukrainian Autocephalous Church was also Medvedev does not say that Stalin's views on nationali­ tied into the alleged plot and forced to pro­ ties were wrong, but only that one particular speech claim its own liquidation .... [T]hedefendants on the subject was poorly expressed and inadequately were accused not only of engaging in a argued. Stalin's crime in this instance was to vengefully terrorist plot to assassinate top Soviet leaders crush Strypnyk, his critic, rather than to refute him in and lead a kulak uprising to establish an open debate. Thus Medvedev sees the criminality of independent fascist state with capitalist the Stalinist period as arising not from the communist support, but also with activities labelled system, not from an absolute dictatorship, but from the "cultural wrecking," consisting of interpret­ deep character flaws of Stalin the man. ing Ukrainian history as national history, advocating the adoption of non-Russian terms • 6.15. in the Ukrainian language, or establishing Mitrany, David. Marx Against the Peasant; a Study an orthography with spelling rules different in Social Dogmatism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of from Russian. North Carolina Press, 1951. LC 61-18128. Mitrany examines the position of peasantries in • 6.13. traditional Marxian thought, setting Soviet policies, Maksudov, S. "Losses Suffered by the Population of including collectivization, within that context. He the USSR in 1918-1958." Cahiers du Monde Russe et suggests that the revolutionary wave of the twentieth Sovietique 18:3 (1977): 223-265. century has been primarily agrarian and that Marxism The author's demographic study sheds light on has been both hostile to and exploitative of it. the consequences of collectivization and famine for population levels in the Ukraine and elsewhere. • 6.16. Maksudov estimates the number of deaths caused by Pipes, Richard. The Formation of the Soviet Union,­ the famine to be 4.5 million. This estimate is low. CommunismandNationalism, 1917-1923. Cambridge, Mace places the number of deaths at 7.5 million. MA: Harvard University Press, 1954. LC 54-5183. Harvard University Press published a revised edition • 6.14. in 1964. Medvedev, Roy A. Let History Judge; the Origins and Although Pipes examines nationalisms in the Consequences ofStalinism. Trans. by Colleen Taylor. Ukraine and Belorussia, the Moslem Borderlands, and New York: Vintage Books, 1971, 1973. LC 75-5843. the Caucasus, his elucidation of the nationalist move­ ISBN 0-394-71928-X. ment in the Ukraine during the period of 1917 to 1923 Medvedev says that Stalin gave evidence of is what concerns us here. From February 1917 to early having, from the earliest days of his career as a 1920 when the Soviet conquest was complete, the revolutionary leader, many grave faults of character. Ukrainian national movement entered into, and with­ According to Medvedev, among Stal in' s negative traits drew from, a succession of tentative alliances with the were "boorishness and self-importance, pathological Kerensky government, with the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, conceit and callousness, mistrust and stealth, an with Lenin's government, with the military rule of the inability to take the criticism of his comrades, and a White armies, and even, during 1918, with the German craving for influence and power." All or most of these and Austro-Hungarian armies that occupied the country. traits came into play in Stal in' s hand! ing of the criticism Over these three years, as Pipes says, "no fewer than of the Ukrainian party leader, Strypnyk. Thus at the nine governments attempted to assert their authority Tenth Party Congress, held in March of 1921, Strypnyk over the land." None was successful in a struggle in roundly criticized Stalin's speech on the nationality which the main protagonists were the Ukrainian problem, calling it "inane and abstract" and offering nationalists and the Russian communists. no solution to the problem whatsoever. Instead of The Ukrainian nationalists were strong in the engaging Strypnyk in serious argumentation, Stalin villages but weak in the cities, like Kiev and Kharkov, launched a smear campaign against his opponent; he which meant that they were dependent on the "political­ virtually accused him of giving conscious support to ly disorganized, ineffective, and unreliable village." class enemies on "the cultural front." Twelve years Moreover they were politically immature and inexperi­ later, in 1933, Strypnyk committed suicide. enced, not having had any practice in the art of Medvedev writes as a reform-minded communist. administration. The fate of the Ukraine, therefore, was In commenting on Stalin's performance as a dictator, decided in the cities where the culture was predominant-

114 GENOCIDE ly Russian and where there was an active hostility to alongside the other republics. The focus is not only on Ukrainian nationalism. Nonetheless the Ukrainian discontent and other centrifugal factors but also on the movement which emerged in the course of the Russian implications of contemporary demographic trends. Revolution was, despite its ultimate failure, a political expression of genuine interests and loyalties. Its roots • 6.21 • were manifold; a specific Ukrainian culture, resting Carynyk, Marco, Luyblubomyr Y. Luciuk, and Bohdan on peculiarities of language and folklore; a historic S. Kordan, eds. The Foreign Ofjke and the Famine: tradition dating from the seventeenth-century Cossack British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine. communities; an identity of interests among the mem­ Kingston, Ontario, and Bestal, NY: Limestone Press, bers of the large and powerful group of well-to-do 1988. ISBN 0-919642-29-2. peasants of the Dnieper region; and a numerically small The British Foreign Office documents in this but active group of nationally conscious intellectuals, collection afford a useful external perspective on the with a century-old heritage of cultural nationalism character of the famine. behind them. * 6.22 * Briefly Annotated Works Chalk, Frank, and Kurt Jonassohn. The History and Sociology of Genocide. New Haven and London: Yale • 6.17. University Press, 1990. LC 89-27381. ISBN 0-300- Bellis, Paul. Marxism and the U.S.S.R.,· the Theory 04445-3. of Proletarian Dictatorship and the Marxist Analysis By means of comparison and synthesis, Chalk and of Soviet Society. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Jonassohn seek to refine the definition of genocide and Press, 1979. LC 79-11801. ISBN 0-391-01007-7. our understanding of the phenomenon. Bellis provides background on Soviet Marxism and its theoretical and ideological justifications for * 6.23 * economic measures and policies, including the policy Davies, R. W. The Industrialization of Soviet Russia, of collectivization. Vol. 1, The Socialist Offensive,- the Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-1930, and Vol. 2, The Soviet • 6.18 • Collective Farm, 1929-1930. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Bettelheim, Charles. Class Struggles in the USSR,' University Press, 1980. LC 79-15263, 79-15273. ISBN Second Period: 1923-1930. New York: Monthly 0-67 4-81480-0 v 1, 0-67 4-82600-0 v2. Review Press, 1978. LC 76-28976. ISBN 0-85527-9. The author's continuation of Carr's History of Applying Marxian categories critically to the Soviet Russia, these books trace the drive for collectiv­ Soviet experience of the later 1920s, Bettelheim offers ization, in the Ukraine and elsewhere, in the framework a trenchant analysis of the prelude to, and processes of shifting policies and with the status of the collective of, collectivization which he views as a species of farm that resulted. appropriation. * 6.24 * • 6.19 • Dmytryshyn, Basil. Moscow and the Ukraine, 1917- Carr, Edward Hallett, and R.W. Davies. Foundation 1953. New York: Bookman Associates, 1956. LC 57- ofaPlannedEconomy, 1926-1929Vol. l, Parts 1 and 1284. 2, of A History of Soviet Russia. New York: Mac­ Dmytryshyn offers a general history of relations Millan Co., 1969. LC 71-80789. between the Soviet center and the Ukrainian periphery. The continuation of the monumental history begun He includes the shifting policies designed to address by Carr alone, this is the history of the period immedi­ the nationality problem. ately preceding collectivization; it details the circum­ stances that led up to Stalin's decision to collectivize * 6.25 * the rural economy. Ellison, Herbert J. "The Decision to Collectivize Agriculture." In Russian Economic Development. Ed . • 6.20. by William L. Blackwell. New York: New Viewpoints, Carrere d'Encausse, Helene. Decline of an Empire,­ 1974. LC 73-11162. ISBN 0-531-06363-1. the Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt. New York: Ellison examines the decision of the Fifteenth Harper Colophon, 1981. ISBN 0-06-090844-0. Party Congress of 1927 to collectivize agriculture, An important examination of relations between emphasizing the interplay of forces within the party Soviet central authority and the constituent republics that conditioned the decision. in the post-Stalinist era, this book treats the Ukraine

The Ukrainian Famine 115 • 6.26. • 6.28 • Heller, Mikhail, and Aleksander M. Nekrich. Utopia Solomon, Susan Gross. The Soviet Agrarian Debate; in Power; the History of the Soviet Union from 1917 a Controversy in Social Science, 1923-1929. Boulder, to the Present. New York: Summit Books, 1986. LC CO: Westview Press, 1977. LC 77-21555. ISBN 0- 86-5792. ISBN 0-671-46242-3. 89158-339-4. In Chapter 5 of their history, two Soviet-trained Soloman details the debate among Marxist and scholars deal extensively with collectivization and the non-Marxist economists concerning appropriate policies ensuing famine, including a summary of estimated to be pursued in the countryside to promote agricultural population losses. They do not single out the Ukraine production. The debate led up to, and was terminated or address the question of genocide. by, the decision to collectivize rapidly and, in the event, brutally . • 6.27. Millar, James R. "Mass Collectivization and the • 6.29. Contribution of Soviet Agriculture to the First Five Viola, Lynne. The Best Sons of the Fatherland; Year Plan." Slavic Review 33 (1974): 750-766. Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization. Millar offers an economist's examination of the New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. performance of the agricultural sector during the LC 86-17987. ISBN 0-19-504262-X. collectivization that was a salient part of the First Five Viola examines the employment of workers as Year Plan. militant agents of collectivization in the period leading up to the resulting famine in the Ukraine and else­ where.

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