The Carl Beck Papers in Russian & East European Studies

Number1506 MarkB. Tanger

Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the SovietFamine of 1931-1933 Mark B. Tauger is Associate Professorof History at West VIrginia University. He has published numerous articlesand reviews on Sovieteconomic and agrarianhistory. Hisworkhas beensupported by!REX, theSocialScience Research Council,theUCLA History Department, theWestVtrginia Humanities Council, andtheWestVirginia Uni­ versity History Department Heispreparing a bookonfamine andagricultural develop­ mentin lateimperial Russiaand the USSR.

~o. 1506, June 2001

© 2001 by The Centerfor Russianand East European Studies, a programof the University CenterforInternational Studies, University ofPittsburgh

ISSN0889-275X

The Carl BeckPapers William Chase,BobDonnorummo, Ronald H.Linden, Co-Editors EileenO'Malley,Managing Editor MikeSavitski, CoverDesign

Submissions to The Carl Beck Papers are welcome. Manuscripts must be in English, double-spaced throughout, and less than 100pagesin length.Acceptance is basedon anonymous review. Mail submissions to: Editor, The Carl Beck Papers, Center for Russian andEastEuropean Studies, 40-17 W. W. PosvarHall,University ofPittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA15260. Introduction

Untilrecentlybothscholarly andpopulardiscussions ofthecatastrophic famine intheSovietUnionin 1931-1933 invariably havedescribeditas anartificial or"man­ made"famine. Certainwell-known scholars have dominatedthisdiscussion, expressing two main interpretationsof thefamine. AUkrainian nationalistinterpretation holds thattheSovietregime,andspecifically IosifStalin, intentionally imposedthefamineto suppressthenationalistaspirations ofUkraine andUkrainians; revisionists argue that theleadership imposed thefamineto suppress morewidespreadpeasantresistance to collectivization. Accordingtotheseviews, anatural disasterthatcouldhavecauseda faminedidnot take place in thoseyears.1 Whiletheintentionalistinterpretations ofthefamine remainwidely held, recent researchhascastsubstantial doubtonthem. Several studiesanddocumentcollections haveshownconclusively thatthefamine didnotstopatUkraine'sborders,butaffected rural and urban areas throughout the SovietUnion,and even the military.' Studies based on this evidence, and on a reevaluationof published Sovietstatistics, have shown that the grain harvests of 1931 and 1932must have been much smallerthan officiallyacknowledged. As tables 1and2show, whatthe regime called"net grain marketings" fromthe 1932harvest-theamounts ofgrainremovedfromthevillages, includinggovernmentprocurementsandestimated privatesalesby peasants,minus the seed, food,and fodder aidreturnedtofanns-approximated 13.7 milliontons.

Table 1: Soviet omdal Harvest and Marketing Data, 1930-1934, (sown area in million hectares, harvest in million metric tons, yields in centners per hectare)

Harvest Yields

Sown Bio- Biological Biological Barn Barn Procure- Area logical Bam Average Kolkhoz Average Kolkhoz ments

1930 101.8 83 8.5 22.1 1931 104.4 69.5 6.7 22.8 1932 99.7 69.9 7.0 6.8 18.5 1933 101.6 89.9 68.5 8.8 8.5 6.7 22.9 1934 104.7 89.4 67.7 8.5 6.5 22.7

Sources: Sel'skoekhoziaistvoSSSR.Ezhegodnik 1932(Moscow, 1936),215,243-49,269; I. E. Zelenin,"Osnovnyepokazatelisel'skokhoziaistvennogo proizvodstvav 1928-1935 gg," in 1 Ezhegodnik: po agramoi tstorii vostochnoi Evropy 1965 g. (Moscow: Nauka, 1970), 473. The biological yield was a projection made before the harvest, by a special network of agencies established in 1933, which took little account of potential harvesting losses; the biological harvest was calculated based on regional average biological yields and estimated crop areas. The barn yield was in principle based on actual harvestsand harvestyields drawn from annual farm reports, which were prepared long after procurementsand hence could not be used as a basis for demandingreduced procurementquotas, and thereforewere considered reliable. The figuresfor kol/chozy are disaggregatedfrom total averageyieldsand harvests in the sources. For further informationon sources,see Tauger,"The 1932Harvestand the Soviet Famine of 1932­ 1933,"SlavicReview,50,no. 1(Spring1990): 72.

Table 2: Soviet Rural Grain Balance from Official Data (million metric tons)

Barn Est. Gross Returns to Net Rural Harvest Marketings Agriculture Marketings Remainder

1931 69.5 23.7 4.9 18.8 50.7 1932 69.6 19.4 5.7 13.7 55.9 1933 68.5 25.6 1.3 24.3 44.2 1934 67.7 27.1 1.1 26.0 41.6

Sources: Tauger,"The 1932Harvest," 74; A. A. Barsov,Balans stoimostnykk obmenov mezhdu gorodom i derevnei (Moscow: Nauka, 1969), 103, citing archival sources on grain returned to agriculture in 1931-1932; Iu. V.Moshkov,Zemovaia problema v gody sploshnoi kollektivhatsii(Moscow: MOU,1966),131,forgrainreturned to agriculture in 1933; Spravochnik partiinogo rabomika, (Moscow, 1935),9:212,for grainreturnedto agriculturein 1934. The latter two sourcesrefer only to stale seed and provisionaid and probablyunderestimatethe amountof grainreturned. Gross marketings includegovernment grainprocurements andestimatesof private market sales by peasants; returns to agriculturecomprises procured grain that the government returned to villages for food, forage, and seed; net marketingsare the difference resulting from subtractingreturns to agriculturefrom gross marketings,and representthe total available to the governmentfor extra-ruraluse; the rural remainderis the differenceobtained by subtracting net marketings from the "barn harvest," and represent the amounts left in and returned to the countrysideafter grainprocurementswerecompleted.

2 Thisamount wassubstantially less thanthenetgrain marketings fromthe 1931harvest, 18.8million tons. Consequentlythe 1932 procurements should have leftmorefood in the villages during fall 1932 and spring 1933than in 1931-1932. The fact that a disastrousfamine followedthe 1932procurements musthave beenat least in part the result ofasrnallerharvest Newarchival sources,including annual reports from collective farmspreparedafter allharvest workandgrainprocurementswerecompleted,show that collective and state farms (kolkhozy and sovkhozy) produced much less grain than official statistics indicated. These data, partially presented in tables 3 and 4, indicate that the 1932 harvest was in the range of 50-55 million tons, some 20-30 percent below the official figure of almost70 milliontons, and even this may be an overestimate. These data also show that the harvest of 1933 was much larger than thoseof 1931and 1932: in Ukraine theyieldincreased fromfive centnersperhectare toeight; in Azovo-Chernomorskiikrai (territory), formerlythe most fertile partof the North Caucasus,from less than fourcentnersto morethan six.'

Table 3: Official and Archival Kolkhoz Yie lds and Implied Harvests, 1932 (harvests in million metric tons, yields in centners per hectare)

Percentage of Official Official Official All Kolkhozy Archival Implied Kolkho z Kolkhoz Grain Kolkhoz inNKZ Yield Kolkhoz Region Yield Sown Area Harvest Reports NKZ Harvest

USSR 6.8 69.1 46.99 40 5.6 39.5 RSFSR 6.5 53.0 34.45 33.6 6.0 31.8 UkrSSR 8.0 13.0 lOAD 47.3 5.1 6.6 NorthCau. 6.1 7.1 4.30 86.6 3.9 2.8

Sources: Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest," 78, 85, based on Sel'sko e khoziaistvo SSSR, 27 1; RGAE 7486.3.4456,112 ff. The archival yields are averages ofkolkhoz annual reports contained in Narkornzem archival documents for internal use; the implied kolkhoz harvest is the product ofthe archival yield and the official kolkho z grain sown area.

3 Table 4: Recent Estimates of Soviet Rural Grain Balance (million metric tons)

Wheatcroft& Davies Tauger

Net ImpliedRural ImpliedRural Marketings Harvestest Remainder Harvestest. Remainder

1931 18.8 56±9% 38 1932 13.7 56± 10% 42.3 50 36.3 1933 24.3 65±4% 41.7

Sources: R. W. Davies, Mark Harriston, and S. G. Wheatcroft, eds., The Economic Transformation o/the Soviet Union, 1913-1945(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 286; figures obtained by reducing official harvest statistics by a percentage based on rainfall data; Tanger, "The 1932Harvest," 76,84, estimatebased on archivalsummariesof yields and sownareasfromannualkolkhoz reportsfor 1932containedin thearchivesofNarkomzem and the CentralStatistical Administration.

Certainly, theharvest decline wasnottheonlycauseoftheSovietfamine: the regimeexportedfoodduringthecrisis," Theamountof grainexportedduringthe peak of thefaminein thefirsthalfof 1933,however, approximately 220,000tons, wassmall,lessthan 1percentof the lowestharvestestimates,andtheregimewas usingvirtually alltherestoftheavailable harvest to feedpeople. Theactual amounts ofgrainneeded andutilizedforthispurpose canonlybeapproximated. A I. Mikoian, thecommissar oftrade (Narkomtorg) estimated in 1928thattheregimeneeded11.2 milliontonsof grainto meetthedemands of townspeople, militarypersonnel,and othergroups whodidnotproduce theirownfoodor sufficient food. Withtherapid industrialization, collectivization, anddekulakization measures inthefollowing years, however, thenumberof consumerswhomtheregimesuppliedrapidlyincreased. Simultaneously,cropfailures andfamine conditions in 1927 and1928, the"graincrisis," forced theSovietregime toestablish afood rationing systemthatby1932encompassed morethan40million peopleintowns andindustrial sites. Inaddition, several million moreinthemilitary, inprisons andcamps, andevenmanypeasants andotherpeople invillages receivedfood supplies through otherrationing systems. Despite theincreasing numberofconsumers, theSovietgovernment's capacitytosupplythemdecreased during thefamine crisis. According toofficial figures, thesupply systemdistributed approximately 16.3million tonsofgrainthrough rationing systems fromJuly 1931 throughJune 1932,but only 14.5milliontonsfromJuly 1932throughJune 1933.

4 During those same periods the regime drasticallycurtailed grain exports, from 4.7 milliontons to 1.6milliontons. Ascan be seenfromcomparing thesestatisticswith the data on procurements in tables 1 and 2, the total of supply and exports nearly exhausts the total grain available from procurements in these years. The Soviet government did have small reserves of grain, but continually drew these down to allocate foodtothepopulation.' Sincevirtually theentire country experienced shortages offood, indicatingthattheprocurement anddistribution dataarereasonably accurate, clearlytheSovietUnionfaced asevereshortage, andthe mostimportantcauseof that shortage has to have been small harvestsin 1931 and 1932. Consequently anunderstanding oftheSovietfamine, andoftheintense conflict between regimeand peasants over grain procurementsemphasized in most studies, requiresanexamination of thecausesofthosesmallharvests. Twoexamples fromthe vasthistoriography offaminesdemonstrates thelegitimacy andimportance of such an investigation. In thecaseoftheGreatIrishFamine of 1845-1851, anationalist literature, similar to the Ukrainiannationalistliteratureon theSoviet famine,holds the British governmentresponsible. Withoutdenying thattheBritish government mishandled the crisis,however, everyserioushistorian of thefamine, fromCecilWoodham-Smith to theleadingIrishspecialist Cormac6 Grada, attributes itfirstof alltotheextraordinary naturaldisasterofthepotatoblight.PeterSolarcalculatedthatIrelandexperiencedan absolute food shortage in the main famine years of 1845-1848.6 Russia itself has enduredmorethanone hundredfiftyfamines initsthousand yearsofrecordedhistory, virtually allofwhichresulteddirectly from natural disasters, in mostcasesdrought, and RussianandSovietspecialistshavepublishedmanystudiesof thecausesand effects ofdroughtand cropfailuresin Russiaandelsewhere.' These crop failures in Ireland and Russiaareestablishedfactsthatmustbe consideredin anyattempttoexplain the famines.The NobellaureateeconomistAmartyaSenhascriticizeda narrowfocuson shortageinexplainingfamines. In hisclassicstudyPovertyandFamines, however, Sen examinedagricultural conditionsandharveststatistics ineachof hisfour famine casestudies before rejecting shortage asanexplanation. Hisarguments minimizing the importanceofshortages, moreover, havebeenchallenged intwoofthecaseshestudied.8 Harvests duringtheSovietfamine of 1931-1933 havenotreceived comparable attention, in great part because of the assumption that the famine was not due to a smallharvest. Robert Conquest,forexample, employs thewordinthetitletohis well­ knownbookHarvest ofSorrow, butdoesnot actually analyzetheharvestor examine its relationshipto the famine in any detail." JamesMace has recently reasserted the argument that the harvest was large,citing testimoniesbefore a U.S.congressional commission in the 1980s(fiftyyearsafter theevent); on this basishe arguesthat the famine was thereforethe result of high procurementquotas. He does not, however, discuss statistical dataand otherevidence,somefromhisown sources,showing that

5 procurements weresubstantially lowerin 1932 thanin 1931, butleftrural peoplewith muchsmallerreserves thanafterthe 1931 harvest Thiscouldonlyhavehappenedif the 1932harvestwassmall." Thefactthatmemoirsources describe a largeharvest, however, suggests thatcropsmayhaveappeared to beinbettercondition (atleastto thepeasants) thantheywereinfact; theevidence thatIpresent belowdocuments that thiswasthecase. Nonetheless, twostudiesdiscuss theharvests inthoseyears. RobertDavies and StephenWheatcroftarguethat the 1931 and 1932harvestsweresmall due to droughtanddifficulties inlaborandcapital, especially thedecline in draft animals.II D' Ann Penner, in twostudiesofthefamine intheNorthCaucasus andDonregions, rejects drought asanimportant factor intheregion'ssmallharvestin 1932andinstead attributesit to peasantresistance,specifically a strikeagainstthe Sovietregime.12 Thesestudies thusrepresent twocontrasting Perspectives ontheharvest, andtherefore on thefamine: onefocusingon the oldRussianagrarianproblemsof weatherand poverty, exacerbatedbycollectivization andtheeconomic crises ofthefive-year plan, theotherfocusingon familiarpoliticalaspects, theconflictbetweentherapacious Sovietregime andtheresentful, resistant peasantry. Theirstudies workfromdifferent assumptions andemploydifferentsources: DaviesandWheatcroftreliedmoreon publishedsources andconsider the countryas a whole,Penner more on archival . materials that focus on one region, albeit an important one. They also discuss environmental conditionspurely intenns ofdrought, when theIrishcaseatleastsuggests thatotherfactors werefullycapableofcausing adisastrous cropfailure. In thisessay I reexaminetheharvestsof 1931andespecially 1932on the basisofnewlyavailable archival documents andpublished sources, including some thatscholars have neverutilized. Ishow thattheenvironmental contextofthese famines deserves muchgreateremphasis thatithaspreviously received: environmental disasters reduced the Soviet grain harvestin 1932substantiallyand have to be considered among theprimary causes ofthefamine. Iargue thatcapital andlabordifficulties were significantbutwerenotasimportant astheseenvironmental factors, andwereinpart aresultofthem. I alsodemonstrate thattheSovietleadership didnotfullyunderstand thecrisisandoutofignorance actedinconsistently inresponse toit I conclude thatit is thusinaccurate todescribe theSovietfamine of 1932-1933 assimply anartificial or man-made famine, orotherwise toreduce ittoasinglecause. Overall, thelowharvest, andhencethefamine, resulted fromacomplex ofhumanandenvironmental factors, aninteraction ofmanandnature, muchasmostprevious famines inhistory.

6 The Global Context

Natural disasters leading to famines both at home and abroad form the background to the 1932-1933 famine. Internally,the period 1917 to 1930 saw famines in large areas of the SovietUnion,in somecases on a nationalscale. The regimecame to powerin 1917in themidstofseriousand growingfoodshortages, causedmainlybythedemands ofWorld WarI, intownsthroughout thecountry andin mralareas inthenorthem "consumingprovinces"; thetsaristregime andtheProvisional Governmenthadestablishedstatecontroloverfoodsupplies andinstitutedrequisitioning policies, modeledonthoseofthewestern powers.13 DuringtheCivil War, theBolshevik government, theWhiteregimes, andeventheGreens requisitioned foodfrompeasants in regionsthattheycontrolled; thetownsinBolshevikandWhiteregionsgenerally experiencedfamines. 14 The "famineof 1921"infactencompassedtheyears1920­ 1923, due to severe crop failures in 1920and 1921 and low harvests in 1922 and 1923, andaffectednotonlyrural areas butalsocities, including Moscow andPetrograd. During these yearsthe Sovietregimereceivedaid from abroad,but continuedthe requisitions ofwarcommunisminsomeregions while applying "methodsofrequisition" to collectthenewtax in kindimposedin 1921 inorderto supplementofteninsufficient aidsupplies. IS Serious droughts ledtofamines during theperiodoftheNewEconomic Policy (NEP) in 1924--1925 in EuropeanRussiaandUkraine, and in 1928-1929, which wasmostseverein Ukraine. Inbothcases,theregimeacknowledged thecrisesand fanned extraordinary agencies to manage relief. 16 The 1928--1929 Ukrainian famine, whichhasnotbeenrecognized in theWestern literature butisdocumented in Ukrainian sources, wasamajorcauseofthe"graincrisis"becauseitsubstantially reducedgrain suppliesfor theurbanpopulation aswellasforpeasantsin thedroughtregions. The graincrisis andfamineof 1928-1929wereamongthe mainfactorsthat ledSoviet leadersandofficialsto resorttothe"extraordinary measures"to procurefoodfrom peasantsinotherregions,toimportfoodfromabroad, to rationfoodintownsandin ruralfaminedistricts, andultimately toundertake thecollectivization ofagriculture. 17 Evenin 1930manyregionshadunfavorable weatherandcropfailures: in partsof the NorthCaucasus, cropfailures forced localauthorities to appealtocentralauthorities forseed aid,which theyreceived, andcropfailures alsoreduced harvests in Kazakstan andtheMiddleVolga18 Thedomestic contextofthe1931-1933 famine, therefore, wasoneofchronic food insecurity. Naturaldisasters, especially droughtaloneor incombination with otherenvironmental factors(tobe discussed below), repeatedly causedcropfailures duringtheearlyyearsoftheSovietUnion andthreatened torevivethefoodcrisesand famine of the Civil Warperiod. NEP, despiteone scholar's assertions,was not a 7 period of''well-being'' freefromfamine. 19 TheSovietregime wasnotunique inthisexperience: othermajoragricultural countries intheworldalsoencountered majornatural disasters andfoodcrisesin the early1930s. The UnitedStatesin 1930-1931 enduredwhatwastermed''the great southern drought,"whichaffected twenty-three statesfromTexastoWestVIrginia, broughtimmensesuffering andincreasedmortality, andcaused amajorpolitical scandal whenHerbertHooverrefused toallocatefood relieffromfederal govemmentresources. Chinaenduredacatastrophic floodalongthreemajorrivers in 1931-1932thatled to famine andcausedsome2million deaths. French colonies inwestern Africain 1931­ 1932enduredadrought, locustinfestation, andtheworstfamine everrecordedthere, though the French authoritiescontinuedto demand taxes." Both domestic and international contexts suggest thatenvironmental factors deserve careful consideration inevaluating thecausesofthe 1932-1933 famine intheSovietUnion. Natural disasters, 1931-1932

Drought

Historically, themostimportantenvironmental factor inharvestfailures andfamines in Russiahasbeendrought21 Amain theme inthehistoriography ofthe1933 famine, however,has been that drought did not occur in 1932,at least not on a scale that couldhavecaused afamine. Stalin,forexample,in a speechto the January 1933 CentralCommitteeplenum,acknowledged that"unfavorable climaticconditions" causedlossesinthe NorthCaucasus andUkrainein 1932,butinsistedthatthesedid notequalhalf the lossesdue to the 1931 droughtin the Volga region.Mace cites a tablefrom a standardSovietstudyof droughtto arguethatno majordroughttook placein 1932. Penner'srecentstudyofthe1932-1933 famine, whichfocuses mostly on theNorthCaucasus,arguesthat althoughsomeregionsexperienceddroughts, suchlocalunfavorable weatherconditions werenotunusual andoverall, droughtwas notafactorin reducingthe 1932harvest.22 On theotherhand, Davies andWheatcroft argue thatdrought wasanimportant factorinreducingthe 1932harvest. Theyrefertothedroughtof 1931 (whichI shall discussbelow)andstatethat"droughtconditions continuedin 1932." Theycite an unpublished paperbyWheatcroft inwhich heprojectedsteadily increasing harvests fromthelatenineteenth century, compared thistocertainestimates ofharvests in the Sovietperiod, which were alwayslower,and then employed rainfall statistics to detenninetherelative significance ofweather inthosefluctuations.v Hiscalculations indicated thatdroughtwasanimportant factorinlowerharvests intheSovietperiod, 8 thoughnot theonly factor. Wheatcroftalsonotedthat the 1930swere the warmest periodandone of the driest periods sinceRussiabegankeepingrecords. The Soviet publication that Mace cited to show the absenceof drought did in fact document substantial droughtconditionsinseveral regions oftheSovietUnionin 1932.24 Theincompleteness ofSovietweatherdataintheseyears makesanydiscussion ofclimate conditions approximate at best: the network ofmonitoring points was highlyunevenandsparse,fewregions hadcontinuous recordsfora substantial period, andconditionsvariedgreatlyevenwithindroughtregions.P Nonetheless,available sourcesindicatethat droughtplayedacentral rolein precipitating thefaminecrisis. In 1931severedroughtaffectedmanyregions. Duringsummer 1931droughtand hot winds (sukhovei) struck the southern Urals, Western Siberia, the Volga region, Bashkiria,andsouthernand centralpartsofUkraine. Accordingto a Sovietstudyof droughtspublishedin the Khrushchevperiod,precipitationin the droughtregion in 1931, which the study defined only as thecentral and lower Volgaand portions of Bashkiria, theDonbasin,Ukraine,andtheNorthCaucasus, hadrainfallrangingfrom 10percent to 48 percent below normalin winter 1930-1931, and 10percent to 55 percentbelownormalinthespringgrowing season. Sincetheseregionsnormally had rainfall ranging fromtwelveinchestotwenty inches a year, declinesonthis scalecould beextremely serious." Some localreportssuggest,moreover,that these data may have understatedthe 1931drought's severity. Inthe main spring-grainmaturation Periodofmid-April tomid-June, precipitation inthesouthern UralsandWestern Siberia wasone-fourth of theamountthatagronomists thereconsiderednecessaryfornonnal plantgrowth.n Reportswrittenby theCanadianagricultural specialistAndrewCairns after extensivetravelsthrough the USSRin 1932providestarkevidenceof the effectsof the 1931droughton agriculturalproduction. In Novosibirsk,the chief agricultural official ofWestemSiberia(which wasanimportantgrain-producing region) toldCairns that38 of the 124districtsin thekrai hadtotalcropfailuresin 1931. The directorof theOmskgraininstitutetoldhimthatthecroparoundOmsk was worsein 1931than it hadbeenin 1921. Sovkhozy thatCairnsvisited nearOmskhad averagegrainyields of 1.8 and 2.5 centners per hectare in 1931,as opposed to 9.3 and 13 centners in 1930. In the Middle Volga,spring wheat had yielded 2.5 centners on average in 1931,and officialsin Samara toldCairnsthatthe kraihad lost 3-3.5 milliontons of graintodrought28 Droughtalsoreduced grainharvests in Ukraine." Thefactthatthe 1931 cropped area exceeded that of any year between the revolution and the late 19308, yetresultedin anextraordinarily small harvest, further evidences thesignificance of droughtthatyear.30 The 1931 drought, exacerbatedbylarge procurementdemandsandsubstantial grainexportsin 1931(morethan4 million tons),createdfamineconditionsin many

9 regions oftheSovietUnion. ThelateSiberian scholarN.Ia.Gushchin wrotethatthe 1931 cropfailure broughtextremeshortages andfamine in manydistricts of Siberia, which Otto Schiller, the Gennanagricultural attache totheUSSR,witnessed," While traveling in SiberiaandtheMiddleVolga, Cairns sawmanystarvingandemaciated people, especially children, begging inthetowns. InSlavgorod, themaintownin an importantgrain region in WesternSiberia, he was accosted by crowds of people tellingofvillages emptiedandofpeople starving todeatheverydayinthecountryside." Theseconditionswerenot limitedtoSiberia. A sovietofficialin onedistrict in the Uralsinearly 1932describedKazakhsfleeingfaminein Kazakstan, a "wholesale nightmareh011Or," butfinding extreme shortages in theUralsas well.33 Seriousfamine conditions invillages andtownsinUkraine byearly1932required special foodrelief.34 Theregimeadmittedtheseriousness ofthisdrought publicly, inparticularby holding aconference ondroughtinOctober 1931 attended byagricultural specialists as wellas SovnarkomchairmanViacheslav Molotovandotherhigh officials. The government also established ameteorological monitoring service andbeganplansfor construction of majorirrigation projects alongtheVolga andinotherdrought-prone areas," The CentralCommitteealsodispatchedseedandfoodloansto mostof the severely affectedregions. According toa MiddleVolga kraikom partysecretary, M M Khataevich, thecropfailure in 1931 leftdistricts withalmostnograintodistribute. Procurements frequently tookeverything, including seed, muchof whichthenhadto bereturned tothosedistricts.36 Thiswasthesituation throughout theeasternregions. The Urals oblast' (province) gave 770,000tons in procurements but then had to obtaina seed and provisionsloanof 350,000tons,45 percentof its procurements. Kazakstan received back 36 percent, WesternSiberia 22 percent, Bashkiria 20 percent," Theregimealsoimporteddrought-resistant seed inearly1932forusethat year.38 In1932Sovietagricultural officials andspecialists admittedlosses fromdrought inmanyregjons. N.M Thlaikov, theSovietUnion's leading specialistonaridagriculture anda keyadvisortotopSovietofficials on agricultural policy, toldCairnsin August 1932inSaratovthatdroughtandhotwindshadruinedmostof thecrops on the left bankoftheMiddleandLowerVolga regions. Cairnsalsoobserved largefieldssouth ofMoscow stuntedanddamagedbydrought andhotwinds. Theheadoftheagricultural department oftheSovietstatistical agency underGosplan toldOttoSchillerinAugust 1932 inMoscowthatdroughtandhotwinds hadsignificantly reducedcropsalongthe Volga, inUkraine, andinSiberia," Asecretevaluation ofgraincropsissuedon 1July 1932 by the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (Narodnyi Komissariat Zemledeliia; or NKZ) reported that dry weather had reduced crop Yields in the Urals, Bashkiria, portions oftheVolga tenitory, Ivanovo oblast'incentral Russia, and Kazakstan." Drought reduced harvests in other areas as well. Veger, the party

10 secretary oftheCrimeanregion(which ordinarily producedlargeharvests ofexport­ quality wheat), wrote to Stalin in September1932that because of sukhovei, and

," certainotherfactors, thetotalharvestinstatefarms wassmallerthantheiraggregate procurementquota.41

OtherWeatherFactors

Thesesourcesindicatethatdrought reducedharvestsin manyareasin 1932, evenifitdidnotapproach theseverity of 1931. Yetit wouldbeanoversimplification to attribute eventhemostclearly"drought-causedfamines" tothatfactoralone. The 1920-1923famine,forexample,resultedfromharvests reducednot onlybysevere droughts butalsoby massiveinfestations oflocusts, rodents, andplantdiseases." A focusondroughtcanreflectanassumption thatlackofdroughtrepresentedfavorable weatherconditions andthatharvest sizecorrelatedpositively withrainfall. Daviesand Wheatcroft,for example, correlate morerainfallwith a larger harvest and do not discussanyotherclimate factorsthatcouldhaveinfluencedthe harvest." Penner, whileminimizing droughtin 1932, notes thatincertain regions heavyrainsaffectedthe harvestingprocess, but does not draw anyfurtherconclusions from this." Jasny simply assertsthat because 1932wasnot a yearof drought, the famine was man­ made,eventhoughheconsidersthe 1932harvest datainaccurate." This focus ondroughtastheonlyenvironmental condition affecting famine in Russia led these scholars, like Stalin andotherSoviet officials, to overlook other factors thatcouldbeat leastasimportantToomuchraincouldhaveasdestmctive an effectastoo little, andmanyothernatural events could destroy harvests aswell. Russian peasantagriculture evenin thetwentieth century, likepeasantfanningin medieval and earlymodemBurope, washighly wlnerableto weather, pests,anddiseases. Peasants' proverbsreflectedtheiruttersubjection tothesefactors." Otherweatherconditions quitedistinct fromdroughtaffectedthe 1932crop. In January 1932a sudden warm spellin thesouthernregions of the Soviet Union causedfall-sown cropsto startgrowing, afterwhich wintertemperatures returnedand killedaportion ofthecrop. In Ukraine thiswinterkilldestroyed atleast12Percentof fall-sown crops,morethan doublethelong-term average; inonedistrict 62percentof wintercropsfailed.47 Andmostimportant,despitetheregional droughtsmentionedabove, 1932 wasoveralla warmandhumidyear. Inseveralregionsheavyrainsdamagedcrops andreduced yields, particularly ontherightbankoftheVolga, intheNorthCaucasus, andinUkraine," Cairns notedheavyrains inJunethatcauseddrownings in basement apartments in Kiev,and the OGPU(internal securitypolice,predecessorto KGB) reportedflooding in thecottonfields inUzbekistan inAugust, aswellasahunicanein 11 thecentralindustrial regionin September," A reportpreparedby the Ukrainian Agriculture Commissariat on 20June1932onagricultural conditions andworkin spring attributed slowersowing in1932 than in1930-1931 partly to"thelargequandty ofprecipitation which interfered withwork." Thereport included atablecomparing April-June precipitation in 1931 and1932 thatdocuments notonlythepartial drought in 1931 butalso heavy rainfall in 1932 which wasdouble ortriple thenormal amount inmanyregions (seetable5).

Table 5: Summary of Precipitation in Ukraine, from April to the First Half of June, 1931 and 1932 Milimeters Percent Long-term Long-term Oblast' Average 1931 1932 Average 1931 1932

Kiev 165 191 328 100 116 199 Vmnytsia 130 76 171 100 51 132 Sumy 150 113 178 100 75 119 Kharkov 118 99 233 100 84 198 Poltava 110 58 210 100 53 192 Zinov'ev 105 115 315 100 110 300 Odessa 80 77 191 100 96 240 Askenia 85 57 143 100 67 168 Novoluk 110 66 136 100 69 124 Iasinuvsk 140 56 210 100 40 150

Source: Tsentral'nyy derzhavnyy arkhivvyshchykh orhanivvladyta upravlinniaUkrainy Central State Archive ofLeading State Organs ofUkraine 27,13. 213, U. 37,39.

Thisraincameintheearly partoftheseason, which was unusual andinprinciple should havebeengoodforgraincrops. Similarconditions appeartohaveprevailed in theNorth Caucasus: NKZinvestigators reported in 1933 thatpeasants said"rainfell according toplan[po plana]' in 1932, thatis,during thegrowing season, ratherthan inthetypical pattern ofheavier rainfall inlatespring andsummer.so

Plant Diseases

While highprecipitationcanbenefitcrops, itcanalso createfavorable conditions for plantdiseases, weeds,andotherblightsthatcan reduceharvests. The British geographerDavid Grigg notedthatinEurope generally, grainyields tend to beinversely

12 related to rainfall during the growing season,in particular because such rainfall encourages thespreadofcropdiseases.SI ThistyPe ofproblemchronically affected .: theSovietUnion. AreportpreparedbytheU.S.Central Intelligence Agency in 1978 foundthatamongthemainfactors reducing Sovietgrainqualityandyieldwererust and smut,which are the most widespreaddiseasesof wheat,rye, and other grain crops. Thereport notedthatwhilethesediseases causedsignificant losses everyyear, in certainyearsthey wereespeciallydestructive.P Sovietagronomic literature and otherpublishedandarchivalsourcesfromthe 1930s, however, whichno previous scholarship onthefaminehasdiscussed, indicate thatin 1932Sovietcropssuffered from anextraordinarily severecombination ofinfestations fromcropdiseasesand pests. Themostimportant infestation in 1932camefromseveral varieties ofrust,a category offungi thatcaninfestgrains andmanyotherplants. Different typesof rust vary in theirsymptoms,with sporesformingon the stems(black or stemrust and yellow or striperust), the leaves (brownor leaf rust), or the heads (crown rust of oats), buttheireffectsaresimilar. Afterapproximately a weekof infestation,rust causesplantcellsto ageprematurely, reduces theplant'scapacity tophotosynthesize to afraction ofitsnormalrate,anddivertsincreasing amounts ofcarbohydrates and othernutrients in theplantfortheinfestation's owngrowth andreproduction. Although in somecasesrustwillkillgrainplants, rusted grainordinarily willcontinueto grow, fonn ears, andin generalappear normal; butthegrainheadswillnot"fill,"sothatthe harvest willseem"light"andconsistofsmaIl grains, oroffewernonnal-sized grains, anddisproportionately of husksandotherfibrous materials." Inotherwords, a field of wheat(orbarley, rye,oats, orothergrain, allofwhichare susceptible torust)could appearentirely normal andpromising, andyetbecauseoftheinfestation couldproduce an extremely low yield. One Soviet studyshowedthat a 100percent infestation reducedtheweightof 1,000grainsofwheatfrom39.7gramsto 14.1 grams,or more than 60percent," Rustshavebeenthemostcommonandthemostdestructive infestationsof graincrops, andremainsotoday. Fromtheeighteenth through thetwentieth centuries rusts have infestedU.S. crops, in a few cases severely. In 1935, wheatstem rust causedlossesof morethan 50 percentin NorthDakotaandMinnesota; black rust infestationsreducedaveragedurumwheatyieldsfrom 14.5bushelsan acre in the 1940sto 3 bushelsan acrein 1954. Becauseof thisdestructive potential,the U. S. Anny producedandstockpiledrustsporesasa biological weaponin the 1950sand 1960s,and apparentlythe Soviet Uniondid so as well.ss Rust is amongthe most difficult ofplantdiseases to combat Themain methods are elimination ofalternative hosts, such as barberries, on which spores overwinter to spread during spring, application offungicides, andmostimportant, planting resistant varieties of grains.

13 The high-yielding varietiesthatmadepossibletheGreenRevolution and arenow basic to world agriculturedevelopedout of effortsin the early 1940sto produce wheatvarieties resistanttotherustthathadinfestedMexicanwheatfor threeyears nmning.56 Rustinfestations occuredrepeatedlyduring theearly SovietPeriod. Inaddition todrought, rustreducedcrops in1921. IntheFarEastteIrltory, theregional commission forprojecting harvest yieldsdetected a widespread 111st infestation inthecoastaland centraldistricts thatbeganinJuly 1931 andspreadduringthefollowing month,but minimizeditspotential effectsbecauseitdeveloped aftertheplantshadmatured.57 In 1932, however, alargeepiphytotic of11181, oneofthemostsevererecorded, afIectedallEastemEurope. Itspreadfrom theBalkans asaresultofwanntemperatures, highhumidity, andthunderstonns-theconditionswhichthe above-citedsources documentedas prevalentin Ukraineandelsewherein the southernregionsof the USSR. As a reportby the WorldMeteorological Societydescribedit, "during the thunderstorms largeredcloudsofsporeswereairborne, traveling alongtheDanube valley, andtheensuinginfectionkilledthecrops." InGennany, thunderstonnsin summer 1932causednotonlyhail damagetocropsbut alsowidespreadoutbreaksof plant diseases, especially 11181, inEastPrussia, Pomerania, Silesia, Hanover, Bavaria,and westernregions as well. Studies of estates in Germany found losses of 40 to 80 percent of wheat crops, a scale not seen in decades, if ever. One study gave an exampleof anear of grain thatexternallyappearedcompletelynormalbut which containedonlytinyshriveledgrains2 mmlong." In Romania,dry weatherin fall 1931,followed by heavy snow in winter 1932and a cold wet spring, left plants weakened andsusceptible to disease, which spreadbothby st011DS andwindfromthe southandfromotherparts ofRomania. Theinfestation lowered thewheatharvestin Romaniafroma previous average of 3.1milliontonsto 1.5milliontonsandcaused substantial losses inbarley, oats,andrye. Thissmallwheatharvest (onlyafraction of whichwasexported),combinedwitha latecom crop, threatenedfamineby 1933, according todiplomatic reports," InHungary, aleadingspecialist describedthe1118t epidemicthatyearastheworstingenerations; additional reports fromelsewherein theBalkans,Czechoslovakia, andPolandreferredto"fantastic" losses." European agronomists' reportson theseoutbreaksenabledlaterspecialiststo determinethe existence of anEastEuropean "tract"orwindpatternthatspreadtheinfestation," Thiswindpattern spreadtheinfestation intotheSovietUnion, where infestations also proliferatedfrom local causesin 1932and persistedinto 1933.62 Numerous publications document widespread outbreaks of1118t in 1932. According toa western surveyofplantdiseases, one-fifth ofthe 1932wheatcropinSiberiawaslostto 1118t63 According toaSovietagronomic guidebook, stem1118t ofwheatcausedlossesof80­ 90 percent of the crop in regionsnearriversin the NorthCaucasusin 1932and in

14 1933. The North Caucasus hasseveral rivers, including theKuban andTerek, flowing throughitsmainfarmingdistricts. During theirtravelsin summer1932, Cairnsand Schillerobservedwidespread rustinfestations andspokewithSovietagronomists whoconfirmedtheseimpressions inUkraine, intheNorthCaucasus (including the largesovkhozy Verblud andGigant), Belorussia, theCentral Blackearth oblast', and theVolga region." TheSoviet agricultural newspaperevenacknowledged majorrust infestations, though without explaining inanydetail theirextentandconsequences." Identifyingrustrequiredspecialized knowledgeand training. The Soviet agronomistS. E. Grushevoinotedthatpeasantsin the North Caucasuscould not distinguishbetweenrust and otherdiseases/" The OGPU also did not detect the infestation; thenearesttheyapproacheditwasonedocumentthatreportedaninfestation of gribok, a generaltermfor fungalplantdisease,in severaldistrictsof Ukraine." This problemwasby no meanslimitedtotheUSSR; a studyof wheatgrowing in Marylandin 1929foundaninverse relation between thecondition ofthecropandits finalyield,becausethehighrainfall thatstimulated plantgrowthalsofostered plant diseases: "Afarmer observing a lushstand reportedahighcondition, notrecognizing thedevelopment ofthediseasebefore harvest time.''68 Thefactthatrustwasdifficult for nonspecialiststo detecthelpsto explainthe numerousclaimsin memoirs and testimonies ofa good1932harvest Famine survivors intheVolga region whomthe Russian historian VtktorKondrashin interviewed, however, remembered thatin the 1932harvesttheears weresomehow "empty," thecharacteristic onewouldexpect fromrustedgrain.69 Frequentreports ofpeasants consuming surrogates, particularly the highlyfibrous"ersatz"grainandbreadsoldin thebazaarsin 1932-1933, may havebeenanother signoftherustinfestadon," The rustepiphytotics spreadrapidly, but localauthorities forthemost part failedto noticethem: thebranchoftheagriculture commissariat inchargeof plant diseasesandpests, Db'edinenie po bor'bes vrediteliami rastenii (OBV), received nocorrespondencefromlocalofficials acknowledging theinfestations ornoticesof decreestaking measures against them.71 Nonetheless agronomists andotherpersonnel in central offices andlocalbranches ofNKZdetected theinfestation andmadeefforts to surveyitandcombatit Theirinvestigations foundthatrusthadbecomethe most widely distributed disease andcaused themostharmtoagriculture inUkraine andin theSovietUnion generally. Onestudy found thatbrown rustofwheat seriously affected cropsin theNorthCaucasus andUkraine in 1932, where itdestroyedupto 70percent oftheharvest in someregions, especially nearrivers, reduced theweight ofgrain40­ 47 percentandthe numberof seedsinearsby 20-29 percent Wheatsowingshad serious rustinfestations inallthegrain regions oftheUSSRin 1932, andrustreduced thewheatharvestin theNorthCaucasus by50percent.72 Theselosseshelpexplain whythefamine wassosevere in thatregion.

15 Whilerustinfestations were notanewproblem inRussia, theextreme outbreak in 1932tookagronomists bysurprise, andtheydid notfullyunderstandit. Their reports in 1932-1933 attributed it to susceptible varieties and the presence of barbenies, which mayhavebeencontributing factors butdidnotprovide acausative explanation. Only at theend of thedecade, afteran exhaustive studyof western reports oninfestations inEurope andtheUnited States, didtheplant pathologist N.A. Naumov publish astudydemonstrating thattheinfestation affected mostofEastern Emope; heevenasserted thattheinfestation affectedtheentire northern hemisphere," Rustaffected somecropsintheUSSR in 1933 aswell; according to onesource, the infestation in theCentral Blackearth Region wasworse in 1933 thanin 1932.' 4 The sources givetheoverall impression however, thatthe1932infestation wasmore serious. Rustwasnottheonlyplant disease toaffect Soviet agriculture in 1932: large outbreaks ofsmutalsocausedsubstantial losses. Smutspreads throughthesoilor fromcontaminated seed, andlikerustdoes notaltergreatly theexternal appearance of the crop. Most types of smutresultin the husk fillingwith a muddyor dusty substance composed offungal spores themselves ratherthangrain; thediseasenot onlydestroys grain ininfested plants.butalsoeasily contaminates healthy grain inthe harvest, producingdiscolored grainwitha bad smell," Smut had been a severe probleminSoviet agriculture during NEP. Infestations inmany parts ofthecountry in 1922causedsubstantial losses, inextreme casesmorethan80percent; in 1925the Crimeahad30percentofitsgrain sowings infested with smut, andUkraine hadserious infestations in 1929. Thechaitman oftheOBVin 1931 identified smutasoneofthe three basicpestsin Sovietagriculture, alongwithlocusts androdents." NKZhad made progress against this disease, mainly by treating seeds with formalin, a formaldehyde compound thatwasthestandard preventative measure against smutat thetime." Alowpointofsmutinfestations hadbeenreached by 1931, whenNKZ issueda decree for a seriesof measures toeliminatesmutin thefollowingyears. During1932, however, NKZreceived notices thatsovkhoz andkolkhoz managers andagronomists werenotfollowing thedecree. Farms, andevenstateagencies that procured grain, sometimes failed toseparate infested fromuninfested grain,which allowedthe infestations to spread. Farmsalso failedto disinfectseed treatment equipment andusedincorrect dosages offungicide, which ledtoinfestations of 12-16 percentin 1932.78 The agronomist P. K. Artemov estimatedlossesto rust andsmut in 1932, shown intable 6;heacknowledges inafootnote thatlosscoefficients hadnotyetbeen fully worked outandprecise dataonthespread oftheinfestations wereunavailable. Thetabledoesrepresentsomedegreeofconsensus amongspecialists atthetime, however: lossesfromcrownrustofoatswereestimated inanotherpublication at2 million tons, thesamelevel indicated inthis table,"

16 Table 6: Harvest Losses from Smut and Rust, 1932 (centners)

LossesfromSmut Losses from Rust .'

Rye 457,000 Winter Wheat 1,313,000 40,000,000 Spring Wheat 5,771,000 11,000,000 Oats 3,056,000 20,000,000 Barley 1,442,000 Millet 1,406,000 Total 18,445,000 71,000,000

Source: R K. Artemov,UK voprosu0 porazhaemosti sortov zemovykh kul'tur gribnymi bolezniami," Trudy po prildadnoi botanike, genetike i selektsii, Seriia A: Sotsialisticheskoe rastenievodstvo 7 (Leningrad, 1933),75.

According tothistable, losses frommstandsmutin 1932reached approximately 9 milliontons, 13percentof theofficial harvestfigureand nearly20percentof the lowestarchival harvestestimate. Itshould alsobenotedthatwhiletheseestimates are approximate, theyarealsotheonlyconcrete estimates, basedon anyevenremotely scientific evidence,ofoverall 1932grainharvestlossesfrom anyenvironmental or humanfactors availableinanypublished orarchival sourcesthatI havebeenableto find. Anotherplantdisease, themedieval scourge ofergot, wasalso verywidespread in 1932. Ergotis a fungusthatattacks grasses andgrains, especially rye,turningthe infectedgraininto a darkcolored,largeprotmdingbody,oftencalleda spur. Such spurs contain extremely potent alkaloidcompounds, including lysergic acid, thesource of the drug LSD. In medieval Europe, whole villages would unknowingly eat contaminatedryeandbecomeillwith hallucinating diseases calledSt, Vitus' Dance, St, Anthony'sFireandothernames. Moreseverecontamination couldcausepeople to contractgangrene in theirlimbs andevendie; infestations ofgrassandspursthatfell onthegroundduringharvesting andwereingested bycattlecouldkillthemaswell.80 In August 1932,the Commissariatof Agriculture issued an emergencydecreeon measures todeal withergot Thiswasthepublic representation ofsecretdecrees and OGPUreportsof,'mass" infestations thatcaused widespreadillness anddeathsamong peasants whoatecontaminated grain," Therewerealsosmallerinfestations ofother plantdiseasesthatreducedharvests ofgrainandothercrops.

17 Pests

Thewarm,humid weatherin 1932 alsoledtosevere insectinfestations, including locusts, fieldmoths, andotherinsects ongrainandsugarbeets. Anagronomicjournal reportedthat in 1932a "massmultiplication" of Asianlocuststookplace in all the importantbreeding grounds ofthedesert zone, includingDaghestan, theLowerVolga, theUralRiverdelta,theNorthCaucasus, andtheKalmykoblast',82 OGPUreports duringspring1932notedinfestations of locusts, meadow moths,hessianflies,beet weevils, andotherinsects. A reportof 28Maynotedthatbeetweevilshadinfested nearly 100,000hectaresof beetsin Ukraine; in one districtthe weevilsdestroyed almost 500hectares ofbeetsinthree hours. Asof 1JuneNKZrecognized thefailure ofwintersowings duetopestsandtheabove-mentioned winterkillin 333districts in Ukraine, encompassing anareaof747,984hectares, whichincluded8.6percentof wintersowingsand 10.5percentof winterwheat By lateJunelocustsinfested2.2 million hectares ofgrain inKazakstan, meadow moths 3million hectares, andcatetpillars were"everywhere." In onedistrict intheMiddleVolga, locustsandmeadowmoths infestedmorethan 100,000hectaresandby July hadcausedan estimated 25,000 tonsoflosses ingrain.Meanwhile hordes oflocusts hadflown intoThrkmenistan from Afghanistan, and meadow moth infestationsalso spread in WesternSiberia and Bashkiria. Othersoureesconfinnthesereports. Ukrainianofficialsinvestigatedkolkhozy in theDonetsk region andfound a largeportionof the wintersowings spoiled by hessian flyandotherinsects. Cairns andSchilleralsonoticed suchinfestations." The Soviet agriculturaladministration had severalbranches to deal with infestations; whenthefaminebegantheycameunderofficial suspicion. AnOGPU reportissuedin March 1931,overthe signatureof OGPUvice-chairmanGenrikh Iagoda, claimedto havefounda wrecking organization thathadoperatedforseveral yearsin allthe centralresearchinstitutes andpestcontrolorganzations. This long reportcriticizedtheseagencies forfailing totakemeasures witha sufficient scaleand efficiency toeradicate thepestsandinfestations, thereby allowing themtocontinue in subsequent years. Mostofthereportcompriseddetailed proposals for planningand carryingout measuresagainstinsectsandrodentsin 1931-1932.84 Zelenykhin,the chairmanof OBY,apparently in responseto thisOGPUattack,sent a report to the CentralCommitteeinJune 1931on the accomplishments andfailingsof OBV. He noted thattheagency hadexpandeditsnetwork oflocalbranches, research andtraining centers, andpublications; thatithadsentexpeditions toextenninateinsectsinborder countries; andhad"struggledwithcoentenevoludonary andwrecking ideas" inresearch institutes. He then presenteda longlistof OBV's shortcomings whichfocusedon problemsoriginating outside theagency: insufficientandpoorquality supplies ofpoisons, equipment, and transport. He alsocomplainedabouttheinadequatesupportOBV

18 receivedforitstechnicalpersonnel, whoworkedinsomeof themostdangerousjobs intheeconomy, butwerepoorlysupplied withgrain. HearguedthatonlytheCentral Committeecouldeliminate theproblems. Zelenykhin emphasizedthatpestsannually " destroyed2 billion rubles' worth of harvestand that OBV's measures, despite its difficulties, hadsaved57millionrubles'worthoffarmproducein 1930.as Zelenykhin'snotethatpesteradication personnel receivedinadequatefood " supplies reflects anadditional effectofthefamine: foodshortages hindered effortsto overcomefoodshortages. Nonetheless, the regime didundertake substantial measures against pests. In late1931 theCommissariatofAgriculture orderedsovkhozdirectors and kolkhozboards to conclude contractswith the OBV and with local Machine Extermination Stations (MIS)to eradicate pests. Officials estimatedthatsome89,000 agricultmal enterprises wouldneedtoconclude suchcontracts. Thedeadlineinitially had been25 December 1931,but by 5 April 1932only46,000contracts had been drawn up, and for significantly less work than had been planned. The work was underfunded: the grain sovkhozadministration was supposed to allot between 8 million and12million robles forthiswork, butinstead allottedonly2.5million rubles.86 InJuneaspecial CentralCommitteecommission, including agriculturecommissarIa. A. Iakovlevand Zelenykhin,prepareda seriesof decrees;one, to be issued by the Politburo, addressed thestmgglewithpests. Thesedecrees connectedtheinfestations withtheweatherin 1932,but alsowithneglectoftheproblemby all local agencies, andorderedthemto undertakea variety ofmeasures toeliminatethepests. By July 1932,a Kolkhoztsentr decree harshlycriticized pesteradication effortsandordered theformation of"operative troikas" at various levels to coordinate andmotivatemore active measures," In someareas bothagency personnel andpeasants made concerted effortsto savecrops. Inonebeet-growing sovkhoz in Vinnytsiaoblast' in Ukraine, accordingto an OGPU report, in one weekworkers gatheredand destroyed more than17tons(1,073 puds)ofcaterpillars, but5,000hectares ofbeetsin theregionstill threatenedto fai1. 88 Accordingto a reportfor 1932,the OBV treated 2.37 million hectares outofaplanned2.7million forlocusts, and351,000 hectares outofaplanned 1 million for field moths, and blamed the underfulfillmentof the plan in part on mismanagement and malfeasance oflocal personnel. Andin areportsummarizing its workovertheperiod 1930-1933,theOBVlisteda blankspaceforexpenditureson rust.89 Sovietscientists in the 1930s emphasized thatuseofresistant varieties wasthe bestwaytocombatrust, buttheyalsofoundthatalmost all Sovietgrainvarietieshad littleor noresistancetoit90 aearly, anyagricultural systemwouldhave haddifficultyeliminatinginfestations on this scale. To provide some perspectiveon Soviet inability to deal with these infestations, weshouldnotethatpreventative measures, fungicides andinsecticides, hadonlylimitedeffect. Formalinseed treatments, routinein theWestas well,were

19 notalways effective. Sovietscientists hadconducted studies withvarious sulfurand siliconcompounds whichunderexperimental conditions hadreducedand in some casesnearlyeliminatedrustinfestations. Suchfungicidal measures, however, areeffective onlyifapplied at exactly therighttimeand,giventhescaleoftheinfestation in 1932, requiredresources thattheSovietUnion couldnotobtain," Andnoinsecticides in the earlytwentieth century couldcompare ineffectiveness andeaseofusewithDDTand othermodeminsecticides developed sinceWorldWarII. As willbe seenbelow, thesenatural disasters wereonlypartof acomplexof factorsthatmade 1931-1932disastrous agricultural years. Nonetheless,drought, rain,andinfestations destroyed atleast20 percentoftheharvest, andthiswouldhave beensufficientonitsownto havecausedseriousfoodshortages or evenfamine. If these factorshad not been in evidencein 1931and 1932,agriculturalproduction wouldhavebeenconsiderablylarger,and whileprocurements could have caused shortages in specific regions, theywouldnothavecausedafaminelikethatof 1933.

Human Actions

The interpretations thatminimizetheroleof weatherin reducingthe 1932 harvest argue thatitwassmall because ofactions andomissions byallparties concerned. DaviesandWheatcroftfocuson theeconomicor "capital"aspects,especially the decline in draftforces; Pennerfocuses onlabor, especially thepeasants'resentment, rebelliousness, andunwillingness to work While theseintetpretations overlap to some extent, sepamteconsideration ofthemwillhelpdistinguish eachcategory's importance totheharvest

DraftForces

Draft forces declined drastically directly or indirectly as a result of collectivization. Inresponse tocollectivization andthesocialization oftheirproperty in thekolkhozy, manypeasants soldorslaughteredtheirlivestock, fora variety ofreasons: asaprotestagainstcollectivization; because theydidnotwant to surrendertheiranimals tothenewcollectivefannswithoutcompensation; because oflocalofficials' unrealistic promises aboutmechanizadon/"Duringtheinitialcampaign of 1930,theseactions mostaffectedanimals usedforconsumption, especially cattleandpigs. Afterward, whenmostpeasants hadalready beencollectivizedandsubjected totheprocurement demandsof 1931,thenumberof draft animals, especially horses,declinedrapidly.

20 Animals weretheimmediatevictims ofshortages in 1930-1933sincestarving peasants had no choice but to feed themselvesfirst fromthedwindlingreserves,and because peasants frequently expressedtheirresenbnentofcollectivization byneglectandabusive " treatmentofsocializedlivestock," Also,as discussedabove,the main grain forage for horses,oats,sufferedsubstantiallossesfromrustin 1932. Asaresult,thenumberofhorsesdeclineddrastically by 1932. Sovietfactories wereproducing tractorsintheearly19308, butnotinsufficientquantity tocompensate forthelossesofhorses. Table7 presentssomeestimatesandcalculations of available draftforcesin theseyears; the data showthecomplexityof the draftsituation.

Table 7: Estimates of Draft Forces, 1929-1934 (million head or horsepower)

Horses Kolkhoz Jan. June June Tractorhp Totalhp

1929 32.6 34.6 0.3 0.4 29.7 1930 31 30.2 4.4 1.0 27.0 1931 27 26.2 12.1 1.9 24.2 1932 21.7 19.6 10.8 2.2 21.3 1933 17.3 16.6 10.1 3.2 20.6 1934 15.4 15.7 9.9 4.5 21.6

Sources: Forcolumn1,Davies, Harrison, andWheatcroft, Economic Transfotmation, 289; for columns 2, 3, 4, and 5, Naum Jasny, The Socialized Agriculture ofthe USSR: Plans and Performance (Stanford, Cal.:FordResearch Institute, 1949), 797, 788~ 458 respectively. Jasny estimated total horsepower (column 5) based on Sovietstandardsthat classifiedone horse as 0.75 tractorhorsepower, one ox as two-thirds the powerof a horse,andratedone truckand one combinetogetheras theequivalentof a tractor; he notedthathisestimates probablyshowedthe Sovietdraftsituationin theseyearsin a morefavorable lightthanwasactuallythe case (458).

Kolkhozy appearto havehadroughlysimilarnumbersof availablehorses in 1931-1933, which suggests that most ofthe horses that died were in sovkhozy or heldby noncollectivized peasants. The biggestdeclinein horsescame not during the 1932-1933faminebutduringthelessseverefamine of 1931-1932,thoughthedecline continuedthroughthefamineandafterward, Thelowpointinoveralldraftforcestook placein 1933,yetthe harvestsin 1933and 1934weremuchlargerthan that of1932. The overalldeclinein draftforces,whiledrastic,wassomewhatlessdrastic than the

21 decline inhorses alone. Thisimplies thattheregime's acquisition andproduction of tractors andcombineharvesters (also includedinthelastcolumn ofthetable) cushioned thedecline. Aside from theusual uncertainties regarding Soviet statistics, thedatainthis table aresomewhat misleading because theydonotindicate thequality ofthesedraft forces. Archival sources contain manyreports ofill-fed horses thatcouldnotwork verywellorverylonginthefamine years. Ukrainian party secretary Stanislav Kosior wrotetoStalinin April 1932thatindistricts hevisited, one-quarterofthehorses had diedandtherestwere"skinandbones." Party secretary Bykin ofBashkiriawroteto theCentral Committee thatbecause ofthecropfailure in1931, andoverestimates and incorrectrationing offeed, anima1s weredyingeverywhere: inadistrietin goodcondition 17percent ofthehorses haddied, andinothers theconditions wereworse. ByApril 1932 30-40 percentof the horseswereincapableof work. In Kazakstan, party secretary F.I. Goloshchekin wrote toIakovlev inearly 1932thattheextreme shortage ofdraftanima1s madeitimpossibletofulfill the1932spring sowing plan of5.83million hectares, andherequested areduction to4.8 million hectares." Theregime imported andproduced tractors in 1931-1932,butnotenough to meeteventhebasicneeds ofmanyregions, letalone tocompensate forhorselosses. Theregimeproduced some46,000 tractors in 1932,butbytheendof the yearthe total numberoftractors inthecountry hadincreased byonly23,000,from125,344to 148,480; halfthenewtractors replaced machines damaged beyond repairduring the year.9S Regional officials continually appealed formoretractors." Thenumberof tractors gives apoorindication ofthedraftpowerthey could actually provide because thisdepended onthequality ofthetractors themselves, theavailability ofscarcefuel andspareparts, andtheoften poorquality ofrepairs. Shortages andmismanagement keptavailabletractors outofcommission forlongperiods. In somecasestractors purchasedfromtheUnitedStateshaddefects. AnOGPUnoticefromMarch1931 reportedthatsome5,000tractors purchased fromtheAmerican company "Oliver" hadleaking radiators andloudsounds intheirmufflers, transmissions, andmotors, and thatAllis-Chalmers tractors purchasedin 1930arrived withmissing parts," Wealsohavehighly anecdotal andinconsistentevidence regarding howdraft forceswereactuallyused. For example, KosiorwrotetoStalinin April 1932that because oftheirpoorcondition, horses played aninsignificantroleinsowing, which dependedmostlyontractors. DuringthespringsowingthePolitburodispatched thousands ofadditional tractors toUkraine.98 Anofficial oftheUkrainian Commissariat of Agriculture, however, claimedattheendofJulythat80 percentof farmlandin Ukrainewas being workedby horsesin 1932, andonly 20 percentby tractors." Whetherthesediscrepancies reflected differences between sowing andharvesting, or between differentsowcesofdata, orofficials' different levels ofknowledgeorwillingness

22 to tellthetroth,theyshowthatthestatistics themselves area poorguide to actualdraft conditions. Andthisdoesnotevenbringintoconsideration theunknownnumberof casesin whichfarmsemployedcowsor evenpeopleas draftforces. In one kolkhoz in Ivanovooblast'in August1932, kolkhozniki andkolkhoznitsy wereharnessedto a horse-ronthresher.1OO RussiabeforeWorldWarI hadapproximately thesamenumberof horsesas before collectivization, morethan 30million, andthiswasconsidered asurplus ofdraft forees.P' The declineby 1932-1934, to theequivalent of20-21 millionhorsepower, approximatedthedeclineinhorses broughtbytheCivilWarandthefamineof 1920­ 1923.102 In both cases, these declinesmust havechanged a surplus of draftinto a shortage. The poor condition of horses,tractor breakdowns,and lack of fuel and traetorpartsexacerbatedthisshortage in 1932, making itdifficult to plowandplanton timeaslarge anareaas in yearswhendraft forcesweresufficient Severalsources suggestthat farms in 1931-1932 soweda substantiallysmaller area of crops than plannedorevenclaimedofficially; Ukraine bymid-June hadsown86 percentof the admittedly verylargesowingplan, with variations aslowas64percentinKievoblast'.I03 Undersuchcircumstances, theinfestations in 1932musthavehadamuchmoreserious effectthantheymightotherwise havehad

LaborAvailability

Thefollowing twosections examine themostdirecteffectofhumanactionon harvests in the early 1930s,theprocessesof farm work. Before considering how peasantsworked,however, itisnecessary toevaluatetheeffectsofSovietpoliciesin theearly 19308on theavailability oflaborforagriculture. Thesizablegrowth oftheRussian population inthelateimperial periodledto what manydescribedasagrarianoverpopulation. As a result, duringWorldWarI Russian agricultural production didnotundergo adrastic decline despite therecruitment ofmillions ofmenfortheanny. NEP-eraSovietofficials sawthissituation asaresource for development.1M Narkomzem specialists preparingplansfor the newcollective farm systemto presentto theSixteenthPartyCongressin June 1930predictedthat "thefamous agrarianoverpopulation, which frightens everyone" wouldenabletheregime to increaseanddiversify foodproduction. lOS Theregime'spolicies ofcollectivization, dekulakization, andindustrialization undermined thiscondition. Bothcollectivization anddekulakization, themain meansemployedby the regimeto inducepeasantstojoincollectivefarmsinthe majorcampaignsof 1930­ 1931,removedmanypeasants fromtheirhomevillages. Localofficialsconducting collectivization wouldidentify some peasant households askulaks-oftensimply those wholedoppositiontocollectivization-confiscatepartor alltheirproperty, andin 23 mostcasesexilethemfromtheirvillages; a smallpercentage wereexecuted. A recent Russian publication basedonarchival sources indicates thattheregimeexiled381,026 kulaksandtheirfamilies, or a totalof 1.8million people,fromtheir villages. Exileon a smallerscalecontinuedduring1932-1933. DaviesandWheatcroftestimatethat4­ 4.5 millionpeasants wereexiled in 1930--1933.'06 The following discussion does not seek to minimize the criminality of dekulakization or thesuffering itbroughttomanypeople. Yet dekulakization maynot have affected agricultural production as severely as it affected the alleged kulaks themselves. In particular, thecommonassertion thatdekulakization removedthe best farmers from farming contains two argumentsthat are questionable at best.107 The assumption that a "kulak" class, comprised of the mostcompetent and successful peasantfarmers, existedanddominated thevillages, raises thehighlydisputedissueof classstratification in Russiaand in peasantsocietiesgenerally. 108 ExtensiveRussian andSovietresearchhas shownthatpeasant"wealth" dependedupon familysizeand chance factors such as fire and drought thatcould ruin a family overnight. Partible inheritanceand land repartition (inregionswithrepartitional communes) also made accumulation difficult. Well-off peasants wereusually those whosurvivedlongenough to have a large family, and the next generation would start out as poor or middle peasants,in a pattern that A. V. Chaianovtermed "cyclic mobility."!" In principle, therefore, other"poor"or"middle" peasants werepotentiallyjust ascompetentfarmers asthe"kulaks." Dekulakization,therefore, wouldnothaveremoved allthebestfarmers, even if officialsappliedthe policy to remove the"well-off' farmers. Such peasants had beensubjectedtosuchhightaxation since 1927thatby 1930--1931 most of them wereifanything poorer thantheirneighbors; consequently, officials exiledmanyordinary peasantsas"kulaks,"andsomewereevenreturned to theirvillages.no Dekulakization also did not remove all these peasants from farming. The regime settled many dekulakized peasants, perhaps as much as one-third, in special collective or state farmsand providedthemwithequipment,draftforces,andtechnicalsupport.I 'I This supportwas inadequate,livingconditions wereextremely severe,and approximately 25 percentof thoseexileddied in theseyears. Ultimately, however,many if not most of the kulaks workingin agriculturemanagedto recoverand produce crops, in some cases by 1932-1933 and in most cases by the later 1930s. Consequently it is difficult to argue that dekulakization removed all the competent farmers fromagriculture. Itreduced thetotal numberoffarmers andreduced the output of some of the better farmers. It does not account,however, for all of the declinein farmlaborthatfollowedfromcollectivization. The periodsawtremendous movementout of the villages. More than 1millionpeasantsfled the villages during collectivization in 1930--1931 because they feared being tagged as kulaks ("self­ dekulakization"); millionsmore leftsimply toescape the villages and the collective

24 fanns forthetowns,in anintensifiedversionoftraditional labormigrationor otkhod. Thetotal numberof peasantswholeftis uncertain, buthasbeenestimatedat between 9 millionand 12million.112 Givenarural Sovietpopulation in 1930of approximately 110million, this suggests anoverall lossto villages intheyearsleadingupto andduring thefamine ofapproximately 10percentofthepopulation. WhiletheStalinistleadership

" may have calculated that the "overpopulated"villagescould absorb the loss ofthe kulaks, the loss of10 percent of householdswas more significant. After the 1931 drought,many peasants fled theirvillagesto findfood, making 1932the year of the greatest decreaseinrural population in theVolga region duringthefirstfive-yearplan. OttoSchillerdescribedthisprocess, whichheobservedintheVolga regionandSiberia, as a "flightfrom the land" Observersnoteda similarprocessin Ukraine."! In 1932 thisflightaffectedfarms unevenly: somekolkhozy stillhad surpluslabor and had to organize suchlargebrigadesthattheyhad"unemployment" withinthebrigade,while . others had laborshortages. One kolkhoz in Ukraine had so few people that each able-bodiedpeasant wasresponsiblefor 5.5 hectares, consideredan extraordinarily largenonn; one sovkhozinIvanovooblast had 100workers,but needed 414 for the harvest andcould recruitonly50fromoutsidethefarmbymid-July!" Overall,theeffectsofthissubstantial population movementon agriculture are uncertain: itreduced"agricultural overpopulation" inmanyareas, but somescholars, suchasTheodoreSchulz,havedisputed thevalidity oftheveryconceptof agricultural overpopulation, whichSchulztermed "thedoctrine ofagricultural laborof zerovalue." Using as an example the 1918influenzaepidemicin India, Schulz argued that the declinein grain productionthefollowingyearresultedfrom disease-caused deaths andillness andinteIpretedthistomean thatin traditional agricultural economieswith low laborproductivity,the ostensibly"surplus"laboris in fact necessary.us On the otherhand,during WorldWarI, Russialostalmost11milliondraft-age men and 10 percentof work horsesfrom thevillages,andequipmentimports nearly ceased, but the crop area did not correspondingly decline. While landlord estates suffered a drasticdecline in croppingof some 10milliondesiatinas (27 million acres),peasant croplandincreasedby9million desiatinas (24.3 million acres). The peasants apparently expandedtheircropareaprimarily forsubsistence purposes, becausecropsnormally producedfor urban markets declinedin favorof crops that peasants consumed In some provinces during the war peasants and landlordstogether farmed more land thanbeforethe war,andcroplandincreasedin manyregionsin 1917afterdeclinesin previousyears. In thecomplexsituationof thewar,cropareafluctuationsdepended notonlyonlaboranddraft, butalsoonsocialcircumstances andeventhepsychological attitudesof the peasants. In thecaseof collectivization, the situationwas even more complex,becausewhilemanypeasants leftthevillages andmanyworkanimals died, theregimeincreasedthe availability of equipment, especiallytractors,throughboth

25 importsanddomestic production, andmanagedtoincrease the area undercrops in 1930-1931. Itis alsoimportant to remember thatSovietfarmsproducedmorefood in 1933-1934than in 1931-1932, despitethe famineand the vast loss of life and workcapabilityit caused. In general,thelossof laborforces,whetherthroughthe tragedy of dekulakizationor the desperationof otkhod, appears to have played a secondary rolein reducing theharvestin 1931-1932,butincertainlocalities orregions thelaborlossesmayhavebeenmoreimportant thaninothers.

Peasant Resistance

Peasant resistanceand unwillingness to work in the collective farms are fundamental themesindiscussions of thefamineandSovietagriculturegenerally. Memoiraccotmtsrecall thatlocal officialsblamedthefamine onpeasants' unwillingness to work. Archival documents andpublished sources describe peasantswhorefused to workor workedslowly. In a letter to MikhailSholokhovin April 1933, Stalin accusedpeasants intheNorthCaucasus andelsewhere ofcarryingouta slow-down strikeorital'ianka against theworkers andRedAnnyandimplicitly against theSoviet regime.l" Ukrainian scholars fromDmytro Solovei in the19508,inCanadian exile,to S. V. Kul'chyts'kyiinthe19908,inKiev, haveidentifiedpeasants'lackofincentives and unwillingness to workas factorsthatreducedharvestsin this period. Several morerecentworksby westernscholarsdocument peasantresistancefromarchival sources."? MyresearchonSovietfarmlaborpoliciesandactualpeasantpracticesand myreading ofthisliterature, however, hasmademeskeptical oftheargumentforlabor resistance astheexclusive orevendominant causeofthelowharvestsandfaminein theearly 19308.118 First,whilesomepeasants (asI discuss below)weresoresentful of collectivization andprocurements thattheyattemptedto sabotagethefarms,for peasantresistance tohavebeensufficient to causethelow1932harvestanextremely large numberof peasantswould have had to act this way,that is, to have avoided workandattempted to destroytheharvest Inotherwords, theargumentassertsthat the majorityof peasantsattemptedto deprivetheirfamilies and fellowvillagersof sufficient foodto lastuntilthenextharvest. Thisinterpretation, therefore, requires us tobelievethatmostpeasants actedagainst theirownandtheirneighbors' self-interest119 This viewpointisdifficult to acceptbothongeneral human termsandparticularly when appliedtopeasants inRussiaandUkraine. Thegreatmajority of thesepeasantshad livedfor centuriesincorporatevillagesthathadinstilledcertainbasiccooperative values,andthekolkhozy perpetuatedbasicfeatures ofthesevillages.P' ~ Second, theargument isreductionist because itattempts toexplain everything thathappened inthiscrisisbyhumanactions, specifically bytheconflictbetweenthe 26 Sovietgovernment andthepeasants, withanemphasis onpeasantresistance as a kind ofheroicstruggleagainsttheoppressive regime. Suchreductionism is problematic .- becauseit does not accountfor actionsthatdo not fitthepatternof resistance, that tookplaceoutsidethenexusofresistance. Hthesituation hadbeenasconflictualas thisinterpretation implies,if thegreatmajority ofpeasants didlittleor no farm work ,- and performed the work they did do neglectfullyand poorlyout of spite, then the harvestin1932wouldnothavebeeneven50million tons butpractically nothing. This criticismcannotbe explainedbyarguing thattheresistance waslimitedto the''famine regions"; as I will document below,the patternsof resistancewere not limited to UkraineortheNorthCaucasus. Somepeasants musthavedonesomeworkreasonably wellor nothingwouldhavebeenproducedatall. Thereductionist argumentis also problematic becauseit doesnotallowforalternative explanations of theproblemsit identifies, suchastheenvironmental disasters discussed above. Finally, theargument hasextremedifficulty in showing thatpeasantresistance wasso muchgreaterin 1932as to havereducedtheharvestto faminelevels only in that year. Penner, in her recent articles on the famine in the North Caucasus, for example,arguesthatthe faminecrisisresultedmostdirectlyfromoverlyhigh grain procurements in 1931, whichdemoralizedthepeasants anddeprivedthemofsufficient food andseedin 1932. Peasantsexpressedtheirangerand resentmentagainst this andagainstcollectivization generallywithslowandshoddywork,outrightstrikes, widespreadtheft,abandonment of fann workandflightfromthevillages,resistance which theregime suppressed!" According tothatstudy, however, theNorthCaucasus regionhada record harvestin 1931,which,giventhestudy's emphasison peasant resistance, mustmeanthatatleastsomepeasants worked morewillingly orintensively in 1931 than in 1932. To document a large harvest in 1931, Penner cites grain production and procurement data for 1928, 1930,and 1931 in the region from a recent studyby the RussianscholarE. N. Oskolkov, but does not use these data to calculate whatthevillages retained fromprocurements, thevillage remainder, in those orotheryears. Oskolkov'scalculations showedthatgrainprocurements leftmoreor lessthesameamountof seed andfoodintheregion fromeveryharvestexceptthatof 1932,andleftthelargestremainderafterthe 1931 harvest(seetable8).This implies that the region should have had more seed, fodder,and food grains in winter and spring 1932thaninprevious years, which would appeartocontradictPenner'sargument thatexceptionally severefoodshortages intensified peasant resistance infarmworkin spring1932.

27 Thble 8: Production, Procurements, and Remainder of Grain Crops in the North Caucasus, 1928-1932 (million centners)

Gross Vtllage Production Procurements Remainder

1928 49.3 10.7 38.6 1929 52.5 17.6 34.9 1930 60.1 22.9 37.2 1931 69.7 30.6 39.1 1932 35.6 18.3 17.3

Source: E. N. Oskolkov, Golod 1932/1933 (Rostov-on-Don: Izd. Rostovskogo Universiteta, 1991),65.

Infact, onlytheprocurement data (which were based onactual measurements) andto alesserextenttheharvest for1932inthistable are even approximately accurate. Oskolkov derivedtheharvest figure for 1932fromthe1932collective farmannual reports fortheregion; hisestimate ishighbutprobably notfaroff.122 The"harvest" figures for1928-1931, however, areinfactpreharvest projections thatsubstantially overstate theactual yield123 Agricultural conditions intheNorthCaucasus in 1930 and1931 in particularweremuch worse thanthefigures inthistableimply. As noted above, somedistricts in 1930hadcropfailures andneeded seed loansfromoutside theregion. In 1931 alate,coldspring delayed sowings, duststorms blewpartofthe sowingsaway, andaridweatherin Maycausedwinterand springcropsto ripen simultaneously. During theharvest, rainflattened crops andspurred weedgrowth that coveredthecropinmanyareas(thetypical Russian patternof latesummerrains). This preventedmanysovkhozyfrom using thefew combine harvesters they had, forcing themto resortto horse-drawn reapersandallowing themto produceonly halfthe yieldin 1931 thatthey hadin 1930, 8.4centners versus 16centners perhectare. 124 Theuncertainties ofthese statistics andtheunfavorable weatherconditions of 1930-1931makeitdifficult toescapetheconclusion thattheNorthCaucasus and Dondidnothaveaslarge aharvest in 1931 asOskolkov andlaterPenner assert. This tablesuggests thattheregimeusedtheprojections asa basisforhighprocurement quotas, butthatweather andotherfactors in 1930 and1931 reduced production well below those projections andleftthepeasants much less ofavillage remainder than the tableindicates. Clearly, however, thehighprocurement quotas in 1930-1931 andthe high level ofcollectivizationreachedby1931, inthis version ofthe resistance argument, shouldhavediscouraged peasants andledtoresistance, andconsequently lowharvests,

28 in those years as in 1932. Penner also arguesthat in 1933,when peasants were enduringthefamine, theyworkedhardin ordertofeedtheirfamilies, butdoes not explainwhytheydidnotactinthiswayin 1932. Inotherwords, circumstances that gaverisetoresistance in 1932alsoprevailed inotheryears when, theauthorargues, peasants didnotputupthesamelevelofresistance. Previous discussions of peasantresistance have invariablyassumedthat resistance meantonlyactions directedagainst work, usually withtheaim ofreducing production, andwiththeinevitable resultof a reduced harvest.F' Inthefollowing discussion, I arguethattheimpact ofpeasant laborandresistance onthe 1932harvest andtheresultantfamine was much morecomplex andambiguous than such anapproach allows. Inordertoevaluate theextenttowhich thisresistance reduced theharvestin 1932,andtherebycontributed to thefamine,it is necessary todeterminewhether peasants' actions wereinfactresistance, whether they intended toreducetheharvest withtheseactions, whether theiractions didleadtosubstantial losses,andwhether suchactions tookplacesignificantly morefrequently in 1932thaninotheryears. To answerthese questionsthe following sectionattempts to categorizethe types of resistance described intheOGPUreports onagriculture during 1932heldintheNKZ archive, andincertainotherformerly secretdocuments. Thesedocuments do have somebiasbecause theyfocus onproblems andmalfeasance andalmostneverreport onfarmsor agencies thatdidnothaveproblems, andbecausetheygeneralizefrom isolated cases, so it is impossible to determine whetherthe cases they cite are representative. Vutually allsources onresistance areanecdotal, however, soin that sensethesesourcesarenoworsethanothers. Ontheotherhand,thesereportshave theadvantage thattheytakeintoconsideration manysidesofthecasestheydiscuss, refeningforexample notonlytotheactions ofPeasants butalsotomismanagement by officials andsupplydelays fromoutside theregion. Inordertodetermine theroleof peasantresistance inthiscontext, wecananalyze theevidence inthesources inthree categories-factorsexogenous toworkinthefarms, theroleofmanagement, andthe actions ofpeasants; evaluate theextent towhich eachmight havereduced theharvest; anddetermine theextentto which suchactions wereunique to 1932. Theinfluenceofexogenous factors onthefanns derives from the Sovietregime's attempt toincrease farm production bymeans ofcollectivization.126 Thisgoalrequited substantial allocations ofequipment, personnel, education, food andfuel, andtransport, which added to the already extremely strained conditions in these sectors. Collectivization thus tiedSoviet agriculture toalltheproblems ofthefive-year plan­ constantchanges inplans, unpredictable supplies, arbitrary officials, uncertain wages andotherreimbursement toworkers---and indirectly tothefood shortages themselves. Factories sentfarms defective products, suchascombine harvesters without motors, orrefusedtoacceptorders forspareparts,which ledtothecollapse of tractorrepair.

29 Imported equipment sat atportsforprolonged periods, asdiddomestic equipmentin storehouses, andthenbothwereoften misallocated, sothatsomeregions hadasurplus of itemsthat otherregionsneeded. Poorlybuiltor repairedtractorsconsumedtoo muchfuel whenfuel wasin shortsupply. Thesemishapsresultedfrom industrial ' ... difficulties whichintumwerepartly theresultofthefoodsupplycrisisanditseffects onindustrial workers. Thus,the1931 cropfailure andhighprocurements notonlyleft animalsweakandfarms withinsufficient seed,evenaftertheregimeallocatedseed fromreserves,it alsocontributedtoa declineandworsening ofoutputof machinery andpartsfor agriculture byworkers in townsandhampered theirdistribution inthe agriculturalsectorbytransportworkers. This in tum reinforcedthe deteriorating agriculturalconditions. As a resultof these processes,farmers had less seed and fewerdraftforces andconsequently sowedlessseedthanideal amounts, overasmaller area, and often by hand,whichreducedseed germinationand left it vulnerableto pests.121 In theareaoffannmanagement, regional andlocalofficials oftenbeganwith inaccurateandinsufficient infonnationon localconditions; asa resulttheydelayed planning,issued incorrectplans, and alteredplansrepeatedlyin response to new infonnationfrombelow orneworders fromabove.128 Manylocalandkolkhoz officials haddifficulties managing farmwork, evidencedbysowing onunweeded landorwith seedthat had notbeentreatedfor smut,shiftingof workersfromjob tojob, delays betweenharvesting andthreshing, negligentorlackadaisical recordingof thework done,failureto recordit at allor toinformworkers of howmuchtheyhad worked, anddelaysinsettlements withworkers. Onesovkhoz intheNizhnii Novgorod region owed surroundingkolkhozy5,000rublesfor workdonein spring,so the kolkhozy refused to providelaborfor harvesting. In somecases kolkhozand local officials wereapparently alcoholic, abusive, orcriminal types, whosometimes subjectedworkers to beatingsfor various offenses ina mannerreminiscent ofsetfdom. In othercases, agronomists andothertechnical specialists triedto stayintheiroffices indistrictcenters and avoid their responsibilities for managingfann work.l29 S. V. Kul'chyts'kyi describedfarmworlcin Ukraine in1932aschaos andanarchy, andOskolkovdescribed similarconditionsin the NorthCaucasus.P" Someof theseactionsclearlycaused lossesboth directlyandindirectly, discouraging workers. Onereportoncollective farms ofdekulakizedspecial settlers inKazakstan connected serious mismanagement with the failure of 48 percent of the crops.!" Elsewhere, the experience of high procurements andstarvation ofkolkhozniJd evokeddiscouragement andfatalism on thepartofmanyfarmpersonnel. Theymadestatements to theeffectthattherewasno pointin harvesting,or that therewasnothingto harvest,and attemptedto conceal sowings andunderstate Yieldestimates.132 Suchefforts onthepartofkolkhoz officials to preservefoodforkolkhoznikicouldhaveincreased theactualamountharvested.

30 Although observers atthetimeargued, asdo somescholars today, thatpeasant resistance tookformsthatdiminished theharvest, theevidencediscussedbelowleads to a moreambivalentconclusion. Somepeasants' actionsclearlyindicatedthatthey sought to do as much as possibleto savethe harvest; in other cases their actions or manner of work tendedto decreasethe harvest,thoughthis was probably not their r intention. Onlyin certaintypes ofactionscan wediscern a clear,consciouseffortto reducefoodproduction. Peasants' effortstodecollectivize thekolkhozyprovidetheclearestexamples of resistanceaimedat increasing production. TheOGPUreportsfor 1932repeatedly notedemandsandactions bypeasants todivideupthefields sothattheycouldharvest them individually. In somecasespeasantssubmittedapplicationsto leavethe farm and reclaim collectivizedanimalsandequipment. In many other cases, the whole membership of a farm wouldrequestor demand fromthe board that the fields and equipmentbe dividedandharvested individually, "whileitisstillnottoolate." In one kolkhoz in Ivanovo oblast' a "kulak" summoned a meetingwhich decreed, "let us dividethe kolkhozintoedinolichnik(non-collectivized) farmsbecauseedinolichnik fanning ismoreprofitable andedinolichniki cangivemoretothegovernment" This man, unfortunately, wasarrested, butmanyotherfannsdidinfactdo whatheproposed. Oftensucheffortswereinspired byrumorsthatkolkhozy inotherareas haddissolved: sixtypeasantfamilies leftthree collective farms inonestanitsa (cossackvillage) inthe North Caucasuswiththeirlivestock, saying: "InUkrainethereis famine,kolkhozy there are dispersed,but youhereforceusto sow; dividethe sowingsamong us and wewillworkindividually."133 In somecasespeasantswholefta kolkhozreturnedand attacked kolkhozniki workingin the fields in order to induce them tojoin with the leaversanddivideupthefann. Somekolkhozandsovkhozmanagerstookadvantage of thisidea andarrangedforkolkhomikiandevennoncollectivizedpeasantsto fann part oftheir lands in "a edinolichnik manner." Some reports specified that these arrangements were made on a sharecroppingbasis. According to OGPU reports, these and similar cases of decollectivization were not concentrated in particular "resistant"regionssuchasUkraineortheNorthCaucasus, buttookplacethroughout the country. These effortsto decollectivize clearly weredirected at insuring what peasants thoughtwouldbe moreefficientharvesting ofthecrops,in somecaseswith theobjectiveofincreasing theamountoffoodthattheywouldhaveforthemselves and possiblykeepingitfrom theregime, butinothersatleastovertlywiththeintentionof fulfilling procurementquotas. Finally, insomecases peasants restoredkolkhozy (reports referred to cases in the Middle Volga, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Moscow regions), apparentlyalsoin parttoincreasetheharvest134 On the other hand,in some actionspeasantsclearly expressed outrage and aimed totake revengeontheregimebyreducingtheharvest. The mostobvioussuch

31 actionswerearsonattackson kolkhozbuildings andfields. In the MiddleVolga, NizhniiNovgorod, Ivanovo,andNorthern regions, arsondestroyedthousands of hectares ofunharvested grainandhundreds oftonsofharvested grain,inaddition to hundreds of thousand ofhectares of forests, cuttimber, housing, andfuel. In some placespeasants attacked officialsandotherpeasants involvedin harvestworkand destroyedharvestmachinery, according totheOGPU, withthegoalofhindering the harvestl35 Widespread strikes andrefusals towork, while lessdestructive, often had similareffects ontheharvest Frequently kolkhozniki andnoncollectivized peasants expressedwhatofficials tenned "dependent" attitudes-"ifthegovernmentgives seed, thenwewillsow"--;mdwhat theycalled"antisowing attitudes"-"why sow, they will take itallaway anyway" or"edinolichniki arenotfools toincrease theirsowings, they already learned" Insomecasesofficial actions prompted suchrefusals: onedistrict agronomistinUkraineinstIUetedlocal soviets to''takeawaylandfrom theedinolichnild, because thisyeartheywillnotsow." Somesoviets actedonthis,others discussed itat publicmeetings, andasaresultedinolichniki abandoned 7,799hectares ofland136 Inmanyothercases, largenumbers ofkolkhozniki, apparently without such overtstatements, simply refusedto workatsowing, cultivation, or harvesting. The documents, which almost nevercalledthese actions strikes, usually gavetworeasons for them: that the kolkhozor sovkhoz had not paid the workersfor the previous seasonor year,andthat,as a result,theylackedadequatefood. In onekolkhozin UkraineinMay 1932,95percentofthemembers refused to workbecausetheyhad notbeen paidfortheirworkduring theprevious year: thekolkhozowedthem17,000 rubles. Inothercasespeasants"boycotted"harvestworkor refusedto workuntil theyreceived food. Peasants alsosenttheiradolescent children toworkinthekolkhoz while the adults workedon their privateplotsor sold goods in the bazaars. The reportsoftenspecifytheextentof theseprotests: in somekolkhozy 70 percentof peasants worked, in others 50 percent, 30 percent,or 12 percent. Penner cites Sholokhov's descriptions of Cossackpeasants in theNorthCaucasuswandering aroundthe villages,singing,and avoidingharvesting the ripeningfields.!" The consequences ofthese actions dependedoncircumstances. Ifmostofthekolkhozniki worked, OGPUmayhavemisinterpreted asaprotest whatmayhavebeensimply a fannwithmore laborthan itcouldemploy, asdiscussed above. When mostkolkJwzniki refusedto work, however, harvests musthavedecreased: anOGPUsummary from Augustreportedcases fromalloverthecountry ofgrainfields unharvested, with seed shedding andgenninating, ofgraincutandleftonfields intherain. 138 Kolkhozniki oftenworkedslowly andcarelessly, butthisreflected anumber ofdifferent attitudes. Insomecasespeasants were demoralized-thereis nopointin harvesting, theywilltakeitallaway, orthatthereisnothing toharvest-whichmay havebeenanunwitting recognitionoftheeffects ofinfestations. Somereports attributed

32 to peasants"attitudes inclinedtowardstrikes." In othercases peasantswere weak withhungeror disease andfoundit difficultto workintensively; in one villagein UlaainekolkJwznikirefused to work, saying ''wearestarving, ourchildren areswelling withhunger. Givebread,wewillwork." In yetothercasesslow andcarelesswork concealedeffortsby peasants andevenkolkhoz stafftoreducethe amountsof grain turnedoverto the regimeandretainmoreforthemselves by leavingunharvestedor unthreshed cropsonfields. 139 Regional andcentral authorities issuedseveraldecrees regarding the extremelyslow andflawedworkin sowing,failures to show up for work,andabuseandneglectoflivestock andequipment. InJuly 1932,forexample, inresponse to reportsoninadequate workinweeding cropsin CentralAsia,Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the CentralBlackearthRegion,and the Urals, the Politburo orderedadditional payments to kolkhozniki ofadvances inmoneyandgrain, butonly inreturnforworkthatfulfilled outputnorms. 140 Thepressreportedslowandcareless wOIkin 1932. Whatthe regimecalledtheft andhiding ofgrain werefrequent throughout thecountry, despiteStalin's7 August decreerequiring capitalpunishmentfortheftof "socialistproperty." According to severalreports,groupsof peasantswouldwalk onto thefields,ignoreor attacklocalguardswhoweresometimespresent,andfill bagswithgrain,takingamounts estimated inthetons.!" Such actions, however, did meanthatthosefieldswereatleastpartlyharvested. TheOGPUreportedmanystatements bypeasants hostiletocollective farms andtheSovietsystemgenerally. Manyrumors circulated amongpeasants thatJapan wouldsoonattackanddestroy theSoviet regime; theUSSRwasatthetimeina tense borderstandoffwithJapanoverthelatter'soccupation ofManchuria.142 Cairnsand Schiller, traveling bytrain withordinary Sovietcitizens andnotaccompaniedbyofficial guides, encounteredmanyopenlyhostile andrebellious peasantswhoadmittedtheir resistance in thekolkhozyandwhodirectly confronted theirbosseswiththedifference betweenthe promisesandrealitiesofcollectivefanning. Officials acknowledged widespread peasantresistance andunwillingness towork. 143 Itisextremely difficult toestimatetheeffects ofthesetypes ofresistant actions ontheharvest. Gleaning, orwhatSovietofficials termed theftsfromthefields, might haveincreasedtheharvest, butpeasants' unwillingness andinability towork, hostility andrebelliousness, musthavecausedlarge losses. Aswillbeshownbelow, peasants' effortstoretaingrainbyostensibly careless harvesting backfiredincertaincases. Theargumentthatthepeasants resentedcollectivization andtherefore worked poorly, however, oversimplifies thesituation inthekolkhozy in theseyears. Despite thecommonturnof phrasedescribing collectivization ashavingforcedthepeasants "into"kolkhozy, collectivizedpeasants werefanningthesamelandasbefore,buton larger plots and in groups, and sometimesthe changes were not even that great. Kolkhoz workin 1930-1932wasnotorganized astheregimeintended,butthiswas

33 in part the result of the fact that the peasantsoften appliedtheir own methods of orgCUUL.CIUon.·"-"~07n" 144 Moreover, whilemanypeasants didfarmcarelessly, othersworkedatleastas wellastheycouldgiven thecircumstances. Official investigators whowentto villages in Ukrainein 1933to determinethe extentof thefaminefound that most starving peasants haddonelittlework,earnedfewlabordays, andconsequently hadreceived insufficientfoodfromtheirkolkhozy. In manycases,however,peasants whohad workedhardandearnedmanylabordays hadalsohadthemoresubstantialin-kind incometheyhadearnedtakenawayfromtheminprocurements. Thesetragic reports showthatat leastsomepeasantsworkedhard,andthissituationwasnot limitedto Ukraine. Even thosewhoearned fewerlabordaysmaynot have worked less: the characterof kolkhoz work was such that peasantswho worked in importantjobs suchasharvesting oftenearnedfewerlabordays thanthoseinlower-leveljobssuchas storehouseworkers,becausethe latter workedall year; this was an inequity and disincentive thatNKZofficials tnedrepeatedly to solve.l4S Oneofthemaincomplaints madeaboutgrainprocurements in 1932,asin 1931,wasthatwhenpersonnelwere unabletogetanunproductive kolkhoz tomeetitsquota,theyreturnedto productive onesthathadfulfilled theirfirst quotaanddemandedmoreinthefonnofa"counterplan." The Soviet leadershipattackedthis practicefordestroyingincentives;prohibited counterplans in 1933,andprosecutedofficials whoappliedthem.146 It doesshow, however, thattherewereenoughproductive farms forthistobeconsideredaproblem. Fmally, all theselaborproblems plaguedSovietfarming in otheryearsaswell. AremarkableOGPUsummaryreporton kolkhozconstruction in 1931documents manyofthesameproblems in 1931 asin 1932. Kolkhoz managers plannedpoorlyor not at all, transferredbrigadesfrom place to placebecause of lack of laboror left workers idlebecauseofsurpluslabor, keptpoorrecords ornone,anddid notinform peasants oftheireamings orpaythem. Income distribution inkindin somecaseswas below subsistence levels. Managers went on drinking binges, or together with kolkhomlkifolloweda patternthe documenttermed"collectivedrunkenness"for days on end. Official abuses of kolkhozniki also took place in 1931 as in 1932. Somefarmsendedupindebt,andtheSovietagricultural bank(in a strangeechoof eventsintheUnitedStates in thisperiod) foreclosed onseveral kolkhozy andauctioned theirproperty. Peasants, meanwhile, developed "unhealthy attitudes"as a resultof disorder, mismanagement, andinadequatefood distribution: theyconducted "organized non-turnoutsfor work (strikes)," left kolkhozy in hundredsof groups, demanded food, threatenedkolkhoz staff, and spreadrumors,for example,that the Japanese (whooccupiedManchuriain 1931) haddefeated theSovietUnion, takenoverSiberia, anddissolved allthecollective fanns there. 147 Such problems, along with drought, reduced the 1931 harvest. Official

34 statements andpressreports blamedthelow1931 harvest partlyon poorfarmwork, especially in sowingandharvesting. Onearticlecontrasted thedifferentharvestsof sovkhozy, kolkhozy, andnoncollectivized peasantfarms locatedsidebysidein very similar environmental conditions, and argued that the drought did not explain everything.l48 Gosplan chairman Valerian Kuibyshev saidthatonly76percentofthe sownareawasharvested ontimein 1931 andestimated losses fromthisconservatively at 3.6million to08. 149 Evenin 1933, during thepeak ofthefamine, whilePennercites sources indicating thatpeasants hadchanged theirattitudes orhadevensaidthatthey feltdefeated bytheregime andwerereconciled to thekolkhoz system, working harder than in 1932,othersourcesindicatethatpeasantsagainshowedresistanceto fann work. Iakovlev, travelingintheUralsin AprilandMay 1933,notedthat inducing kolkhozy tosowwasverydifficult andrequired overcoming thestubbornresistance ofsomedistrict andkolkhoz personnel, whosaid, "Giveusbread, wewillsow. Without breadwewillnot work"-thesameattitude expressedin 1932.150 Moreover, increased grain production in 1933 (asnotedabove) maynothave beentheresultoftheregime's suppression ofpeasant resistance asmuchasarational responseto famine. Pennerargues thatSovietrepressive measures in 1933gavethe peasants no alternativeto stayingin the kolkhozy and working. Some repressive measuressheidentifies, however, seemto havehadlimitedeffects. TheUkrainian CentralCommitteefound thatthe"blacklisting" ofvillages (closing down trade outlets for consumer goods)forfailureto meet procurementquotas had had littleeffect, becausethecountryside was"saturated" withconsumer goods. Peasants alsocould circumventthe passportsystemrelatively easily, thoughperhapsmoreeasilyafter 1933.151 Penneralsoargues, however, thatpeasantsworkedharderin 1933in order to keep theirfamilies alive. Sennotedasimilarpattem inthe1943 Bengal famine. He considersit"remarkable" thatBengalproducedthelargestricecropinitshistoryin 1943 and conducted agricultural operationson a "giganticscale" despitedeaths, disease,andmigration forfood. 1S2 Yet itwouldmakesensethatfacedwithfamine, peasants stillableto farmwould dotheirutmost toovercome itbyproducing more. In otherwords,thefamineitselfmayhavemotivated peasants to greaterefforts,in an inverseversion ofthefeedback effects mentioned above. Suchattitudes mayexplain whyin 1932somepeasants workedhardandsomefarmshadgoodharvests, Overall, human actions certainly contributed to thesmall harvests of 1932and 1931. Not all such actions, however, had deleteriouseffects, and because these actionswerefarfromuniform throughout thecountry, thescaleof theseeffectsand theirconsequences defyquantification. Perhaps themostthatcanbe saidisthatdraft shortages, lackoflabor, systemic economic problems, mismanagement, andpeasant resistance exacerbated thecropfailures already created bynatural disasters. Oskolkov interpretedthecausesof thesmall 1932harvestin theNorthCaucasusin this way

35 even withoutknowledge of the infestations: "Becauseof curtailed sowings by edinolichniki, a decline intheinterest ofkolkhoznild inworkinthesocialized sector, shoddy cultivation ofthefields, violations ofsowingnorms andofprocedures forcare offields and,mainly, becauseof unfavorable weatherconditions at themomentof maturation ofgrainandharvesting, theharvest inthe[NorthCaucasus] tenitoryturned outmuchlowerthanwasexpected/''" The Interaction of Man and Nature

Whilecertain environmental conditions affected theharvest independently of human actions, andsomehumanactions harmed theharvest independently ofnature, inthe following caseshuman actions andnatural factors combined to reduce theharvest further. Each ofthecasesbelow involvedadifferentcategory ofhuman action: planning in thecase of soil exhaustion, mismanagementin thecase of weeds, and peasant resistance inthecaseof rodents, andineachcasetheyexacerbatednatural processes thatdevelopedindependently.

SoD Exhaustion

Asdiscussedabove, oneofthemainreasons forcollectivization wastoincrease production byexpanding theareaundercrops.P' Theplans forthisinvolvedexpanded sowings ofgrain, especiallyin eastern regions thathadnotbeencultivatedextensively before. Officialsrecognizedtherisks thisentailed, notonlyfromdrought butalsofrom repeated grainsowings, buttheycalculatedthatthesoilwould withstandthefiveyears ofsuchsowings thatwouldbenecessary toproduce enough ofa surplus to overcome the"grainproblem." Sovietplanners derivedthisapproach ingreatpartfromexamples ofnonrotational cropping inforeign countries, especially theUnitedStates. ISS According tocertain SOUICeS, soilexhaustion fromrepeated sowings ofgrain in thesamefieldsandlackofcroprotations causedserious declines in yieldinsome regions by 1932. TheKolkhoz Scientific-Research Institute, aninvestigative armof NKZ,sentspecialists to the NorthCaucasusdistrictoftheKuban,oneof the main regions withdifficulties in 1932. Thesereports noted large weedinfestations andlow yields;localpeople, bothkolkhoz officials andordinary peasants, toldthemthatthe problemwaslackofcroprotations. Oneinvestigator said,"Itisjust enragingthat peopleexpendedsuchtime andenergy on work,andwheat was two vershki [3.5 inches]fromthegroundand withweeds." Localpeoplereportedthatsowingson fallowproduceddouble or triplethe yieldsof sowings on landsownwithgrainthe previous season, andinsomeareasgrainhadbeensownovergrainfivetonineyears

36 inarow. 156 MiddleVolga regional leaders wrotetheCentral CommitteeinAugustto attribute persistent lowharvests to "thetotalabsence intheseregionsofcorrectcrop rotations," with wheat sown over wheat for five to seven years or longer, which exhausted thelandandallowed weedsto flourish. Theregion hadexpandedsowings somuchthattheonlyavailable fallowedlandswerelocated inregionswith verylow draftresources. 157 Onereasonforthelackof rotations derived fromthepeasants'ownconcerns forsubsistence andfairness. In theKubankolkhozy visitedbytheKolkhozInstitute specialists, thefarmsandMachine-Tractor Station(MTS)whichprovidedtractors andotherequipmenttothefarms,dividedandworkedthefieldsin such a way as to ensure thatbrigades hadequal allotments ofeachcrop, which oftenpreventedrotations. Thiswasanegalitarian pattern commoninkolkhozy throughout theSovietUnion.ISS Another reason, however,was the above-notedeffort to increase the area under crops. Sincethisgoalremainednecessaryin lightof thefamine,regionaland local authorities attempting tointroducecroprotations faceddifficulties in finding enough fallowland In the NorthCaucasus,forexample,thecroppedarea in 1931-1932, 12.7million hectares,alreadyexceededthe areain 1913,which may have been a peaklevelforthatperiod, 11.4millionhectares. Localofficials haddifficulty finding additional fallow landandconsidered bringing pasture intotherotationin orderto be ableto sowatleastone-fourth of winter1932crops,a relatively smallshareof total . sowings,overfallows.159 This situationreflecteda generalproblem in the Soviet Union: despite itsvastsize, thecountry hadsurprisingly little goodagricultural land; at thistimetheUnitedStateshadmorelandundercropsthantheSovietUnion.160 Soil exhaustion andlackofcroprotations, therefore, wereindirectresults ofthegraincrisis andfamineconditions thatleduptocollectivization inthefirstplace. Ontheotherhand, insummer1932Cairns andSchillersawlargestretches of landpreviously incropsandnowgrowingweeds,apparently abandoned. Archival documents contain similarreports. 161 Thesesources donotexplain theseobservations. Cairns andSchillerattributedtheseunsown lands tothemassive tlightof peasants, and certainlysomeregionslackeddraft andlabor. Noneof the sources,however,ever usedthetermfallow. Iftheseunusedlands hadbeenfannedin 1931,thentheirusein 1932mighthaveexacerbated thesoilexhaustion problem, andthecriticalobservers may have mistakenfallowsas abandonedlands. If they had been fallow in 1931, however, theirusein 1932mighthaveincreased foodproduction.

Weeds

Themassiveweedinfestations of 1932reflected theinteractionof a natural disaster,poormanagement, andresistance. Weeds can havea disastrouseffect on 37 any crop. Weedsgrow faster than most crops and can cover them, reducing or preventingswilightfrom reaching them, andtheirroots compete withcropsfornutrients andwater. In earlytwentieth-century America, before thepervasive mechanization of the 192Os, weedsannually reducedgrainyields5 to 15Percent IntheUSSRlosses coulddouble that; fannsin the Uralsoblast'reportedly lostannually up to 30percent of theirharvestto Weeds.162 On theotherhand,weeds areusuallyeasyto eliminate, particularly iffarmshaveaccesstoabundant labor. Weeds wereamajorproblemthrough thefamine period. Iakovlevnotedthat in 1931weedshadchokedcropson millionsof hectares. 163 In 1932,however,the fieldswereweedyto anunprecedentedextent, CairnsandSchiller,who observed tensofthousands ofhectares during theirtravels thatsummer, sawenonnousweediness everywheretheywent Bothabandonedfields andfields undercultivation werecovered withweeds. Theyevenobservedfarmsstoringweeds insilosto be usedas fodder. Theonlyfarmthatwasfree ofweeds wastheGennanagricultural concessionDrusag, whosedirectors hadtakenadvantage ofthelowprevailing wagestohire peasantsto weedthefields.l64 Archival documents confirmunprecedented weedinfestations.l6S Theunusually warmandwetweatherin 1932greatlystimulatedthis weed growth, as NKZacknowledged in numerous decrees, directives, andarticlesin the central press. In August theCommissariatconnecteddifficulties inthegrain harvestin NorthCaucasus sovkhozy withthe"completely impermissible" weediness of fields causedbytwentyrainydaysin July.l66 The pressreportedthatmonththatweedsin Ukraine weresmothering crops,serving asbreeding grounds forinsects, andcausing the shortfallin that year's harvest. The articledescribedweeds as a disaster and urgedextraordinary measuresand mobilization of allforcesto cope with it.167 As notedabove, insomeregions repeated sowings ofgrainovergrain alsocontributed to rapidandwidespread weedinfestations. As thecondition of thefieldsdeteriorated andthepressreportedinadequate progress inweeding, itbecameincreasingly evident thattheweedinfestation derived bothfromtheunusual weatherconditions andfromdifficulties infarmwork, including weakness ofdraftforces, shortages ofequipment thatcouldhaveallowed mechanized destructionof weeds,the peasants' frequentunwillingness to work, and the often inadequate efforts bykolkhoz staffto organize andmotivate themeffectively. Iakovlev exaggeratedsomewhatwhen he claimedin early 1932that weeds were not from "God" or from climatebut from "our own scandalousattitude,"because his own commissariat connected the extraordinary infestations of 1932 with weather conditions.l68 Nonetheless, published andarchival sources document numerous cases ofpeasants refusing to weedcropsandofkolkhoz staffandlocalofficials neglecting weeding tasks.l69 As archival sources show,severe weedinessreduced harvests drasticallyin manyareasand againcastsdoubton memoiraccountsof a favorable

38 harvest. Despite the proliferationof weeds,however, they may not have been the worstproblemin many otherfarms. ThoughDrusaghadfew weeds,its managers expectedlow wheatyieldsin 1932becauseofrust,170

Mice

In the mice infestations of 1932-1933, one common pattern ofpeasant resistanceexacerbated yet anothernatural disaster. In 1931 specialists observed increasing numbers of mice and other small rodents in south European Russia, Transcaucasia, theUrals,Siberia,andKazakstan. Duringthefollowingmonthsthe animalsmultipliedand spreaduntilbyfall 1932theyencompassedthe steppefrom Bessarabia to theDonandtheCaucasus Mountains, aswellastheLowerandMiddle Volga regions,theCentralBlackearth region, Bashkiria, Moscowoblast,Belorussia, and4 millionhectaresin Kazakstan. Theseinfestations reacheddensitiesas high as 20,000 nests per hectare. In one stanitsain the NorthCaucasus, "the huts boiled overwithmice,in streetsandbushesoneheardwithout interruption thecracklingof moving mice." Themiceconsumedthegrowing fallgraincrop,seed, produce,shoes, andmore. By January 1933 themiceinfestedan areaof 3.8 millionhectares in the NorthCaucasusalone.!" TheexplanationsofferedbySovietagronomists forthisvastinfestation involved bothhumanandnaturalfactors: Ontheonehand, theyemphasizedthatthemicehad beenleftabundant''fodder'' in thefieldsin theformof unharvestedand unthreshed cropsand weedsandpoorlyplowedfields. Theseabundantfoodsourcesdecreased themortalityrateof themiceandstrengthened theirresistanceto disease. Weather conditions,especiallydeepsnowcoverin winter1931-1932, also helped the mice survive. Ontheotherhand, specialists alsonotedthatmouseinfestations hadoccurred in 1892-1893, 1904, 1913-1914, 1921-1922, and againin 1932-1933,in a cycle of approximately ten years, similar to the cycles of lemmings in Scandinavia.172 Government agencies didtakemeasures to alleviate thisinfestation. UkrainianNKZ Personnel notedthatmiceweredestroying graininstacksandstorageearly in 1932, described thesituation asa natural disaster, andissuedordersto localofficialsto take allmeasures necessary todestroy themice. In someregions theyweresuccessful, but inothers local personnel greatly underestimatedthescale oftheinfestation: inKrivorozh regionthe localMIS assumedthemicehadmade80nestsperhectarewherecentral investigators found3,000. Themiceconsumed somuchfodderthatlivestockinsome sovkhozy werethreatenedwithstarvation. In onesovkhoz, agronomistsfound that micehadgatheredin theirholes500puds(eighttons)ofgrain.173 Thus certainaspectsof peasants' resistance, especiallytheir postponingof harvest work in order to leave grainin the field to harvest later for themselves, or 39 "carelessly"leavingears on thefield to be gleanedlater, backfired.These actions promotedtheproliferation ofmice-apparently atthepeakofanatural growth cycle--­ whoconsumed thehiddenreserves. Soviet Leaders and the Harvest

Soviet leaders' understandingof, andattitudetoward,the harvest and the faminearecomplicated subjects andstillnotfully documented despitenewarchival access. Thefollowing section doesnotattempt to analyze theirviewsexhaustively, but ratherto illustratetheirbiasesandinconsistency. Toreducetheirviewsto Stalin's assertionaboutthe ital'ianka oversimplifies theirunderstanding of theeventsand theirresponses to them. Sovietleadershadlimitedawareness and understanding of theenvironmental conditions ofagriculture in 1932. Central authorities, itistrue,had manysources ofinformation, including partyandstateagencies andtheOGPU,and top officials traveled to trouble spots.!" These sources, however, had serious inadequacies intheinfonnation theyprovidedonharvests, particularly in 1932. First, official agencies had difficultyobtainingaccurate harvest data.175 Agricultural statisticians inSovietgovernment agencies distrusted thepeasants'low estimates oftheirharvests, on whichthesestatisticians hadto relyduringthe 1920s becauseoftheinadequate official networkofstatistical agents. Duringtheearly19308 theseagencies established severalnetworks oflocalofficials to projectharvests, the lastof whichwasthenotoriousbiological yieldsystemin 1933,mentionedabove. Theseagencies changedthemethodforprojecting harvests fromthevisual observation onwhichpeasants hadreliedto whatofficials considered amoresystematic method, samplingcropsbeforetheharvestsusinga square-meterboxcalleda metrovka. In particular, a decree in May 1932 established district and regional "interagency accounting-control commissions"undertheCentralAdministration of Economic Accounting (TsUNKhU, the statistics-processing branch of the State Planning Committee, Gosplan) whose tasksincluded working withcollective andstatefarms to organizepreliminary measurements ofharvests through sample threshings employing themetrovka method.176 Ingeneral, thesecommissions inflated harvest data. Valerian Osinskii, thedirectorofTsUNKhU, wroteinearly 1933 that theagency hadestablished thesecommissionsinpartbecause local officials andfannpersonnel hadtriedto"deceive theSovietgovernment"; consequently thedistrict andregional commissions in 1932 hadcorrectedprimary harvestestimates fromfarms upwardcumulatively morethan 20 percent,'" This wasalmostthe amountbywhichthebiologicalyieldestimates laterwouldexceedthe''bam yields." Thecommissions' projections alsoexceeded thosebyNKZ,andadispute developedbetween theseagencies overthe 1932harvest that reached the Politburoin October 1932.178 The Politburocommission set up

40 WIderMolotov to dealwiththis, however, seemstohaveresolved itonlyinSeptember 1933,whenStalin and Molotovagreedthattheofficialfigurefor the 1932harvest shouldbe69.8million tons, theofficial figure sincethattimeandapproximately halfway between theNKZandTsUNKhU estimates.179 OnlyafterStalin'sdeathdidofficials takeintoconsideration theannual farmreports which, asnotedearlier, implya much smallerharvestthanofficial figures in 1932aswellasinlateryears.ISO Second, thegovernment's main sources onagricultural conditions werebiased andlessthanfullycompetent OGPUreports on agriculture during1932completely missedtherust,smut,andmiceinfestations thatqualifiedagronomists detectedand didnotevendiscusstheagronomists' publications.lSI Theofficial reportontheNorth Caucasus cited in the articlediscussed abovealsoapparently did not mentionthese infestations in theNorthCaucasus;l82 neitherdidtheKolkhoz Institute investigations ofcroprotations citedabove. TheOGPUreports focused onthemostvisibleevents, suchasinsectinfestations, andondevelopments thatappeared to threaten politicalor economic goalsin themostobvious ways, suchasdecollectivization. Moreover, the OGPUwasfullycapableofdistorting andinflating minorlocaleventsintoostensibly serious onestosupportlargerpolitical goals. Theyhadrecently donesointheShakhty trial,relyingonflimsyevidence andfalse confessions obtainedby force,and wereto do so again on a much largerscalein the great purgesin the later 1930s. I do not meanto imply that all the OGPUreports, such as thoseon agriculturecited above, werefalsified. Most of thosedescriptions can be confirmedin other archival and published sources. Many sources,for example,document efforts by peasants to dismantlekolkhozy andrestoretraditional fanning practicesduring the processof collectivization in 1929-1930andrepeatedly thereafter; the OGPU reportson this citedaboveconfirmthesereports andprovide importantdetails.lS3 Yetif theOGPU deemphasized or overlooked crucial environmentalfactors in the deteriorating agricultural conditions of 1931-1933 andinsteadreported peasants'efforts toconduct farmworkin a mannerthepeasants considered to be moreefficientas thoughthese efforts representedresistance andrebellion, thenSoviet leaders relying onsuchsources wouldreceivea biasedandincomplete impression oftheactualcircumstances. Evenifthevarious networks hadreported on allthe infestations objectively andcompletely,this informationaboutthe agronomicproblems wouldhave been swampedby the sheervolumeandmagnitude ofcrisesinevery aspectof theSoviet system. The Sovietleadership andtheSovietpopulation hadto contendwithsevere andgrowing foodshortages throughout thecountry, shortages oflaborinconstmction andmanyothercmcialindustrial sectors, anddeclining industrial outputthatdisrupted theentireeconomy. The worsening internal situation gaveriseto laborprotestsand strikes, massivelaborturnoverandchaotic movement of peoplearoundthecountry thatfintherdistuptedproduction, andoppositionistsentiments andorganizations among

41 middle-level officials andspecialists. Internationally, Sovietleadersfaceda military threat in theFarEastthathadresultedfromtheJapaneseinvasionof Manchuria,an extremely tense situationinGennany astheNa7ipartyrosetopower, distrustful relations with Poland,andaserious balance ofpayments deficit thatputtheSovietUnionunder intense pressure to export commoditiesand to curtailimports of producer goods, both desperately neededinternally. All theseproblemswereat leastcomplex and oftenintractable, andall demanded attention anddecisive action fromthe leadership. The protocols of Politburo sessionsand even the lettersbetween Stalin and other Sovietofficials overflow withdiscussions evidencing the desperatenatureofthecrises, theseverelimitationsthegovernmentfaced, andtheharshmeasures officialsthought theyhadtotakeinresponse. Agriculture, whileimportant, wasnotalwaystheirfirst priority. In thiscontext, Stalinoftenviewedthereports ofnatural disasters thathedid receiveas minorandunimportant Forexample, heresponded to theCrimeanparty secretary'sletterinlatesummerI932abouttheregion'sdrought-inducedcropfailures withthewritten comment "unconvincing."I84 As I have attemptedto show,the 1932harvestwas reduced by a complex combination ofevents, theunderstandingofwhich requires acertain open-mindedness, a sensitivity to a widearrayofagricultural processes. Sovietleaders,however, were constrainedby stereotypical viewsregarding thecausesoffamine, in particularthat drought wastheonlyenvironmental factorthatcouldresultinfamine (asnotedabove, mostscholarstodaystillholdthisview). MostSovietleaders, I suspect,didnotread agronomic publications; theyoften hadlimitededucation andmaynothaveunderstood thesignificance ofthemanyenvironmental problems discussed above. I notedabove, forexample,Stalin'sassertion inJanuary1933, inhispublished works,thatthe 1931 harvestwasreducedbydrought, butthatthe 1932harvestwasnot,becausenomajor drought occurred that year.Stalin's favorableimpressionof the 1932harvestwas based not only on his assumptions about thelackof a droughtin 1932,but alsoon misleading statistical information, asnotedabove. In a lettertoLazarKaganovich in July 1932(Stalin wasintheCrimeaforseveral months thatyear), hewrotethathehad sentan authorization tocurtailthegrainprocurement planforparticularlysuffering farmsin Ukraine,butpredictedthatattheendof Augustit wouldbecomeclearthat theSovietUnionhadhada goodharvestwhichwouldallowtheprovisionof aidISS OtherSovietleaders wentalongwiththisviewpoint Kosior, forexample, inaspeech to aUkrainian Central Committee plenuminFebruary 1933, insistedthat"Bolsheviks neverdenyandneverrejectobjectivecauses." Against claimsby localofficials that the harvestwaspoor,he argued:

Even ifone believes completely the figures ofour statistical institutions, and these figures are based on significantly underestimated data of actual threshings, then it turns out that the harvest by these data on 1 October [1932)

42 was on average 7.3 centners per hectare, but last year by those data it was lower-7centners perhectare....Even ifoneconsiders that in fall 1931 we had an undersowing of2 million hectares and 1 million hectares ofgrain failed in spring (1932], which overall gave a decrease in the gross harvestof21 million puds [340,000tons], justto compare these figures~ million puds and 255 million puds [7.2 milliontonsand4.18 million tons, grain procurements for 1931 and 1932] shows that the issue is not in objective causes.l86

Kosior,in otherwords, noticedthediscrepancy betweenthe largeharvest thatthe statisticiansreportedin 1932-afigure that appearedin officialstatistical tablesfrom that time to thepresent-andthe smallerprocurementsthat year, the discrepancythat led recentscholarsto revisetheir estimatesof the 1932harvest downward, asdiscussed above. Kosior, however, assumed thatbecause thestatistical dataderivedfromactual threshings, it wasan underestimate, andheconcludedthat thedeclinein procurements didnotresultfrom"objectivecauses,"thatis,a natural disaster, becausein hisview, andaccording tothestatistical reports hehadreceived, nonaturaldisastertookplaceinUkraine thatcouldhavecauseda smallharvest Onthebasisofthese considerations, Stalin, Kosior, andotherleaders blamed theprocurements crisisandfamine conditions onmismanagement ofprocurement by localofficials. Stalinasserted thisinhisspeechat theJanuary1933plenum, which was published,and in lettersto hisassociatesin 1932. In a letter to Molotov and Kaganovich of 18June 1932, forexample, Stalinwrote: "Wewereright: thegrain procurement planshouldnotbe allocated rigidlyby districtand village-themain errorinUkraine, theUrals was precisely inspontaneous, mechanical equalizing, without consideration of thesituation ineachkolkhoz-as aresultdespitea reasonably good [neplokholl harvestaseriesofgoodharvest regionsin Ukraine arein acondition of ruinandfamine."I87 Kosiorreached similarconclusions in hisFebruary 1933 speech, andsomewestern scholars havetaken asimilarview. 188 Yet despitesuchconvictions, Sovietleadersdidnotexcludethepossibility thata lowharvest wasoneoftheproblems in 1932. TheissuethatledStalin andother leadersto considerthispossibility wastheplanto increasesharplythe area under crops, which asnotedabove wasoneoftheprimeobjectives behindcollectivization in 1929-1930.189 NKZ undertook the largestincreasein sown area in this periodin 1931, butthetargets were too highto befulfilled within theoptimal sowing period that year. Asa resultofthelow1931 harvest, theoverallgoalofexpandedsowings, and theagronomist N.M.Tulaikov, itsmainexponent, cameundersharpcriticism at the All-Union DroughtConference in October 1931,particularly becausetheplansdid notallowforadequate croprotations. Thecommissariat moderated the1932 sowing plansomewhat, thoughitwas still high, andalso orderedfanns to preparecroprotations. Bysummer1932, however, complaints fromregional officials regarding expanded

43 sowings andtheconsequentdifficulties inintroducing rotations, ofthesortdiscussed above, hadreached Stalin, whowrotetoKaganovich on7July:

Wholesaleexpansionofarea in allcrops means squeezingout ofthe government as much money as possible-butraising harvest yields, improving cultivation, reducing expenditures-this they [NKZ personnel] do not work on. While doing this, NKZ does not understand that with wholesale expansion ofarea, and uncontrolled issuance ofincredible sums, personnel can have neither the desire nor the time not only to improve work and raise harvest yields, but even to think about this seriously. NKZ has not even worked out what types of fertilizer are necessary for particular crops. Large expenditures, lots of technology, but worsening cultivationofland, insignificant economic effect­ and the great danger: [this could] force peasants to depart from kolkhozy as from a loss-making organization. We have to concentrate on improving cultivation offields, raising harvest yields. 190

In a letterof5 August1932, Stalinreturned tothisissue,urgingthatNKZbe reorganized, withaseparatecommissariatforsovkhozy, sothatNKZcouldconcentmte onthespecific organizational problems ofkolkhozy andMTS.191 Afewweeks later, inSeptember 1932 thePolitburo formedacommission underIakovlev toprepare measures toraisecropyields andcombatweeds. Stalin andMolotov themselvesjoinedthiscommission, andtheresultwasthedecree of29 September"on measures forraisingharvestyields." Thisdecree orderedthatall party, state, andeconomic organizations focus theirworkonraising harvest Yields "as thecentraltaskofagricultural development at thepresentmoment"andspecified measures to increase grain sowings attheexpense oftechnical cropsandto introduce crop rotations. 192 Also, on 1 October a government decree reorganizedNKZ, separating off from it a new commissariat of grain and livestock state farms, NKSovkhoz. ThePolitburo protocols donotinclude thereports andotherdocuments that servedas thebasisfortheagency'sdecisions. Thecharacterandcontentof these decrees, however, andthepointsthatStalinemphasized inhisletters, indicatethat thesedecreesat leastpartlyreflectedthe influence ofreportsthatreachedcentral agricultmal authorities aboutsoil exhaustion, weedinfestations, andrelated problems. Thetextofthedecreeonraising Yields atleastimplied that 1932harvest yields, andby furtherimplication the1932 harvest, werenotwhattheyshouldhavebeenandthat this situation was reIatedin partto agricultural andenvironmental conditions. Additional letters andgovernment decrees,apparently mostly secret, thatreducedprocurement quotasin summerandfall 1932 forparticular districts, regions, andeventhewhole republic ofUkraine, furtherindicated thatSovietleaders knewthatat leastinsome places theharvest waslow. l93 Thisawareness, onthepartofStalin andotherofficials,

44 ofasmallerharvestappears to beatleastpartly inconsistent withtheiracceptance of official harveststatistics indicating a reasonably goodharvest in 1932. Itisprobably impossible togobeyondspeculation astowhyofficials didnottmderstand this. Perhaps theclosestwe can get to anexplanationis the fact that thesedecrees,and Stalin's letters, stillemphasizedbadplanning andmismanagement, aboveallbyNKZ,asthe rootcauseofthecrisis. Noneofthese sources indicated anyawareness ofthecomplex ofnatural disasters thathadreducedharvest Yields independently ofanyhuman action. Sovietleaders, then, didnotactually believe thattheUSSRwasexperiencing afamine in thetraditional sense ofamassive cropfailure causedbydrought, because intheirviewnomajordrought hadoccurred; theharvest wasnotexceptionally small, atleastnosmallerthanin 1931; andtheevidenceof seriousmismanagement at all govemmentallevels andinallthestages offannworkfromplanning toprocurements seemedto accountfor alltheproblems thesystemfaced. Stalin'sfamous statement aboutthepeasantscanying out an ital'ianka is in parta statementabout the 1932 harvest, oneof hisexplanations fortheinconsistency between statistical reportsof a reasonably adequateharvestandthenonfulfillment of procurement quotas. Their views reflectedignoranceofagricultural conditions, anoverly credulous attitudetoward official statistics, andlong-held assumptions, almost prejudices, regarding thecauses offaminesin theUSSR. Conclusions

Onthebasisoftheabovediscussion, I contendthatanunderstanding ofthe Sovietfamineof 1932-1933 muststartfromthebackground ofchronicagricultural crisesinthe earlySovietyears, theharvest failures of 1931and1932,andtheinteraction ofenvironmental andhuman factors thatcausedthem. In 1932,extremely dry weather reduced cropsin someregions, andunusually wetandhumidweatherinmostothers fosteredunprecedentedinfestations. Theseconditionsfrom the start reduced the potentialyield that year,as droughthad in 1931. At the same time, the regime's procurements fromthe 1931 harvestleftpeasantsandworklivestockstarvingand weakened. Cropfailures, procurements thatreduced fodder resources, peasant neglect, overuseof the limitednumberof tractors, andshortagesof spareparts and fuel all combined toreduceavailable draft power. Farmworkconsequently wasperformed poorly inmanykolkhozyandsovkhozy, oftenevenwhenpeasants werewilling to put intheeffort. Finally, fanning activities combined with otherenvironmental problems-­ soilexhaustion, weeds, andmice-tofurther reduce the1932 harvest tofamine levels. Theevidencepresented heresubstantially discredits memoirs ortestimonies thatdescribethe 1932harvestas large. Even if the authorsof thesesources wrote whattheyactually saworconsidered tobethetruth, agricultural conditions andthe 45 limited agronomicknowledgeof most people at that time prevented them from perceiving andunderstanding thesituation: weatherconditions thatappeared favorable actually gaverisetomassive andwidespreadinfestations, andcropsthatsuperficially appeared healthyproducedonlyafraction ofnormal amounts. l94 Anystudythatasserts thattheharvestwasnotextraordinarily lowandthatthefamine wasapolitical measure intentionallyimposedthrough excessiveprocurements isclearlybasedonaninsufficient sourcebase and an uncriticalapproachto theofficialsources. The evidence cited abovedemonstrates thatthe 1932-1933famine wastheresultofagenuineshortage, a substantial decline intheavailability offood (touseSen'stenninology) causedbya complex of factors, each of which decreased the harvest greatly and which in combination musthavedecreasedtheharvestwellbelowsubsistence. Thisfamine therefore resembledtheIrishfamine of 1845-1848,butresultedfromalitany ofnatural disasters thatcombined tothesameeffectasthepotato blighthadninetyyearsbefore, andinasimilarcontextofsubstantial foodexports. TheSovietfamineresembles the Irishcaseinanotherwayas well: inboth,government leaders wereignorantof and minimized theenvironmental factorsandblamedthefamines on humanactions(in Ireland, overpopulation, in the USSR, peasant resistance)much more than was warranted. Thisinterpretation of the 1932-1933famine astheresultof the largestin a series ofnatural disasters suggests analternative approach totheintentionalist viewof thefamine. Someadvocates ofthepeasantresistance viewarguethattheregimetook advantageof the famineto retaliate against the peasantsand force them to work harder.19S Famineanddeathsfromstarvation, however, beganin 1928in townsand someruralareasbecause oflowharvests andofsomepeasants'unwillingness tosell theirsurpluses, Thefoodsupplygenerally deteriorated overthenextfew years,due not only to exportsin 1930-1931 but also to thecropfailuresof 1931-1932. The harshprocurements of 1931 and1932havetobeunderstood inthecontextoffamine thatprevailedintownsaswellasvillages throughout theSovietUnionby late 1931; by 1932-1933,asnotedabove, workersaswellaspeasants weredyingof hunger. 196 If weareto believethattheregimestarvedthepeasants toinducelabordisciplinein thefarms,arewetointerpretstarvation inthetowns astheregime'stoolto discipline blue and white collar workers and their wives and children? While Soviet food distribution policies arebeyondthescopeofthisarticle, itisclearthatthesmallharvests of 1931-1932createdshortages thataffectedvirtually everyonein thecountryand thattheSovietregime didnothavetheinternal resources toalleviate thecrisis. Moreover, whileStalin's famousletterclearlyattackedsome peasantsfor refusing toworktoproduce foodforthecountry, theregime's actions duringandafter thefamineindicatedthattheydid notsee thepeasants exclusively as enemies. For example, the politicaldepartmentsformedin MTSandsovkhozy in early 1933to

46 organize{annworkduringthefamine conductedpurgesthatremovedmanyfarm and local officials andpersonnelformalfeasance, sometimes unjustlyandarbitrarily. The political departments replacedthem,however, bypromotingthousands of peasants.197 Suchactionsindicatethattheregimeblameditsownofficialsforthecrisisasmuch as rank-and-file peasants, if not moreso,andthatit reliedon the peasantsto overcome thecrisis. Finally,this essay shows thatwhiletheUSSR experiencedchronic drought andothernaturaldisastersearlier, thosewhichoccurredin 1932were an unusualand severecombinationof calamitiesin a countrywithheightenedwlnerability to such incidents. In this sense, my analysis of the famine as a result of a complex of environmental andhumanfactors does not"normalize"thefamine,in thesenseofthe German historians who attempted to normalize the Holocaust by minimizing its uniqueness and scale. The evidenceandanalysis I havepresentedhereshow that the Sovietfamine was more serious and more important an event than most previous studies claim,includingthoseadhering totheUkrainian nationalistinterpretation, and thatitresultedfroma highlyabnormal combination ofenvironmental andagricultural circumstances. By drawing attention to these circumstances, this study also demonstrates theimportanceof questioning acceptedpoliticalinterpretationsand of considering theenvironmental aspects offamines andotherhistorical eventsthatinvolve humaninteraction withthenatural world ThattheSovietregime,throughitsrationing systems, fedmorethan50million people, including manypeasants, duringthefamine, howeverpoorly, andthatatleastsomepeasants facedwithfamineundertookto work withgreaterintensity despitetheirhostility totheregimein 1933,andto someextentin previousyears as well, indicate thatallthoseinvolvedin some way recognized the uniqueness ofthistragicevent

47 Notes

TheInternational ResearchandExchangesBoard(IREX), theWestVIrginia HumanitiesCouncil, and West Vlfginia University supported my research for this study. James C. Scott and the participantswhoattendedmy presentationof an earlierversionof this paperat the YaleProgram in AgrarianStudiesin 1994providedvaluablecommentsandsuggestions,asdid RobertDanbom of Iowa State University; Kurt Leonard and Alan Roelfs of the Cereal Rust Lab, University of Minnesota and the USDA, biologist Joseph Morton, Estension Specialist Susan Poland; and historiansRobertBlobaum,StephenZdatny,andRobertMaxon,all of WestVlI'ginia University; Eva Segert; andthe three anonymousrefereesfor the Carl BeckPapers. 1. The firstviewpointcan befoundinRobertConquest,TheHarvestofSorrow(NewYork: OxfordUniversityPress, 1986); JamesMace,"Politychni prychyny holodomoro vUkraini(1932­ 1933m)," Ukrainskyi istorychnyiVzumall995, no. 1:34-48, andin Commissionon the Ukraine Famine,Reportto Congress (Washington, D.C.: OovemmentPrintingOffice,1988). The second viewpointcan be found in such works as Moshe Lewin, "TakingGrain," in The Making ofthe SovietSystem(NewYork: Pantheon, 1985), 142-77; SheilaFitzpatrick,Stalin ~ Peasants(New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1994),69-76; NicolasWerth,"La Grande Famine," in Robert Courtois,ed., 1.£ livrenoiredu communisme (paris: Laffont, 1997), 178-88, and two essays by D'AnnPenner, TheAgrarian "Strike" of1932-33, KennanOccasionalPaper 269 (Washington, D. C.: WoodrowWilson InternationalCenter for Scholars, March 1998), and "Stalin and the ltal'ianka of 1932-1933 in the Don Region," Cahiersdu Monde russe 39, nos. 1-2, (January­ June 1998): 27-68. Stephan Merl also views the 1932-1933 famine as unique "because the harvestin the famine regions in 1932 was in no way so catastrophicas not to provide for local subsistence"; see "Entfachte Stalin die Hungersnot von 1932-1933 zur Ausloeschung des ukrainischenNationaiismusT'JahrbUcherjUrGeschichte Osteuropas 37 (1989) no.: 4,569.

2 On rural famineoutside Ukraine,the Russian scholarV.V.Kondrashin,"Golod 1932­ 1933 godov v derevnePovolzh'ia " (Diss.,Moscow,Instituteof History, 1991), documents very clearlytheextentoffaminein theVolga basinandexplicitly rejectsConquest'sargumentregarding the famine's allegedfocuson Ukraine(150). The UkrainianhistorianS. V.Kul'chyts'kyi in "Do otsinky stanovishcha v sil's'komu hospodarstviURSR," Ukrainskyi istorichnyi zhuma11988, no. 3: 15, acknowledges that the famine affected not only Ukraine and the North Caucasus but also the Volga basin,theCentralBlackearthoblast', Kazakhstan, theUrals,andother regions. On urban famine, Andre Liebich, "Russian Mensheviks and the Famine," in Roman Serbyn and Bohdan,eds.,Famine in Ukraine (Edmonton: crus, 1986),101-02,documents famineconditions in Soviet cities on the basis of reports that reached the Menshevik press; Iu. M. Ivanov, "Polozhenierabochikh Rossiiv2O-kh-nachale 3G-kh godov," Voprosy istorii, 1998,no.5: 28-43, argues that "the workers starved" during the famine; Jeffrey Rossman, "The Teikovo Cotton Workers' Strike of April 1932," RussianReview56 (January 1997): 44-69, documents a major strike undertaken in great part in response to food shortages; and Elena Osokina, Ierarkhiia potrebleniia(Moscow: MGOU, 1993),29-30, presentsachivalestimatesof some four hundred thousand deathsin thetownsin 1932-1933 in theRussianRepublic andUkraineandacknowledges the existence of famine in the towns. Roger R. Reese, Stalin ~ ReluctantSoldiers (Lawrence: UniversityPress of Kansas, 1996),49, reportsthat thefaminebroughta 30 percent cut in rations for soldiersand officers. See alsoMerl,"EntfaehteStalin,"580-81.

48 3. The magnitudeof the 1932 harvestisa matterofdisputeand may neverbe settled. In an earlierarticle,I showed thatdata fromthekolkhoz annualreports for 1932 implieda harvest ofat most50 milliontons,and probablyless:"The 1932HarvestandtheSovietFamineof 1932-1933," SlavicReview50, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 70-89. The validityof this estimate derives from the fact thatSoviet statisticians employeddata fromkolkhoz annual reports to correct "biological yield" harvestsfrom 1933 on (see below)as wellasotherconsiderationsexplainedin the article. Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft project higherfigures for the 1932 harvest, but their estimates are basedprimarilyon rainfalldata, whichhascertainproblemsI shalldiscussbelow;see Davies, Wheatcroft, and J. M. Cooper, "Soviet Industrialization Reconsidered: Some Preliminary Conclusions AboutEconomicDevelopmentBetween1926 and 1941," Economic HistoryReview, 2d ser.,39, no. 2 (1986): 282-83; DaviesandWheatcroft,"Agriculture," in Davies,Wheatcroft, and Mark Harrison, eds., The Economic Trans/ormation 0/ the Soviet Union, 1913-1945 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994),115,286. Ina recentarticle, DaviesandWheatcroft rejectedmy lowerestimateof the 1932 harvestandpresentedestimatesoftheirown rangingfrom 53 milliontoos to 65 million tons, withouttakinginto consideration the kolkhozannual reports; see "Diskusiia I obsuzhdeniia: Sovremennye kontseptsiiagramogo razvitiia," Otechestvennaia istorii,no.6 (1998): 97, 129 fn. 8. TheirlowerestimateapproachestheestimateI derivedfrom the annual reports, but the wide range of their estimatesimplies so much uncertainty as to make it littlemorethan an educatedguess. On yieldsin 1933 see Tauger,"The 1932 Harvest," 80. Some scholarsstillhavenotconsideredtheevidence fora smallharvestintheseyearsanditsimplications for an explanation of the famine: see Stephan Merl, Bauem unter Stalin (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot,1990),36,40,andAndreaGraziosi, TheGreatSovietPeasantWar(Cambridge: Harvard Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1996), 60. On Soviet harvest statistics generally, see Tauger, "StatisticalFalsificationin theSovietUnion:AComparativeStudy," forthcomingin The Donald ~ Treadgold Papers (Seattle: Universityof Washington).

4. SeeTauger,"The 1932 Harvest,"88.

5. On therationing system,seeRobertDavies,CrisisandProgressin the Soviei Economy, 1931-1933 (London: MacMillan, 1996),530-31, andElena Osokina,Za/asadom "stalinskogo ;zobUiia" (Moscow: Rosspen, 1998), passim; on food allocations to towns and villages, see EzhegodnikkhIebooborota1932-1933, whichlists food allocations by region and by type. On the reserves, see Robert Davies, Mark Tanger, and Stephen Wheatcroft, "Stalin, Grain Stocks, andtheFamineof1932-1933,"SlavicReview 54 no.3 (Fall 1995): 642-57. ForMikoian'sestimate ofgrain needs in 1928, see RobertaT. Manning, "The High and Low Politics ofthe First Grain Procurements Campaign,"TheCarlBeckPapers, 1504,2001.

6. CecilWoodham-Smith, TheGreatHunger (London: NEL, 1968); Connac 6 Gracia, The GreatIrishFamine(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),68; PeterSolar,"The Great Famine Was No Ordinary Subsistence Crisis," in E. M. Crawford, eds., Famine: The Irish Experience, 900-1900 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1989), 112-33. On the general scholarly acceptance ofSolar's findings, seeMaryDaly, "Revisionism andIrishHistory: TheGreat Famine," inD. G. Boyceand Alan O'Day, eds., TheMaking 0/Modem Irish History(London: Routledge, 1996),79-80.

7. By far the beststudyof prerevolutionary naturaldisastersand faminesisE. R Borisenkov and V. M. Pastetskii, Tysiacheletniaia letopis'neobichainykhiavleniiprirody(Moscow: Mysl', 1988), especially the chronology,236-478; other studies that discuss this are Arcadius Kahan, "Natural Calamities and Their Effect Upon the Food Supply in Russia (An Introduction to a 49 Catalogue)," Jahrbiicher jUrGeschichteOsteuropas 16, no. 3 (September 1968): 353-77, and WilliamA. Dando, The Geography o/Famine(NewYork: Wtley, 1980),ch,9. Examples ofstudies of harvests includeA. S. Ermolov, Nashineurozhaii prodovol'stvennyi vopros (St, Petersburg: Tip. V. Kirshbauma, 1909); A. V. Chaianov, ed., Problemy urozhaia (Moscow: Izd. "Ekonomicheskaia zhizn',It 1926); Ill.L.Rauner, Klimat iurotltainost' z.emovykh kulblr(Moscow: Nauka, 1981), andacollectionof prerevolutionary studies, N.A. Maksimova, ed., KlassikiRusskoi agronomiiv bor'bes ZllSukhoi (Moscow: Izd. Akademii Nauk,1951).

8. AmartyaSen,PovertyandFamines(Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1981),57-63,88-93,117­ 23, 137-39. PeterBowbrickquestioned Sen'sminimization ofshortage inthe 1943 Bengalfamine in "The Causes of Famine: A Refutation of ProfessorSen's Theory," Food Policy, May 1986, 105-24,followedby Sen'sreply,125-32, andsee additional comments byotherreaders,August 1986,259-63; see alsoDavidArnold'scriticismof Sen's argument on thisfamineandothersin Famine (Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1988),42-46. Stephen Devereux questioned Sen's viewsonthe sameissuein the Ethiopian famineof 1972-1974 in "Entitlements, Availability and Famine: A Revisionist ViewofWollo, 1972-1974,"FoodPolicy,August 1988,270-82.

9. See Conquest, HarvestofSorrow, 265; Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest,"70-71.

10. See Mace,"Politychni prychyny," 36-37. A collection of formerly secret Ukrainian documents which Mace cites on other points, shows that on both a nationaland a local level procurementquotasweremuchsmallerthanin 1931, thattheycouldnotbefulfilled, andthattheir partialfulfillment leftkolkhozy, peasants,towndwellers, andevenpartyofficialsin muchworse condition than had the larger procurements in 1930-1931; see Holod 1932-1933 rokiv na Ukraini: Ochymaistorykiv, movoiudokumentiv (Kiev, 1990), e.g.,311-14, 350-70.

11. DaviesandWheatcroft, "Agriculture," and"DiskusiiaI obsuzhdeniia," 99-101.

12 Penner,The Agrarian "Strike," and "Stalin and the Ital'ianka" Penner inaccurately assertsin thesewritingsthatmyarticle,''The 1932 Harvest,"attributed thesmall 1932 harvestto weatherconditions,specifically drought (TheAgrarian "Strike," 1,4, and 37 fn. 4; and "Stalin and the ltalianka," 28). Penner attemptsto refute the argument that the famine resulted from droughtby arguingthatno majordroughtoccurredin 1932, at leastin the NorthCaucasus(The Agrarian "Strike," 5-6; "Stalinandtheltalianka,"29-30). In factI didnotidentifyanyspecific causesfor the lowharvestin thatarticle; I wrotethatthelowharvestresultedfroma complexof factors and that I was Preparing a study of this question(''The 1932 Harvest," 84 and fn. 40). Penner did not discuss the assertions by Davies and Wheatcroft cited above that did in fact blamethe faminein parton drought.

13. Among the abundantsourceson this, the best study is Lars Lib, Bread and Authority in Russia (Berkeley, andLos Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1990). On the Russian's modelling of theirpolicies onGermanKriegsozializmus, seeGeorgeYaney, TheUrgeto Mobilize (Urbana: University ofll1inois Press, 1982),424.

14. On the Bolshevikrequistions, see Lib, Breadand Authority; on the Whites, see Peter Kenez,Civil War in SouthRussia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1977),26-27,93-100,205,289-91,andJonSmele,CivilWarin Siberia(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ch.4, esp. 361-75, 385-93. Mennonite peasants inUkrainewereamong

50 the groupsvicitimzedby one group of Greens,NestorMakhno's peasant army; see P.C. Hiebert andO. O. Miller,Feedingthe Hungry: RussianFamine, 1919-1925 (Scottdale,Pa.; Mennonite Central Committee, 1929),199,245.

15. On thepersistenceoffamine,see MarcusWehner, "00100 1921gg. vSamarskoigubernii i reaktsiiaSovetskogopravitel'stva," Cahiers du Monde Russe 38,nos. 1-2(Ianuary-June 1997): 237; on the continuation of requisitions,see Iu. V. Strizhkov, Prodovol'stvennye otriady v gody grazlulimskoi voiny i inostrannoiimervemsii(Moscow: Nauka, 1973),288-89; on requisition measures employed to collect the tax in kind, see Iu. A. Poliakov, Perekhodk nepu i sovetskoe krest'iDnstvo (Moscow: Nauka,1967),296.The American ReliefAdministration (A.R.A.) provided reliefin MoscowandPetrograd; see H. H. FISher, TheFaminein SovietRussia;1919-1923(New York: Macmillan,1927),55rr57. The insufficiency of relief is a largerissuethancan be dealt with here; as an example I cite an appeal from the Crimean okrug party committee to the Central Committeeinfall 1922for more food becausethe number of people starvingfar exceeded those provided for by the rations from the A.R.A., the Catholic Mission, and the Soviet organization Posledgol, which provided more rations than the A.R.A.; (Rossiiskii GosudarstvennyiArkhiv Sotsial'noiiPoliticheskoiIstorii(henceforth citedasRGASPI,formerlyRTsKhIDNI), 17.84.346,l. 22. 16. On the 1924 famine, see the collectionof articles on famine relief measures edited by Sovnarkomchairman A. I. Rykov,Vbor'be s zasukhoii golodom(Moscow, 1925); on the 1928 faminein Ukraine, MarkB. Tauger, "GrainCrisisorFamine? TheUkrainianStateCommissionfor Aid to Crop Failure Victimsand the UkrainianFamine of 1928-1929," in Donald Raleigh, ed., Provincial Landscapes: Local Dimensions ofSoviet Power (University of Pittsburgh Press, forthcoming). See also the reportson faminerelief in Visty, for example 25 October 1928, 3, and preceding and subsequent issues with additionalreports on relief measures. S. V. Kul' cbyts'kyi also refers to this famine, Komunizm v Ukraini: Pershe desiatirichchia (1919-1928) (Kiev: Osnovy,1996),354, wherehe writes: "Unfortunately, in historiographythistopicremainsa 'white spot'."

17. Onthe 1928-1929famineinUkraineanditsrelationto the graincrisis,seeTauger, "Grain Crisis or Famine." On the connectionbetweenthe grain crisis and collectivizationas a measure to increasefood production, see Tauger,"The People's Commissariat of Agriculture," in E. A. Rees, ed., Decision·Makingin the Stalinist CommandEconomy (London: MacMillan, 1997), 151-55.

18. The evidence for this is a protocolof a meeting of North Caucasusrepresentatives with Kolkhoztsentron 1February 1931,foundinRGASPI. Becausethisdocumentwillbe published in Russia in a forthcoming collectionof documentson collectivization, for copyright reasons I am not allowedto give a full citation in publicationsat this time. Regional party secretaries referred to crop failures in Kazakstan and the Volga regionin telegrams to Stalin and Iakovlev,Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhivekonomiki 7486.37.154,11.49-51,219-20 (hereafterRGAE).

19. Osokina, Za fasadom "stalinskogo izobiliia," 37.

20. On the great southerndrought, see NanElizabeth Woodruff,As Rareas Rain: Federal Reliefin theGreatSouthernDrought(Urbana: Universityof IllinoisPress, 1985); on the famine in China, see Reportofthe NationalFloodReliefCommission, 1931-1932 (Shanghai: Republic

51 of China,1933); onFrenchWestAfrica,FinnFuglestad~ "Lagrande faminede 1931dans l'Ouest Nig6rien~" Revuefranfaisd'histoired'Outre-Mer61 (1974):no. 222~ 18-33. Mortality in West Africa, partlydue to rigidFrench taxationpolicies, wasproportionally greaterthan in the Soviet Union, althoughit affected a muchsmallerregionwith a muchsmallerpopulation.

21. Kahan,"Naturalcalamities."

22. Joseph Stalin, Works(Moscow, 1955), 13: 22o-21~ speechof 11 January 1933; Mace, Reportto Congress, x,citingA.L Rudenko, ed.,ZasuJchi vSSSR(Leningrad: Gidromet. izd., 1958), 168;Penner, TheAgrarian "Strike,"4-6. Penner'smain sources includereports to the British governmentby AndrewCairns,anexperiencedfarmeranduniversity trainedagronomistworking for theCanadian government, hired by the BritishEmpireMarketingBoardto travel throughout the grain regions ofthe USSR in summer 1932,published in Marco Carynnyk et al., eds., The ForeignOjJice andthe Famine(Kingston,Ontario: LimestonePress, 1998);Kondrashin, Golod 1932-1933 godov; and Stalin~s statement cited above.

23. Davies and Wheatcroft, "Agriculture," 125, 291; Wheatcroft, "The Significance of Climatic and WeatherChange on Soviet Agriculture," SIPS paper 11 (Birmingham, England: University ofBirmingbam, 1977).

24. See A. M. Alpat'ev and A. I. Trofimova,"Povtoriaemost' zasukbv raionakb osvoeniia tselinnykbi zalezhnykhzemel' Kazakstanai zapadnoi Sibiri," inRudenko, ed., Zasukhi v SSSR, esp.l00.

25. In WesternSiberia,for example,the weatherbureauhadexistedonlya year in 1931,and vast regions had no monitoring points; see V. K. Ivanov,"Tezisy k dokladu: Analiz pricbin, porozhdaoiushchikb zasukbu i vukbovei Zapadnoi Sibiri," in Tezisy i materialy vsesoiuznoi konferentsiipo bor'be s zasuJchoi (Moscow, 1931), 19.

26. Rudenko,ZasuJchi v SSSR, 164, 168-69 (tables); for averagerainfall, see Naum Jasny, The SocializedAgricultureofthe USSR: PlansandPerformance (Stanford~ Cal.: Food Research In$titute, 1949),106.

Zl. Istoriia Sovetskogo krest'ianstva: lstoriia krest'ianstva SSSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1986)~2: 2S5.

28. Carynnyket al., ForeignOffice, 36~ 53, 54, 56,64;on Cairns,see liv.

29. N. Popov,"Tezisydoklada: 0 zasukbena Ukrainei 0 bor'bes nei," in Tezisyi materialy vsesoiuznoikonferentsii, 187-89.

30. Tauger,"ThePeople's Commissariat of Agriculture," 157.

31. N.fa.Gushchin, c'Kollektivizatsiia vSibiri(nekotorye problemy i uroki)," inN. fa.Gushchin, ed., Razvitie form sotsialistichesko! sobstvennosti v Sibirskoi derevne: Istoricheskii opyt i sovremennost' (Novosibirsk: AkademiiaNauk,1991),93. Scbiller'sdescription isinCarynnyket al., Foreign OjJice~ 260.

52 32 Carynnyket al., ForeignOffice,42.

33. RGAE7486.37.154, I. 158. Biriusova, asovietofficial,describedKazakhwomenswollen with starvationholding frozen children and wandering in search of food, childrenalone in a sled screaming "kishketkoi," "give bread," and whole groups of Kazakhs coming to district party headquartersasking for bread.

34. Holod 1932-1933 rokiv, 121,133,144,160.

35. Speechesfrom the droughtconferencewerepublishedin Tezisy i materialyvsesotuznoi konferentsii•. A report issued in 1932by thePeople's Commissariatof Agriculture(NKZ) on the strugglewithdroughtandthe economiceffectsof irrigationincludeselaborateplansfor irrigation construction andotherantidroughtmeasures. RGAE7486.19.112, II. 6-18, 24-29.

36. Izvestiia, 17 February 1932, p. 1, for the notification of seed and food loans to the drought regions; Kollektivizatsiia sel'skogo khoziaistva v Srednem Povolzh'e (1927-1937 gg.):Dokumenty i materialy(Kuibyshev,1970),329. 37. Iu. V. Moshkov,Zemovaiaproblemavgodysploshnoikollektivizatsii (Moscow: MGU, 19(6),191.

38. RGASPI 17.162.11, Osobie papki Politbiuro, 10 Sept 31-3 March 32, session of8 January 1932, item 27; RGAE 7486.19.112,II. 5, secretdirective to purchase drought resistant seed fromabroadfor500,000goldrubles.

39. Carynnyk et al., Foreign Office 167. Cairns mistakenly spelled Tulaikov's name as "Tulikov."

40. RGAE7486.3.50595,1.1-8.

41. RGAE7486.37.1S4,I.224-26.

42 Sel'skokhoziaistvennaia thim, the periodical of NKZ RSFSR during ~ reported extensivelyon the infestationsof locusts,mice,andother pests during the famine years. See, for example, 9 December 1922, p. 23, reporting locust infestations in the south in 1920-1922; 19 February 1923,p. 5, reporting pests and plant diseasein 1922over an area ofnearly 20 million hectares; and 4 April 1923, p, 11, reporting that locustsand field crickets infested more than 3 millionhectaresand gophersmorethan 10millionhectares.

43. Davies and Wheatcroft, "Agriculture," 125;"Diskusiia i obsuzhdeniia," 101-02. Both articles rely on calculations that Wheatcroft made on the basis of published rainfall reports; archival and published agronomic evidence presented below shows that these data give a misleadingimpressionof theextremediversityof climateconditionsin 1932. 44. Penner,The "AgrarianStrike, ..4-6.

45. Jasny,SocializedAgriculture, 552ff.

53 46. Kahan, "Natural Calamities"; A. S. Ermolov, Narodnaia sel'skokhoziaistvennaia mudrost' v poslovitsakh; pogovorkakh i primetakh, vol. 2, Ysenarodnaia agronomiia (St. Petersburg: Tip.V. Kirshbauma, 1905).

47. Sotsialisticheskaia rekonstruktsiia sel'skogokhoziaistva, 1933,no. 1: 140; Carynnyk etal.,Foreign Office, 163;Sotsitllisticheskoe zemledelie, 14February 1932, p.2; RGAE7486.37.235, ll.I64-68.

48. N. A. Naumov, ed., RzhavchinIJ khlebnylch zlakovvSSSR(Moscow: Sel'lchozgiz,1939), 46,245. Regionalreportsconfirmthis; seeforexampleMTSi eepolhotdel(Moscow, 1934),222­ 23,reportingon relativelymoistandrainyconditionsin 1932asagainst1933in Odessaoblast' in Ukraine,andalso Carynnyket al., Foreign OjJice, 167(statementby an officialfrom the Central Statistical Administration inMoscow),142,180,190(localofficialsandfarmpersonnel).

49. Carynnyketal.,ForeignOffice, 112;RGAE7486.37.237, I.319-21, 351. so. RGAE 260.1.217,reportsofa meetingof instructorsof theScientificKollchoz Institute [NIKI) on harvestsin Kubankolkhozyin 1932,I. 12-13.

51. DavidGrigg,TheDynamics ofAgricultural Change (NewYork: St Martins, 1982),84- 85.

52 BiologicalandEnvironmental Factors AffectingSovietGrainQuality(U): A Research Paper, CIA SI 78-10057/AIU (NationalForeignAssessmentCenter" December1978).

53. W.R. Bushnell,"StructuralandPhysiologicalAlterationinSusceptibleHost Tissue," in Wtlliam R.Bushnell,Alan~ Roelfs,eds.,TheCerealRusts(Orlando, Fla.:AcademicPress, 1984), 1:478,491-92,497-98;S.Grushevoi, ''Rzhavchinazemovykh khIebov," SbomikVlZRa (Leningrad) 1933,no. 6: 51-54. On grain rusts see also K. Starr Chester,TheNatureand Preventionofthe CerealRusts as Exemplifiedin the LeafRust ofWheat(Waltham, Mass.: Chronica Botanica, 1946); Ernst Lehmann et al., Der Schwarzros: (Berlin and Munich: Lehmanns Verlag, 1937); Naumov, ed., RzhavchinIJ khlebnykhzlakov: Larry J. Littlefield,Biologyofthe Plant Rusts: An Introduction (Ames: Iowa State UniversityPress, 1981),7, has a photographcomparing wheat grainsfroma rustedplantwithnormalwheat: thecontrastresemblesthatbetweensmall grainsof polished white rice and plump kemals of hominy. According to the Soviet agronomist S. E. Grushevoi,stem rust of wheat produced small and underdeveloped grains, crown rust ofoats producedsmallgrainswithexcessivehusk,andleafrustof wheatproducednormal-sizegrainbut reducedthe numberof grainsin the ear (Nazashchitu urozhaia, 1933,no. 10(October): 14-16.)

54. Biologicaland Environmental Factors, 2.

55. On rust infestationsgenerally,see G. L. Carefootand E. R. Sprott, Faminein the Wind (Chicago: Rand McNally,1967),42. On rust in the UnitedStates,R. Douglas Hurt, American Agriculture: A BriefHistory(Ames: Iowa State University, 1994),52; A. ~ Roelfs, Estimated LossesCausedbyRust in Small GrainCerealsin the UnitedStates-1918-1976, USDA ERS Miscellaneous Publication 1363(Washington, D.C.,1978); D.GaleJohnsonandRobertGustafson, Grain Yields andthe American FoodSupply (Chicago, 1962), 120.OnU.S.Armysporeproduction, seeNormanM.Covert,"CuttingEdge: TheHistoryof FortDetrick,"January 1997,websitehttp:!

54 1140.139.13361debicklhistory/chapter5.htm,citingtheReportto Congress,1977,US Anny Activities in the US Biological Waifare Program, v.2,The U.S.militarydestroyed these stockpilesin 1973. According to Dr. Covert, while Soviet preparation of these bioweapons is still classified information,contacts between U.S. and Russianspecialistsand certain classified documents he has seen confirm that the Soviet Union did produce rust and other anticrop agents (personal conversation,1May 1999).

S6. Norman Borlaug, Haldore Hanson,and R. Glenn Anderson, Wheat in the Third World (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982),31.

51. Chester, Nature and Prevention, 18, refers to losses from wheat leaf rust reaching 71 percentinAsiaticRussiain 1921. SeeRGAE7486.10.178, ll.37-40,for theprotocolof theFar East territorycommissionfor estimating harvestyields.

58. Nachrlchtenblattftirden Deutschen Pflanzmschsuzdienst (Berlin) 12,no. 10 (October 1932): 79-80; 12,no. 11(November1932): 89-90; 14,no.2 (February 1934):9-11.

59. Dr.Tr.Savulescu,"RoumanianBlackRustofCerealsin 1932and theMeasuresTakento Prevent Future Outbreaks," International Bulletin ofPlant Protection, (1933): 7,29-32; U.S. NationalArchives,economic reporton Romania,October1933,State DepartmentRecord Group 59,M 1198,roll33,871161fl2. .

60. Nachrichtenblattftir den DeutschenPflanzenschutzdienst (Berlin) 13, no. 1 (January 1933):5-6; Lehmann et al., DerSchwarzrost, 380, 390-91. Soviet archives contain data drawn from western published sources, according to which wheat yields in Poland in fell from 12.5 centners per hectare in 1928 to 7.8 centners in 1932,and in Romania from 9.8 centners to 5.3 centners (RGAE437233.747,I.52).

61. See Naumov,Rzhavchinakhlebnykh zlakov, 225-26 and his bibliography,and Lehmann et al., DerSchwaruost, 372-94, and esp. Meteorological Factors Affectingthe Epidemiology of Wheat Rust, WorldMeteorological Organization Technical Note99,WMONo.238.TR130(Geneva, 1969),43-47.

62 Cairns wrote that a Romanian diplomattold him that the rust spread from the USSR to Romania(Carynnyket al., Foreign Office, 117). Recentagronomicand metereologicalstudiesof the 1932infestatioinandothers indicate,however, thatwindpatternswentfromthe Mediterranean north and east

63. Carefoot and Sprott, Famine in the Wind, 56.

64. Carynnyketal., Foreign Office, 135,137-38,141, 145-47, 150-51, 155-56, 163,167,175, 190.

65. For example, Sotsialisticheskoezemledeliereportedthat wheat and rye losses from rust in 1932reached322 millionrubles, muchmorethanfromanyothercause (9 February 1933,p. 4).

66. Na zashchituurozhaia, 1933,no. 10(October): 14-16.

55 67. RGAE7486.37237,l. 388,OGPUspecialreport, 11October1932.

68. The Storyofu.S. Agricultural Estimates, USDAMiscellaneous Publication1088,April 1969(Washington, D.C.: USDA,1969), 73.

(I). V. V. Kondrashin, personal conversation, July 1993; N. A. Naumov, Bolezni sel'skokhotiaistvennykh rastenii (Moscow and Leningrad: Gos. Izd. Selskokhoziaistvennoi Literatury, 1952),283.

70. See Cairns's numerousdescriptionsinCarynnyket al., Foreign Office, 49,61, 110,and passim.

71. Sbomik VlZRa, 1933,no.7: 88-92; Nazashchitu urozhaia, 1933,no. 10(October): 13.

72 Sbomik. VIZRa, 1933,no.7: 88-92; no.6,51-54.

73. Naumov, Rzhavchina khlebnykh zlako», 225.

74. Ibid.,5.

75. GeorgeN. Agrios, PlantPathology (NewYork: AcademicPress, 1978),396-408. 76. Sel'skokhoziaistvennaia zhizn', 2SFebruary 1923,pp, 11-12; P.Proida,"Intensify the strugglewithsmut!"Sbomik. VIZRa, 1933,no.5:73-78; RGAE7486.41.4, I. 10.

77. On methodsfor combattingsmut, see G. C. Ainsworth, Introduction to the Historyof PlantPathology (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1981),122ff.

78. Sbomik.VIZRa, 1932,DO. 3:68-69; 1933, DO.5:73-78; 1933, DO. 6,articlebyD.Rudenko.

79. S.E. Grushevoiand G.F.Maldakova,Rzhavchina zemovykh/cuI 'tyri merybor'bys nei (MoscowandLeningrad: Gos.IzdKolkhoznoi iSovkhoznoi Lit, 1934),~.

80. See, forexample, AndrewNikiforuk, The Fourth Horseman: AShortHistory ofEpidemics, Plagues, andOtherScourges (London: Phoenix,1991),119.

81. Sel'skhokhotiaistvennyi biulleten'SSSR, 10November1932,p. 15; RGAE7486.37.104 1. 56, 7486.37.237, 11. 346-47, 348-50. Ergot is another fungal disease of plants that forms characteristicpurple horns on the grains. While not as commonor widespreadas rust, ergot is more dangerous.

82. S.Predteehenskii, inSbomikVIZRa, 1933,DO. 5, 140-48.

83. RGAE7486.37.237,U.178-81, 187-89,196,208-13,268-71,272-75;Holod1932-1933 rokiv,217; Carynnyk et al., Foreign Office, 135, 140, 145, 170. Skalyga, an official of the CommissariatofAgricultureresponsible forsugarbeets, DOted inameeting withCentral Committee membersthat"1932 wasthe yearof the worstharvestof sugar beets," thoughhedid not mention theinsectproblem(RGASPI 17.120.88, 86).

56 84. RGAE 7486.37.135,II.68-80. Therodentinfestationsare discussedbelow. 85. RGAE7486.41.4,D.IO-13.

86. Sotsialisticheskoe zemledelie, 16April 1932,p. 3. st. RGAE7486.37.205,D.I-17; Sel'skokhoziaistvennyibiulletenSSSR,31 July 1932,p.14.

88. RGAE7486.37.237,1. 286,OGPUreport, August1932,whichdoesnotspecify howthey determinedthe weightof the caterpillars.

89. RGAE7486.3.4484,D. 10-12;7486.19.185,1. 1.

90. Naumov, Rzhavchina khlebnykh zlakov, 145; P. K. Artemov, "K voprosu 0 porazhaemostisortov zemovykh kul'tur gribnymibolezniami," Trudy po ptikladnoi botanike, genetike i selektsii, Seriia A: Sotsialisticheskoe rastenievodstvo 7 (Leningrad, 1933),75.

91. Ainsworth, Introduction to the History ofPlant Pathology, 122ff,has a photographof fanners treating seed withformalin; Chester,Nature andPrevention ofCereal Rusts, 190-91 on rust prevention studies.

92 Lynn Viola discusses the various motives for peasants' actions in Peasant Rebels Under Stalin (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press,1996),69ft'.

93. Penner documents examples of this from the North Caucasus and connects it to procurements("Stalin and the Ital'ianka." 34-5).

94. Holod 1932-1933 rokiv, 148-50; RGAE7486.37.154,11.238-42,255-56. Accordingto Daviesand Wheatcroft,the availableforagein 1932may havedeclined from 23.3milliontonsin 1927/28 to 13.8milliontonsin 1932(UDiskusii i obsuzhdeniia,").

95. Sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR (Moscow, 1936),199.

96. Goloshekinwroteto Iakovlev inearly1932thataccordingto thefive-year planKazakstan should have received tractors equivalent to 37,000 horsepower in 1931 but had received only 16,500horsepower's worth; by the plantheregionshouldreceive 64,000 horsepower's worthin 1932,including40,000in spring,butNKZhadcutthosetargets to 30,000and20,000respectively. This lack ofdraft forces, he warned,preventedKazakstan from utilizing its most valuablelands and fulfilling its potential as a primary wheat-producing region as set by the Sixteenth Party Congress (RGAE748637.154,D. 49-51).

CJ7. RGAE 7486.37.135, II. 26-8. The document reports that Soviet officials met with representativesof these companies, who acknowledged the problems and made efforts to send new parts.

98. Holod 1932-1933 rokiv, 150(Kosior), 134,162,178-79(decreesfromPolitburo protocols sending300 tractors,400 tractors,andanunidentified numberof tractors with 12,500horsepower capacity,all above planned levels). 57 99. Carynnyket al., Foreign Office, 162.

100. RGAE 7486.37.237, I.373.

101. A. N. Antsiferov et al., RussianAgriculture Duringthe War (NewHaven,Conn.: Yale University Press,1930), 117-18. un. Gosplanand the Central Statistical Administration (TsSU) estimatedhorse numbers declinng from25million in 1920tobetween 18.9million and20.2million by 1922, withrecovery, dependingon thesource,beginningin 1923 or later; seeR. W.Davies,ed., From Tsarism to the NewEconomic Policy(Ithaca, N.~: Cornell University Press,1990),278.

103. ROAE7486.37.237, 11.271-68; Schillerhadspokento Sovietagricultural officialsin Moscowwhopredicted similarlevelsforthewholecountry(Carynnyk et al., Foriegn Office,71). 104. TeodorShanin,Russiaas a "Developing Society"(NewHaven, Conn.: YaleUniversity Press, 1985),140-41, discusses someof the specialists' viewsand evidenceon this point, See alsoAntsiferov et al., Russian Agriculture During the War. On Sovietofficials'viewsof agrarian overpopulation as a laborresourceand of collectivization as a meansfor tappingit, see Moshe Lewin, Russian Peasants andSovietPower(NewYork: Norton, 1974),30. One lateexamplefrom theSovietperiodis A.S. Libkind,Agramoe perenaselenie i kollektivizatsiia derevni(Moscow: Izd,Agramogo Instituta Kommunisticheskoi Akademii, 1931). las. ROAE7486.37.107, I. 12. On other issuesdiscussedat this importantmeeting, see Tauger, "ThePeople'sCommissariatofAgriculture," 155ff.

106. N. A. Ivnitskii, Kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie (nachalo 3O-khgodov) (Moscow: Izd. Magistr, 1996),192-94; Wheatcroft andDavies,"Population," inDavies,Wheatcroft, and MarkHarrison, eds.,The Economic Transformauon o/the SovietUnion, 1913-1945(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1994),68.

107. Seeforexample WheateroftandDavies "Agriculture," 119, 122;Penner, "Stalinand the Itlll'ianka" 31; James Mace, "The komitetyIUl.1.QJnOzhnykh selyan and the Structureof Soviet Rule intheUIaainianCountIyside, 1920-1933,"Soviet Studies 35,110.4(1983); 487-503; Kondrashin, Golod,36. 1m. See, for example,MosheLewin,"Who Wasthe SovietKulak?"in TheMakingofthe SovietSystem(NewYork: Pantheon, 1985), 121-41.

lW. A.V.Chaianov, TheTheoryofPeasant Economy (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1990); TeodorShanin,The AwkwaniClass(Oxford: Clarendon, 1972).

110. According to CalvinHoover, a DukeUniversity economics professor whospent 1929­ 1930in the USSRand whospoke to severalpeasants, the regimehadrequired localofficialsto designate certain peasants as kulaks even though they did not differ from the others; see The Economic LifeofSovietRussia (NewYork: MacMillan, 1931),74-75. Indirectives fordekulakization in 1931,western oblast' authorities orderedofficialsto usedata from 1928to determine which peasantswerekulaks becauseit wasimpossible totellat thetime;see Kollektivizatsiia sel'skogo

58 khoziaistva v zapadnom raione RSFSR (1927-1937 gg.) (Smolensk, 1968), 358. See also Gushchin,"Kollektivizatsiia v Sibiri,"83.

111. Ivnitskii, Kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie, 192-94, 226-62; Wheatcroftand Davies, "Population,"68. AccordingtoFitzpatrick,Stalin ~ Peasants, 83,about 60 percentofdekulakized peasants wereemployed in industry. Some weresent to cut timber, but many others were set up as farmers.

112. Fitzpatrick, Stalin ~ Peasants, 83, cites a figure of 12 million, Wheatcroftand Davies, "Population," 69,cite Sovietstatistics thatimplya net movementto towns of morethan9 million in 1930-1932

113. Kondrashin,Golod,78; OttoSchiller, "Agriculturein the Soviet Unionin 1931,"Public RecordOffice,(London),F037116335 N3569/1179/38; Holod 1931-1932 rokiv,34l.

114. Sotsialisticheskoe zemledelie, 3 April1932,p. 2; RGAE7486.37.27,11.204-05,240-32.

115. Theodore Schulz, Transforming Traditional Agriculture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress,1964).

116. An exampleof such a memoir accountis OrestPidhainyet al., eds., The Black Deedsof the Kremlin, v. 2 (Detroit: GlobePress, 1955),540; archival accounts includethe GPU special reportsin RGAE7486.27.237,to be discussedbelow. Stalin's exchangeofletters withSholokhov was publishedin part by KPSSFirst SecretaryNikita Khrushchevin Pravda, 8March 1963,p. 2, and apparentlyincompleteform in Voprosyistorii, 3 (1994): 13-22.

117. Dmytro Solovei, &'80100 u systemi kolohiial'noho panuvannia TsK KPSS v Ukrami," Ukra'iskyizhimyk 15(1958):27-29; S. V. Kul'chyts'kyi, Tsina ffVelikoho perelomeu II (Kiev:Vyd. "Ukraina," 1991),196-97,229-30. Seealso Fitzpatrick,Stalin ~ Peasants, 69-76; Viola,Peasant Rebels Under Stalin, ch. 7; Penner, "Stalin and the ltal'ianka"

118. Tauger, Commune to Kolkhoz: Soviet Collectivization and the Transformation of Communal Peasant Farming, 193~1941, Ph.D.dissertation (UCLA 1991).

119. Fitzpatrick,for example, assertsthat"the peasants ... were doing their best to find out what was the lowest levelof deliveriestheycouldget away with-ifnecessary,by lowering total production" (Stalin ~ Peasants, 70).

120. On thelinkbetweenthetraditional corporatevillage(mir inRussia,hromada in Ukraine), and the kolkhoz, see Tanger, Commune to Kolkhoz, ch, 2-3; Fitzpatrick, Stalin ~ Peasants, Lllff. Ukrainianpeasants, it shouldbe noted,also livedin corporate villages and approximatelyhalf of these repartitioned their lands like the traditional Russian village; see Tauger, Commune to Kolkhoz, ch. 1.

121. Penner The "Agrarian Strike," and "Stalin and the ltal'ianka,"

122. E. N. Oskolkov, Golod 1932/1933 (Rostov-on-Don: Izd. Rostovskogo Universiteta, 1991),21, obtained the annual report yieldestimate from recently published Soviet sources and

59 simply multipliedit by the official sown area. Some kolkhozy did not complete annual reports, however,andthosethat were sufficientlyorganizedto do so were probablybetter run and more productivethanthosewhichdid not; seeTauger,"The 1932Harvest,"83-84. Also, muchof the regionwasfarmedbysovkhozy, whichhadaverageyieldsof2.9 centnersin 1932,even lowerthan kolkhozy (I. E. Zelenin,"ZernovyesovkhozyDonai SevernogoKavkazav gody vtoroi piatiletki [1933-1937gg.]," Istoriia SSSR, 1958,no.2: 51), and by noncollectivized peasants,the yieldsof whose farms are highlyuncertain.

123. Data from the 19208are preharvestprojectionsby peasants, which statistical officials then inflated substantiallyout of distrust of the peasants and under political pressure to report large harvests. Data fromthe early 19308 werealso preharvestprojectionsprepared in a manner similar to the "biological harvest," which, as discussed above, overstated actual harvests substantially. See A. Yezhov [sic], Soviet Statistics (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House,1957),20-25; Wheatcroft andDavies,'TheCrookedMirrorofSovietEconomicStatistics," in Economic Transfo171Ultion, 27-28; Tauger, "The 1932Harvest,"71ff,andbelow.

124. Sotskllisticheskakl rekonstrulasiia sel'skogo khoziaistva 1932,no. 1,60-61; Zelenin, 'CZernovye sovkhozy,"51.

125. The model for such approaches is Iames Scott, Weapons ofthe Weak (New Haven, Conn.:YaleUniversity Press,1985).

126. SeeTauger, "People'sCommissariat of Agriculture," 153-55,whichdiscusseshowNKZ SSSR and other agenciesraised agriculturalplans during the processofcollectivization.R. W. Davies, The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivization ofSoviet Agriculture, 1929-1930 (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980),presents substantialevidence of Soviet leaders' and officials' views regarding the inherently low productive potential of traditional peasant farming and the great increasesin productivityand productionthat would follow from collectivization; see,forexample,pp. 170-72.

lZ1. RGAE748637.237,ll.78-93,132-35,156-61,199-205,217-19,232-45,268-71. Ontbe famine and the transportcrisis, see E. A. Rees, Stalinism andSoviet Rail Transport, 1928-1940 (London: MacMillan, 1995).

128. RGAE7486.37.237, U. 137-42. Anotherexample: LowerVolga partysecretaryPtukha appealed to Stalin in Ianuary 1932 to be allowed to follow the sowing plan received on 19 Novemberratherthanthe newoneftomNKZ,which was170,000hectares larger(RGAE748637.154, 1.45).

129. RGAE748637.237,ll. 215-16,220-21,247-63,268-71,32S-42.

130. Kul'chyts'kyi, "Do otsinka"; Oskolkov,Golod 1932/1933.

131. RGAE748637.104,I.64.

132 RGAE7486.37.237, II.232-45.

133. RGAE7486.37.237, ll.I99-205.

60 134. Ibi~,D.78-93,174-75,247-63,277-83,287-309,325-44.

135. Ibid.,11. 31~ 15,3~2. In thearchives Ioncemetanoldermanwho,whenI mentioned my workon the famine, replieddismissivelythatTrotskyistshad caused the famineby burning the fields.

136. Ibi~, D. 78-93, 137-42.

137. RGAE7486.37.235,11.64-68; 7486.37.237, D. 286,287-309,325-42; Penner, "Stalinand the Ital'ianka," 38-40. 138. RGAE7486.37.237, D. 325-42.

139. Ibi~, U. 232-45, 286-309, 325-42; Kondrashin, Golod, 83-85.

140. RGAE7486.37.154,D.200-02.

141. Kondrashin, Golod, 88-90; RGAE7486.37.237, 11.325-42; U.9-12, an OGPUspecial reporton graintheft in kolkhozy and sovkhozy, 28November1932,notes that theftcontinued on a massivescale despite issuance of advancesof incomeearned in kolkhozy and application of repressivemeasures againstthieves,in Ukraine, thecentralagricultural regions,Moscowoblast', the Volga, andelsewhere.

142 RGAE7486.37.237, U. 199-205. OntheSoviet-Japanese standoff, see G.A.Lensen,The Damned Inheritance: The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Crisis, 1924-1935 (Tallahassee, PIa.: Diplomatic Press,1974).

143. Carynnyketal.,Foreign Office, 40,42,46, 71,95,106,107,109.

144. As lateas 1935,whentheSovietregimeundertook a majorlandreformin thekolkhozy, nearly half still had the same land use difficulties as the old communes: interstripping,distant land, land intermingled between separate farms, etc. See for example Sotsialisticheskaia rekonstruasiia sel'skogo khoziaistva; 1935, no. 8: 4ff. On kolkhoz labor organization, see Tauger, Commune to Kolkhoz, chs. 4-6.

145. Holod1932-1933 rokiv,forexample,378-80,429-32; RGAE7486.19.179,1I.1-9,NKZ reporton kolkhoz laborday evaluationsin 1932and 1933.

146. The Agriculture Commissariat of the RSFSR issued directives for organizing counterplans at leastfor sowingin spring 1932(Sel'skokhoziaistvennyi biulleten' RSFSR, March 1932, pp. 23-29). For examples of counterplans being imposed on productive farms, see Sotsialisticheskoe zemledelie, 12September 1932, p.2; 14September, p. 1. TheCentralCommittee decree replacingthe contract system ofprocurements with a systemof per-hectare norms, and prohibitingcounterplans, was issued on 19January 1933 (P; N. Sharova, ed., Kollektivizatsiia sel'skogo khoziaistva: Vazhneishie postanovleniia Kommunisticheskoi Partii i Sovetskogo Pravitel'stva, 1927-1935[Moscow: Izd. Akademii Nauk,1957],441-45). Forexamples ofofficials punishedin 1933for imposingcounterplans, seelzvestiia, 3 July 1933,p. 3,23 July,p. 1.

61 147. RGAE7486.37.2359U.7-26; Kondrashin, Golod, 34,38.

148. Izvestiia, 12 February 1932, p. 3; Sotsialisticheskaia rekonstruktsiia sel'skogo khozitlistva, 19329 no. 1: 160-61.

149. Moshkov, Zemovaiaproblema, 190. In theUnitedStatesin the 1950slate harvesting andinadequate storagecausedlossesof 10percentof thegraincrop;seeCarlHall,DryingFarm

Crops (Reynoldsburg 9 Ohio: Agricultural Consulting Associates, 1957), 79 10.

150. RGAE7486.37.154, 11. 299-305. Forexpressions ofdefeat,seePenner, "Stalinandthe Ital'ian1ca," 46. 151. A reportby the Ukrainian Communist PartyCentralCommittee to the All-Union Central Committee specified that blacklisting villages had had an insignificant effect becausevillages were saturated with goods and everything could be obtained in raion centers (Holod 1932­ 1933 rokiv, 284). On the passportsystem, Fitzpatrick summarizes her findings by statingthat with the exception of 1933,when the regimemade a reasonably successful effort to control peasantmobility, itwasrelatively easyforemployable peasants toleavecollective farms,andthe regime actually encouraged such mobility in yearsof labor shortages (Stalin's Peasants, 96). Removal of peoplewithoutpassports fromtownsin 1933, moreover, has to beseen mostlyas a response to famine conditions in the townsratherthanexclusively as an antipeasant measure.

152 Sen,Poverty andFamines, 78. 153. Oskotkov, Golod1932/1933,21. 154. Tanger, "ThePeople'sCommissariat ofAgriculture," 55ff.

155. Ontheseconsiderations seeibid.,15Off. Theplansforcollectivization derivedfromthe program undertaken in 1928to establish somedozensof largegrainsovkhozy in the easternand southeastern regions, where agronomists calculated it wouldbe possibleto rely on the soil's natural fertility forfivetoten years~ Grekov, "Planorganizatsii krupnykh zemovykh sovkhozov i kontrol'nyetsifryna 1928-1929god,"Ekonomicheskoe obozrenie, 1928,no. 9: 49). On the model of foreign and especially U.S. farming, see Tauger, "The People's Commissariatof Agriculture," 151-52,andthecrucialarticle from1927 bytheSovietagronomist N.M.Tulaikov, "Bessmennyi kul'tury na saratovskoi oblastnoi sel'skokhoziaistvennoi opytnoi stantsii," in Tulaikov, ltbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow, 1963), esp.31-36.

156. RGAE260.1.217, reportsof meeting of instructors of NIKI on the harvest in Kuban kolkhozy in 1932, 11. 1-11. 157. GARFr-5446.13a. 259,1-12.

158. RGAE260.1.217, I.8.

159. RGAE 7486.10.152,II.56,58.

62 100. This was noted, for example at a crucial NKZ meeting in June 1930 to discuss plans for the newlycollectivizedagricultural sector (RGAE7486.37.107,1. 2). Davies andWheatcroft provide additional evidenceregarding the limited reserves offree land in certain regions, such as Ukraine and the North Caucasus, and the consequent difficulties local authorities had in introducting crop rotations e'Diskusiiai obsuzhdeniia," 98-99).

161. Carynnyketal., Foreign Office, 56,61,71,105,111,120,128,131,133,135,146,161.

162 M. S. Kipps, Production of Field Crops (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970), 208; Sotsialisticheskoe zemledelie, 12 February 1932,4.

163. Sel'skokhoziaistvennyi biulleten' SSSR, 29 February 1932, p. 12.

164. Carynnyketal., Foreign Office, 57,68, 105,128,131,133,134-47,150-51,161,162,174, 178-79; on Drusag, 160.

165. RGAE4372.30.870a, 1. 37ft, Gosplan surveyofagricultural conditions for August 1932.

166. Sel'skokhoziaistvennyi biulleten' SSSR, 20-30 August 1932, p. 2.

167. Sotsialisticheskoezemledelie, 21 August 1932, p. 2.

168. Sel'skokhoziaistvennyi biulleten' SSSR, 29 February 1932, p. 12.

1(9. Holod1932-1933 roki», 190-93,214; RGAE 7486.37.235, U.194-95,7486.37.237,11. 199-205,208-13,268-71,281-309;for press reports, seeSotsialisticheskoe zemledelie, 12 June 1932, p. 1; 12 August, p. 2; 30 September, p. 4.

170. Carynnyketal., Foreign Office, 156.

171. Sbomik VlZRa, 1933, no. 1: 26-27; no. 5: 149-53; no. 7: 77-82.

172 Ibid., no. 5: 149-53.

173. Ibid.,no.4: 101~.

174. Penner emphasizes the existence ofa networkofagencies providing information e'Stalin and the Ital'ianka," 44). Kalinin headed an investigation to the Volga in early 1932 (lstoriia Sovetskogo krest'ianstva, 2: 197). Molotov and Kaganovich traveled to Ukraine in July 1932, and whole groups oftop and mid-level officials were sent to Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and the LowerVolgain fall 1932; see Tanger, Commune to Kolkhoz, ch. 6.

175. Tanger, "AComparativeCase Study of SovietStatisticalFalsification," DonaldTreadgold Papers, University ofWashington, forthcoming.

176. Sobranie Zakonov (SZ) SSSR, 1932,pt, 1,no. 31, art 192.

117. Izvestiia (Moscow), 5 April 1933, p. 2. 63 178. ANKZreportsummarizing thedisputebetween theagencies isinRGAE7486.37.230, 11. 33-36. Itrefersto thenewmethodforestimating harvests in thecurrentyear,basedon reports by kolkhozyandsovkhozy,whichclearlyrefersto thesystemestablishedinMay 1932and dates thedocumentfromlate 1932,whenbothagencies haddata. ThefirstPolitburodiscussionof the disputebetweenthetwoagenciesis notedinRGASPI 17.3.982. itemno. 118.

179. RGASPI17.3.906. itemno. 122;LarsLibet al.,Stalin:r Lettersto Molotov, 1925-1936 (NewHaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995),234, letter79, 12September 1933.

UI). M.A. Vyltsan, "Metodyischisleniia proizvodstva zernav 1933-1940gg.,"I. E.Zelenin, "Osnovnyepokazateli sel'skkokhoziaistvennogo proizvodstva v 1928-1935 gg.," pp. 480-81, and pp. 471,473, both in Ezhegodnikpo agramoi istorii vostochnoi Evropy 1965 g. (Moscow: Nauta, 1970).

181. One report noted widespread cases of gribok in two Ukrainian provinces; OGPU SpecialReport11October 1932,RGAE7486.37.237,1. 388. Gribokisa generic termfora fungal plant disease and might refer to rust; see B. N. Ussovsky, Comprehensive Russilln-English AgriculturalDictionary(Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1967),71. ButtheGPUsourcedoes notindicateawareness of the magnitude of the problemin the countryat large.

182. Penner, "Stalinand the ltal'ianka," 29.

183. See Communeto Kolkhoz, esp.chs,2, 3, and 8; ViolaPeasantRebels Under Stalin.

184. Reference fromtheKremlin archive; Iamgrateful to N.I.Ivnitskii forsharingwithmehis noteson thissource,but the archivedid notallowhimto identifythe file.

185. RGASPI81.3.99, 1. 116. Thisandallsubsequent references to thisfileof Stalin's letters insummer 1932I received fromGaborRitterspom, to whomIexpressmyappreciation forsharing hisnoteswithme.

186. Holod 1932-1933 rokiv, 352-53.

187. RGASPI813.99,D.6S-66.

188. See MerI, Bauem Under Stalin, 222, where he asserts that the total 1932 harvest corresponded to thatof 1931,but its regional distribution was unfavorable, and that timelyacts bycentralorgansinMoscowcouldhavealleviated theproblem. Merlwasnotawareof theextent to whichtheregimereducedprocurement quotasin theregionswherehe consideredthe harvest to be unfavorable, especiallyUkraineand theNorthCaucasus, anddoesnotquestiontheofficial harvest data. 189. Thefollowing isbasedonTauger, "ThePeople'sCommissariat ofAgriculture," 157-58.

1~. RGASPI 813.99,D. 97-101. 191. Ibid., 11. 125-28.

64 192. Ibid., 17.3.899, item 11; 17.3.901, item 14/8; Sharova, 00., Kollektivizatsiiasel'skogo khoziaistva,425-26.

193. For cutbacks in procurement quotas, see Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest," 73, and Stalin's letter authorizing one set ofreductions in July 1932,RGASPI 81.3.99, 1. 115.

194. The new data on the harvest suggest that at least some of the Ukrainian sources on which the "Ukrainian famine" argument is based either consciously did not tell the truth or unconsciously made errors in their accounts, which were all written or presented decades after the events they purported to describe. See Elizabeth F. Loftus, "The Reality of Repressed Memories, "American Psychologistvol. 48, no.5, (May 1993),518-37,esp. her discussion ofthe substantial evidence that traumatic memories are as imperfect as othermemories and that people can unconsciously change or even fabricate them, 530-33.

195. See for examplePenner, "Stalinand the Ital'lanka"42ff, Conquest, HarvestofSorrow, 260-61.

196. See Osokina, Ierarkhiiapotrebleniia,29-30, and ftnote 3, above.

197. On the political departmens, see I. E. Zelenin, "Politotdely MTS (1933-1934)," Istoricheskiezapiski 76 (1965): 42-61; V. ~ Danilov and N. A. Ivnitskii, eds., Ocherki istorii kollekitivizotsiisel'skogo khoziaistva v soiuznykh' respublikakh (Moscow, 1963), 139,208.

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