page_title: Collectivization in the Soviet Union
section_title: Ukraine
hierarchical_section_title: Collectivization in the Soviet Union / Results / Ukraine
caption_attribution_description: English: Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933. In Famine in the Soviet Ukraine, 1932–1933: a memorial exhibition, Widener Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986. Procyk, Oksana. Heretz, Leonid. Mace, James E. (James Earnest). ISBN: 0674294262. Page 35. Initially published in Muss Russland Hungern? [Must Russia Starve?], published by Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien [Vienna] 1935. Italiano: Contadini denutriti nelle strade di Kharkiv, 1933. In Famine in the Soviet Ukraine 1932-1933: A memorial exhibition. Українська: Жертви голоду. Харків, 1933 р. Фото з Колекції Кардинала Теодора Інніцира (Архів Віденської Дієцезії) Фото зробив інж. А. Вінербергер Фотодокументи надані проф. Василем Марочком (Інститут історії України НАН України). Центральний державний кінофотофоноархів України імені Г. С. Пшеничного. Oд. обл. 5121Български: Жертви на глада по улиците на Харкив, 1933. Снимка от Famine in the Soviet Ukraine, 1932-1933: a memorial exhibition, Widener Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986. Procyk, Oksana. Heretz, Leonid. Mace, James E. (James Earnest). ISBN: 0674294262. Стр. 35. Публикувана първоначално в Muss Russland Hungern? [Must Russia Starve?], публикувана от Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien [Vienna] 1935. Deutsch: Die Opfer des Hungers. Fußgänger und Leichen verhungerter Bauern auf einer Straße in Charkiw, 1933 (Bild: Gareth Jones). Foto aus der Sammlung von Kardinal Theodore Innitsyra (Archiv der Diözese Wien). Basil Marochko (Institut für Geschichte der Ukraine).
context_page_description: The Soviet Union implemented the collectivization of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascension of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to integrate individual landholdings and labour into collectively-controlled and state-controlled farms: Kolkhozy and Sovkhozy accordingly. The Soviet leadership confidently expected that the replacement of individual peasant farms by collective ones would immediately increase the food supply for the urban population, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and agricultural exports. Planners regarded collectivization as the solution to the crisis of agricultural distribution that had developed from 1927. This problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrialization program, meaning that more food needed to be produced to keep up with urban demand.
  In the early 1930s over 91% of agricultural land became collectivized as rural households entered collective farms with their land, livestock, and other assets.
context_section_description: Most historians agree that the disruption caused by collectivization and the resistance of the peasants significantly contributed to the Great Famine of 1932–1933, especially in Ukraine, a region famous for its rich soil (chernozem). This particular period is called "Holodomor" in Ukrainian. During the similar famines of 1921–1923, numerous campaigns – inside the country, as well as internationally – were held to raise money and food in support of the population of the affected regions. Nothing similar was done during the drought of 1932–1933, mainly because the information about the disaster was suppressed by Stalin. Stalin also undertook a purge of the Ukrainian communists and intelligentsia, with devastating long-term effects on the area. Many Ukrainian villages were blacklisted and penalized by government decree for perceived sabotage of food supplies. Moreover, migration of population from the affected areas was restricted. According to Stalin in his conversation with the prize-winning writer Mikhail Sholokhov, the famine was caused by the excesses of local party workers and sabotage,
  I've thanked you for the letters, as they expose a sore in our Party-Soviet work and show how our workers, wishing to curb the enemy, sometimes unwittingly hit friends and descend to sadism. ... the esteemed grain-growers of your district (and not only of your district alone) carried on an 'Italian strike' (sabotage!) and were not loath to leave the workers and the Red Army without bread. That the sabotage was quiet and outwardly harmless (without blood) does not change the fact that the esteemed grain-growers waged what was in fact a 'quiet' war against Soviet power. A war of starvation, dear com[rade] Sholokhov. This, of course, can in no way justify the outrages, which, as you assure me, have been committed by our workers. ... And those guilty of those outrages must be duly punished.
  About 40 million people were affected by the food shortages including areas near Moscow where mortality rates increased by 50%. The center of the famine, however, was Ukraine and surrounding regions, including the Don, the Kuban, the Northern Caucasus and Kazakhstan where the toll was one million dead. The countryside was affected more than cities, but 120,000 died in Kharkiv, 40,000 in Krasnodar and 20,000 in Stavropol.
  The declassified Soviet archives show that there were 1.54 million officially registered deaths in Ukraine from famine. Alec Nove claims that registration of deaths largely ceased in many areas during the famine. However, it's been pointed out that the registered deaths in the archives were substantially revised by the demographics officials. The older version of the data showed 600,000 fewer deaths in Ukraine than the current, revised statistics. In The Black Book of Communism, the authors claim that the number of deaths was at least 4 million, and they also characterize the Great Famine as "a genocide of the Ukrainian people".
caption: Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933
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