Collectivization in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

It was pursued between 1928 and 1933 with the purpose to consolidate individual land and labour into collective farms called kolkhoz and to eliminate enemies of the working class.

In order to alleviate the situation, a system of food rationing was implemented in the second quarter of 1928 initially in Odessa, and later spread to Mariupol, Kherson, Kyiv, Dniprelstan (Dnipropetrovsk), and Kharkiv.

Most of kolkhozes and recently refurnished sovkhozes went through these years with few losses, and some were even able to provide assistance to peasants in the more affected areas (seed and grain for food).

The high expectations of the plan were outperformed by local authorities even without the assistance of the 7500 "Twenty-Five Thousanders who had reached some areas only by mid-February[3] – by March 70.9% of arable land and 62.8% of peasant households were suddenly collectivized.

Many arrested kulaks and "well-to-do" farmers resettled their families to the Urals and Central Asia, where they were often exploited in others sectors of the economy, such as timber cutting.

In response to the situation, the Soviet regime stepped back: the March 2, 1930, issue of Pravda published the Stalin's article "Dizzy with success".

[5] On July 20, 1931 – as a response to the numerous regional requests for additional numbers of kulak deportations Politburo of VKP(b) concluded that the "strategic task of the Party was almost accomplished.

By 1932 the sowing campaign of Ukraine was obtained with minimal power as most of the remaining horses were incapable of working, while the number of available agricultural tractors was too small to fill the gap.

Speculative prices on food in the cooperative network (5–10 times more as compared with neighbouring Soviet republics) invoked a significant movement of peasants in search for bread.

Starting in February 1932, administrative and territorial reform (oblast creation) also added mismanagement cast, - even Moscow had more details about the seed situation than the Ukrainian authorities.

In May, in a desperate effort to change the situation, the central Soviet Government provided 7.1 million poods of grain for food for Ukraine and reverted no less than 700 agricultural tractors intended for other regions of USSR.

By July, the total amount of aid provided from Central Soviet Authorities for food, sowing and forage for "agricultural sector" was numbered more than 17 million poods.

At the same time, GPU of Ukraine reported hunger and starvation in the Kyiv and Vinnytsia oblasts, and began implementing measures to remedy the situation.

However, between the Autumn of 1930 and the Spring of 1932, local authorities tended to collect products from kolkhozes in amounts greater than the minimum required in order to exceed the contracted target (in some cases by more than 200%).

On September 23, 1932, a telegram signed by Molotov and Stalin noted that the harvest of 1932 was "satisfactory", according to estimates provided by the agricultural planning authorities, and therefore requests for seed for winter crops were refused while total winter-tillage area demands were increased.

Such unrealistic figures resulted in demand that was impossibly to fulfill and resulted in lesser reduction of grain procurement plan and greater grain procurement than were possible in late 1932 through the February 5, 1933[18][19] On August 7, 1932, the Soviet government passed a law "on the safekeeping of Socialist property"[20] that imposed from a ten-year prison sentence to the death penalty for any theft of socialist property.

The initial wording of the Decree "On fought with speculation" adopted August 22, 1932 lead to common situations where acts by minor such as bartering tobacco for bread were documented as punished by 5 years imprisonment.

The existed practice of administrative punishment known as "black board" (black list) by the November, 18 Decree of Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine was applied to a greater extent and with more harsh methods to selected villages and kolkhozes that were considered to be "underperforming" in the grain collection procurement: "Immediate cessation of delivery of goods, complete suspension of cooperative and state trade in the villages, and removal of all available goods from cooperative and state stores".

In the same document, the OGPU informed about the number of peasants which already had left the Ukrainian territory (94,433 persons) during the period from December 15, 1932, to January 2, 1933 (data for 215 districts out of 484, and Moldavian ASSR).

The Soviet government denied initial reports of the famine (but agreed with information about malnutrition), and prevented foreign journalists from travelling in the region.

He easily reached neighbouring rural areas of capital of Soviet Ukraine – Kharkov, spent some days there and despite what he has not "saw in the villages no dead human beings nor animals" this journalist who never before saw a famine evidence, reported "that there was famine in the Soviet Union" (actually increasing of death rate from starvation wider affected Kharkov Oblasts in mid April-begin of June 1933).

Foreign Office of USSR without explanation refused permission to William H. Chamberlain, Christian Science Monitor correspondent, to visit and observe the harvest in the principal agricultural regions of the North Caucasus and Ukraine.

Scholars who have conducted research in declassified archives have reported[36] "the Politburo and regional Party committees insisted that immediate and decisive action be taken in response to the famine such that 'conscientious farmers' not suffer, while district Party committees were instructed to supply every child with milk and decreed that those who failed to mobilize resources to feed the hungry or denied hospitalization to famine victims be prosecuted."

Based on data collected by undercover investigation and photos, the Bohemian-Austrian Catholic Theodor Cardinal Innitzer by the end of 1933 made campaigns of awareness in the West about the massive deaths by hunger and even cases of cannibalism that were occurring in Ukraine and the North Caucasus at that time.

[37] First reports about difficulties with food (malnutrition, hunger) in rural areas and same situation in towns (which undersupplied through rationing system) from Ukrainian GPU and Oblasts Authorities referred to beginning, mid-January 1933.

While the numbers of such reports and areas mentioned in them increased (as also a quantity of food requested ) Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine issued a February 8, 1933 Decree which urged what every "hunger case" should be treated without delay and with maximum mobilization of own resources of kolkhozes, rayons, towns, and oblasts".

Between February and June 1933, at least thirty-five Politburo decisions and Sovnarkom decrees selectively authorized issue of a total of 35.19 million poods (576,400 tonnes)[28] or more than half of total aid to whole Soviet agriculture - 1.1 million ton provided by Central soviet Authorities in winter-spring 1933 - of grain for food, seeds and forage for Ukrainian peasants, kolhozes and sovhozes.

[39] Documents from the Soviet archives indicate that the aid distribution was made selectively to the most affected areas and from the spring months such assistance has the goal of the relief effort at sowing time was targeted to recovering patients.

A special resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine for the Kyiv Oblast, from March 31, 1933, ordered dividing peasants hospitalized into ailing and recovering patients.

After recognition of the famine situation in Ukraine during the drought and poor harvests, the Soviet government in Moscow continued to export grain rather than retain its crop to feed the people,[41] even though on a significantly lower level than in previous years.