Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I am grateful for help, comments, discussion and criticism to K. Berkhoff, R. Binner, R.W. Davies, P. Ellman, M. Jansen, J. Keep, L. Viola and E. van Ree. The author alone is responsible for the interpretation and for the remaining errors. V. Vodovozov, 'Moe znakomstvo s Leninym', Na chuzoi storone, vol. XII (Prague, 1925), pp. 176 – 177. Vodovozov knew Lenin personally in 1891 – 92, but was writing more than 30 years after the event in an émigré journal. A heavily edited version of Vodovozov's account of Lenin's attitude to the famine and the anti-famine NGO was included in the booklet published by the Marx – Engels – Lenin Institute, Lenin v Samare 1889 – 1893 (Moscow, 1933), pp. 98 – 101. The editor argued (pp. 98 – 99) that Vodovozov's account had 'a particularly tendentious character' and was quite misleading. According to the editor, Lenin did not oppose bourgeois-liberal elements feeding the hungry, organising public works etc., but did oppose seeing these activities as suitable for political exiles and revolutionary youth, as a contribution to the revolution and the overthrow of the autocracy. Lenin, according to the editor, saw these activities as a distraction from the revolution and advantageous for the ruling class since they lessened peasant dissatisfaction and despair. However, even this publication agrees that Lenin thought that feeding the starving was not appropriate for him and his comrades and was politically harmful. According to Belyakov, who did not know Lenin personally and was writing in a Soviet book in the Khrushchev era, it was not the famine which Lenin regarded as progressive but the consequences of the famine. 'Vladimir Il'ich had the bravery to declare that the consequences of the famine of 1891 – 92—the growth of an industrial proletariat, this gravedigger of the bourgeois system—were progressive, because they facilitated Russian industry and brought us to our final goal, to socialism via capitalism… The famine, in destroying the peasant economy, simultaneously destroys faith not only in the Tsar but also in God and in time without doubt pushes the peasants on the path of revolution and makes the victory of the revolution easier'. (A. Belyakov, Yunost' vozhdya (Moscow, 1960), pp. 78 – 79). The relevance of Lenin's position in 1891 in understanding the position of the Soviet leadership in 1932 – 33 was long ago argued by Conquest; see R. Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow (London, 1986), p. 234. Quoted from V. Kondrashin see M. Ellman, Socialist Planning 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 96 – 110; P. Gregory, The Political Economy of Stalinism (Cambridge, 2004), chapter 2. At the time, the tribute model was opposed by the Bukharinists. Subsequently, some economists have argued that it was economically unnecessary; see H. Hunter R.C. Allen, Farm to Factory (Princeton, 2003), pp. 165 – 171. This remains controversial. However, for many Bolsheviks it was politically necessary. It seems likely that a majority of the party would have endorsed Trotsky's criticism of Bukharinist policies. These policies, he wrote in 1929, might well yield fruits, but they would be 'capitalist fruits which at no distant stage will lead to the political downfall of Soviet power' (Byulleten' Oppozitsii, 1929, 1 – 2, p. 22). Other models of rapid industrialisation would have had different consequences. For example, in the early 1980s China launched rapid industrialisation based on strategic integration in the world economy (the 'open door' model). This model of rapid industrialisation produced some results similar to, but other results very different from, the tribute model. It was the tribute model of rapid industrialisation, not rapid industrialisation as such, which contributed to the 1931 – 34 famine. Some other model of rapid industrialisation might not have done so. The conventional view is that deviations from the trend in grain yields in this period were basically determined by the weather and the availability of traction power (mainly horses); see for example Hunter see Davies see Kondrashin see D. Reynolds, In Command of History (London, 2004), p. 330. C. Andrew P. Sudoplatov, Razvedka i kreml' (Moscow, 1996); I. Starinov, Superdiversant Stalina (Moscow, 2004); E.P. Sharapov, Naum Eitingon—karayushchii mech Stalina (St Petersburg, 2004); Yu.N. Paporov, Akademik nelegal'nykh nauk (St Petersburg, 2004). This decree seems to have been first published in Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1992, 1, pp. 125 – 128. It was reprinted in V.N. Khaustov, V.P. Naumov see A.I. Kokurin see J. Koshiw, 'The 1932 – 33 Famine in the British Government Archives', in W. Isajiw, Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, 1932 – 1933 (Toronto, 2003), p. 60. V.P. Danilov see Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. – The party leadership did some famine see Ibid., pp. 214 – – and Ibid., p. In to the economic acute of probable effect of out and likely effect on the was also a political It would have the image in the In August and to Stalin 100,000 of grain from the simultaneously 100,000 of grain to This would have been a of reduced the on the and been Stalin, it on the that 'The of grain when they are about the shortage of grain in the might a political i 1931 – 1936 gg. (Moscow, pp. – A of attention has been given in recent years to the activities of and in the West in such as Gorky also in the Stalinist A to grain out of about political by is an example of the could be on to Soviet grain for also had a effect on the of the Soviet Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. Penner, 'Stalin and the pp. – S. in Ukraine December 2004, p. 66. report was published in 1932 – 1933 1990), pp. – the are on p. This report seems not to be in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Quoted from The (London, 1960), p. In 1933 in the Volga there was a peasant to the effect that the government used the famine in the that some used food The of the latter was to in the and to be The of the was to the peasants and collective farmers & Penner, Golod…, pp. 214 – not the whole this well have elements of the from the of Stalin and at this were published in V. R. & L. Viola (eds), Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. (Moscow, pp. – Stalin's speech is discussed in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. – & Wheatcroft as rather than See for example the OGPU of August 1932, 1932 and 1932 sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, pp. – – and – S. i v Zapadnoi Sibiri v gody (Moscow, 2003), p. 1933 g. Nazinskaya pp. – as the of the 1933 is The History of the (New 2004), pp. – has that is possible that the of the the of a large of the in the of the USSR as a means both to and to the acute food See 1933 g. Nazinskaya pp. – i p. The 1933 are not discussed in Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of i p. has that the for the of the 1933 was the to the see The History of the p. For the text see Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, pp. – Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. argue that the famine was for the Soviet a about the situation (the international image of the this is obviously as a about the it is correct for the The and on were for the However, for the rural this ignores the in more than It also ignores the contribution to the grain made by rural It also ignores the contribution to the rural I. Stalin, Voprosy edn (Moscow, pp. – published in Pravda, 6 May The was published in Stalina and Petersburg, 2003), pp. – For the of a very similar speech Stalin made the see pp. – What is (London, p. to not the famine, but the and he to well have included not but also the famine. They are as of the same is also some Pravda, in p. Ibid., p. For a of the very to the during the famine see & i (Moscow, 2004), p. 119, two by about in the …, vol. 3, book 1, pp. – Tragediya sovetskoi derevni, vol. 3, p. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, p. 'The of the state to the peasants to the of was as a – 1932 – p. This was not to the v (Moscow, 2004), p. a and who being in prior to to but did not any for them. she wrote in her at the time, are but are In other the as inhumane were not really people at even their and and they and their did not the of appropriate to O.V. et (eds), Stalin i 1931 – 1936 gg. (Moscow, pp. – For a well-informed discussion of the the famine and Soviet policies towards Ukraine see The chapter and 'The 1932 – 33 Ukrainian Terror: on and the of in Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, 1932 – 1933 (Toronto, For an of the role of the famine and the discussion of it in contemporary Ukraine see 1932 – 1933 v i 2004, 3. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, pp. – famine which was was the – 43 famine in see Berkhoff, Harvest of (Cambridge, 2004), chapter This is in the Davies & Wheatcroft of the number of famine They in the of deaths from famine in 1930 – 33 about in the OGPU These will have been and their who during in the responsibility of the state for these deaths was than for who in their own in from them. Davies & Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger…, also an chapter on the 1930 – In the of some of the deaths to one of these three might be the and their who to in to from them. The policy of which they were was the of the as a This did not require all to be and their in was but their the of the In March at the of the trials, was accused of the in a one could this as that Stalin However, this in the of this and additional Conquest that the Stalin with to was (R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (London, 1990), p. 389). This that the in a of argument has been regarded as only it is only This article does not to on it but it with to the 1931 – 34 famine by and contemporary 2. a number of it is correct to Stalin's the in a 3. also several of 4. that the attitude of Bolsheviks to famines in and to that of 1931 – 34 in was quite different from that of the public 5. out that on the effect of does not but is in of industrialisation and was also of the conventional of the British ruling class during the British industrial 6. attention to the to explain both the of a famine in 1931 – 34 and the large number of of that famine, and the Davies & Wheatcroft argument that for the Soviet leadership the famine was by out that in rural it had a number of for the Soviet The author that these that a policy was one of the factors to the famine of 1931 – In to the in this there is also the argument from (the V.P. on I am grateful for help, comments, discussion and criticism to K. Berkhoff, R. Binner, R.W. Davies, P. Ellman, M. Jansen, J. Keep, L. Viola and E. van Ree. The author alone is responsible for the interpretation and for the remaining errors.
Michael Ellman (Thu,) studied this question.