Mass famine in the USSR in the period 1932-1933. Also has a name — Holodomor. Preconditions for mass famine, consequences and assessment of consequences. The article will be short enough, I will try to cover only the most important information about this terrible event.
Causes of mass famine
Years of poor harvest were also earlier, in the same Russian Empire. But then they did not lead to mass mortality. Moreover, the problem of mass famine in the USSR was caused not by problems with crop yields, but by the incompetence of the occupying Soviet power. The mass famine in the USSR in the period 1932-1933 was not the first under Soviet rule. There was famine before — a massive famine in the Volga region in the period 1921-1922. And even this hunger will not be the last with her.
The reasons for the massive famine were not natural. Only the Soviet government and no one else were to blame for them. The population was weakened due to dispossession and mass collectivization. Stalin’s grain procurements also dealt a serious blow. Bread and other foodstuffs were confiscated from people, not even leaving grain to grow new ones.
Nobody could close their eyes to hunger and endure it. The authorities decided to use reprisals against people in the form of confiscation of all products from stores, a complete stop of trade, taxes, arrests, expedited courts and others. In the North Caucasus alone, more than 20 thousand people were arrested in November 1932. And in December, the mass deportation of the villages began.
In addition, during the first five-year plan and mass famine, Stalin continued to sell grain and crops to other countries while the inhabitants of the USSR were dying of hunger. Many then regretted supporting the revolution.
The effects of hunger
There are many different letters and other messages from those times about this terrible event. It was reported that some were paid in grain, which was later seized anyway. Opponents were severely punished: they beat them with whips, arrested them, and mocked them in every possible way. Instead of normal food, people had to eat: nettles, quinoa, potato skins, meat of dead animals, and so on. In the same period, cannibalism spread.
Many supporters of communism and ideologies close to it touched upon the topic of famine during the Second World War in every possible way, as soon as they did not speak about the soldiers of the Third Reich and others, but at the same time, for some reason, they either do not talk about these events at all, or they say that it was needed and so on. Such people do not care about human losses, it is more important for them to justify their own ideology.
Many sought to travel to cities. But Stalin did not allow this and so that people would continue to die for the benefit of his regime, he signed an order to prohibit «by all possible means the mass movement of the peasantry.» The sale of train tickets has been discontinued. Special cordons were set up to prevent the peasants from leaving their places. As food they were left with the bark of trees and not yet eaten dogs and cats.
According to Russian scientists, the demographic losses amounted to more than several million. In Kazakhstan — more than 1,300,000 people, in the North Caucasus — more than a million people. In addition to hunger, many died due to suicide. The exact number of deaths is hardly possible to name, but various estimates are given for this, from 2 million deaths to 8,700,000 deaths.
