First of all, famines were common prior to the revolution and were in fact one of the major driving factors behind it, and it’s also worth noting that kulaks slaughtered livestock in protest against collectivization which played a major role in the famine.
And here’s a paper that I recommend reading about the famine. USSR actually sent aid to affected regions in an attempt to alleviate the famine. According to Mark Tauger in his article, The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933:
While the leadership did not stop exports, they did try to alleviate the famine. A 25 February 1933 Central Committee decree allotted seed loans of 320,000 tons to Ukraine and 240,000 tons to the northern Caucasus. Seed loans were also made to the Lower Volga and may have been made to other regions as well. Kul’chyts’kyy cites Ukrainian party archives showing that total aid to Ukraine by April 1933 actually exceeded 560,000 tons, including more than 80,000 tons of food
Some bring up massive grain exports during the famine to show that the Soviet Union exported food while Ukraine starved. This is fallacious for a number of reasons, but most importantly of all the amount of aid that was sent to Ukraine alone actually exceeded the amount that was exported at the time.
Aid to Ukraine alone was 60 percent greater than the amount exported during the same period. Total aid to famine regions was more than double exports for the first half of 1933.
According to Tauger, the reason why more aid was not provided was because of the low harvest
It appears to have been another consequence of the low 1932 harvest that more aid was not provided: After the low 1931, 1934, and 1936 harvests procured grain was transferred back to peasants at the expense of exports.
Tauger is not a communist, and ultimately this specific article takes the view that the low harvest was caused by collectivization (he factors in the natural causes of the famine in later articles, based on how he completely neglects to mention weather in this article at all its clear that his position shifted over the years). However, it’s clear that the Soviets really did try to alleviate the famine as best as they could.
The famine of 1931-1933 was not limited to Ukraine, but also affected the Russian Central Black Earth region, Volga Valley, North Caucasus, and Kazakhstan. This map from page xxii in Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 will give some sense of the geographic extent of the famine. In fact, while most of the famine victims were in Ukraine (some 3.5 million out of a population of 33 million), some 5-7 million died from the famine across the Union, and Ukraine was not the worst hit republic in relative terms - that misfortune befell Kazakhstan (then the Kazakh ASSR), where some 1.2 to 1.4 million of the over 4 million ethnic Kazakh population died through “denomadization” and the resulting famine. At least ten million people across the Union suffered severe malnutrition and starvation without dying, and food was scarce even in major cities like Leningrad and Moscow (although on the other hand, they did not face mass mortality). Kotkin very clearly states: “there was no ‘Ukrainian’ famine; the famine was Soviet.”
Some bring up massive grain exports during the famine to show that the Soviet Union exported food while Ukraine starved. This is fallacious for a number of reasons, but most importantly of all the amount of aid that was sent to Ukraine alone actually exceeded the amount that was exported at the time.
could you provide a source on that?
like yeah, there was a lower harvest at the time, but the blame is still put on the ussr planners for overextracting food supplies from sovhozes as well as rejection of foreign aid
To be clear, the famine was a huge tragedy that resulted in massive loss of life. And poor planning did play a role in this crisis. However, it was by no means an engineered crisis or a an inevitable outcome of the soviet system.
While the leadership did not stop exports, they did try to alleviate the famine.
So they “tried” but without trying the actual way to reach the goal. Funny. Also very important to note that “the leadership” is precisely what caused the situation in the first place: the new red bourgeoisie in their palaces were eating more than comfortably while the common people were starving.
First of all, famines were common prior to the revolution and were in fact one of the major driving factors behind it, and it’s also worth noting that kulaks slaughtered livestock in protest against collectivization which played a major role in the famine.
And here’s a paper that I recommend reading about the famine. USSR actually sent aid to affected regions in an attempt to alleviate the famine. According to Mark Tauger in his article, The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933:
Some bring up massive grain exports during the famine to show that the Soviet Union exported food while Ukraine starved. This is fallacious for a number of reasons, but most importantly of all the amount of aid that was sent to Ukraine alone actually exceeded the amount that was exported at the time.
According to Tauger, the reason why more aid was not provided was because of the low harvest
Tauger is not a communist, and ultimately this specific article takes the view that the low harvest was caused by collectivization (he factors in the natural causes of the famine in later articles, based on how he completely neglects to mention weather in this article at all its clear that his position shifted over the years). However, it’s clear that the Soviets really did try to alleviate the famine as best as they could.
The famine of 1931-1933 was not limited to Ukraine, but also affected the Russian Central Black Earth region, Volga Valley, North Caucasus, and Kazakhstan. This map from page xxii in Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 will give some sense of the geographic extent of the famine. In fact, while most of the famine victims were in Ukraine (some 3.5 million out of a population of 33 million), some 5-7 million died from the famine across the Union, and Ukraine was not the worst hit republic in relative terms - that misfortune befell Kazakhstan (then the Kazakh ASSR), where some 1.2 to 1.4 million of the over 4 million ethnic Kazakh population died through “denomadization” and the resulting famine. At least ten million people across the Union suffered severe malnutrition and starvation without dying, and food was scarce even in major cities like Leningrad and Moscow (although on the other hand, they did not face mass mortality). Kotkin very clearly states: “there was no ‘Ukrainian’ famine; the famine was Soviet.”
could you provide a source on that?
like yeah, there was a lower harvest at the time, but the blame is still put on the ussr planners for overextracting food supplies from sovhozes as well as rejection of foreign aid
I literally linked the source in my comment https://www.jstor.org/stable/2500600
oops, i didn’t realize this quote was also from that link 😬
To be clear, the famine was a huge tragedy that resulted in massive loss of life. And poor planning did play a role in this crisis. However, it was by no means an engineered crisis or a an inevitable outcome of the soviet system.
So they “tried” but without trying the actual way to reach the goal. Funny. Also very important to note that “the leadership” is precisely what caused the situation in the first place: the new red bourgeoisie in their palaces were eating more than comfortably while the common people were starving.
The only funny part here is that you evidently lack basic reading comprehension. The famine wasn’t just happening in Ukraine.