During the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine known as the Holodomor, at a time of need where food was scarce, the Soviets engaged in confiscation of foodstuffs from certain households in Ukraine. This is confirmed by both documentary evidence and eyewitness testimonies.
This post contains documentary evidence of mass confiscation of foodstuffs by the Stalinists. Expect a post with eyewitness testimonies soon, as a part 2.
Contemporary Soviet documents
-Letter from Komsomol member Pastushenko, Polonyste village, Baban raion, Vinnitsa oblast, to Joseph Stalin on 10 February 1932 on the requisition of grain and starving collective farmers (excerpt).
February 10, 1932
Good day honorable secretary of the AUCP(b), Comrade Stalin!
I am writing you this letter from a remote, out-of-the-way village in Ukraine. On a military map you will find the village called Polonyste on the river Yatran in the Uman region of Baban raion. Listen to this, Comrade Stalin! The village of 317 homesteads is collectivized a full one hundred percent. Do you think we have Soviet rule here?
No, it’s not Soviet, but completely bourgeois. Remember serfdom, six days of work for the master, and the seventh was а Sunday, when you didn’t work because it was a holiday? In the village cooperative, we work every day. There is nothing around the homes but empty buildings, yet we still have to pay taxes from our households for work done on the collective farm, and turn over our own savings; if you sign for a loan of 40 karbovantsi at the collective farm then [you must] pay it back from your homestead. It has been three years since everything has been collectivized by the kolhosp, yet we have to turn in grain procurements for land that we contributed to the kolhosp. Don’t go to the kolhosp for bread, but yourself provide 45 poods from three-tenths of a field, pay 28 karbovantsi for a share in the cooperative and pay a construction advance of 15 karbovantsi from your home; all that is left from three years of food are only kopeks of money — such is life.
Our village has fulfilled the [grain procurement] plan by 65 percent. The kolhosp shipped out the last funt of every sort of grain. There is nothing for the horses, only chopped wheat sprinkled with molasses; 56 horses have died already. Everyday three, four, six horses die of starvation; there is not a kernel left. There were 500 pigs, 184 of which have already died, [the remainder] eat sugar beet residue. There are only 60 cows, of which 46 will go for meat, leaving 14 for the entire village for all of 1932. That’s livestock breeding for you. Ours is a beet-growing and cattle-farming region and there are predictions that all the livestock will die in two months. People are beginning to die of famine, to swell and children ask for “bread, bread.” Do no think, Dear Leader, that people have refused to work… or [that there was] a bad harvest that nobody is considering. Last year’s harvest was average and the population barely survived because the plan was 38,000 poods. This year it’s 57,000 poods…
A brigade of 86 persons has spent three months doing nothing [but] check under every house, day after day. Since the campaign began, every house has been searched 60 times. They took the last funt of vegetables from the kolhosp, [leaving] collective farmers with two poods of potatoes per person; the remaining funts went for procurement. There is no provision for spring sowing, not a funt of seed, not a grain crop left: no potatoes, no beans, no legumes, no lentils, no peas, no buckwheat, no cattle grass, no barley, no oats, no soybeans — everything to the last funt. They have taken our beets and pickled cabbage and are taking away our chickens. Villagers say the secret slaughter of rabbits is taking place because there is nothing to eat. Such is the state of affairs, Comrade Stalin. […]
Komsomolets, Branch secretary,
member of RKM bureau
Pastushenko
(https://web.archive.org/web/20180831211853/http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/hdocuments.htm#2)
-Statement (
1,
2) on 16 April 1932 of a member of the artel "Red Field" VK Kyrychenko to the Cheremushnyanskaya village council of Valkiv district with a request to return confiscated bag of flour. (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/docs.php?pagep=2&doc=33)
-Letter from Vlas Chubar to Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin of 10 June 1932 on agricultural affairs in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (excerpt).
June 10, 1932
[...] In two trips (with a small break) I spent
15 days in the hardest-hit raions and villages of Kyiv and Vinnytsia oblasts. I
became familiar with the state of affairs in 13 raions of Kyiv oblast (visited
four villages) and four raions of Vinnytsia oblast (visited eight villages). I
should say that I was unable to collect and check statistics for every raion
and village to the same extent. Nevertheless, the main facts in all these
raions and villages are similar enough that some general conclusions can be
made. What, in fact, has happened to those raions that emerged extraordinarily
weakened in the spring (some villages destroyed, in the direct sense)?
The failed harvest of legumes and spring crops in
those raions was most likely not considered and the crop shortage was
compensated by industrial crops earmarked for state procurement. Along with the
general weakness of the state grain procurement plan, caused primarily by lower
harvests across Ukraine and colossal losses during harvesting (the result of
organizationally- and economically-weak collective farms and utterly inadequate
control by the raions and center), a system of requisitioning of all grain,
including seed reserves, from private farmers was introduced and everything of
value was requisitioned from collective farms. Even if collective farms met the
targets set by the procurement plan targets, they were issued an additional second
and often third [grain quota target]. In many cases, grain issued to collective
farmers as advance payment for work was confiscated by [collectivization] brigades
for state grain procurement. As a result, the majority of collective farms in
those raions were left without grain, without animal feed concentrate for
livestock, without food for the disabled, for teachers, etc. […]
The collective farmers with fewest workdays suffered
the most, although initially it seemed only private farmers were deprived of
grain. In March and April, there were tens and hundreds of malnourished,
starving and swollen people dying from famine in every village; children
abandoned by their parents and orphans appeared. Raions and oblasts provided
food relief from internal reserves, but growing despair and the psychology of
famine resulted in more appeals for help. Under these circumstances the
collective farms, Soviet state farms and raions should have launched a broad
network of public kitchens to deal with the acute shortage of food products in
general, and grain in particular.
Cases of malnutrition and starvation were noted
in December and January, both among private farmers (particularly whose farms
and belongings were sold for failing to meet grain targets) and among
collective farmers, especially those with large families. […]
A few words about the excesses of those in charge
of economic campaigns and the violations of revolutionary lawfulness that
took place in these raions, and, unquestionably, impacted their economic conditions.
They were primarily the following:
1) Orders for sowing were received by the raions
that contravened crop rotation [practices]; the raions, in turn, assigned
absurd tasks to the kolhosps, ignoring the views and experience of collective
farmers and [the rules of] agronomy. They were forced to sow winter crops on
stubble-fields, which predictably reduced crop capacity, and so on. As a result
in Baban raion, for example, with a capacity of 150 to 200 poods of wheat per
hectare, they collected only 60 to 70.
2) Raions were overloaded with work, which
disrupted fall sowing and winter plowing. The deep tilling of land for sugar
beets led to a drop in crop yields and loss of interest among collective farms.
Very few collective farms in these raions had fully prepared their fields for
beets by the fall; as a result, [only] 30 to 50 percent was prepared.
3) In the battle for bread, the right to sell the
property of malicious non-deliverers of grain (the law of 1929) was abused.
Private farmers’ harvests were gathered and threshed on so-called “red
threshing floors” with threshed grain delivered to grain collectors. This was
followed up by rigid “home” targets which were left unfulfilled and resulted in
the forced sale of all property, including buildings, domestic goods and
chattel, footwear, clothing, etc. In some villages, 20 percent or more of farms
have been sold. Add to this the malicious humiliation of private farmers, the
majority of who would have become collective farmers, and that of expelled
collective farmers, then it becomes clear why independent farmers have no
working animals, land allotments or livestock. Those whose livestock was not
sold by way of repressions sold or butchered [their livestock] themselves.
Leaderless brigades were on the rampage. Those guilty of excesses were tried,
but you cannot try all their deeds with one trial.
In addition to grain procurements, the same
methods were applied to potato and, especially, meat procurements. A question
arises: Is it not time to abolish the system of sales in fully-collectivized raions
(since the tools and means of production have been sold off)?
After such actions, it’s clear why so few village
council heads and leading [Party] activists from the previous campaigns are
left in local areas. Some were tried and removed, while others ran off on their
own. Few raion leaders have survived. The new people have lost their heads
under the colossal pressure from a public demanding food and the return of
illegally-sold property and improperly-collectivized livestock…
[…] The proper functioning of agriculture has
been impaired in the Ukrainian SSR over such a large area that special
corrections are required to state grain and meat procurement targets and other
agricultural goals; in this regard it will be necessary to address the Central
Committee and the Council of Peoples’ Commissars separately.
V.
Chubar
(Document reproduced in https://holodomor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/6.HolodomorDocuments-MY.docx.pdf, p. 10-11)
-Statement on 14 June 1932 of the 83-year-old peasant MP Volvach to the Cheremushnyanskaya village council of the Valkiv district with a request to return at least three poods of bread that was confiscated for non-compliance with the second norm of grain supplies. (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/docs.php?pagep=3&doc=42)
-Telegram from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the CPC USSR to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and the CPC UkrSSR of 21 June 1932 on ensuring the fulfillment of grain requisitions by collective farms and individual peasant
homesteads.
21 June 1932
Two addresses: Kharkiv, CC CP(B)U, [Stanislav] Kosior
Copy: CPC, [Vlas] Chubar
In accordance with the resolution of the CPC and CC of 20 and 21 June, the CPC USSR and the CC AUCP(B) propose that you ensure at all costs:
First. The delivery, in fulfillment of the annual grain requisition, by collective farms and individual peasant homesteads according to Ukraine’s allocated obligations: 14,500,000 poods in July; 72,400,000 poods in August; 71,200,000 poods in September....
Second…. No manner of evasion should be allowed under any circumstances for collective farms and individual peasant homesteads with regard to grain procurement or for grain delivery by state farms, or for the delivery schedules established for your region according to the resolutions of 20 and 21 June.
Molotov, Stalin
-Statement (
1,
2) on 1 July 1932 of a resident of the village of Cherkasy, Lozova GI Tkachenko, to the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee about the illegal confiscation of the house, seeds, sale of property for nothing at the expense of grain supplies and a request to help return the house so that his family would not go hungry. (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/docs.php?pagep=3&doc=556)
-Statement (
1,
2) on 12 August 1932 of a resident of Cherkasy Lozova Kharkiv suburban strip, widow TT A Muscovite asked the Kharkiv Regional Committee to return a cow, all vegetables, and bread illegally confiscated from her by the Cherkasy Village Council, despite paying all agricultural taxes on time. (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/docs.php?pagep=4&doc=531)
-Statement (
1,
2) on 29 August 1932 of Manchenkov PG Babich to the Kharkiv Regional Executive Committee with a complaint about the actions of the Manchenkivka village council, which took away, "all cattle, the last bread to the pound, left nothing to feed the family." (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/docs.php?pagep=4&doc=533)
-Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine of 18 November 1942 on measures to strengthen grain
procurement (excerpt).
November
18, 1932
III. On grain procurements from
collective farms
On collective farm reserves
In
accordance with the resolution of the CC AUCP (b) stating that “the fulfillment
of the grain procurement plan is the highest priority mission for collective
farms, Soviet farms, MTS [machine and tractor stations] and private farmers,”
the Central Committee of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Ukraine expressly
points out to all Party organizations in Ukraine that the full performance of
grain procurement plans is the principal duty of all collective farms and MTS before
the Party and the working class, the highest priority task to which of all
other collective farm tasks are subordinate, including the formation of various
collective farm reserves: seed grain, fodder, food supplies and others.
In accordance
with the above, the CP(b)U CC informs Party organizations that:
1.
The mission of Party organizations is the full performance of the grain procurement
plans by January 1 and formation of seed reserves by January 15.
2. A ban shall be
immediately instituted on any and all natural reserves stored in collective
farms that are failing to perform grain procurement plan; these reserves shall
be inspected [to determine] their real size, places of storage, individuals
responsible for their safekeeping; this matter shall be placed under the direct
control of raion executive and Party committees.
3.
Raion executive committees shall be authorized to transfer all reserves stored
by collective farms that are failing to perform grain procurement plans to the
grain procurement reserves.
4. Where sowing seed reserves are concerned, paragraph 3 shall only be
implemented upon prior consent of oblast executive committees for each separate
collective farm.
The CC
CP(b)U considers following these instructions on natural reserves to be
exceptionally important and places political responsibility for their correct
implementation upon oblast Party committees, foremost upon the first
secretaries and the chairmen of executive committees.
On in-kind fines and combating
abuses in collective farms
1.
Upon receipt of this decree, the distribution of any in-kind natural [grain]
advances to all collective farms failing to perform grain procurement plans
shall be discontinued.
2.
The return of illegally-distributed grain shall be immediately organized in
those collective farms that are failing to perform grain procurement plans and
have distributed more than the established quotas designated for public
consumption and are engaged in additional distribution of different types of
lower grade grains, byproducts, etc.; this grain shall be handed over for the
fulfillment of grain procurement plans.
The
chairmen of these collective farms (Communists and non-Party members) shall be
held responsible for the misappropriation of collective farm grain;
incorrectly-distributed grain shall be first seized from the board members and
administrative staff of these collective farms (accountants, store-keepers,
field workers, etc.).
3.
The seizure of grain stolen from collective and Soviet farms during crop
harvesting, milling, transportation, storage, etc., by collective and private
farmers, especially thieves and loafers without any workdays, and grain
reserves, shall be organized immediately in all raions.
In
implementing this measure, it is necessary to secure the support of the best
collective farmers for working in the fields, milling and other collective farm
jobs, without resorting to mass searches of collective and private farmers.
4. In
those collective farms failing to perform grain procurement plans, all the
grain harvested by collective farmers from their home garden plots shall be
counted as their in-kind payment for workdays; any excess grain shall be
collected towards grain procurements.
5.
Fines shall be levied on those collective farms that permitted the stealing of
grain and are maliciously undermining grain procurement plans in the form of
additional meat procurement targets: they will supply a 15-month quota of meat
from collectivized and privately-owned livestock.
Fines shall be imposed by raion executive committees upon prior consent of
oblast executive committees for each separate case. Furthermore, raion
executive committees shall establish deadlines and sizes of fines for each
collective farm (within the limits of the 15-month meat quota) according to the
conditions in each collective farm.
The
collection of fines shall not release collective farms from their duties to
fully perform grain procurement plans. If a collective farm takes active
measures to fully meet its grain procurement targets by a set date, then a fine
may be cancelled upon prior consent of the oblast executive committee. [...]
On measures to combat kulak
influence in collective farms and village party organizations
For
the purposes of overcoming kulak resistance and fully performing grain
procurement plans, the CC CP(b)U resolves the following:
1.
Collective farms that are maliciously sabotaging state grain procurement plans
shall be blacklisted.
The
following measures shall be imposed upon blacklisted collective farms:
а)
Immediate suspension of delivery of goods, cooperative and state trade
activities in these villages and removal of all available goods from
cooperative and state stores;
b)
Full prohibition of kolhosp trading activities between collective farms,
collective and private farmers.
c)
Suspension of all crediting activities and a demand for pre-term collection of
credits and other financial obligations;
d)
Investigation and purging of collective farms in these villages, followed by
the removal of counterrevolutionary elements and the organizers of
grain-collection disruptions;
e)
Oblast executive committees shall blacklist and warn collective farms about
being blacklisted by issuing appropriate resolutions.
Oblast
executive committees shall immediately report the collective farms being
blacklisted to the CC.
IV. On grain procurements from
private farmers
1.
Fines shall be levied on those private farmers who are maliciously undermining
grain procurement plans (be they contractual or voluntary obligations) in the
form of additional meat procurement target to supply a 15-month quota of meat.
These
fines shall be imposed by village executive committees upon prior consent of
raion committees in each separate instance. Furthermore, village councils shall
establish the deadlines and size of fines for each household within the limits
of 15-month meat and one-year potato quotas, depending on the conditions in
each farm.
The
payment of fines shall not release the farms from their duty to fully perform
the grain procurement plan.
If
private farmers fully perform grain delivery plans by established deadlines,
then the fines may be cancelled by decision of raion executive committees.
In
certain raions (subject to approval by oblast executive committee resolutions)
fines may be levied in the amount of a one-year potato quota.
Fines
may be doubled in extraordinary circumstances, subject to approval by special
resolutions of oblast executive committees.
2.
The CC warns all local Party organizations and workers against substituting
consolidated work in the battle for grain with the simple administration and
wide-scale levying of fines. The purpose of in-kind fines is to ensure full
performance of grain procurement plans.
3. To
immediately collect seed grain and foodstuff loans given to private farmers by
collective farms in their raions without recourse for appeal; in cases where
loans issued to private farmers were repaid by collective farms (in Vinnytsia
oblast, for example), the loans shall be collected from the private farmers and
credited to the collective farms’ grain procurement targets.
4.
Organize brigades consisting of collective farm activists (from a given village
or those in the area) from collective farms that have fully performed their
grain procurement plans, or are on the verge of doing so, to assist in the full
performance of grain procurement plans by the private farming sector.
Organize,
by December 1, at least 1,100 of these collective farmer brigades throughout
Ukraine, according to the following oblasts and numbers:
Vinnytsia -200 Kyiv -300
Chernihiv -100 Kharkiv -350
Odesa -
50 Dnipropetrovsk -
50
Donbas -
50
5.
Private farmers who have conscientiously performed their grain procurement
duties, especially those who have done so ahead of schedule, shall be
recognized by resolutions of village executive committees, assistance
commissions, etc., and shall be included in the grain procurement brigades,
assistance commissions and so forth.
6.
Kulaks who have failed to deliver grain shall be subject to repressions
provided by Article 58 of the Criminal Code, either through judicial or
administrative proceedings. [...]
(Document reproduced in Pyrih, Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, p. 22-24)
- Letter from the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine of 24 December 1932 on the mandatory shipment of all collective farm grain reserves, including sowing seed, to complete the grain procurement plan.
To: Secretaries of Party raion and oblast committees, persons deputized by
CP(b)U
December
24, 1932
In
accordance with the cancellation of the CC CP(b)U resolution from November 18 concerning
kolhosp inventories, we propose:
1.
All collective farms that failed to perform grain procurement plans have five
days to ship, without exception, all kolhosp reserves, including sowing seeds, to
fulfill grain procurement quotas.
2.
Everyone resisting this measure, including communists, shall be arrested and
tried.
3.
Warn all collective farm heads that if any hidden reserves, stores and the like
are found after the set date, then the chairman, and other guilty parties will
be brought before the courts and severely punished.
4.
Order all raion Party council secretaries, chairmen of raion executive
committees and persons authorized by oblast committees to deliver this
resolution for signing by the heads of collective farms in 24 hours’ time.
Kosior
Stroganov
Alekseiev
(Document reproduced in Pyrih, Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: Documents and Materials, p. 32)
-Letter from Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine of 29 December 1932 to oblast and raion Party committees on collecting all available reserves for grain procurement.
December 29, 1932
Raion workers have not yet understood that the #1 priority for grain procurement in those collective farms that have failed to perform their duty before the state is the submission of all available seed, including so-called sowing reserves, towards the grain procurement plan.
Accordingly, the CC AUCP(b) has canceled the CC CP(b)U’s decision from November 18 on non-shipment of seed reserves that had weakened our positions in the battle for grain.
The CC CP(b)U orders those collective farms that have not fulfilled the grain procurement plan to immediately hand over all available reserves, including so-called sowing seed, in the course of five to six days, for the fulfillment of the grain procurement plan.
Towards this end, the CC orders the immediate mobilization of all transport vehicles, working animals, automobiles and tractors. In one day’s time, orders should be issued for the daily provision of the necessary number of horses, including for private farmers.
Any delays in the sending out of reserves will be considered by the CC to be sabotage of grain procurement by raion leaders and will be met with commensurate measures.
Secretary CC CP(b)U S. Kosior
(Document reproduced in Pyrih, Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: Documents and Materials, p. 34)
-Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of 1 January 1933 on grain procurement in Ukraine (excerpt).
1 January 1933
The CC CP(B)U and CPC UkrSSR shall widely inform village councils, collective farms,
collective farmers, and toiling private farmers that....
b) Those collective farms, collective farmers, and private farmers who stubbornly inisst on misappropriating and concealing grain will be subject to the strictest punitive measures provided by the USSR Central Executive Committee resolution of 7 August 1932 “On the safekeeping of property of state enterprises, collective farms, and cooperatives and
strengthening public (socialist) property.”
Secretary, CC AUCP(B), J. Stalin
(Document reproduced in https://holodomor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/6.HolodomorDocuments-MY.docx.pdf, p. 28)
-Report from the Voroshilov Party committee to the Donetsk oblast committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine of 4 January 1933 on blacklisting the kolhosp in Horodyshche for the systematic non-performance of grain procurement plans.
January
4, 1933
Horodyshche
village is the largest in Voroshylov raion with more than 1,000 farms, mostly staroveri
[old believers] for whom farming has always been a supplementary source of
income as the overwhelming majority of homesteads have been traditionally
engaged in trade. This village was found to host the largest kulak community.
Thus,
the political campaign measures in Horodyshche were implemented with great
difficulty and encountered active resistance from most of the population. In
addition to the malicious sabotage of Soviet government efforts, groups of
bandits, horse thieves, and the like used to live and hide in this village
during the civil war.
Over
the years, the Horodyshche village has never fulfilled grain procurement plans.
The
persistent neglect of activities conducted in the village by Party and Soviet
authorities, cover-ups and familial relationships with dekulakized village leaders are well-preserved to this day,
despite the three-year existence of the collective farm that includes most of
the people in the village.
In
1931, the grain procurement plan was 10,000 centners [100 kilograms] for a grain crop sowing area of 4,647
hectares; it was 64 percent performed, whereas the plan for the [entire] raion
was performed 105 percent.
The
1932 plan of 6.5 thousand centners was 23.9 percent performed as of January 2.
In
the two months since the collective farm has been blacklisted (November and
December), 373 centners, or 5.6 percent of the annual plan, were delivered to
the state, including 83 centners of re-threshed grain, 63 centners of what was
obtained illegally by farmers and 6 centners of stolen [grain]. [. . .]
A
thorough investigation revealed that the trade ban did not produce the desired
effect, because the population, acting through family members and relatives who
work in industry, continued consuming goods from the workers’ cooperative,
factory and village outlets.
Agricultural
products are being secretly carried away for sale by, mostly to Debaltsevo
station. Horodyshche farmers have 365 cows, 62 heifers, 56 horses, 10 pairs of oxen
(in addition to small livestock), 100 hectares of home garden plots, 28 hectares
of orchards that provide large incomes for these farms through the sale of
agricultural products at the stations that are located relatively close by.
The
following measures were used:
1. In
addition to the closing of village stores and Donbastorh [Donbas trade network], strict and closed-list
distribution of goods was introduced to the coal miners’ and collective farm
workers’ cooperatives. One thousand and twenty family members of collective and
private farmers engaged in industrial production were taken off the supply
list.
2.
Credits in the amount of 23,547 rubles were collected ahead of their scheduled
repayment.
3.
Three MTS [machine tractor station] tractors were seized from the collective
farm.
4. An
investigation into collective farm personnel was conducted resulting in the
purging of 58 persons (3 kulaks, 22 kulak relatives, 32 thieves, slackers,
speculators and kulak supporters). This group, which sought to demoralize the
collective farm and organized resistance, was expelled at a meeting of
collective farm worker teams with the support of the collective farm majority.
5.
Forty-three kulak families that had fled their previous place of residence in Horodyshche
were returned to the kulak settlement in the raion.
6.
The leadership of the collective farm was put on trial. The investigation
uncovered serious abuses. The case is now before the oblast court, where it was
submitted on December 23. No response has thus far been received.
7.
The collective farm’s sowing seed reserves of 356 centners were requisitioned
for the grain procurement campaign.
All
these measures were implemented in combination with organized work with the
public and the participation of the best the collective farm activists in the
grain procurement campaign.
A city
Party committee team of 10 leading raion activists is working in the collective
farm.
In
order to deliver a decisive blow to chronic sabotage by kulaks in Horodyshche,
we ask the Party oblast committee to authorize the following additional
repressive measures for the Horodyshche village collective farm:
1.
Levy 15-month meat quota fines upon collective and private farmers.
2.
Assign the best plots of the spare 1,300 hectares of land available to the
collective farm to coal-mine food producers, as repressions.
3.
Dismiss at least 150 Horodyshche village residents from [industrial] operations
for taking active part in the sabotage and derailment of the grain procurement
campaign under the guise of industrial laborers after discussing the list of
those to be dismissed with collective farm organizations and members.
4.
Issue a warning to the collective farm and residents of Horodyshche: If the
sabotage of grain procurement and the hiding of stolen grain continue, city
organizations will ask the government to resettle saboteurs to the northern
oblasts and bring in conscientious collective farmers from city suburbs to take
their place; the houses of collective farmers in villages situated near
industrial sites will be made available to industrial laborers in need of
accommodations.
5.
Request the speedy dispatch of oblast court personnel in the case of the
Horodyshche collective farm leadership.
Secretary,
CP(b)U Voroshylov city committee, Kholokholenko
Commissioner
of the oblast committee, Lyrev
(Document reproduced in Pyrih, Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: Documents and Materials, p. 36-37)
-
Act of 1 February 1933 drawn up by the brigade of the Zamistyanska village council of the Valkiv district stating that as a result of a search of a peasant ZA A pit was opened, from which up to 3.5 pounds of rye, up to 2 pounds of beans and up to 2 pounds of dried pears were removed and confiscated. (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/docs.php?pagep=2&doc=195)
-Complaint from Hanna Derevinskaya, Krasnopillya, to the Dnipropetrovsk city council of 26 February 1933 about the requisition of food for grain procurement.
February
26, 1933
To
the City Council of Dnipropetrovsk oblast
from
Citizen Derevinskaya, Hanna,
Krasnopillya
STATEMENT
Please
consider my statement on the unruly work of brigades dispatched by the village
council and the representative of the Petrovsky factory.
On
February 10, a grain procurement brigade came to me and asked that I
voluntarily give what beans I could. From
what I had left to feed the family I gave three kilograms but they took it all
(40 kilograms).
On
February 23, another brigade made up of the same group came and requested
potatoes which I received for labor in workers’ gardens on days off for a
family of four which works at the Petrovsky factory; the potatoes received from
the cooperative were only for feeding our families. Despite the fact that the
potatoes were issued by the state and equally among the other workers who worked in the gardens,
including the head of the Petrovsky factory brigade, they did not realize that
they’re undermining spring sowing in the workers’ gardens. Acting on their own,
they took 125 kilograms of potatoes and 38 kilograms of beets from the cellar.
I have fulfilled the entire grain procurement farming quota. I ask your
assistance in returning the confiscated food issued by the cooperative.
Appellant
Derevinskaya 26.II.1933
(Document reproduced in Pyrih, Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: Documents and Materials, p. 45)
Contemporary Photographs
-
Photograph of Komsomols confiscating grain allegedly hidden by kulaks. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RIAN_archive_79113_Seizing_grain_from_kulaks.jpg)
-
Photograph in November 1932 of Soviet soldiers confiscating large amounts of crops from farmers in Odessa, Ukraine. (https://allthatsinteresting.com/holodomor-ukrainian-famine#7)
-
Photograph of a brigade of men with grain confiscated from a nearby house. (https://education.holodomor.ca/educational-resources-list/photo-gallery/historical-photographs-of-the-holodomor-2/)
-
Photograph in October 1932 of Soviet authorities confiscating grain from a family in Novokrasne. (http://euromaidanpress.com/2018/11/24/let-me-take-the-wife-too-when-i-reach-the-cemetery-she-will-be-dead-stories-of-holodomor-survivors/)
-
Photograph of Soviet authorities searching for peasant bread. (http://www.golodomor.kharkov.ua/gallery.php?pagep=2)
-
Photograph of mass grain confiscation in front of a home in the Baryshivka district, Kyiv region. (http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pic%5CG%5CR%5CGrain%20requisition%20in%20Baryshivka%20district%201930.jpg)
-
Photograph of a brigade of men searching for "hidden grain". (https://education.holodomor.ca/educational-resources-list/photo-gallery/historical-photographs-of-the-holodomor-2/)
