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Event

Soviet famine of 1930–33

The famines that followed forced collectivisation in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russian regions and elsewhere; authors put the Union-wide toll between 5.5 and 14 million.

17 links, 10 backed by primary records. 3 more in open data

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Dates
1930–1934
Also known as
Soviet famines of 1930–33, Soviet famine of 1932–33
Wikidata
Q2497254
How each side tells it

According to Nicolas Werth

According to Anne Applebaum

Several famines, not one. Union-wide totals given in our sources run from 5.5 to 6.5 million (Sarah Cameron) and 6.5 to 7 million (Nicolas Werth), through some 7 million (the Russian State Duma, 2008), to about 14 million (the Law Library of Congress, citing Robert Conquest).

Connections 17

interventions

  • Joseph Stalin 6 May 1933 wrote on 6 May 1933 that farmers were waging a "silent" war against Soviet power: "War by starvation" According to Nicolas Werth Scholarship & press 1

    Werth reads this letter, a speech of 27 November 1932 and a letter from Stanislav Kosior of 15 March 1933 as showing that the leadership treated famine as a lesson for peasants. The sentence quoted accuses the farmers of waging the war.

  • State Duma of Russia 2 Apr 2008 its 2008 statement says some 7 million died, blames forced collectivisation, and condemns the regime Primary record 2
  • State Duma of Russia 2 Apr 2008 backed the 2003 UN joint statement; the vote was 370 to 56 Primary record 23
  • Nicolas Werth counts 6.5 to 7 million dead, among them 4.2 million in Ukraine and the Kuban and 1.3 to 1.5 million in Kazakhstan Scholarship & press 1
  • Sarah Cameron writes that its primary victims in Kazakhstan were pastoral nomads rather than peasants, and gives a Union-wide toll of 5.5 to 6.5 million Scholarship & press 45
  • Soviet government tried to cover up the famine, including a census of 1937 that showed large numbers of deaths According to Anne Applebaum Scholarship & press 67

involved

  • Ukraine the Holodomor of 1932–33 Primary record 28
  • Kazakhstan the Kazakh famine, from the winter of 1930 Primary record 24
  • Russia regions of the Russian republic of the time (the RSFSR, which then included the Crimea): the Volga, the Central Black Earth region, the North Caucasus, the Urals and part of Western Siberia Primary record 2
  • Belarus named in the Duma statement of 2008 Primary record 2
  • Ukraine the Law Library of Congress (2008), taking its figure from Robert Conquest, gives about 14 million victims in all, about 5 million of them in Ukraine Primary record 8
  • Ukraine a joint statement at the UN in 2003, backed by delegations including Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the U.S., gives 7 million to 10 million lives for Ukraine alone Primary record 9
  • Russia Levchuk and colleagues count 3.3 million direct losses in the Russian republic in 1932–34, Kazakhstan excluded, 32 per 1,000 against 133 per 1,000 in Ukraine Scholarship & press 10

includes

followed from

Timeline 4 dates
  1. 1930–1934 Soviet famine of 1930–33
  2. 6 May 1933 Joseph Stalin intervened in Soviet famine of 1930–33 According to Nicolas Werth
  3. 2 Apr 2008 State Duma of Russia intervened in Soviet famine of 1930–33
  4. 2 Apr 2008 State Duma of Russia intervened in Soviet famine of 1930–33
Proof 10 sources
  1. Food Shortages, Hunger, and Famines in the USSR, 1928-33, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, 2016. Scholarship & press
    the respected farmers were in essence waging a ‘silent’ war against Soviet power. War by starvation, Comrade Sholokhov.
    During his speech to the Plenum of the Party’s Central Committee on 27 November 1932, Stalin stated that the Soviet state had to respond to the peasants’ “tikhaia sapa” (war on the sly) with a “sokrushitelnyi udar” (knock-out punch).
    The weapon of famine was to be that punch, teaching the peasants the lesson that the state was stronger and would impose its will and force them to work on the collective farms.
    The unsatisfactory preparation for sowing in some of the worst affected areas clearly shows that hunger has not yet taught many collective farmers good sense
    killed some 6.5 to 7 million people, including an estimated 4.2 million in Ukraine and the Kuban, 1.3 to 1.5 million in Kazakhstan, and more than a million in the rest of the Soviet Union.
    The famines in Soviet Ukraine and the Kuban, which Ukrainian and Western historians have more thoroughly researched than the other famines, had a clear and distinct trajectory after the autumn of 1932
  2. Statement by the State Duma, 2 April 2008: In memory of the victims of the famine of the 1930s in the USSR (UN document A/62/813), Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, circulated by the United Nations, 2 Apr 2008. Primary record
    Some 7 million people in those regions died of starvation and diseases related to malnutrition in 1932 and 1933.
    strongly condemn the regime which disdained human life for the sake of economic and political objectives
    Many regions of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) (the Volga region, the Central Black Earth region, the Northern Caucasus, the Urals, the Crimea and part of Western Siberia) and of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus suffered as a result of the famine
    The State Duma reaffirms its backing for the joint statement by the delegations of a number of States Members of the United Nations, adopted at the fifty-eighth session of the General Assembly in 2003
    suffered as a result of the famine caused by forced collectivization.
  3. Russian parliament rejects call to label 1930s-era famine genocide, UNIAN, 2 Apr 2008. Scholarship & press
    The 370-56 vote by Russia`s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, is a pointed rejection of Ukraine`s repeated arguments that the Soviet leadership engineered the famine to target Ukrainians.
  4. The Kazakh Famine of 1930-33: Current Research and New Directions, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, 2016. Scholarship & press
    In Kazakhstan the famine’s primary victims were pastoral nomads rather than peasants.
    activists began a program of “full collectivization on the basis of sedentarization,” a scheme to settle and collectivize nomads simultaneously. Famine began in the winter of 1930, a year earlier than in other parts of the Soviet Union.
    The Kazakh famine was a part of the collectivization famines that afflicted the Soviet Union during the years 1930-33, most notably in Ukraine but also in the Volga, Don, and Kuban areas
    The catastrophe, which was sparked by Joseph Stalin’s policies of radical state transformation
  5. The Kazakh Famine of the 1930s (blog post by Sarah Cameron), Library of Congress, Kluge Center blog, Aug 2016. Scholarship & press
    In the Soviet Union, the death toll from collectivization was somewhere between 5.5 to 6.5 million people.
  6. Historian Anne Applebaum Details Stalin's War Against Ukraine: 'I Believe It Was Genocide', Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 25 Sep 2017. Scholarship & press
    the Soviet system tried to cover up the famine immediately after it happened, even going to the extent of covering up and hiding a census that was taken in 1937, which showed large numbers of deaths.
  7. Demography of a Man-Made Human Catastrophe: The Case of Massive Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933, Canadian Studies in Population, 2015. Scholarship & press
    For many years, the Soviet government blocked access to relevant demographic information and made it very difficult for scholars to investigate the 1932–33 famine.
  8. Soviet Union: Legal Acts Regarding the 1932-33 Starvation in Ukraine, Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Directorate, Oct 2008. Primary record
    In 1932-33 mass starvation occurred on the territory of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Russian provinces of the Northern Caucasus.
    According to different accounts, approximately fourteen million people became victims of starvation, including approximately five million in Ukraine.
  9. Joint statement on the seventieth anniversary of the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), UN document A/C.3/58/9, Delegations of 25 states, circulated by the United Nations, 7 Nov 2003. Primary record
    The Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), which took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people.
    we also commemorate the memory of millions of Russians, Kazakhs and representatives of other nationalities who died of starvation in the Volga River region, Northern Caucasus, Kazakhstan and in other parts of the former Soviet Union
  10. Regional 1932-1933 Famine Losses: A Comparative Analysis of Ukraine and Russia, Nationalities Papers, May 2020. Scholarship & press
    The number of 1932–1934 Famine direct losses is estimated at 3,942.5 thousand in UkrSSR
    and 3,322.1 thousand in RSFSR
    The relative direct losses, per 1,000 population, are 133.3 in Soviet Ukraine and 32.0 in Russian Federation, that is, direct losses in RSFSR are 4.2 times smaller than in UkrSSR.
    It should be noted that Kazakhstan was a part of RSFSR as the Kazak ASSR until 1936, but it is excluded from our analysis
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