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Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

R.W. Davies ,
M.B. Tauger  and
S.G. Wheatcroft
R.W. Davies
Affiliation:
Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
M.B. Tauger
Affiliation:
Department of History, West Virginia University
S.G. Wheatcroft
Affiliation:
Centre for Russian and Euro-Asian Studies, Department of History, University of Melbourne, Australia
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Extract

Most western and all Soviet studies of the Stalinist economy have ignored the role played by the stockpiling of grain in the agricultural crisis of the early 1930s. Thus in his major work on Stalinist agriculture published in 1949, Naum Jasny frankly admitted that data were insufficient to reach a conclusion, merely noting that “stocks from former years probably declined during 1932.” Baykov, Dobb, Volin and Nove said nothing about grain stocks. At the time, western commentators did pay some attention to the possibility that the stockpiling of grain exacerbated the famine. In autumn 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria, and in spring 1932 British diplomats reported that Karl Radek had told them that, owing to the threat of war in the far east, enough grain had been stored to supply the army for one year.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , Fall 1995 , pp. 642 - 657
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1995

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References

The authors are most grateful to Oleg Khlevnyuk for his assistance in research for this article.

1. Jasny, Naum, The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR: Plans and Performance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1949), 757.Google Scholar

2. See Baykov, Alexander, The Development of the Soviet Economic System (New York: Macmillan, 1947 Google Scholar; Dobb, Maurice, Soviet Economic Development since 1917 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948 Google Scholar; Volin, Lazar, A Century of Russian Agriculture: From Alexander II to Khrushchev (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nove, Alec, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. (Harmondsworth: Allen Lane, 1969.Google Scholar

3. Haslam, Jonatham, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1930–33: The Impact of the Depression (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), 84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Duranty, Walter, Duranty Reports Russia (New York: The Viking Press, 1934), 342.Google Scholar

5. RTsKhlDNI (Rossiskii tsentr khraneniya dokumentov noveishei istorii), f. 17, op. 162, d. 14, 11.34–5; this figure, for the agricultural year 1932/33, includes the OGPU armies. In this paper our discussion takes place in terms of the agricultural year, which ran from harvest to harvest, July-30 June.

6. Slavic Review 53, no.l (Spring 1994): 318.

7. TLS, 11 February 1994. In The New York Review of Books, 23 September 1993, he drew attention more briefly to “the figures on the millions of tons of available grain reserves” which demonstrated that “the famine of 1933 was deliberately carried out by terror. “

8. See S.G. Wheatcroft, “Grain Production and Utilisation in Russia and the USSR before Collectivisation,” Ph.D. thesis (CREES, University of Birmingham, 1980), 561–65.

9. See the grain-fodder balances in RGAE (Rossiskii gosudarstvennoi arkhiv ekonomiki), f. 1562, op. 3, d. 178, 11.49, 51, 53 and f. 1562, op. 3. d. 239, 1.8.

10. Statisticheskoe obozrenie, no. 12 (1929): 55–61 (A.Mikhailovskii).

11. KPSS v rezolyutsiiakh i resheniiakh s “ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, 7th ed, 2 (Moscow: Gospolitizat, 1953), 337.

12. Spravochnik po khlebnomu delu (2nd ed, 1932), 122.

13. Statisticheskoe obozrenie, no.12 (1929), 57 (Mikhailovskii). This figure did not, of course, include the “transitional stocks. “

14. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, protocol no. 86, item 6. The resolution added that the council of labor and defence should report to the Politburo on the size of the additional mobfond (mobilization fund) of food grains.

15. RTsKhlDNI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5388, 1. 105.

16. RTsKhlDNI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5388, 11. 111–12 (letter dated December 5).

17. Spravochnik po khlebnomu delu, loc.cit.

18. Statisticheskoe obozrenie, no. 5 (1930): 128–29. Total visible stocks amounted to 11.756 million tons on 1 January 1930, as compared with only 3.780 million on 1 January 1929. Of these, “planners’ stocks” amounted to 7.838 million tons (see table 1).

19. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, protocol no. 128, item 20, dated 30 May 1930. Note that by 1 August 1930 planners’ stocks had fallen to 1.462 million tons (see table 1).

20. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 9, 1. 110, item 32. These figures apparently included fodder grains as well as food grains.

21. RTsKhlDNI, f. 79, op.l, d. 617; draft of a speech prepared at the beginning of 1933. We have been unable to ascertain whether mobfond is the same as the “military stocks” (voennyi zapas) of 25 million poods (.410 million tons) referred to in the protocols of the Politburo for 13 April 1930 (RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, protocol no. 123, item 77).

22. GARF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii), f. 5446, op. 57, d. 16, 1. 53 (decree of Sovnarkom no. 222ss dated 19 October 1931); this was based on a Politburo decision of 10 October (RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 11, 1. 24).

23. Sobranie zakonov 1931, art. 422, dated 17 October 1931.

24. GARF, f. 5446, op. 57, d. 16, 11. 94–102 (decree of Sovnarkom no. 247ss, dated 18 November 1931).

25. Ezhegodnik khlebooborota, Moscow-Leningrad: Gos. Torgovoe Izdatel'stvo Snabtekhizdat, 3 (1931): part 1, p. xix; 4–5 (1932): part 2, 186–87; [6] (1934): 70–71; excluding army, etc.

26. In these years the part of the population which received rations was divided into four main groups or lists (spiski), depending on state priorities. In descending order of priority these were the special list (osobyi spisok), and lists 1, 2 and 3.

27. RGAE, f. 1562, op. 20, d. 41.

28. RSTsKhlDNI, f. 79, op. 1, d. 375, 11. 1–3; the final version of the memorandum has not been available—it is presumably in the Presidential Archive.

29. RTsKMDNI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 12, 11. 153–54 (decision no. 67/10).

30. For stocks available in each region, see GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 33, 1. 127 (dated 17 May 1933).

31. GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 33, 1.127; the later published figure was 147, 000 tons (Ezhegodnik khlebooborota [6] [1934]: 61).

32. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, 1. 29 (item 20); an identical Sovnarkom decree was approved on 19 July (GARF, f. 5446, op. 57, d. 20, 1. 61, art. 1127/241 ss). A document sent to Stalin by the principal official concerned with grain referred to “the mobfond (gosfond of grain and fodder)” (GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 33, 1. 143, dated 26 July 1933).

33. For the higher figure, see RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8s, d. 7, 11. 314, 408. In the published tables for grain utilization, allocations to food loans and assistance, fodder and various seed loans amount to 1.993 million tons (Ezhegodnik, [6] [1934]: 120–21).

34. GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 29, 11. 8–15. Chernov was the principal person concerned with the practical details of grain collection and allocation.

35. GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 29, 11.4, 1; the memorandum referred to food grains only. I.M. Kleiner was appointed deputy chair of the committee for agricultural collections (Komzag) on 5 March 1933.

36. RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8s, d. 7, 1. 151.

37. RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8s, d. 7, 11. 213–19. Chernov complained that the situation was made more difficult by the plan to supply before 1 July an additional 6.1 million poods (100, 000 tons) of food and fodder grain to the military and 4 million poods (66, 000 tons) to the far east; he insisted that it was impossible to supply the additional fodder to the far east.

38. RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8s, d. 7, 11. 306–17.

39. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, 11.24, 38–40 (decision of 7 August, no. 53/ 39).

40. The text reads “Nepfond predlagaem sokhranit’ na urovne proshlogo goda, I.e. otlozhit’ ego v razmere 120 mln. pudov. “Po gosfondu, naoborot, predlagaem proizvesti znachitel'noe uvelichenie i dovesti ego do 72 mln. pudov vmesto 55 mln. pud proshlogo goda” (RGAE, f. 8040, op. 8s, d. 7, 1. 307).

41. The mythical 4.53 million tons was evidently obtained by adding together the planned (and non-existent) Nepfond and Gosfond (1.966 + 1.179 million tons) and the expected total stocks on 1 July 1933 (1.392 million tons)! In view of the importance of this memorandum, all three of us have independently checked it and all the other documents in the file in which it appears; nowhere is there any evidence of the existence of a stock of 4.53 million tons on 1 July 1933.

42. Chernov's proposal to increase Gosfond to 72 million poods was not taken up by the Politburo.

43. Ezhegodnik khlebooborota, [6] (1934): 61, 63.

44. GARF, f. 5446, op. 27, d. 33, 11. 144–3, dated 26 July 1933. The Politburo eventually decided to establish a Special Defense Fund of 60 million poods (RTsKh-IDNI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 15, 11. 28–9, item 122/107, dated 13 August).

45. Statisticheskoe obozrenie, no. 4 (1928): 86–89.

46. See Ezhegodnik khlebooborota, [6] (1934): 1, 207–08. The archives contain local and central stocks data based on both the telegraphic and the later postal reports. These figures were now coordinated by the administration of records and reports of the agricultural collections committee Komzag, and by the committee on reserves and, as in the 1920s, collected by officials in the localities who were controlled by the central agencies.

47. Statisticheskoe obozrenie, no. 4 (1928): 86–89.

48. These published figures are in some respects more detailed and regular than those in the archives and we have therefore used them in our tables.

49. The grain balances for these years will be discussed in R.W. Davies and S.G. Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933 (forthcoming).

50. See R.W. Davies, “Soviet Military Expenditure, 1929–33: A Reconsideration,” Europe-Asia Studies 45 (1993): 577–608.

51. RTsKhlDNI, f. 79, op. 1, d. 617 (draft speech on reserves).