Soviet famine of 1946–47


The last major famine to hit the USSR began in July 1946, reached its peak in February–August 1947 and then quickly diminished in intensity, although there were still some famine deaths in 1948. The situation spanned most of the grain-producing regions of the country: Ukraine, Moldova and parts of central Russia. The conditions were caused by drought, the effects of which were exacerbated by the devastation caused by World War II. The grain harvest in 1946 totaled 39.6 million tons - barely 40% of the yield in 1940. With the war, there was a significant decrease in the number of able-bodied men in the rural population, retreating to 1931 levels. There was a shortage of agricultural machinery and horses. The Soviet government with its grain reserves provided relief to rural areas and appealed to the United Nations for relief. Assistance also came from the Ukrainian diaspora and Russians from eastern Ukraine and from North America, which minimized mortality.
While the cause of the famine is generally attributed to the drought in combination with the existing infrastructural and economic damage of the war, some historians have criticized the government's response as being not as effective as it could have been. For example, during the crisis, the USSR continued with export obligations under the fourth five-year plan, with the majority of it going to the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia to consolidate the new Eastern Bloc.
Partly as a result of this famine, unlike many countries in Europe and North America, the Soviet Union did not experience a post-war baby boom. Prompted by the drought and famine of 1946-47, the so-called "Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature" was put forth which consisted in a number of ambitious projects in land improvement.

In Moldova

Between 1946 and 1947, there were a minimum of 115,000 to over 300,000 recorded deaths linked to starvation, especially in Transnistria. At the same time according to Moldova Socialistă newsletter from 28 January 1947, the Moldavian SSR surpassed planned productions of butter, sunflower oil, meat products, canned food. 34 cases of cannibalism where discovered by authorities during the 1946-1947, but many of them remained undiscovered. Even Khrushchev, in his 1970 memoir Khrushchev Remembers, gives first and second-hand accounts of cannibalism among starving Ruthenians/Ukrainians.

In Ukraine

From 1938 to 1949 Nikita Khrushchev was the head of the Communist Party of Ukraine |Communist Party of Ukraine, which means that he played the role of a governor for Joseph Stalin in Moscow, who was head of state of the Soviet Union and who held massive sway over domestic policy. During a brief period between February and December 1947 Lazar Kaganovich stood in for Khrushchev due to what was claimed to be an illness. Khrushchev had been a long time close associate of Lazar Kaganovich who was the head of the CPU from 1925 to 1928. During that time Kaganovich had been responsible for implementing collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine and was involved with the aggressive repression of the so-called kulaks and kurkuli - who were private farmers who were not members of collective farms that were labelled by the communists as being wealthy. They were deemed exploiters of the people for hiring labour, which became a monopoly right claimed by the communist state. By bringing in Kaganovich in 1947 it is an indication that Stalin wanted someone who was a hard liner against the kurkuli that was already experienced in collectivization and repressive measures against farmers that were being imposed at the time and was willing to implement them ruthlessly. This makes Stalin, Khrushchev and Kaganovich the main communist leaders responsible for the famine in Ukraine in 1946-47.
During the 1920s in Ukraine Khrushchev had been rapidly promoted by Kaganovich through various senior posts and had been his protégé. In 1929, Khrushchev moved to Moscow to continue his education, which he never completed. After the end of Kaganovich's first governorship of Ukraine in 1928, he was recalled to Moscow and replaced by Stanislav Kosior. Khrushchev later replaced Kosior as head of the CPU and governor of Ukraine in 1938. Kaganovich and Kosior are considered to be the key people responsible for implementing the policies which led to the earlier Holodomor famine-genocide in Ukraine, which was the most severe in 1932-33. As the absolute dictator at the time, Joseph Stalin held ultimate responsibility, since he set the overall policy for the Soviet Union and his governors had to carry out his orders in Ukraine. Joseph Stalin admitted to Winston Churchill in Yalta that his collectivization policies during that period cost the lives of 10 million people over 4 years. He would have not exaggerated such a figure, since the official Soviet policy was to conceal and downplay those issues. Kosior was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935 for "remarkable success in the field of agriculture."
After WW2 when Soviet rule extended to western Ukraine the similar collectivization policies which had earlier taken place in Ukraine and Russia during the 1920s and 1930s were imposed there as well. Similar to eastern Ukraine during collectivization, there was strong resistance to those and other Soviet policies from the local population which was largely suppressed by 1952. In Ukraine and Russia collectivization coincided with repression and mass famines due to excessive grain requisitions, which is recognized as the main direct policy that caused the famines. That was a policy which was developed originally by Alexander Tsiurupa in 1917-1918, which became a standard repressive policy of using food as a weapon in many communist countries afterwards associated with collectivization and mass famines.
Despite poor harvests due to drought, in 1946 Khrushchev set excessive grain collection quotas for Ukraine which resulted in a massive famine. Collective farms were required to hand over 52% of their harvests to the communist government. Although it has been claimed that he tried to reduce the quotas in late 1946, this was not allowed by Stalin. Khrushchev was closely associated with Kaganovich who along with Kosior were found by a court in Kiyiv in 2010 to have been the some of the main persons responsible for the Holodomor of 1932-33. Since Kaganovich was brought in to replace Khrushchev temporarily in 1947 as communist governor in Ukraine, it strongly suggests that the famine of 1946-47 was also a deliberate policy like the previous famine in 1932-33 which Khrushchev would have certainly known about since he had been part of leadership of the CPU and of the Soviet Union. Stalin who was ultimately responsible for the famine of 1946-1947 was well-aware that excessive grain requisitions would cause a mass famine, similar to what he had deliberately done in 1932-33. In the spring of 1946 Khrushchev had told Stalin about the famine. Stalin who glorified himself with the title of "father of all peoples" called it a lie and did not allow it to be officially recognized or remedied, similar to the famine of 1932-33. This was in contrast to the first major Soviet famine of 1921-23 which was officially recognized and several foreign relief missions were allowed. The official death toll was 5 million persons for that famine, which was recognized in the Volga Basin. The more severe famine at the time in southern Ukraine and in the Don region was not recognized and was still subject to continued grain requisitions.
The 1946-47 famine in Ukraine affected most of the country except for an areas in few western provinces where the resistance to the forced food requisitions helped to save the people from starvation. Information about the famine in 1946-47 was similarly concealed by the Soviet government as was the famine in 1932-33. Until 1988, it was forbidden for academics in the Soviet Union to research those issues. In the post WW2 famine of 1946-47 there were approximately 400,000 - 500,000 children and teenagers that died, who made up a third of the victims. There were many recorded cases of cannibalism. It also resulted in a significant increase in various types of illnesses because of a lack of food. As in the 1930s there were groups of people who would be sent around to collect dead bodies that were put into mass graves. Similarly to 1932-33, it was mostly a rural famine.
Soviet policies such as unrealistic food production and excessive requisition quotas, forced grain collections and confiscations, low or no pay for collective farm workers and excessive taxes pushed the rural population to famine. The amount of food that was confiscated and taken out of Ukraine would have been enough to feed the population and avoid the famine. Although there was a drought and a reduced harvest, it was an artificial famine caused by the communist government in Ukraine due to its policies. Traditionally farmers were used to periodic droughts and set aside reserves for such times. Once the communist government collectivized agriculture, the land and harvest belonged to it and farmers were reduced to the status of being employees working on collective farms and were unable to set aside reserves from what they produced. Between 1946-48 in the Soviet Union an estimated 1 million tons of grain was wasted and spoiled in storage which could have also been used instead for famine relief and saved many lives. During the famine although it was not the majority of the harvest, considerable amounts of grain were still exported abroad.
In most places the post WW2 famine in Ukraine started in 1945 with the imposition of excessive grain collection policies by the Soviets. It became more severe during 1946 and peaked in the winter and spring of 1947. By the fall of 1947 it began to subside, but continued in many areas until the late 1940s. There was still malnutrition and inadequate food in the early 1950s. It affected all of Ukraine, but the mortality was most severe in the southern parts of the country. The famine was severe in central Ukraine as well. It was not as severe in western Ukraine due to a better harvest there and the fact that collectivization was only being implemented there, which had not deprived families from an independent food production source. This made full confiscation of food more difficult for the Soviet authorities because of many more point sources of food availability and production than in a collective farm system where they had much more control. Because many parts of western Ukraine are a forested mountainous region and a high level of active resistance where the geography favoured them, the population was able to hide away some food and prevent it from being taken away, which allowed more people to survive and avoid starvation. In western Ukraine the population suffered proportionally more from repression than from famine during those years compared to other parts of the country. Between 1945-1953 there were severe repressions in Ukraine including mass arrests of tens of thousands of people and mass deportations. This included the deportation into exile of an estimated 500,000 people from western Ukraine between 1946-49.

In Russia

In the summer of 1946 there was a famine in the provinces of Rostov, Voronezh, Orel, Kursk and Tambov which was made worse by a poor harvest caused by drought and excessively high grain collection targets. Those were based on quotas set on too high production expectations which Stalin was unwilling to reduce in many areas. This was also a repetition of the too high quotas and excessive grain collections which led to the 1932-33 Holodomor famine-genocide which is recognized as having been a deliberate policy. The autumn and winter of 1946-1947 was the worst part of the famine, in which at least 500,000 persons perished.
Two decrees were passed on June 5, 1947 which were similar to the law of August 7, 1932 for the protection of state property, which in Ukraine was known as the "Law of Five Spikelets" and in Russia the "Law of Three Spikelets", or simply the "Law of Spikelets." The 1947 law was not as strict as the 1932 law which included death sentences and much lengthier prison sentences for the same offenses, including for very minor thefts. The 1947 law was still very strict and made severe punishments for anyone who attacked state property such as a collective farm. It is understandable that the people would be upset with collective farms and the state which monopolized food production during the time of a famine, when the very food that they had produced was being taken away from the starving people who were dying as a result. That was precisely why the law was passed to help to push through those repressive policies and punish resistance which they knew would take place. According to the 1947 decrees attacks on state property were punishable by 5 to 25 years in prison. For even very small thefts of a few ears of wheat by starving people the punishment was up to 1 year in prison, which gave the law its name from the people. For stealing a few kilograms of grain a person could have been sent to 8 to 10 years in the gulag labour camps. Someone knowing of theft or preparations of theft who did not report it to the authorities could have been sentenced from 1 to 3 years in prison.