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1921–1923 famine in Ukraine

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Children affected by famine in Berdyansk, Ukraine 1922

The 1921–1923 famine in Ukraine was a disaster that mostly occurred in the southern steppe region of Ukraine.[1] The number of fatalities is estimated between 200,000 and 1,000,000, though no systematic records were made during this period.

Famine causes

While famines regularly occurred in the Russian Empire (e.g., the famine of 1891–1892), the Ukrainian fertile agricultural zone, especially its southern region, usually had enough food due to the high fertility of its black soil, chernozem. However, between 1918 and 1920, the German Russian White Army and Red Army militants continuously tried to seize food from peasants. In 1919, a food tax was established by the Russian communist authorities, which disincentivized food production amongst peasants.[1]

During the summer of 1921, the southern regions of the European part of Soviet Russia were suffering from severe drought and starvation, which began in the Volga Valley, the North Caucasus, and Ukraine. The Moscow government recognized the Russian famine of 1921–1922 (Volga food crisis) but paid no attention to Ukraine. Moreover, Lenin ordered to move trains full of grain from Ukraine to the Volga region, Moscow, and Petrograd, to combat starvation there. 1,127 trains were sent between fall 1921 and August 1922.[1] Soviet leaders acknowledged the famine in Southern Ukraine only in December 1921, and it was still a sensation for meeting delegates in Kharkiv in February 1922.[needs copy edit][2]

Relief

While international relief organizations acted in the Volga region began in August 1921, the Soviet government in Ukraine started seeking their help only in January 1922 when many people were already starving. The American Relief Administration opened its office in Kyiv, after Lincoln Hutchinson's trip by car in late December 1921 – January 1922 to Odessa, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia. Offices in Odessa and Mykolaiv were opened in late March 1922.[3]

The Communist Workers International Relief only started functioning in November 1922 in Ukraine.[4] The Nansen Mission started actual work in Ukraine in May 1922, with Vidkun Quisling as the head of the Kharkiv office.[5] Most offices continued their work until the summer of 1923 as the situation in Ukraine was still rough compared to the mostly-recovered Volga Region.

Famine in Russian–Ukrainian conflict

A considerable historiographical debate about whether this failure to address the famine in Ukraine was deliberate still goes on.[6] Vladimir Lenin and other Russian bolshevik leaders made a number of statements insisting that Ukraine should be conquered because Russian communists needed grain and Ukrainian peasant households were the enemies of the Soviet regime because they resisted grain requisitions. Thus, a certain level of hostility between the Russian communist center and the Ukrainian peasantry was established.[7]

Differences in attitude towards Russian and Ukrainian peasants could have been based on their perceived loyalty: the Volga region was seen as loyal, while Ukrainians were treated as "peasant bandits". To seize grain in the Mykolaiv region, the military was ordered to take hostages from local families.[7] Critics of this theory point out that no decrees or other strategic documents directly prescribing the elimination of the Ukrainian peasantry were found.[6]

Among researchers who describe the famine of 1921–1923 as genocide are Template:Iw2[8] and Roman Serbyn.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c NAKAI, KAZUO (1982). "Soviet Agricultural Policies in the Ukraine and the 1921–1922 Famine". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 6 (1): 43–61. ISSN 0363-5570. JSTOR 41035958.
  2. ^ Veryha, W. (1984). Famine in Ukraine in 1921–1923 and the Soviet Government's Countermeasures. Nationalities Papers, 12(2), 265–286. doi:10.1080/00905998408408001
  3. ^ Rhodes, Benjamin D. (1989-08-01). "American Relief Operations at Nikolaiev, USSR, 1922–1923". The Historian. 51 (4): 611–626. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.1989.tb01279.x. ISSN 0018-2370.
  4. ^ (in Ukrainian)Павленко В.В., Мовчан О.М. Міжнародна робітнича допомога (Міжробдоп) // Енциклопедія історії України : у 10 т. / редкол.: В. А. Смолій (голова) та ін. ; Інститут історії України НАН України. — К. : Наукова думка, 2009. — Т. 6 : Ла — Мі. — 784 с. : іл. — ISBN 978-966-00-1028-1.
  5. ^ Arkhireyskyi D. V. (2019) Fridtjof Nansen and Ukraine. DOI 10.15421/311911
  6. ^ a b Rieber, Alfred J. (2010-03-25). "Veryha, Wasyl. A Case of Genocide in the Ukrainian Famine of 1921–1923. Famine as a Weapon. Forword [sic] by Valerian Revutsky. Lewiston:The Edwin Mellen Press, 2007. 384 pp. ISBN 978-0-7734-5278-7". East Central Europe. 37 (2–3): 372–373. doi:10.1163/187633010X534612. ISSN 1876-3308.
  7. ^ a b Rudnytskyi, O., Kulchytskyi, S., Gladun, O., & Kulyk, N. (2020). The 1921–1923 Famine and the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine: Common and Distinctive Features. Nationalities Papers, 48(3), 549-568. doi:10.1017/nps.2019.81
  8. ^ Veryha, Wasyl. A Case of Genocide in the Ukrainian Famine of 1921–1923. Famine as a Weapon. Forword by Valerian Revutsky. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007. 384 pp. ISBN 978-0-7734-5278-7
  9. ^ Serbyn, Dr Roman. "The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921–1923". The Ukrainian Weekly. Retrieved 2022-08-14.
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