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The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine

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In another tremendous masterpiece of Soviet history, Robert Conquest covers Stalin's manmade famines in this book. Here Conquest provides devastating evidence of the complete insanity and megalomania of communism, especially the Stalinist variety. Regardless of your political leanings, this book proves without a doubt what a cruel, deadly, and completely impossible system communism really is. Stalin and his yes-men decided to embark on an insane crash agricultural collectivization program in the 1920's and 30's, hoping to replace the "backwards" system of humble peasants on their own plots (which had been successful for millennia), with a glorious system of industrialized megafarms that would supply the state directly. The first problem was that the state usually required deliveries so impossibly high that the farmers/peasants had nothing left for themselves. This caused a complete breakdown in the agricultural economy (no incentives to produce), plus a famine in which 14 million people died.

When the system failed, Stalin and his henchmen became obsessed with finding the "enemy" who was holding everything back. The enemy became the mostly fictitious group of people called "kulaks," theoretically prosperous peasants who were holding back the masses and the glorious Soviet future. Since these people mostly didn't exist, the regime had to invent them. Therefore any peasant who had one more cow, one more acre, and was slightly less emaciated than everyone else was branded as a kulak and eliminated. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were condemned for life in this insanity. Conquest provides plenty of evidence that the Soviet agricultural program could have been slightly more successful if they weren't busy killing and deporting such huge numbers of potential farmers, and if they had gotten over their irrational search for "enemies" and faced facts instead.

Of special interest in this book is Conquest's side trip to Kazakhstan, where the Soviets attempted the same program, making nomadic peoples settle down and raise crops that couldn't possibly survive in the area. This led to a famine that killed one million people. This was an accident, but Stalin learned that famine could be used as a weapon. The book then focuses on the Ukraine, which was full of pesky nationalists who didn't want to be a part of the USSR. First, the regime decided for themselves that the "masses" in the Ukraine hated their own language, culture, and institutions (how could anyone possibly believe this?), and that the masses were being held from glory by a few backwards enemies who wanted to remain Ukrainian. Apparently the "true" workers of the Ukraine would want to be Russianized; so the Soviets executed, deported, or starved as "class enemies" every person who disagreed (that is, almost everybody). The resulting cultural chaos and failed agricultural system resulted in one of the greatest death tolls in history, taken out deliberately on the people of the Ukraine.

This book is slightly weaker than Conquest's all time classic "The Great Terror," especially in the tendency toward statistical overload. He also assumes that you have read his other works, and keep many things under-explained in this book. Most of the officials and politicians in the book are only identified by their last names and have little or no introductions, plus Conquest assumes that you would know the meanings of esoteric terms like "Borotbist" or "Petliuraist." This can make the book difficult for the layman.

Robert Conquest has endured the slurs of the Communist Left in America and Europe as he continues to recall history as a way to chronicle the fight for individual liberty. History will extol his virtues far more than present day academics or big media worthies ever will. This story of inhumane cruelty, perpetrated by Bolshevik ideologues, is so horrible that one wants to suspend disbelief at the turn of every page in every chapter. The complete disregard for the Kulaks by the Bolsheviks at the expense of achieving an ideal should be a lesson for us all. This story should be on the History Channel every week like the stories of German concentration camps. The sheer numbers of genocidal killing show this crime to be even bigger than the holocaust.

Conquest details this horror, chapter and verse, of Stalin's collectivization of agriculture in the Ukraine. He shows the Communist ideal for what it is, a fraud, and this is why we don't see this event chronicled on a weekly basis. We have too many people in the media in America who are seemingly ignorant, or who wish to turn their heads to the truth, of what actually happened. We still have the "Walter Duranty types" among us who would seek to distribute misinformation to the public in order to keep the collectivist ideal alive. It makes you wonder what it takes for people to get the message?

This book points out how Duranty was given a Pulitzer Prize for his misreporting from the Soviet Union, in the early 30's, that the famine and genocide in the Ukraine were virtually non-existent. That this cur and toady of Stalin, for 14 years the voice to America from Moscow, has not had his Pulitzer prize retroactively recalled tells you something about those who award the Pulitzer prize. This prize is clearly a very bad and a very sick joke.

If the Irish think their potato famine was a tragedy, which it certainly was, and they thump their chest at the English, which they certainly do, what do they have to say about the Bolshevik's slaughter of the Kulak's? One would think that all people of all nations would band together to denounce such inhumane treatment of mankind by a concentrated number of ideological zealots as described in this book.

This is a very sad story that is very trying to read. It's like reading Valladares' book "Against All Hope" which is about Cuba under Castro. A more comprehensive book would be "The Black Book of Communism" which also includes information about this Soviet caused famine in the Ukraine. It also includes the plight of people, in all of the other countries that are or have been under the yoke of Communist dictators. Their methods of societal control are identical to those chronicled in this book; the mind reels at the numbers of the dead, ...7 million... 11 million... 14 million? It's just too much to believe. This holocaust should never be forgotten. It should be taught as a required course for college graduation. Why isn't it?

I did not believe Eastern European friends and dissidents who told me 20 years ago about the mass murder by starvation, deportation, and shooting of the Ukrainian peasantry in the 1930ies. This thoroughly researched and exceptionally well written book removes all doubts. The book exposes both the extensive scale of the genocide (many million dead) and western complacency. It surprises that this major event in European affairs is largely absent from past and present western consciousness.

This book is hard to put down as it combines excellent writing with a gripping if true and gruesome story. Conquest gives the men, women, and children that vanished a loud and clear voice without loosing sight of the larger political context. He demonstrates the deadly consequences of individual actions and individual inactions that killed the farmers of the Ukrainian "bread basket." The story has a chilling echo in more recent events in Rwanda, Kosovo, China, and North-Korea.

Robert Conquest at his best, chronicling a deeply harrowing tragedy. What I find most disturbing about the Terror-Famine is that the gruesome details are still relatively unknown. There are literally only a hand-full of books on the subject, notably Moshe Lewin, Miron Dolot, and Conquest himself. Compare this to the copious writings on the Two Wars and the Holocaust. I Stongly recommend this book, and Conquest's other masterpiece 'The Great Terror', as not only superbly researched history but also a warning against the dangerous fallacy of the Utopian State.

I had heard a little from Ukrainian friends about these horrible and diabolical events of the late 20s, and early 30s in Ukraine but NOTHING prepared me for the vast extent of the Atrocity of the century (yes - in due respect to the Jewish people, I am rating this event as even worse than the Shoah, for numerical reasons primarily. I am certainly not discounting Hitler's atrocity against your people). Conquest relates the events in all their starkness and horror. The weaknesss of Western Governments to do anything at all leaves one disgusted. I am frequently staggered by Communists frequently demanding that certain alleged Nazi war criminals be brought to justice - so they should be - but totalitarianism is always the same, whether from the right or left, and Communism, as Conquest demonstrates, has more than its fair share of blood on its hands. This story MUST be told and retold. The world must know. I congratulate the author for having the courage to go into print in the face of virulent left wing lying propaganda.

The black earth
Was sown with bones
And watered with blood
For a harvest of sorrow
On the land of Rus.
- _The Armament of Igor_.

_The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivizaton and the Terror-Famine_, first published in 1986, by historian Robert Conquest is an excellent accounting of the horrors of the Soviet state unleashed upon the Russian peasantry by the Soviet Communist Party between 1929 and 1933. Robert Conquest is a British historian who early on joined the Communist Party and fought in World War II; however, after seeing firsthand the horrors of Soviet communism he became an anti-communist. In this book a detailed accounting of the more than 14.5 million deaths (more than the total number of deaths from all countries involved in World War I) that resulted directly from policies sanctioned by the Soviet Communist Party is detailed. Such policies as dekulakization, collectivization, and the "terror-famine" in the Ukraine had drastic consequences for those living under this oppressive and horrendous regime. Further, many Western intellectuals turned a blind eye to these atrocities because of their support for this horrendous and ungodly ideology. Even today many continue to deny such crimes occurred among the communists, while at the same time a repeated accounting is made of Nazi and fascist crimes. For those who believe that Soviet communism was a just and noble endeavor, a book like this is certainly sobering. Through painstaking research, Robert Conquest unveils the horrors behind Soviet communism.

Conquest begins by noting the importance of Ukrainian nationalism, feared by the Soviets, and comparing the atrocities of communism to those of the other totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century, Nazism and fascism. To begin with, the Soviets long regarded the peasants as backwards and reactionary, clinging to their traditions and religion, and thus "counter-revolutionary" and a threat to human progress. Such hatred for the peasant goes all the way back to Karl Marx, the founding father of Soviet communism. Lenin also denigrated the peasant as a threat to the creation of the Soviet state. Conquest traces the development of Ukrainian nationalism as it contrasted with Leninism and Soviet communism. For example, as Engels commented, "Now you ask me whether I have no sympathy whatever for the small Slav peoples, and remnants of peoples . . . In fact, I have damned little sympathy for them." During the years 1917 - 21, the revolution broke out sponsored by the Bolsheviks. At the same time the peasant war and famine broke out. Repeated famines were common in the history of the Soviet regime, showing the utter failure of the Soviet economic system to provide food for its people. Such famine was so bad at times that many Russians even had to resort to cannibalism in their efforts to stay alive. Further, during this time and following, the Soviet state began a series of purges against "counter-revolutionaries", those who stood in the way, the religious, and those who did not sufficiently truckle to the powers that be. The NKVD and secret police were formed to rid the state of dissenters. The League of Militant Godless, a band of militant atheists, formed which sought to purge the state of religious and ransacked the Orthodox churches. At the same time, purges were made of kulaks (and suspected kulaks), largely middle-class peasants who could afford to hire labor or lenders. Frequently the individuals accused of being kulaks were very poor, and hardly the rich exploiters they were portrayed to be. Indeed, the accusations and railings of individuals such as Josef Stalin against the kulak bear an eerie resemblance to those of Hitler. At the same time, the free peasantry was abolished and the land was laid to waste. So inefficient were the Soviet agricultural methods that millions starved. In particular, children faced a horrific fate under the Soviet regime and frequently starved or were left to die as orphans. All the while massive purges continued and the state officially denied any problems existed (afterall the Soviet state was supposed to be a utopia). Conquest sums up the death toll as follows:

Peasant dead: 1930 - 37 11 million
Arrested in this period dying in camps later 3.5 million
TOTAL 14.5 million.

The record of the West in responding to these atrocities was equally horrendous, particularly among intellectuals who frequently harbored communist sympathies. In particular, individuals such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and Walter Duranty denied such occurrences. Further, the reports of such individuals (which could be likely classified as nothing more than official propaganda for the Soviet state) were accorded places of prominence among leading Western sources. However, others did catch on to the evils of the Soviet regime and began speaking out against it as well as providing aid. Following this, Conquest attempts to assign responsibilities for such atrocities. Certainly, we cannot forget these horrors and a full accounting must be made, even and especially if such an accounting happens to undermine one of our most favored ideologies. Conquest ends by discussing the aftermath of such terror and the Soviet Union up to the present time. This book was written before the fall of the USSR.

This book is to be highly recommended for those who want to know the truth about Soviet Communism. The official Soviet line denied such atrocities occurred under their regime. The twentieth century is likely to be remembered as an era of totalitarian regimes, and the Soviet Union remains one of the worst such regimes ever known to man. Nevertheless, there exist those who continue to deny that such things ever occurred because of their support for such an ideology. Indeed, Conquest himself has been much vilified by a largely pro-Communist Left that refuses to face up to its own atrocities while at the same time preaching constantly about the horrors of "right wing fascism". That is why a proper accounting such as that made in this book is all the more important.

Years ago I attended a 2 yr. technical school, which required taking a speech class in addition to electronics classes. The text of my 15 minute speech was extracts from 'Harvest of Sorrow.' I knew the speech was having an effect of sorts, for a class full of fidgety post teen guys slowly moved their attention from hand held games and car magazines to me, with their mouths hanging open. I finished my speech and left, thinking nothing more of it.
The next day, a teacher from another class approached me, saying, "Do you know that you are now famous? The speech teacher raved on and on at our lunch after the class, saying that you had the entire class riveted to the floor with that subject! He said that after 14 years of teaching speech, your effort forced him to give his first 100% grade for a speech!"
It strikes one to think that there is so much WW II stuff on the History Channel that it is now called the Hitler Channel, but they will barely give one hour a month for a far greater demon (Stalin) and a far worse system (Communism.) Why?

I have finally stumbled on a book that has the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide by Stalin as its main topic. For me this is a painful topic as I myself am a Ukrainian having to cope with this most unpleasant lowpoint of Ukrainian history. Soviet apologists continuously deny the famine's existence yet they can not account for Ukraine's huge population loss before World War II, i.e. Soviet Ukraine occupied before 1939. This event which occured in the course of a year, 1932-1933 is perhaps the most concentrated genocide as it has deaths exceeding the Holocaust in the space of a year. What painful deaths these Ukrainians suffered and what degradation Ukraine went through is staggering

Harvest of Sorrow is an important book for any age. Meticulous, rich with history, but refreshingly unemotional, Conquest knows and writes of the Soviet Union in a way that will bring everyone who reads this book to a much closer understanding of what really went on economically, and the twisted fates of 20 million people under communist manipulation and control . All that has helped bring mother Russia to the point she is today. In chaos and turmoil, and on her knees. This book should play an important role in every high school civics class today, and find its way to the reading tables of anyone interested in the economics and agricultural systems of communism.

We were so moved by this book and another timeless classic - The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek that we also felt compelled to create a web page just for these type of books because we feel that many people may not yet have a clear understanding of what communism is (and was)all about. From what we've learned here, we have to say we "thought" we knew, but found we didn't have the actual bottom line until we'd digested this material.

19th-century Ukrainian peasants lived in serfdom that was so agriculturally inefficient that it was comparable to 14th-century England. But with the growing urban population the need for political and agricultural reform was recognized, and under the Tsar came the 1861 Emancipation of the Serfs and the privatisation of communal holdings in 1906, so that they gained some degree of freedom. And as their lives improved, so did production.

Unfortunately, self-determination did not fit into Marxist theory. The intelligentsia felt only contempt for the peasantry, which it saw as an impediment to social progress. 9 million died when the peasants revolted against the Bolshevik coup in the 1918-1920 Peasant War.

Driven by their obsessive analysis of everything as 'bourgeois' or 'proletariat', the Bolsheviks set out to find class struggle in the countryside. Invention of the all-evil kulak farmer enabled them to perpetrate violence against anyone who might resist Soviet power-- in reality, anyone who was slightly more productive or who showed any kind of initiative. One individual who organized a fire-fight was 'exposed' as a kulak. More to the point, the infinitely malleable kulak allowed the Soviet government to perpetrate its war on Ukraine.

With typical Soviet planning, the Government requisitioned so much grain that none was left for seeding. As a result, the Great Famine of 1921-1922 took an astounding 5 million lives, far exceeding anything seen under the Tsar. Yet, American food aid was prevented from reaching starving Ukrainians and grain was even exported to Russia.

This could at least theoretically be attributed to sheer incompetence and stupidity. And in 1928, a market fluctuation misinterpreted by Marxist planners again led the State to requisitioning. But stealing the fruit of the peasants' labour obliterated any trust they might still have had in Communists and destroyed all incentive to work. Far from humbled by their first disastrous experience, the Soviet government set out on a bold experiment of to forcibly collectivise all private farming in one year. Showing abundance at least in hubris, Stalin's economist Strumilin: "Our task is not to study economics but to change it. We are bound by no laws." The five year-plan rolled out in 1929 caused fantastic wastage, tens of thousands of tons of grain left rotting because of poorly planned distribution.

To perpetrate collectivisation, the Soviet government used all the methods of terror at its disposal. Arrest, blackmail, torture, deporation, exile, labor camps, and execution were applied routinely under the euphemistic denomination of 'dekulakization'. Children and wives were sentenced as "members of the family of a traitor to the motherland." A Soviet analysis calculated that at one point, 400,000 households had been dekulakized, 350,000 still remaining to be, and 250,000 households having 'self-dekulakized'. 1 million died in the collectivisation terror, and another 4 million in labor camps. One novelist wrote: "Not one of them was guilty of anything; but they belonged to a class that was guilty of everything."

Having robbed the villages of their most productive members and replacing them with urban sadists, agriculture totally collapsed. The kolkhoz itself proved economically disastrous having about one-sixth the productivity of an American farm. Farmers received one half pound of bread daily and a salary which enabled them to purchase a single pair of shoes at the end of the year. Tractors were unreliable and so scarce they had to be shared between farms a hundred miles apart. The cost of the terror infrastructure and massive bureaucracy meant there was not even an economic benefit to collectivisation.

The Government set grain prices so absurdly low that they didn't even cover costs. By multiplying total theoretical acreage with the maximum possible yield per acre, they set production quotas that in practice left nothing at all for next year's crop, let alone for food. Hungry and unable to work, fields were left uncultivated and crops spoiled.

Peasants were shot for trying to reach the gigantic quantities of grain left rotting in the open air or withheld 'in reserve', they were even shot for cutting corn from their own gardens. Ukrainians were prevented from reaching Russia, where food was plenty. Finally they gave in and did what Stalin asked them to: they died. Corpses were removed daily by the trainload to God knows where. Mothers went insane trying to starve their weaker children in order to save her others. Orphans were brought to the children's concentration camp in Kirovohrad to starve, then trucked out under the cover of night. Some kids were cultivated as NKVD interrogators.

The suffering described in this book is enough to drive anyone to tears.

The advantage of another 7 million dead Ukrainians was that Russians could be moved into their homes and begin the assault on Ukrainian nationalism. The kozbars, blind bards travelling through villages singing national songs, were invited to a congress where they were all executed. Skrypnyk was sentenced for introducing the soft 'L' and hard 'G' into the alphabet: the hard 'G' in particular had apparently aided 'wreckers'. Russian replaced Ukrainian as the language of instruction, and Ukrainian authors and linguists were almost entirely liquidated. Priests were dekulakized. Cossack stanitsas that put up strong resistance were deported wholesale, entire populations of tens of thousands.

Still, the Communists touted the success of their system to the world-- though the census figures needed a bit of fudging to hide the fact that a sizeable chunk of the population no longer existed.

The commentary and reporting of the likes of Walter Duranty of the New York Times or George Bernard Shaw are disgraceful. Duranty was described as "the greatest liar of any journalist I have met in fifty years of journalism." At least he got a Pulitzer out of it. I hope he chokes on it.