Famine in the steppe: The collectivization of agriculture and the Kazakh herdsmen, 1928-1934

Cahiers du Monde Russe

Volumn 45, Issue 1-2, 2004, Pages

  Pianciola, Niccolò ^a  

^a Universita degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa   (Italy)

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EID: 33744977554     PISSN: 12526576     EISSN: 17775388     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.4000/monderusse.2623     Document Type: Review

References (64)

1. In the most recent and convincing contribution on the problem, S. Maksudov concluded that the number of deaths among the Kazaks directly ascribable to the famine was approximately 1,450,000. See: S. Maksudov, "Migracii v SSSR v 1926-1939 godah," Cahiers du Monde russe, 40, 4 (1999): 770-792.
2. G. Kendirbai, Land and people: the Russian colonization of the Kazak steppe (Berlin: Schwarz, 2002): 18.
3. M. Buttino, La rivoluzione capovolta. L'Asia Centrale tra il crollo dell'impero zarista e la formazione dell'URSS (Napoli: L'ancora del Mediterraneo, 2003): 80-96.
4. A later Duma investigation headed by Alexander Kerensky concluded that tens of thousands of natives were exterminated in a systematic manner without regard for age or sex: "Nursing babies were eliminated, as were old women and old men." (quoted in P. Holquist, "To count, to extract and to exterminate. Population statistics and population politics in late Imperial and Soviet Russia," in T. Martin, R. G. Suny, eds., A state of nations: Empire and nation-building in the age of Lenin and Stalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): 121).
5. Cf. V. L. Genis, "Deportacija russkih iz Turkestana v 1921 godu ('Delo Safarova')," Voprosy istorii, 1 (1998);
6. and T. Martin The affirmative action empire: nations and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001): 60.
7. Northwest Kazakstan was one of the areas in the USSR struck hardest by the famine of 1921, while the violent methods of requisitioning officially abolished by the NEP continued to be used at least until the harvest of 1922. In addition, recently published archival documents demonstrate that in 1923 and 1924, a large part of the USSR, stretching from some zones in the Ukraine to the Volga, Siberia and northern Kazakstan were hit by a drought that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. In February 1924 starvation was widespread in many zones in the Aktjubinsk and Kustanaj governorships. The following June, in the Akmolinsk governorship alone, a census found between 50,000 and 60,000 people suffering from hunger. Cf. A. Berelowitch, V. Danilov, eds., Sovetskaja derevnja glazami VCK-OGPU-NKVD. Dokumenty i materialy. T. 2: 1923-1929 (Moscow: Rosspen, 2000): 96, 185, 229, 230, 236, 255.
8. Ž. B. Abylchožin, "Collettivizzazione, carestia e fine del nomadismo: Kazakstan, 1929-35," in M. Buttino, ed., In fuga. Guerre, carestie e migrazioni nel mondo contemporaneo (Naples: L'ancora del Mediterraneo, 2001): 146.
9. Other sources furnish similar data: according to Sebalin, in Dzetysu 85% of the Kazaks were nomads or semi-nomads. Cf. P. I. Šebalin, Džetysu (Semireč'e). Ekonomičeskij obzor (Smolensk: Dzetysujskaja Gubernskaja Planovaja Komissija, 1926): 174.
10. On the eve of the Revolution of 1917, "approximately 40% of the Kazaks lived from cultivating the land, engaging in commercial activity or thanks to their functions in the state's colonial apparatus. At the beginning of the twentieth century, new and diversified forms of mobility and organization characterized animal herding, still the most widespread economic activity: nomadism, semi-nomadism, semi-sedentarism and finally sedentarism coexisted and were of more or less similar importance." (I. Ohayon, "Formes et usages du territoire à la période coloniale: la première sédentarisation des Kazakhs," in C. Poujol, ed., Contribution à l'histoire contemporaine du Kazakstan (Paris: Les Indes savantes, forthcoming)). I am indebted to Isabelle Ohayon for allowing me to read her essay before publication.
11. Revoljucionnaja Rossija, 14-15 (1921): 13
12. (cited in R. Pipes, Il regime bolscevico. Dal terrore rosso alla morte di Lenin (Milan: Mondadori, 1999): 470n.).
13. The figures given should be understood as averages based on quantities which varied from one region to another. Marco Buttino gives exactly the same figure: approximately 10 puds per year per capita, i.e. 163.8 kilograms (M. Buttino, "'La Terra a chi la lavora.' La politica coloniale russa in Turkestan tra la crisi dello zarismo e le rivoluzioni del 1917," in A. Masoero, A Venturi, eds., Russica, Studi e ricerche sulla Russia contemporanea (Milan, 1990): 285.
14. Buttino's source is N. I. Malahovskij, Materialy dlja izučenija hlopkovodstva (St-Petersburg, 1912): 25-26.
15. If this was the minimum needed for survival in bad years, the average quantity normally consumed was, however, higher: according to Viktor Danilov, approximately 263 kilograms (16 puds) of grain a year (cited in M. Ellman, "The 1947 Soviet famine and the entitlement approach to famines," Cambridge Journal of Economics, 24 (2000): 610n.
16. S. I. Rudenko, "Očerk byta kazakov bassenja rek Uila i Sagyza," in S. F. Baronov, A. N. Bukejhan, S. I. Rudenko, Kazaki. Antropologičeskie očerki (Leningrad: Izd. osobogo komiteta akademii nauk po issledovaniju sojuznyh i avtonomnyh respublik, 1927): 25.
17. K.K. Sakovskij, ed., Materialy ekspedicii Sredne-Aziatskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta po obsledovaniju životnovodstva v Džetysujskoj gubernii i karakulevodstva v Kara-Kalpakskoj avtonomnoj oblasti v 1927 godu (Tashkent: Izd. Narkomzema KASSR i SredAz Gos. Universiteta, 1930): 51.
18. Ja. D. Levčenko, Materialy k opredeleniju tovarnosti Kirgizskih hozjajstv Aktjubinskoj gubernii (Aktjubinsk: Izdanie Aktjubinskogo Gubispolkoma, 1925): 77.
19. For the period prior to 1914, see also V. P. Kurilev, Skot, zemlja, obščina kočevyh i polukočevyh kazahov. Vtoraja polovina XIX-načalo XX v. (St-Petersburg: Muzej antropologii i etnografii, 1998): 252 f.
20. Cited in M. K. Kozybaev, Kazahstan na rubeže vekov: rasmyšlenija i poiski (Almaty: Gylym, 2000): 404.
21. See E. Marx, "Vi sono pastori nomadi nel Medio Oriente arabo?" in U. Fabietti, P. C. Salzman, eds., Antropologia delle società pastorali tribali e contadine. La dialettica della coesione e della frammentazione sociale (Pavia: Ibis, 1996): 116-128.
22. Sabine Schwartz, Ökonomie des Hungers. Konsummuster und Vermarktungsverhalten nomadischer Viehhalter Nordkenias (Berlin: Reimer, 1986): 229.
23. A. Sen, Poverty and famines. An essay on entitlement and deprivation (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981): 105.
24. Martha Olcott (The Kazakhs (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1987): 295) estimated that the total number of Slavic immigrants during the NEP was approximately 50,000.
25. According to old but reliable figures given by Eugene Kulischer, 73,000 immigrants arrived in Kazakstan between 1924 and 1929 alone, and these figures "are substantially below the actual volume of the migration." (E. Kulischer, Europe on the move. War and population changes, 1917-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948): 83).
26. M. Payne, Stalin's railroad: Turksib and the building of socialism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001): 135-136.
27. V. Lan'ko, Ves' Kazakstan. Spravočnaja kniga (Alma-Ata: 1931): 71
28. (quoted in L. K. Sotbakova, Nacional'nyj aspekt pereselenčeskoj politiki i korenizacii v Kazahstane v 1917-1941 gody, dissertacija (Moscow: Istoriceskij fakul'tet MGU, 1995): 68).
29. See especially F. G. Dobržanskij, Ja. Ja. Lus, N. N. Medvedev, Domašnie životnye jugovostočnoj časti Kazahstana (Semireč'ja) (Leningrad: Izd. Akademii Nauk, 1927);
30. Id., Domašnie životnye Semipalatinskoj gubernii (Leningrad: Izd. Akademii Nauk, 1928).
31. In 1926 Kazaks (58.1% of the total population) held only one fourth of the executive positions in the administrative apparatus. See R. Houle, "Russes et non-Russes dans la direction des institutions politiques et économiques en URSS. Une étude des recensements, 1926-1979," Cahiers du Monde russe, 38, 3 (1997): 359;
32. and R. A. Cherot, "Nativization of government and party structure in Kazakstan, 1920-1930," The American Slavic and East European Review, XIV, 1 (1955).
33. In the years 1924-1927, 62% of the nomads were exempt from all taxation, while among non-nomads the percentage was only 17%. See N. V. Pogorel'skij, Osedanie kočevnikov i razvitie životnovodstva (Alma-Ata: Akademija Nauk KazSSR, 1949): 89-90
34. (cited in I. Vladimirsky, "Collectivization and the reconstruction of agriculture in Kazakstan during the 1920s-1930s," Ph.D. thesis (Tel Aviv University, 1998): 138. I am indebted to Irena Vladimirsky for allowing me to read the chapter on sedentarization in her doctoral dissertation).
35. In 1928, the rate of illiteracy among Kazaks was 92.8%, while among Russians in Kazakstan it was 64%. See A. R. Rahimbaev, Sostojanie žadaci prosvetitel'noj raboty nacmen'sinstv RSFSR (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1930): 76-78,
36. Several hundred collective farms were set up with the livestock confiscated. This aspect is emphasized by R. W. Davies in The industrialization of Soviet Russia. Vol. 1: The Socialist offensive. The collectivization of Soviet agriculture, 1929-1930 (Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1980): 140.
37. In the spring of 1929 the official figures on the results of the campaign were presented: approximately 145,000 head of livestock had been confiscated from 696 bai. Therefore, on the average, just over 200 animals (counted in terms of large animals) were confiscated from each baj (cf. K. Aldažumanov, M. Kairgaliev, V. Osipov, Ju. Romanova, eds., Nasil'stvennaja kollektivizacija i golod v Kazahstane v 1931-1933 gg. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Almaty: Fond "XXI vek," 1998): 35).
38. V. Danilov, ed., Tragedija sovetskoj derevni: kollektivizacija i raskulačivanie; dokumenty i materialy v 5 tomah; 1927-1939. T. 1: Maj 1927- nojabr' 1929 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1999): 131.
39. RGASPI 17/113/338/151-4, 93-94 (October 31, 1927), cited in T. Martin, "An affirmative action empire: Ethnicity and the Soviet State, 1923-1938", Ph.D. dissertation (University of Chicago, 1996): 546.
40. From "Protocol no 50 of the official session of the committee of the okrug of Alma-Ata of the VKP (b)," July 25, 1929, in K. Karažanov, A. Takenov, eds., Novejšaja istorija Kazahstana: sbornik dokumentov i materialov. T. 1: 1917-1939 gg. (Almaty: Sanat, 1998): 221-222.
41. M.B. Olcott, "The collectivization drive in Kazakhstan," Russian Review, 40, 2 (1981): 126.
42. A. B. Tursunbaev, ed., Kollektivizacija sel'skogo hozjajstva Kazahstana (1926-ijun' 1941). Sbornik dokumentov (Alma-Ata, 1967): 276.
43. A. Graziosi, La Grande guerra contadina in Urss. Bolscevichi e contadini, 1918-1933 (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1998): 84.
44. V. Danilov, I. Zelenin, V. Kondrašin, I. Sidorov, eds., Tragedija sovetskoj derevni: kollektivizacija i raskulačivanie; dokumenty i materialy v 5 tomach: 1927-1939. T. 3: Konec 1930-1933 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001): 584, 612-613.
45. In Kazakstan the reaction to collectivization was particularly violent and it was the herdsmen who were principally involved. In early 1930, there were hotbeds of revolt, both among Europeans and among Kazaks, in all areas of Kazakstan. Data are incomplete but show that in the first six months of the year more than 80,000 people took part in uprisings (Ž. B. Abylhožin, K. S. Aldažumanov, M. K. Kozybaev, Kollektivizacija v Kazahstane: tragedija krest'janstva (Alma-Ata: 1992): 20-26).
46. The most extensive treatise on resistance to collectivization in Kazakstan is Kajdar Aldazumanov's article "Krest'janskoe dviženie soprotivlenija," in G. Anes, ed., Deportirovannye v Kazahstan narody: vremja i sud'by (Almaty: Arys, 1998): 66-93;
47. the best research focusing on a regional case is T. Allanijazov, A. Taukenov, Šotskaja tragedija. Iz istorii antisovetskih vooružennyh vystuplenij v Central'nom Kazahstane v 1930-31 gg. (Almaty: Fond "XXI vek", 2000).
48. Following the path in the seminal article by Ž. B. Abylhožin, M. K. Kozybaev and M. B. Tatimov, "Kazahstanskaja tragedija," Voprosy istorii, 7 (1989).
49. Cf. M. Omarov, Rasstreljannaja step'. Istorija Adaevskogo vosstanija 1931 goda po materialam OGPU (Almaty: Gylym, 1994): 23 on how this policy was enforced in the Mangišlak rajon;
50. Ž.B. Abylhožin, Tradicionnaja struktura Kazahstana: social'no-ekonomićeskie aspekty funkcionirovanija i transformacii (1920-1930-e gg.) (Alma-Ata: Gylym, 1991): 188.
51. N. Werth, "Uno stato contro il suo popolo. Violenze, repressioni, terrori nell'Unione Sovietica," in S. Courtois, N. Werth, J.-L. Panné et al, eds., Il libro nero del comunismo. Crimini, terrore, repressione (Milan: Mondadori, 1998)
52. R. W. Davies, The industrialization of Soviet Russia. Vol.4: Crisis and progress in the Soviet economy 1931-1933 (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1996): 488.
53. Cf. R. W. Davies, M. Harrison, S. G. Wheatcroft, eds., The economic transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 289.
54. As early as August 1931 Zejnulla Toregožin, People's Vice-Commissar for Supplies, had officially criticized the policies of animal requisitioning as one of the principal causes of the impoverishment of the nomads, and had been removed from office (N. Nurbaev, "Žertva kollektivizacii," Partijnaja žizn' Kazahstana, 8 (1991): 89).
55. According to Kazak demographer M.B. Tatimov, during the early years of collectivization approximately 650,000 left Kazakstan. Of these, 205,000 went to foreign countries, while 445,000 moved to other Soviet Republics (E. Andreev, L. Darskij, T. Kharkova, "L'histoire de la population de l'URSS 1920-1959," Annales de Démographie historique (Paris, 1992): 84).
56. A. Cairns, The Soviet famine 1932-33: an eye-witness account of conditions in the spring and summer of 1932 (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1989): 10.
57. Victor Serge, banished to Orenburg in June 1933, described seeing Kazaks dying in the city in Mémoires d'un révolutionnaire (Paris: Seuil, 1951).
58. In 1926 approximately 138,000 Kazaks lived in the RSFSR outside Kazakstan, the majority of them in Siberia (S. Akiner, Islamic peoples of the Soviet Union (London: Kegan Paul, 1983): 293).
59. Cf. similar attitudes towards starving people during the famine of 1921-1922 (A. Berelowitch, V. Danilov, Sovetskaja derevnja glazami VČK-OGPU-NKVD. Dokumenty i materialy. T. 1: 1918-1922 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1998): 680).
60. The former okruga of Petropavlovsk and Kustanaj. E. Ernazarov, Osedanie v Kazakstane (Moscow - Alma-Ata, 1931): 6. The pamphlet criticized these practices.
61. Based on the quantities of grain shipments (figures given in R. W. Davies, M. B. Tauger, S. G. Wheatcroft, "Stalin, grain stocks and the famine of 1932-33," Slavic Review, 3 (1995)) it follows that in the first six months of 1933 Kazakstan received approximately 3% of total shipments made in the USSR.
62. J. Hughes, "Re-evaluating Stalin's peasant policy in 1928-30," in J. Pallot, ed., Transforming peasants. Society, state and the peasantry, 1861-1930 (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1998).
63. T. Martin, "Interpreting the new archival signals. Nationalities policy and the nature of the Soviet bureaucracy," Cahiers du Monde russe, 40, 1-2 (1999): 117.
64. G. Liber, "Korenizatsiia: restructuring Soviet nationality policy in the 1920s," Ethnic and Racial Studies, 14, 1 (1991): 17.