page_title: Causes of the Holodomor
section_title: Requisition quotas
hierarchical_section_title: Causes of the Holodomor / Deliberately engineered or continuation of civil war / Requisition quotas
caption_attribution_description: English: The contemporary caption says: "“Seizing grain from kulaks”. YCL'ers seizing grain hidden by kulaks in the graveyard. Ukraine" At these times the term "kulak" (wealthy peasant) was liberally applied to anyone who resisted collectivization Русский: «Изъятие зерна у кулаков». Комсомольцы извлекают зерно, спрятанное кулаками на кладбище. Украина
context_page_description: The causes of the Holodomor, the name of the famine that ravaged Soviet Ukraine in 1932–1933 whose estimates for the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range between 2.2 million and 10 million, are a subject of scholarly and political debate. Some historians theorize that the famine was an unintended consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization. Others claim that the Soviet policies that caused the famine were an engineered attack on Ukrainian nationalism, or more broadly, on all peasants, in order to prevent uprisings. Some suggest that the famine may fall under the legal definition of genocide.
context_section_description: In the summer of 1930, the Soviet government had instituted a program of food requisitioning, ostensibly to increase grain exports. The same year Ukraine produced 27% of the Soviet harvest but provided 38% of the deliveries, and in 1931 it made 42% of the deliveries. Yet the Ukrainian harvest fell from 23.9 million tons to 18.3 million tons in 1931, but the previous year's quota of 7.7 million tons remained. Authorities were able to procure only 7.2 million tons, and in 1932 just 4.3 million tons of a reduced quota of 6.6 million tons.
  Sources such as Encyclopædia Britannica say there was no physical basis for famine in Ukraine, and that Soviet authorities set quotas for Ukraine at exceedingly high levels. However Soviet archive data suggests the grain harvest was not as large as has been assumed, and the Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who lived through the period in question and was himself a victim of a Stalinist purge, described the famine as preceded by "a year of drought coincid[ing] with chaotic agricultural conditions."
  This suggests that the famine was caused by a combination of a severe drought, chaotic implementation of forced collectivization of farms, and the food requisition program carried out by the Soviet authorities.
caption: Komsomol members seize "grain hidden by kulaks"
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