Kazakh famine, 1932-1933

There is a section on the left that debates so intensely about Soviet famines and relations of Moscow to Ukraine and other parts of Russia, they forget about Kazakhstan and other nations. Some people go as far as blaming nomads and peasants or deny the famines took place, despite Soviet Archives being open to the public as well as both Russian academia and Russian state government acknowledging failures of Soviet policies. Understandably, Moscow and regions outside of Moscow will have different narratives.

### **Голощекиндік геноцид (голощёкинским, Goloshekındik Genotsıd, Kazakh Famine, Soviet Famine of 1932 - 1933)**

* https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-kazakh-famine-1930-33-and-the-politics-history-the-post-soviet-space
* http://kazworld.info/?p=21950
* http://web.archive.org/web/20140605055813/https://eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp122907.shtml

### **Related Pages**

* Central Asia
* Kazakhstan
* Ukrainian Famine, 1932-1933

### **Research Articles**

* “The Collectivization Famine in Kazakhstan, 1931–1933” by Niccolò Pianciola https://sci-hub.st/10.2307/41036834 [PDF, 2MB, EN]
* “Famine in the Steppe. The Collectivization of Agriculture and the Kazak Herdsmen, 1928-1934” by Niccolò Pianciola and Susan Finnel https://sci-hub.st/10.2307/20174848 [PDF, 5MB, EN]
* “Food Shortages, Hunger, and Famines in the USSR, 1928-33” by Nicolas Werth https://www.ewjus.com/index.php/ewjus/article/view/217/85 [PDF, 168kb, EN]
* “Famine in the steppe” by Niccolò Pianciola https://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/8681 [EN, FR]

### **News Articles**

* “The Forgotten Soviet Famine” by Sarah Cameron https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-forgotten-soviet-famine-1541111157 [EN] (owned by News Corporation)

### **Encyclopedia**

* «Голод в СССР (1932—1933)» https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4\_%D0%B2\_%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A0\_(1932%E2%80%941933) [RU]
* «Раскулачивание» https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5 [RU]
* «Коллективизация в СССР» https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F\_%D0%B2\_%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A0 [RU]
* “Қазақстандағы 1932—1933 жж. Аштық” https://kk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D2%9A%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D2%9B%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%B0%D2%93%D1%8B\_1932%E2%80%941933\_%D0%B6%D0%B6.\_%D0%B0%D1%88%D1%82%D1%8B%D2%9B [KK]
* “Голод в Казахстане (1932—1933)” https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4\_%D0%B2\_%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%85%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B5\_(1932%E2%80%941933) [RU]
* “Kazakh Famine of 1932–33” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh\_famine\_of\_1932%E2%80%9333 [EN]

### **Books**

* “The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan” by Sarah I. Cameron https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=7171F0DFB5EC1F34563EB0E865F1F2E4 [PDF, 4MB, EN]
* “Stalin’s Nomads: Power and Famine in Kazakhstan” by Robert Kindler and Cynthia Klohr http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C288C921AEB9B8734EA5F0F51694597C [PDF, 5MB, EN]
* “Writing the Stalin Era: Sheila Fitzpatrick and Soviet Historiography” by olfo Alexopoulos, Julie Hessler, Kiril Tomoff http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=CE067E1AEA281C4A1D0B0D751B162F4D [PDF, 2MB, EN]
* “Stalinismo di frontiera. Colonizzazione agricola, sterminio dei nomadi e costruzione statale in Asia centrale (1905-1936)” di Niccolò Pianciola [IT]
* “The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931 - 1933” by R. W. Davies, Stephen G. Wheatcroft http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=32DAA2871728468189A57E0233492A3A [PDF, 5MB, EN],  http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D6D6D016D5DE7EB9B468A45CEC321FAF [DJVU, 12MB, EN] (favours Russian narratives)
* “Silent Steppe: The Story of a Kazakh Nomad under Stalin” by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=AB0D43FFF21A522665340C2A20456298 [PDF, 9MB, EN]; http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=02AA229F8E39333C5542FA7BFCDC956D [EPUB, 2MB, EN] (memoir)
* «Хроника Великого джута» В.Ф Михайлов http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=0C88071E608BDBDFF0410C38910AEDA6 [DJVU, 9MB, RU]

### **Podcast Episodes**

* “Transcript: The Kazakh Famine” by SRB Podcast https://srbpodcast.org/2019/02/21/transcript-the-kazakh-famine/ [58:13, EN]

### **Videos**

* “The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence & the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan” uploaded by Library of Congress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNGHagc5tQ8 [1:02:52, EN SUB, EN]

### **Websites**

* “Evgenii A. Preobrazhensky” https://www.marxists.org/archive/preobrazhensky/index.htm [EN]

### **Notes**

* While famines hit the Volga, the Don, the Urals, Russia, the Cascus and Ukraine hard, Soviet bureaucrats completely upended the Kazakh traditional ways of life
* Kazakhs lost a greater percentage of their population due to famine than any other ethnic groups
* At the moment, there is no political will to talk about famines in Kazakhstan publicly due to economic ties to Moscow under the current (capitalist) Russian Federation and many of the politicians left over from the USSR are still around
* Part of why the famine is not discussed very often is because while the country is vast, it still has a small population where everyone knows each others and most people are not comfortable with talking about the darker side of their families’ histories
* Many Kazakhs do not want to cause ethnic tensions with Russian settlers in Kazakhstan
* Avoid citing or quoting Robert Conquest. Even if his conclusions coincide with other authors and academia, Stalin apologists ignore everything if they see that name regardless of other sources or other names provided
* Robert Conquest’s works were based on limited accounts supplied to the Information Research Department, which was infamous for busting labour movements, and he refused to revise his works after the Soviet Archives opened
* Evgenii A. Preobrazhensky advocates for liquidating the peasant class in order to industrialize the Soviet Union
* In Soviet literature, it is often implied that the famine was part of a natural or inevitable process, as a mobile society became transformed into a settled one
* In the 1920s, many Kazakh communists pointed out they have already achieved communism due to a long history of communalism formed based on collective societies. For awhile there was a pro-nomad strain in the Soviet Union
* The 5 Year Plan relies on producing surpluses and nomadic way of life was not able to meet the demands of the state
* Soviets had the concept of nation-building equating nationality with boundaries and nation-states. Nomadism does not adhere to boundaries, thus pre-existing nationalities were incompatible with Soviet ideal of nation-states.
* Many of the techniques used during the Ukranian famines and the Great Terror in the Soviet Union were first experimented in Kazakhstan and Central Asia
* Famines in the east differ from the west in that: in the west, collectivization was war against the peasants, but in the east, forcing nomadic peoples to become sedentary
* Bolsheviks concluded nomadic pastoralism was the best use of land. Ethnographers warned forced settlements would lead to a barren landscape
* Agrarian socialists who advocated for preserving Kazakhs' communalism were purged by Stalin
* Stalin's cadres argued Kazakhstan could be irrigated, ecosystems could be transformed and soils could be cultivated
* Kazakhs were largely oral culture and is difficult to find sources written by Kazakhs during this time period
* Nomadism in Central Asia, northern Europe, the Urals and Siberia was seen as a hindrance to accessing healthcare, education and mass communications at established institutes (hospitals, schools, telegraph offices, mail offices etc). Same reason why the United States (of America) and Canada cracked down on free movements of polar Indigenous peoples. USSR would also use the same logic against northern Indigenous groups
* Local Soviet bureaucrats were European settlers from the Imperial age and carried their anti-nomadic prejudices into the Soviet era
* National and social identities overlapped, hence why some scholars consider famines in various regions as assault on ethnic groups
* Forced settlements of nomadic peoples also occurred in the Americas for the same reason
* Moscow criminalizes transnational migrations which forced people to settle in drought-prone area
* To force grain production, Soviet Union made slaughters of livestock in the winter illegal and forced meat animals to become draft livestock
* Attempts to centralize livestock production led to epidemic outbreaks, killing many of the animals
* Kazakhs depended on animals for everything from transportation to subsistence to clothing to housing. Destruction of livestock led to the famines
* Focus on cash crops in neighbouring republics such as sugar beets, tobacco and cotton exacerbated the famines
* Moscow’s obsession with grain procurements led to a 90% decline in herds
* Stalin's vision of nationalism and ethnic tensions caused other republics to turn away Kazakh refugees. These artificially-imposed divisions in Central Asia did not exist before the Bolsheviks came to power
* Most of the literature were official documents and ethnographic accounts written by sedentary peoples
* Moscow knew the steppes were too arid to support agriculture, yet insisted progressive forces would improve crop yields
* Many Kazakhs sold their livestock to fulfill grain procurement, especially when the state demanded them to meet the quotas in the form of grains. Often the only place to get grains is by trading with European settlers
* Moscow often rejected animal products as a form of quota fulfilments
* During the early 1990s, discussions of the famine dominated academia and media
* In 1992, Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered a Presidential Commission which ruled the famine was a genocide
* USSR forcibly settled millions of European peasants to 'special villages' to colonize, complimenting the colonial GULAG system. Many of the Kazakhs were forcibly displaced to make room for labour camps and deported peasants from Europe. These resettled peasants fared better during the famine than the nomads.
* Russian settler-colonialism forced Kazakhs to change their migration routes and increased dependency on trading for grains
* If Kazakh bureaucrats were involved at a local level, often they were from different clans than the ones they were administering over. This suggests Moscow was intentionally agonizing different clans
* Many of the Soviet bureaucrats held the same opinions from Tsarist rule
* Famine reconfigured kinship and clan relations from one of mutual aid and interdependence to a capitalist relation
* Ukrainian state does recognize the Kazakh famine as a "homolodor" event and has initiated diplomatic discussion about the topic
* Polish Jewish Raphael Lemkin's definition originally included culture, social and political elements whereas the Convention only addressed physical destruction. Settler states like  Canada and imperial states like United Kingdom and France were responsible for blocking the original definition to avoid accountability for acts such as setting up residential schools