Evolution of Government Approches to Food Aid/Loans during the Holodomor of 1932–1933

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to investigate the Stalin’s regime strategies regarding the so-called centralized food aid and its distribution during the Holodomor, which was organized by the Kremlin on the occupied territory of Ukraine in 1932–1933. Research methods: analytical, system-structural, historical-comparative, historical-chronological. Main results. The research focuses on the deep examination of the normative documents created by the different echelons of authority (from Moscow to Ukrainian regions) as a base of clarifying the model related to realizing of general decisions approved by the Central Committee of the Communist party and the Soviet government. In addition, the above-mentioned problem is researched in the frame of genocide conception. The scientific significance of the article is in showing that during 1932–1933 the Stalin regime’s approaches were shifted. From July 1932 food aid was transformed into food loan. In 1933 the central authority established the discriminating model of distribution foods based on renouncement from the principle of equal access and from the providing the aid which depends on the stage of starvation. Food loan depended on political loyalty, social origin and membership in collective farms. Furthermore, the authority aimed to ехterminate all regional attempts to dodge from strong realization of the center’s model. In fact, these attempts frequently turned out to be the step to rescue a number of Ukrainian farmers in different regions of Ukraine. Created by the Stalin regime and used by the authority hierarchy in Ukraine, the approaches are very important evidence that the Food Aid was an instrument to save only number of farmers, who were necessary to plant and harvest. Other farmers were to be starved. The method of the providing and distribution of the centralized food loan was a key instrument of the authority aimed to kill a considerable part of the Ukrainian population by famine. It indicates that the Stalin’s regime intention was genocide. Further research perspective is to deduce how the regional authorities, the heads of collective farms and villages have been realized the orders approved by central as well as Ukrainian rules and how it influenced on the starving and inhibiting or catalyzing of the Soviet government’s plans. Practical significance: the results of the study open up new opportunities for deepening scientific ideas and theoretical generalizations about the Holodomor of 1932–1933. Type of article: analytical.