293. Tauger, who stresses the natural causes of the famine, carefully showed that the annual reports from the collective farms for 1932 implied an extremely low harvest, and that not only the official figure for the 1932 harvest but revised figures given by Davies and Wheatcroft were likely too high. Ultimately, the size of the 1932 harvest remains uncertain, but the annual report data from 40 percent of the collective farms—which are the only actual harvest data so far discovered—imply a harvest on the order of 50 million tons. Tauger, “1932 Harvest.” Davies and Wheatcroft estimate the 1932 harvest at 58–60 million, but that is based on pre-harvest forecasts. It should be noted, however, that Wheatcroft, who has rejected Tauger’s views, often stridently, subsequently allowed 50 million as the lower band of the estimate without then citing Tauger. Davies, Economic Transformation, 286 (56 million tons plus or minus 10 percent). The Five-Year Plan had originally envisioned a harvest by 1932 of 100–106 million tons; as late as July 1932, the harvest had been estimated at 76–78 million tons, better than in 1931, but in Sept. 1932 the estimates were reduced to 67–71 million. Revised estimates conducted in early 1933 would put the figure between 60 and 65 million; the final official figure, from politburo decision in Sept. 1933, was 69.87 million. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 443–6; Piatliletnyi plan, II/i: 298; Kosheleva, Pis’ma Stalina Molotovu, 248–9 (Sept. 12, 1933); Lih et al., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 234–5.
294. Tauger, “Natural Disaster,” 40–5.
295. Molot, Jan. 23, 1934; VIII Vsekazakhstanskaia kraevaia konferentsiia VKP (b), 159. “The Ukrainian village was leading a nomad life,” in one official’s description of starving refugees, while the Kazakh steppe nomads were being forced into a sedentary life—which also spurred mass flight. Swianiewicz, Forced Labor, 121 (citing a statement to the author in 1933 from an unnamed Central European Communist who had just escaped the USSR). In Aug. 1932, the head of the Kazakhstan Council of People’s Commissars wrote that “the administrative transformation of semi-desert livestock districts into ‘agricultural’ districts has had a ruinous effect on livestock farming.” Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 155.
296. Uraz Isaev (b. 1899), an ethnic Kazakh and chair of the autonomous republic’s Council of People’s Commissars, estimated 10,000 to 15,000 human deaths in spring 1932. Ăbdīraĭymūly et al., Golod v kazakhskoi stepi, 140–51 (APRK, f. 141, op. 17, d. 607, l. 1–14); Aldazhumanov et al., Nasil’stvennaia kollektivizatsiia, 153–162; Partiinaia zhizn’ Kazakhstana, 1990, no. 6: 83–9.
297. Kuramysov, Na putiakh sotsialisticheskogo pereustroitastva kazakskogo aula, 3–4; Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 324 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 113–7). Turar Ryskulov, a vice chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, to protest courageously but vainly to Stalin (Sept. 29) that the settlement mania exhibited “ignorance of the interests of livestock in districts that were mainly livestock districts.” Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, III: 503–9 (RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 670, l. 11–14ob.); Partiinaia zhizn’ Kazakhstana, no. 10 (1990): 76–84; Ryskulov, Sobranie sochinenii, III: 304–16 (APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 6403, l. 13–6). Kazakh nomads were driven into farming partly by impoverishment, not solely by the regime’s organized sedentarization. Of course, coercive collective farming was not the only farming option those people would have wanted.
298. Pianciola, “Famine in the Steppe,” 184 (citing GARF, f. 6985, op. 1, d. 9, l. 2). Livestock allowances would be increased on Dec. 19, 1934. Pianciola, “Collectivization Famine,” at 244 (citing Kazakhstanskaia pravda, Dec. 20, 1934; GARF, f. 6985, op. 1, d. 9, l. 133); Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 183–4 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 13, l. 113–7, 118).
