Droughts and famines in Russia and the Soviet Union
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Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR tended to occur on a fairly regular basis, with famine occurring every 10-13 years and droughts every 5-7 years. Golubev and Dronin distinguish three types of drought according to productive areas vulnerable to droughts: Central (Volga basin, Northern Caucasus), and Central Chernozem Region), Southern (Volga and Volga-Vyatka area , Ural, Ukraine), and Eastern (steppe and forest-steppe belts Western and Eastern Siberia and Kazakhstan). [1]
[edit] Pre 1900 Droughts and Famines
Major famines include the Great Famine of 1315–1317 which affected much of Europe including part of Russia, and the 1891-92 famine which killed between 375,000 and 500,000 people.[2]
See also Russian famine of 1601 - 1603, Russia's worst famine.[3]
[edit] Post 1900 Droughts and Famines
The Golubev and Dronin report gives the following table of the major droughts in Russia. [1]
- Central: 1920, 1924, 1936, 1946, 1972, 1979, 1981, 1984.
- Southern: 1901, 1906, 1921, 1939, 1948, 1951, 1957, 1975, 1995.
- Eastern: 1911, 1931, 1963, 1965, 1991.
The first famine in the USSR happened in 1921-1923 and garnered wide international attention. It was mostly due to forceful confiscation of grain and other policies of the Soviet government [2]. The most affected area being the Southeastern areas of European Russia (including Volga area, or Povolzhye, especially national republics of Idel-Ural, see 1921-1922 Famine in Tatarstan) and Ukraine. Fridtjof Nansen was honored with the 1922 Nobel Prize for Peace, in part for his work as High Commissioner for Relief In Russia. Other organizations that helped to combat the Soviet famine were UISE (Union Internationale de Secours aux Enfants, International Save the Children Union) and the International Red Cross.
The second Soviet famine happened during the collectivisation in the USSR. In 1932-1933 confiscations of grain and other food by the Soviet authorities[3] caused a famine which affected more than 40 million people, especially in the south on the Don and Kuban areas and in Ukraine, where by various estimates from 5 to 10 million may have starved to death (the event known as Holodomor).[4] Modern evidence stemming from the previously closed Soviet archives provides an estimate of between 3.5 million and 10 million deaths; the information initially having been suppressed by Stalin's regime. [5] About 200,000 Kazakh nomads fled to China, Iran, Mongolia and Afghanistan during the famine.
Although famines were taking place in various parts of the USSR in 1932-33, for example in Kazakhstan,[6] parts of Russia and the Volga German Republic,[7] the name Holodomor is specifically applied to the events that took place in territories populated by ethnic Ukrainians.
The last major famine in the USSR happened mainly in 1947 as a cumulative effect of consequences of collectivization, war damage, the severe drought in 1946 in over 50% of the grain-productive zone of the country and government social policy and mismanagement of grain reserves.[8] This led to an estimated 1 to 1.5 million excess deaths as well as to secondary population losses due to reduced fertility.[9] Partly as a result of this famine, unlike many countries in Europe and North America the Soviet Union did not experience a Post-World War II baby boom. Prompted by the drought and famine of 1946-47, the so-called Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature was put forth which consisted in a number of ambitious projects in land improvement.
The drought of 1963 caused panic slaughtering of livestock, but there was no risk of famine. Since that year the Soviet Union started importing feed grains for its livestock in increasing amounts.
[edit] References and Notes
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b Genady Golubev and Nikolai Dronin, Geography of Droughts and Food Problems in Russia (1900-2000), Report of the International Project on Global Environmental Change and Its Threat to Food and Water Security in Russia (February, 2004).
- ^ The History of International Humanitarian Assistance
- ^ Russia before Peter the Great
- ^ Legacy of famine divides Ukraine
- ^ [1]
- ^ The Kazakh Catastrophe and Stalin’s Order of Priorities, 1929-1933: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives
- ^ The NDSU Libraries: Germans From Russia
- ^ The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines
- ^ M. Ellman, "The 1947 Soviet famine and the entitlement approach to famines," Cambridge Journal of Economics 24 (2000): 603-630.
[edit] General references
- Zima, V. F. The Famine of 1946-1947 in the USSR: Its Origins and Consequences. Ceredigion, UK: Mellen Press, 1999. (ISBN 0-7734-3184-5)
- Nikolai M. Dronin, Edward G. Bellinger, "Climate Dependence and Food Problems in Russia, 1900-1990: The Interaction of Climate and Agricultural Policy and Their Effect on Food Problems" (2005) Central European University Press ISBN 9637326103
- Nicholas Ganson, The Soviet Famine of 1946-47 in Global and Historical Perspective[4]. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. (ISBN 0-230-61333-0)
[edit] External links
- The Political Economy of a Disaster. Famine in Russia: 1921-1922. John McCrory and Jennifer Kao
- Writings on Soviet Famines and Agriculture, and Other Famines Mark Tauger, West Virginia University
- Art and photographs from the Great Famine
[edit] See also
- Holodomor
- List of famines
- 1921 Famine in Russia
- 1921-1922 Famine in Tatarstan
- Soviet famine of 1932-1934
- Trofim Lysenko
- Hunger Plan
Notable victims:
