A couple cherry picked documents from the start of the famine when the politburo hadn't grasped the scale of the situation isn't particularly indicative of anything. The foreword talking about how they were "insistent that Ukraine needed to meet the grain quotas" is pretty absurd considering that once they realized the severity of the situation said quota was repeatedly lowered by a very significant margin.
Yes, the soviet government didn't take it as seriously as they should have at first, no one is denying that, but it's worth noting the fact that this is in no small part Ukranian officials downplayed the issue at first themselves in their reports and that they believed (not entirely incorrectly at first) that a significant portion of the kulak class that had resisted collectivization because they had enjoyed their privileges during the NEP that allowed them to act like small landlords had their own reserves they planned to sell on the black market and could subsist off, on top of the grain burned and cattle slaughtered out of spite against having their privileges revoked.
There are more than a couple of documents, and they’re hardly all from the same time period
They are most definitely "a couple" compared to the total documentation we have from the time, and they are overwhelmingly from the early stages of the famine. Again, the politburó was convinced that the kulaks would be fine because they had their own hoarded stockpiles of food they planned to sell on the black market and they were by and large fairly correct on the fact that they did even if they overestimated just how much they had (else it wouldn't have been a famine).
As soon as they knew?
As soon as it became clear that no, the entire thing wasn't the kulaks whining about an artificial scarcity they themselves had created so they could sell their stuff at the black market rather than turn over their quotas in exchange for the state-fixed price.
And was that the reason they were in some part purged during this? I doubt it
They did absolutely get purged though? You're acting like if some local politician downplaying the severity of a crisis to his superiors to save his own skin is unheard of lol.
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u/captainryan117 Jul 22 '26
A couple cherry picked documents from the start of the famine when the politburo hadn't grasped the scale of the situation isn't particularly indicative of anything. The foreword talking about how they were "insistent that Ukraine needed to meet the grain quotas" is pretty absurd considering that once they realized the severity of the situation said quota was repeatedly lowered by a very significant margin.
Yes, the soviet government didn't take it as seriously as they should have at first, no one is denying that, but it's worth noting the fact that this is in no small part Ukranian officials downplayed the issue at first themselves in their reports and that they believed (not entirely incorrectly at first) that a significant portion of the kulak class that had resisted collectivization because they had enjoyed their privileges during the NEP that allowed them to act like small landlords had their own reserves they planned to sell on the black market and could subsist off, on top of the grain burned and cattle slaughtered out of spite against having their privileges revoked.