The influence of the bolshevik agrarian policy on the reduction of grain sowing in Ukraine as one of the factors of the mass famine of 1921–1923
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Abstract
The purpose. Our article aims to research and highlight the impact of the communist regime's policies on the reduction of grain crops in Ukrainian provinces as one of the root causes of the mass famine of 1921–1923. The scientific novelty of the publication is a complex analysis of events and factors, which influenced the decrease in the area of grain crops in Ukraine in the early 1920s, which led to the mass famine of 1921–1923.
Conclusions. From 1914 due to the World War I and to the Ukrainian revolution later a tendency has been evinced towards reduction of cultivation areas of crops. The balance of commercial and food grain has changed, especially in southern agricultural provinces. The population gradually passed to growing bread for its own needs, which is why any external irritants have influenced further decrease in planting opportunities.
The establishment of the power of the communist regime in most of Ukraine created additional negative factors that influenced the rapid reduction of crops. Systematic robbing of the Ukrainian village in particular because of the food layout touched the seed fund and caused exhaustion of varietal composition of grain; destruction of the principles of land use by the redistribution of land and unjustified seed support of the poor peasants by bolshevists had led to the emergence of unattached lands, which were not sown.
The interrelation of reduction of cultivated areas and the gradual decrease in the harvests and, as a result, the inevitability of a critical shortage of bread were obvious to leaders of the Soviet regime. The concealment of true information about insufficient sowing of grain during 1920 and 1921 tells about conscious criminal policy of the communist regime in Ukraine.
Ukrainian peasants were able to «gently» overcome the drought and crop failure 1920 thanks to the available grain stocks from previous years. After intensive implementation of food layout 1920/1921 there had not been such resources in Ukrainian provinces anymore. As a result in the spring 1921 insufficient sowing of grain arose (particularly in southern provinces), that along with the drought caused the catastrophic crop failure. Therefore, the reduction of cultivation of crops, which was conditioned by bolshevic politics, was one of the artificial root cause of the mass famine 1921–1923 in Ukraine.
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References
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