Petrenko I.

The food supply dictatorship of the Russian communist regime in occupied Ukraine (1920 - early 1921)

Section: State terror of the soviet era

Abstract: The aim of the article is to study the goals and course of the implementation of the food supply dictatorship by the Russian communist regime in the occupied territory of Ukraine in 1920 - at the beginning of 1921 as well as the reaction of Ukrainian society to it, based on scientific works, published and archival documents. Methodology and methods. The methodology of research is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, scientificity, and comprehensiveness. Problem-chronological, comparative-historical, logical-analytical and descriptive methods were used to achieve the goal. Conclusions. The Russian communist regime led by V. Lenin required a significant amount of food resources, especially bread resources, in order to establish its dictatorship, provide food for Russian industrial centers, the Red Army, the party, Soviet, punitive and repressive apparatus, and organize proletarian revolutions in Europe. First of all, these resources were supposed to be obtained at the expense of the grain-producing regions of Ukraine. Having occupied most territory of the UNR (Ukrainian National Republic) for the third time in early 1920, the Bolsheviks immediately resumed the food exploitation of Ukraine, which had been interrupted by hostilities in the summer and autumn of 1919. In the occupied territory, war communism with food supply dictatorship and prodrozkladka (the surplus food appropriation system), as a it's important part, was restored. Moscow and its protégés imposed an unrealistic amount of grain requisitioning on Ukraine, which was practically impossible to fulfil in the conditions of the decline of the agrarian sector of the economy. Bolsheviks used a wide range of administrative, punitive and repressive bodies and measures in order to achieve that goal. The People's Commissariat of Food of the Ukrainian SSR was reinstated, and prodzahony (food detachments) were established under its direction. Russian laborers made up the majority of prodzahony on the basis of which it was formed separate food army tasked with enforcing a food dictatorship. At the same time, the occupation regime involved units of the Red Army, Ukrainian Labor Army, troops of the VOKhR etc to expropriate Ukrainian farms. Despite the widespread use of repression and terror, the implementation of the prodrozkladka in 1920 was a failure. The main contributors to this were the organized anti-Bolshevik insurgency, the Ukrainian peasantry's resistance, and Soviet Russia's wars against the UNR, Poland, and P. Wrangel's White Army. The Bolsheviks were only able to approach the requisitioning and plundering of Ukrainian food in full force with the UNR's definitive conquest in November 1920. The prodrozkladka growth peaked in the end of 1920 and the beginning of 1921. However, as the food dictatorship grew more entrenched, the Ukrainian insurgent movement experienced a fresh, dramatic upsurge that gave rise to a new front in the anti-Bolshevik battle. It eventually became one of the key reasons the Bolsheviks were compelled to give up on war communism and adopt a new economic strategy that replaced prodrozkladka with tax in kind. The later one, however, didn't go into effect until the fall of 1921. Till then, Bolsheviks continued "pumping out" of the grain in Ukraine, while employing all of the previous years' repressive and punitive tactics and policies. The exhaustion of the Ukrainian peasantry by Bolsheviks that used the food terror of 1920 - early 1921 caused a considerable decline in the country's agricultural output. It consequently had a negative effect on the spring 1921 sowing campaign, which, along with the persistence of prodrozkladka and other forms of coercion, the routine export of grain to Russia, the harsh weather of the summer of 1921, and other factors, led to a mass famine in Ukraine.

Keywords: bread, grain, prodrozkladka, prodzahony, bolsheviks, food supply dictatorship, Ukraine, UNR, Ukrainian SSR.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/vuchk2022.02.005     Citation

• Petrenko I. (The Holodomor Research Institute of The National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, Kyiv, Ivanpetrenko753@gmail.com) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7759-5298

Cite:
Petrenko I. (2022). The food supply dictatorship of the Russian communist regime in occupied Ukraine (1920 - early 1921). From archives of VUChK–GPU–NKVD–KGB, ( 2 (58)) 5. (In Ukrainian). doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/vuchk2022.02.005

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