Pictured: A newspaper ad headlining mass starvation and the effects of grain confiscation.
One of the challenges that faced Soviet society after WWII was food. In 1946, Russia faced one of its largest famines. This famine led to the mass starvation across the country, and in turn, many deaths. The conditions were caused by drought, but the effects were greatly influenced by wars.
The year 1946 was also a year of severe drought. Most parts of Russia were in desperate need of rainfall to contribute to their agricultural production. With this drought, grain production significantly decreased from 95.5 million tons to 39.6 million tons (Famine).
Not only was this devastation exacerbated post WWII, it was also influenced by the Great Patriotic War (Famine). These wars destroyed Soviet agriculture and depleted its resources. “By 1945 kolkhozes had only 42 percent of the number of horses and 38 percent of the number of working-age men that they had had before the war. Sown area dropped from 117.7 million hectares in 1940 to 84.0 million in 1946,” (Famine). These wars led to decrease in able bodied men, not only by casualties but also due to demobilization. The wars also led to a shortage of horses and agricultural machinery.
Others argue a main cause of the famine was the contribution of state policy. Grain requisitions and grain confiscation became a direct policy that caused the famines. Stalin’s grain policies required collective farms to hand over a significant portion of their harvest to the communist government. In previous famines, excessive grain requisitions led to mass starvation. Despite Stalin’s knowledge of that, he continued to confiscate grain. There was clear mismanagement of grain reserves that were intended to provide relief to rural areas. Even during the crisis, the government continued to export these grains. Without these grain policies, the famine could have been prevented.
Sources:
Famine: http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1947-2/famine-of-1946-1947/
Russian to graduate... 
What a heartbreaking topic! Check back on “The End of Rationing” essay, though. I’m not sure the claims you make here about the connections between famine and rationing are supported by that text. Also, to what extent do you think the postwar famine was “artificially created”? That is, how much of the famine was the regime’s fault? That’s amazing that the story was picked up in the Western press. What kind of response do you think American readers had to those images?
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Oops I rechecked that rationing essay, thank you for pointing it out! I think most of the famine was artificially created. After researching this topic, almost all the sources say this famine could have easily been prevented if Stalin’s grain confiscation policy was nonexistent or less strict. I think the response by American readers were heartbreaking. The photographs display towards an emotional side, especially because we can visually see what is happening in the Soviet Union.
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I found your post very enlightening. Often during war times we mainly here about the travesties on the battlefields. Not the ones that occur at home due to the war. The Soviet war time engine was one purely focused on fighting and to do this sacrifices had to be made at home in the form of sending resources to the front lines. Those sacrifices coupled with a drought and wartime damages to agricultural producing areas can have devastating effects. As highlighted in your post. Great work!
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I had no idea there was such a big famine during this time. Thank you for writing about this and enlightening me on such a sad topic. Was it stated how many died during this time? I know that Great Britain also had to ration after the war because their supplies were down as well but it probably didn’t even compare to what happened in the Soviet Union. Good post!
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It was said it was estimated that 1,200,000 people died by the time the famine ended in 1948. What a large amount!!
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The numbers regarding food shortages and land to farm on is insane. The people survived a hard fought war, and then had to survive a famine. I’m assuming that the majority of farmlands were destroyed from the all artillery shelling and bombing from planes. Do you know how long it took to get farms commissioned again by clearing the fields of ordnance?
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I’m not sure how long it took, but the famine did last from 1946-1948. And after Stalin’s death in 1953, the Soviet Union took a different approach to agriculture to prevent this from happening again.
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Nhi I thought you chose a really interesting topic to write on this week. One of the facts you quoted was that Russia only had 38% of the working age men that they had before the war, that is crazy to think about! I try to picture what would happen to our society if something like that occurred to our population, it is crazy to think that they continued on. I thought your post had a lot of really good information in it, but I do wonder if there were differences in famine experience for those in urban or rural areas. Like did rural citizens have it better off since they were producing the agriculture, or were urban citizens better off since the government was aware of those citizens first-hand?
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The urban citizens definitely got the better end. The grain confiscations were reallocated to feed those in urban industrial working positions instead of the rural citizens, which lead to such a large famine.
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After World War II, the people within the Soviet Union could not catch a break. My question is, what was the confiscated grain used for? If people are starving, why would they horde grain away from them?
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I read that the grains were used to feed the Soviet Union’s major cities. It demonstrates the lack of concern from the government of those who aren’t in cities. The Soviet Union prioritized the urban industrial workers instead of the rural population.
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