Hiding the famineMedium confidence
- 1) Time range
- 1933-02-16
- 2) Group profile
- Party-state directive · Issuing body not named in the sourcesSelector: Received by village soviets and civil registries of the Ukrainian SSR
- 3) Decisions
- Barred everyone except the OGPU from recording swelling and deaths from hunger
- Village soviets told not to record causes of death
- In 1934 the 1932–33 death books were sent to "special sections"; they survived by chance in 4 village soviets of Vinnytsia oblast (1,193 deaths in 1933)
- Affected
- The civil and medical record of the famine
- Gap
- Ivnitsky, citing the 1993 Kyiv conference volume, gives 16 Feb; UK Wikipedia cites the same volume for 6 Feb, likely a dropped digit. RU Wikipedia mentions a closed 8 Feb resolution on hunger cases; the EN article does not mention it. No primary text opened.
Ivnitsky, Голод 1932—1933 годов в СССР (2009)UK WikipediaRU Wikipedia
FamineMedium confidence
- 1) Time range
- 1933-02-25 … 1933-07-31
- 2) Human profile
- Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov · VKP(b) CC and SNK USSR; distributed in Ukraine by Postyshev and Kosior
- 3) Decisions
- 25 Feb: seed loans of about 320,000 t to Ukraine and 240,000 t to the North Caucasus
- Aid given first to "conscientious" kolkhozniks and field workers, by class
- 31 Mar: exports of 1932-harvest grain halted
- Affected
- Kolkhozniks able to work; individual farmers and those unable to work often got nothing
- Gap
- Totals range from 176,000 t to over 600,000 t (a 2026 Russian OSCE statement gives 616,000 t); the share that was food, not seed, is unclear.
EN WikipediaWerth, Sciences Po
Hiding the famineMedium confidence
- 1) Time range
- 1933-02 … 1933-09
- 2) Group profile
- NKID Press Department · Chief censor Konstantin Umansky; Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim LitvinovSelector: Moscow; the accredited foreign press corps
- 3) Decisions
- Required correspondents to get permission before leaving Moscow; refused trips to rural Ukraine and the Kuban
- Refused the joint request led by Eugene Lyons (UP) in late August 1933
- Allowed controlled visits only after the harvest, from about September 1933
- Affected
- Western readers: almost no accredited journalist saw the villages at the peak of mortality
- Gap
- No decree text found; the often-cited 23 Feb 1933 Politburo decision is unverified.
garethjones.orgEN Wikipedia · Denial