famine existed, and actually went to great lengths to conceal it. Why is this so? The answer seems to be that the famine of 1932-1934 was a man made disaster. It was almost a direct result of the social and economic policies of the Soviet government during the first five-year plan. To carry out the program of rapid industrialization, the government felt that its need to collectivize agriculture quickly far out weighed the individual human loss. The famine began in the spring of 1932. Compared to what was to come, the famine at this time was relatively mild. In the beginning, the peasants still had live stock to slaughter and were allowed to travel outside their villages. The famine however reached full stride in the spring of 1933. There were no longer livestock to eat , every piece of grain was accounted for, and harvested by the Soviet government to be sold on the world market. The government doubled the price of bread in August, which did not matter anyway due to the fact that most of the peasants were not paid enough to buy bread at all. Also at this time, the Soviet government prohibited tours in the famine areas and the peasants were not allowed to leave their villages. The famine was particularly severe in the rural areas. This is the opposite of the norm., but then again this was not the normal famine. Of those who died in the cities, were mostly refugees from the rural areas who in 1921,fled to town thinking things could only be better. They found however, no jobs, no supplies, and no relief. The famine was even worse for the individual peasant than it was for those who joined collectives. The individual peasants were in more danger because they were completely abandoned by the state. This is compared to the members of the collective farms who received , at best, limited state assistance. The individual peasants were completely eliminated either by entering collective farms or by starvation.** The Secon...
