Soviet Famine of 1947
Encyclopedia
The last major famine to hit the USSR "began in July 1946, reached its peak in February–August 1947 and then quickly diminished in intensity, although there were still some famine deaths in 1948." It was triggered by a bad harvest caused by drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...

 in 1946. However, the surplus stocks in the hands of the state could have fed all those who died of starvation. Had the policies of the Soviet regime been different, there might have been no famine at all or a much smaller one. It is for this reason it is classified as a FAD2 (preventable food availability decline) famine.

Those who starved had no entitlement to food (the peasantry). Those who did have an entitlement to food (mainly urban state employees) usually survived. The famine claimed an estimated 1 to 1.5 million lives in addition to secondary population losses due to reduced fertility. Economist Steven Rosefielde
Steven Rosefielde
Steven Rosefielde is a Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.. He is also a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.-Selected works:...

 argues that these deaths constitute "inexcusable felonious manslaughter and/or felonious negligent homicide includable in any indictment brought under the 1998 Rome Statute
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 13 October 2011, 119 states are party to the statute...

."

The Soviet regime did permit famine relief and international aid, but it was inadequate and failed to prevent large scale mortality. Like Lenin, Stalin thought in the first instance that any reports of rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

 hardship were the result of peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

s tricking urban authorities into indulging them. During the crisis, the USSR continued to export grain, with the majority of it going to East Germany and Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...

 to consolidate the new Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

.

Speaking of the Soviet famine of 1947, Historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 Robert Service
Robert Service (historian)
Robert John Service is a British historian, academic, and author who has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia, particularly the era from the October Revolution to Stalin's death...

 said: "Stalin was not responsible for the drought that had ruined the 1946 harvest. But he remained the founder and director of the collective-farm system and his ferocious rejection of the request for aid to Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 makes him culpable for the deaths of millions of people in the famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...

 of late 1940s."

Partly as a result of this famine, unlike many countries in Europe and North America the Soviet Union did not experience a Post–World War II baby boom. Prompted by the drought and famine of 1946-47, the so-called Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature
Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature
The Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature was put forth by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union in the second half of 1940s, with the corresponding propaganda motto and catch phrase, great transformation of nature...

 was put forth which consisted in a number of ambitious projects in land improvement
Land improvement
Land improvement or land amelioration refers to investments making land more usable by humans. In terms of accounting, land improvements refer to any variety of projects that increase the value of the property...

.

See also

  • 1921 Famine in Russia
  • 1921–1922 famine in Tatarstan
  • Soviet famine of 1932-1934
  • Holodomor
    Holodomor
    The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...

  • Droughts and famines in Russia and the Soviet Union
  • Great Leap Forward
    Great Leap Forward
    The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...


General references

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