Kazakh Famine Of 1930–1933
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, also known as the Asharshylyk, was a
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...
during which approximately 1.5 million people died in the
Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic The Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (; ), abbreviated as Kazak ASSR (; ) and simply Kazakhstan (; ), was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) within the Soviet Union (from 1922) which exis ...
, then part of the
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...
in the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, of whom 1.3 million were ethnic
Kazakhs The Kazakhs (Kazakh language, Kazakh: , , , ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common Culture of Kazakhstan, culture, Kazakh language, language and History of Kazakhstan, history ...
. An estimated 38 to 42 percent of all Kazakhs died, the highest percentage of any ethnic group killed by the
Soviet famine of 1930–1933 The Soviet famine of 1930–1933 was a famine in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukraine and different parts of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russia, including ...
. Other research estimates that as many as 2.3 million died. A committee created by the Kazakhstan parliament chaired by historian Manash Kozybayev concluded that the famine was "a manifestation of the politics of genocide", with 1.75 million victims. The famine began in the winter of 1930, a full year before the famine in Ukraine, termed the
Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...
, which was at its worst in the years 1931–1933. The famine made Kazakhs a minority in the
Kazakh ASSR The Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (; ), abbreviated as Kazak ASSR (; ) and simply Kazakhstan (; ), was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) within the Soviet Union (from 1922) which exis ...
; it caused the deaths or migration of large numbers of people, and it was not until the 1990s, after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
, that the Kazakhs became the largest ethnic group in Kazakhstan again. Before the famine, around 60% of the republic's residents were ethnic Kazakhs, a proportion greatly reduced to around 38% after the famine. The famine is seen by some scholars as belonging to the wider history of forced
collectivization in the Soviet Union The Soviet Union introduced collectivization () of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to integrate individual landholdings and labour into nominally co ...
and part of the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. Soviet authorities engaged in repressive policies during the famine, such as
blacklisting Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...
entire districts from trading with other areas and shooting thousands of Kazakhs dead as they attempted to flee across the border to China. While some historians describe the famine as legally recognizable as a
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
perpetrated by the Soviet state under the definition outlined by the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
, others argue against this. In Kazakhstan, it is sometimes termed as Goloshchyokin's genocide (, ) after
Filipp Goloshchyokin Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin () (born Shaya Itsikovich Goloshchyokin) () ( – October 28, 1941) was a Jewish-Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, and party functionary. A member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party s ...
, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Party in the Kazakh ASSR, to emphasize its
man-made Artificiality (the state of being artificial, anthropogenic, or man-made) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity. Connotati ...
nature.


Etymology

The famine is commonly known as the Asharshylyk. It comes from Kazakh: Ашаршылық, , meaning 'famine' or 'hunger'.


Background

In the years leading up to the famine, several interconnected factors played a crucial role in exacerbating the dire situation. The historical context was shaped by a complex interplay of demographic changes and traditional
nomadic pastoralism Nomadic pastoralism, also known as nomadic herding, is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance ...
practices in
Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
, particularly centered around a meat and dairy based diet. The nomadic lifestyle of Kazakhs involved the seasonal movement of herds across vast expanses of steppe as a response to the unpredictable availability of grazing resources, driven by the region's harsh climate and varied terrain. As a result, the reliance on meat from livestock, especially during the long and harsh winters, became a fundamental aspect of survival in the Kazakh steppe. The demographic landscape also played a crucial role, as the population in the region was marked by a substantial number of nomadic Kazakh herders, contributing to the reliance on livestock for sustenance. The traditional practices of raising animals and consuming their meat were intricately linked to cultural norms and historical traditions of Kazakhstan. However, the destruction of nomadic pastoralism had its roots in the 19th century with the
Russian conquest of Central Asia In the 16th century, the Tsardom of Russia embarked on a campaign to Territorial evolution of Russia, expand the Russian frontier to the east. This effort continued until the 19th century under the Russian Empire, when the Imperial Russian Army ...
, which marked a significant turning point. Russian authorities introduced changes that included auctioning fertile land as an effort to lure Russian peasants in the region with a focus on agriculture, aiming to transform the traditional nomadic lifestyle. This alteration in land use and economic activities disrupted the delicate equilibrium that had been maintained by Kazakh pastoralists for millennia, resulting in decreased nomadic mobility and increased consumption of grain. These changes set the stage for further disruptions in the early 20th century, as the region grappled with the aftermath of the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
and the subsequent
Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
. The situation was exacerbated by the policy of
Prodrazvyorstka ''Prodrazverstka'', also transliteration of Russian, transliterated ''prodrazvyorstka'' ( rus, продразвёрстка, p=prədrɐˈzvʲɵrstkə, short for , ), alternatively referred to in English as grain requisitioning, was a policy and ...
adopted by the Bolshevik government, coupled with the already challenging effects of severe intermittent drought, involved requisitioning grain from rural areas to support urban populations and export which led to the
Kazakh famine of 1919–1922 The Kazakh famine of 1919–1922, also referred to as the Turkestan famine of 1919–1922, was a period of mass starvation and drought that took place in the Kirghiz ASSR (present-day Kazakhstan) and Turkestan ASSR as a result of the Russian Civ ...
, with an estimated 400,000 to 2 million people dying in the event. With the establishment of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
in 1922, Kazakhstan was drawn into the sphere of Soviet authority. This transition placed the region under the influence of policies enacted by the Soviet government, particularly the
first five-year plan First five-year plan may refer to: * First five-year plan (China) * First Five-Year Plans (Pakistan) * First five-year plan (Soviet Union) The first five-year plan (, ) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a list of economi ...
implemented under the leadership of
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
. At the heart of these policies was the drive for
collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
of agriculture, a practice which involved in integrating private landholdings and labour into
collective farming Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-o ...
.


Overview

Signs of the Kazakh famine began emerging in the late 1920s, with the factor being the jut from 1927 to 1928, which was a period of extreme cold in which cattle were starved and were unable to graze. In 1928, the Soviet authorities started a collectivization campaign to confiscate cattle from richer Kazakhs, who were called bai, known as Little October. The confiscation campaign was carried out by Kazakhs against other Kazakhs, and it was up to those Kazakhs to decide who was a bai and how much to confiscate from them. While nomadic Kazakhs, involved in pasturing, were forcefully placed in collective farms which resulted in decline of adequate grazing. This engagement was intended to make Kazakhs active participants in the transformation of Kazakh society. More than 10,000 bais may have been deported due to the campaign against them. The campaign corresponded to arrests of former members of the Alash movement and repression of religious authorities and practices. Kazakhstan's livestock and grain were largely acquired between 1929 and 1932, with one-third of the republic's cereals being requisitioned and more than 1 million tons confiscated in 1930 to provide food for the cities. One third of Kazakh livestock was confiscated between 1930 and 1931. The livestock was transferred over to Moscow and Leningrad which in the opinion of Niccolò Pianciola shows that Kazakhs were consciously sacrificed to the imperial hierarchy of consumption. Some Kazakhs were expelled from their land to make room for 200,000 "special settlers" and Gulag prisoners, and some of the inadequate food supply in Kazakhstan went to such prisoners and settlers as well. Food aid to the Kazakhs was selectively distributed to eliminate class enemies. Many Kazakhs were denied food aid as local officials considered them unproductive, and food aid was provided to European workers in the country instead. Despite this, the Kazakhs received some measure of emergency food assistance from the state, though much of it did not arrive or was heavily delayed. Soviet officials sent medical personnel into Kazakhstan to inoculate 200,000 Kazakhs from smallpox.Cameron (2018), p. 175. However, Kazakh victims of the famine were widely discriminated against and expelled from virtually every sector of Kazakhstan's society. Soviet authorities referred to Kazakhs in private memos as "two-legged wolves". As famine raged Soviet authorities continued to procure grain from the Kazakhs, with
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
explicitly advocating for a "repressive track" in the collection process due to procurements having "undergone sharp declines." In this vein within 1932, 32 out of the less than 200 districts in Kazakhstan that did not meet grain production quotas were
blacklisted Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...
, meaning that they were prohibited from trading with other villages. As Historian Sarah Cameron describes it in an interview with
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
's Davis Center, " na strategy explicitly modeled upon a technique that was used against starving Ukrainians, several regions of Kazakhstan were blacklisted. That essentially entraps starving Kazakhs in zones of death where no food could be found." In 1933,
Filipp Goloshchyokin Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin () (born Shaya Itsikovich Goloshchyokin) () ( – October 28, 1941) was a Jewish-Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, and party functionary. A member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party s ...
was replaced with
Levon Mirzoyan Levon Isayevich Mirzoyan (; ) (14 November 1897 – 26 February 1939) was the List of heads of state of Azerbaijan, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (1920), Communist Party of the Azerbaijan from 21 Janu ...
from Armenia, who was repressive particularly toward famine refugees and denied food aid to areas run by cadres who asked for more food for their regions using, in the words of Cameron, "teary telegrams"; in one instance under Mirzoyan's rule, a plenipotentiary shoved food aid documents into his pocket and had a wedding celebration instead of transferring them for a whole month while hundreds of Kazakhs starved. Shortly after his arrival, Mirzoyan announced that those who fled or stole grain were 'enemies' of the Soviet Union, and that the republic would take 'severe measures' against them. However, as Cameron notes, this definition could be extended to every starving refugee in the country.Cameron, Sarah (2018). ''The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan''. Cornell University Press. . p. 162. With this campaign, Mirzoyan pushed for the use of brutal punishment such as shootings. Thousands of Kazakhs violently resisted the collectivization campaign with weapons left over by the white army with 8 rebellions occurring in 1930 alone. In the
Mangyshlak Peninsula Mangyshlak or Mangghyshlaq Peninsula (; ) is a large peninsula located in western Kazakhstan. It borders on the Caspian Sea in the west and with the Buzachi Peninsula, a marshy sub-feature of the main peninsula, in the northeast. The Tyuleniy Ar ...
15,000 rebels resisted between 1929 and 1931. In one rebellion Kazakh took over the city of
Suzak Suzak (; / ''Сузоқ'') is a village in Jalal-Abad Region, Kyrgyzstan. Its population was 30,534 in 2021. It is the administrative seat of Suzak District. History The first mention of Suzak village is known from a map of Eugene Schuyler "Map ...
in Irgiz returning confiscated property and destroying grain depots. Rebels also decapitated and cut the ears off of party members upon their takeover of said city. Other Kazakhs in the rebellions fought to reopen previous closed down mosques and free religious leaders.
OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
officials are reported to have drunk the blood of Kazakhs shot during the repression of the rebellions. Lower level cadres often disaffected and joined the rebellions to help fight against Red Army forces. Prominent Kazakh writer Gabit Musirepov reported finding corpses "stacked like firewood" by the roadside in the Turgai district of Kazakhstan. Another first account testified that "It is not rare to meet a Kazakh family, fleeing from who knows where and dragging behind them a sled, on top of which lies the corpse of a child, who died along the way."Richter, James
''Famine, Memory, and Politics in the Post-Soviet Space: Contrasting Echoes of Collectivization in Ukraine and Kazakhstan''
Nationalities Papers, 2019, P. 1
Though he didn't witness it firsthand Welshman Gareth Jones was probably the first journalist to report on the Kazakhstan famine. He was told in March 1933 by a 'German from Central Asia' that "one million at least out of 5 million... have died of hunger" and also wrote in his diary of "corpses in Kazakhstan. Terrible conditions." In scholar James Richter's ''Famine, Memory, and Politics in the Post-Soviet Space: Contrasting Echoes of Collectivization in Ukraine and Kazakhstan'', published by
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
, many testimonies from survivors are documented:
My first memory is of the moon. It was autumn, cold and we were on the tramp somewhere. Wrapped up, the cart swayed beneath me. A sudden stop, and I saw in the black sky this enormous moon. It was full, round and shone brightly. I lay on my back and couldn't tear myself from the sight for a long time. Turning over, I could clearly see on the ground some kind of thickets with stretched-out, crooked branches; there were a lot of them on both sides of the road: they were people. Stiff and silent they lay on the ground.... It was '31 and we were then moving from a ramshackle aul to Turgai.Richter, J. (2020)
Famine, Memory, and Politics in the Post-Soviet Space: Contrasting Echoes of Collectivization in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
''Nationalities Papers,'' ''48''(3), 476-491.


Casualties

Kazakhstan included some of the regions affected severely by famine, percentage-wise, although more people died in famine in
Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party m ...
, which began a year later. In addition to the
Kazakh famine of 1919–1922 The Kazakh famine of 1919–1922, also referred to as the Turkestan famine of 1919–1922, was a period of mass starvation and drought that took place in the Kirghiz ASSR (present-day Kazakhstan) and Turkestan ASSR as a result of the Russian Civ ...
, Kazakhstan lost more than half of its population in 10–15 years due to the actions of the
Soviet state The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 199 ...
. The two Soviet censuses indicated that the number of
Kazakhs The Kazakhs (Kazakh language, Kazakh: , , , ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common Culture of Kazakhstan, culture, Kazakh language, language and History of Kazakhstan, history ...
in Kazakhstan dropped from 3,637,612 in 1926 to 2,181,520 in
1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into Feb ...
. Ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan were also significantly affected. The Ukrainian population in Kazakhstan decreased from 859,396 to 549,859 (a reduction of almost 36% of their population) while other ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan lost 12% and 30% of their populations. Ukrainians who died in Kazakhstan are sometimes considered victims of the
Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...
.


Refugees

Due to starvation, between 665,000 and 1.1 million Kazakhs fled the famine with their cattle outside Kazakhstan to China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and the Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Russia in search of food and employment in the new industrialization sites of Western Siberia. These refugees took an estimated 900,000 head of cattle with them. Kazakhs who tried to escape were classified as class enemies and shot. The Soviet government also worked to repatriate them back to Soviet territory. This repatriation process could be brutal, as Kazakhs homes were broken into with both refugee and non-refugee Kazakhs being forcibly expelled onto train cars without food, heating, or water. 30% of the refugees died due to epidemics and hunger. Refugees that were repatriated were integrated into collective farms where many were too weak to work, and in a factory within Semipalatinsk half the refugees were fired within a few days with the other half being denied food rations. Professor K.M. Abzhanov, Director of the Institute of History and Ethnology of the
Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences The Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences (official name National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan) is the highest scientific organization of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Academy of Sciences was founded on 1 June 1946 on the basis of ...
stated that "One-sixth of the indigenous population left their historical homeland forever." As the refugees fled the famine, the Soviet government made violent attempts to stop them. In one case, relief dealers placed food in the back of a truck to attract refugees, and then locked the refugees inside the truck and dumped them in the middle of the mountains; the fate of these refugees is unknown. Starting from 1930 onward thousands of Kazakhs were shot dead as they attempted to flee to China, such as in one infamous killing of 18 to 19 Kazakhs by state border guards called the Karatal Affair which not only had killings but also the rape of several women and children occurring in the incident as noted by a doctor who analyzed the event. The flight of refugees was framed by authorities as a progressive occurrence of nomads moving away from their 'primitive' lifestyle. Famine refugees were suspected by
OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
officials of maintaining counterrevolutionary, bai, and kulak 'tendencies', due to some refugees engaging in crime in the republics they arrived in. Swiss reporter
Ella Maillart Ella Maillart (or Ella K. Maillart; 20 February 1903, Geneva – 27 March 1997, Chandolin) was a Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman. Early life Ella ‘Kini’ Maillart was the second child, born to a w ...
, who traveled through Soviet Central Asia and China in the early 1930s, witnessed and wrote of viewing the firsthand effects of the repatriation campaign:
In every wagon carrying merchandise there were Kazakh families wearing rags. They killed time picking lice from each other.... The train stops in the middle of a parched region. Packed alongside the railway are camels, cotton that is unloaded and weighed, piles of wheat in the open air. From the Kazakh wagons comes a muted hammering sound repeated the length of the train. Intrigued, I discover women pounding grain in mortars and making flour. The children ask to be lowered to the ground; they are wearing a quarter of a shirt on their shoulders and have scabs on their heads. A woman replaces her white turban, her only piece of clothing not in tatters, and I see her greasy hair and silver earrings. Her infant, clutching her dress and with skinny legs from which his boney knees protrude; his small behind is devoid of muscle, a small mass of rubbery, much-wrinkled skin. Where do they come from? Where are they going?
One report from an officer in Siberia reads: "When one thinks of the extreme distress in which Kazakhs live here with us, one can easily imagine that things in Kazakhstan are much worse."


Cannibalism

Some of the starving became so desperate that they resorted to
cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...
. This ranged from consuming corpses to acts of murder in order to eat. Similar acts occurred during the parallel
famine in Ukraine The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-pro ...
, as Ukrainians and Kazakhs were starved under the same tactics.Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. United Kingdom, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2017. As
Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...
wrote of the Soviet-imposed famines:
Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was "not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you." The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to
prostitute Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...
themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did.


Aftermath and legacy

Two thirds of the Kazakh survivors of the famine were successfully sedentarized due to the 80% reduction of their herds, the impossibility of resuming pastoral activity in the immediate post-famine environment, and the repatriation and resettlement program undertaken by Soviet authorities. Despite this, Niccolò Pianciola says that the Soviet campaign to destroy nomadism was quickly rejected after the famine, and that nomadism even experienced a resurgence during World War II after the transfer of livestock from Nazi-occupied territories. Ibragim Khisamutdinov, who lived through the famine as a young boy, saw starving Kazakhs dying in the streets on his way to school. More than 50 years later, he noted, "To this day, I can hear the desperate cries of the dying and their calls for help." A monument for the famine's victims was constructed in 2017. The
Turkic Council The Organization of Turkic States (OTS), formerly called the Turkic Council or the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States, is an intergovernmental organization comprising all but one of the internationally recognized Turkic sovereign sta ...
has described the famine as a "criminal Stalinist ethnic policy". A genocide remembrance day is commenced on 31 May for the victims of the famine. File:FINAL PROJECT.pdf,
Soviet famine of 1932–1933 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
displaying migrations out of
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
and the high estimate of 2.3 million deaths. Other scholars estimate an amount of 1.5 million deaths. File:Kazakhstan demographics 1897-1970 en.png, The major ethnic groups in
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
, 1897–1970. The number of Kazakhs and Ukrainians decreased in the 1930s due to the famine.


Assessment, legality, and censorship

Like the
Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...
, there is heated debate as to whether or not the famine fits in with the legal definition of genocide, as defined by the UN. In November 1991, the Kazakhstan parliament created a committee, chaired by Historian Manash Kozybayev, "Kozybayev was named a 'titan of national historyÄ by his compatriots because he filled in many blank spots in the country's history. He has conducted research on such sensitive issues, as mass famine in Kazakhstan in the 1930s due to forced collectivization .... Thanks to his research, published in the 'Questions of History' Moscow magazine in 1989, the global community learned the truth about the Kazakh people's tragedy in the 1930s, which the scientist described as a 'great disaster'. Due to forced collectivization, which was implemented in the course of the Soviet first five-year plan, the Kazakh people began to starve and die – approximately 1.75 million people died." to investigate the famine and its causes. A year later, the commission reported out that "the magnitude of the tragedy was so monstrous that we can, with full moral authority, designate it as a manifestation of the politics of genocide."Abylkhozhin, B. Zh. et al. Iz istorii poli︠a︡kov v Kazakhstane : 1936-1956 gg. : sbornik dokumentov. Almaty: "Qazaqstan", 2000. Print. UC Berkeley, Doe Library Europeans in Kazakhstan had disproportionate power in the party, which has been argued as a cause of why indigenous nomads suffered the worst part of the collectivization process rather than the European sections of the country. Notably, many scholars have compared the internal colonization of Kazakhs as similar to American policies towards Native Americans"This work compares the process and practice of nineteenth-century American and Russian internal colonization—a form of contiguous, continental expansion, imperialism, and colonialism that incorporated indigenous lands and peoples. Both the republican United States and tsarist Russia exercised internal colonization, yet they remain neglected in many studies devoted to nineteenth-century imperialism and colonialism." such as the Sioux, who were similarly
nomad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...
s. Niccolò Pianciola argues that the Soviet authorities undertook a campaign of persecution against the nomads in the Kazakhs, believing that the destruction of the 'class' was a worthy sacrifice for the collectivization of Kazakhstan, and that from Lemkin's point of view on genocide all nomads of the Soviet Union were victims of the crime, not just the Kazakhs. However, other nomads within Soviet territory were also Indigenous Turkic or Mongolic Central and North Asian peoples, had similar treatment by the Soviet Union, and discrimination that continues to this day. Kazakhs and other Central Asians are still referred to in Russian sometimes as ''aziaty'', or as ''Churka'' or ''Churki'' (
Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...
: Чурка), a racial slur that means "darkie" or "block of wood". A historian of the revolution and author
Vladimir Burtsev Vladimir Lvovich Burtsev (; November 17, 1862August 21, 1942) was a revolutionary activist, scholar, publisher and editor of several Russian language periodicals. He became famous by exposing a great number of agents provocateurs, notably Yevn ...
, who knew
Filipp Goloshchyokin Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin () (born Shaya Itsikovich Goloshchyokin) () ( – October 28, 1941) was a Jewish-Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, and party functionary. A member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party s ...
, characterized him in his writing:
This is a typical
Leninist Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...
. This is a man who does not stop the blood. This trait is especially noticeable in his nature: the executioner, cruel, with some elements of degeneration. In party life he was arrogant, was a
demagogue A demagogue (; ; ), or rabble-rouser, is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, Appeal to emotion, appealing to emo ...
, a cynic. He did not count the Kazakhs as people at all. Goloshchekin did not have time to appear in Kazakhstan, as he stated that there is no Soviet power, and it is "necessary" to orchestrate a "".
Historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft believes that the high expectations of central planners were sufficient to demonstrate their ignorance of the ultimate consequences of their actions. Wheatcroft views the state's policies during the famine as "criminal acts of negligence", though not as intentional murder or genocide. However Historian Sarah Cameron, author of ''The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan'', stated in an interview with
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
's Davis Center that "Moscow's sweeping program of state-led transformation clearly anticipates the cultural disruption of Kazakh society. And there's evidence to indicate that the Kazakh famine fits an expanded definition of genocide." She also says:
"I think if we look historically, we can find that we've often been quick to dismiss violence committed against mobile peoples. We rationalize it as part of a process necessary to civilize so-called backward peoples. When the Kazakh famine is mentioned in the scholarly literature, it's often referred to as a miscalculation by Stalin, a tragedy, a misunderstanding of cultures. But such depictions, I would argue, downplay the disaster's very violent nature, and seem to stress or imply that the Kazakh famine originated from natural causes, which of course it didn't. I show in my book, there's nothing inevitable about this famine. Pastoral nomadism is not a backwards way of life, but rather it was a highly sophisticated and adaptive system. Nor can the famine itself be attributed to a simple miscalculation by Stalin as such depictions would seem to suggest."
Regarding the legal definition of genocide as determined by the UN,
Michael Ellman Michael John Ellman (born 1942, United Kingdom) has been a professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam since 1978. He is now an ''emeritus professor''. He has written on the economics of the Soviet Union, transition economics, Russia a ...
states that it "seems to be an example of 'negligent genocide' which falls outside the scope of the UN Convention". Historian Isabelle Ohayon stated she found "no evidence nor motive for the deliberate starvation" of the Kazakh population, and concludes that the famine did not constitute a genocide under international juridical standards, and therefore labelling it was an "empty exercise". Maya Mehra concludes that the famine was caused by intentional act of violence on part of Stalin and the Soviet state, but it was not in the legal sense a
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
. In '' Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine'', Pulitzer Prize winner
Anne Applebaum Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She holds Polish citizenship as well. Ap ...
says that the UN
definition of genocide Genocide definitions include many scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide, a word coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944.Oxford English Dictionary "Genocide" citing Raphael Lemkin ''Axis Rule in Occupied Europe'' ix. 79 The word is a ...
is overly narrow due to the Soviet influence on the
Genocide Convention The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...
, as extensively documented by scholars such as Anton Weiss-Wendt in his book ''The Soviet Union and the Gutting of the UN Genocide Convention''. Instead of a broad definition that would have included Soviet crimes, Applebaum writes that genocide "came to mean the physical elimination of an entire ethnic group, in a manner similar to the Holocaust. The Holodomor does not meet that criterion... This is hardly surprising, given that the Soviet Union itself helped shape the language precisely in order to prevent Soviet crimes, including the Holodomor, from being classified as 'genocide'." Historian Robert Kindler disagrees with calling the famine a genocide, commenting that doing so masks the culpability of lower-level cadres who were locally rooted among the Kazakhs themselves. Kindler goes as far as to say that speaking in terms of genocide with the Holodomor and the famine eclipses "how the nations themselves were responsible for catastrophes" rather than the Soviet Union. However, Sarah Cameron stated that the Soviet decision to have Kazakhs serve as lower-level cadres was "a strategy purposefully designed to shatter old allegiances and sow violent conflict in the Kazakh Awul" While serving as a Kluge Fellow at the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
for her research on the famine'','' Sarah Cameron identified the lack of a strong Kazakh diaspora as part of the reason why there's been no international recognition of the genocide:
In the West, the study of the Ukrainian famine has been supported by a very active Ukrainian diaspora community. They have endowed institutes across North America, and in the 1980s the Ukrainian famine was the subject of a US congressional investigation. There was no similar movement among the Kazakh diaspora–I'm not aware of a single Kazakh studies chair or Kazakh studies institute in the West. The Kazakh famine did not become incorporated into the US Cold War narrative about the Soviet Union.
In ''Famine, Memory, and Politics in the Post-Soviet Space: Contrasting Echoes of Collectivization in Ukraine and Kazakhstan,'' James Richter highlights:
The link between the genocide argument and the use of Kazakh language was made explicit by the historian Kaidar Aldazhumanov in an interview with Radio Azattyq in 2014. In this interview, Aldazhumanov suggests that foreign scholars and even Russian speakers at home do not regard the famine as genocide because "they cannot read witnesses or evidence in the Kazakh language and rely fundamentally on research in Russian.... They do not want to know anything about research in the Kazakh language, nor do Russian researchers or Russian speakers living in Kazakhstan"
Historian Isabelle Ohayon, among other scholars, noted the importance of
oral histories Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...
in Kazakh culture, and wrote of disappearing famine accounts and lack of public narrative and awareness:
First, the bearers of the memory of this story—the witnesses, the actors, the victims of the famine—traversed the Soviet century in obscurity by virtue of the ideological ban on discussing this tragic chapter in the collectivization campaign, but also due to the hiatus generated by the powerful phenomenon of acculturation, or even deculturation, after the death of a third of the nomadic population. Because mortality was greater among the elderly during collectivization, the traditional bearers of collective memory were unable to tell their stories. Abruptly introduced into Soviet modernity--with its new forms of authority and its obsession with written records and bureaucracy--surviving elders no longer found conditions in which they could relate their experiences.
It is also important to note that Kazakhstan's government maintains close relations with Russia today, which contributes to its official documentation and statements on the famine as genocide. This connection is based on lasting Soviet ties, intimidation, and the dependence of Kazakhstan's economy on Russian imports, especially basic items such as food and clothing, and 40% of Kazakhstan's market needs are covered by Russia. As
Anne Applebaum Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She holds Polish citizenship as well. Ap ...
explains current denialism, "
Putinism Putinism () is the social, political, and economic system of Russia formed during the political leadership of Vladimir Putin. There are three stages of Putinism; ''Classical Putinism'' (1999–2008), ''Tandem-Phase'' (2008–2012) and ''Devel ...
is an oligarchic autocracy that would be in trouble if there was complete freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rule of law." Only recently with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has there been notable disconnect between the allies. Former President
Nursultan Nazarbayev Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakhstani politician who served as the first president of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019. He also held the special title of Elbasy from 2010 to 2022 and chairman of the Security Council of ...
of Kazakhstan was noted as careful while speaking of the famine. However, an official inscription at the monument for the famine victims quoted him stating "the hunger that put an entire nation on the brink of disappearing, will never be forgotten", which lends credence to the common speculation that he was trying to appease Moscow in fear of retribution for recognizing the famine as genocide.


Portrayals in media

* ''The Crying Steppe'' (2020), director Marina Kunarova, and selected as the Kazakhstani entry for the Best International Feature Film at the
93rd Academy Awards The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. The ceremony was held on April 25, 2021 ...
. The movie follows an eagle hunter trying to save his family. * ''Qash'' (2023)'','' director Aisultan Seitov. The movie follows a gravedigger facing a difficult choice during the famine.


See also

*
Ethnic demography of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan is a multi-ethnic country where the indigenous ethnic group, Kazakhs, comprise the majority of the population. As of 2025, ethnic Kazakhs are about 71.3% of the population and ethnic Russians are in the second place with 14.6%. The ...
*
History of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, the largest country fully within the Eurasian Steppe, has been a historical crossroads and home to numerous different peoples, states and empires throughout history. Throughout history, peoples on the territory of modern Kazakhstan ...
* Kazakh famine of 1919-1922 *
Droughts and famines in Russia and the Soviet Union Throughout Russian history famines, droughts and crop failures occurred on the territory of Russia, the Russian Empire and the USSR on more or less regular basis. From the beginning of the 11th to the end of the 16th century, on the territory o ...
*
Russian conquest of Central Asia In the 16th century, the Tsardom of Russia embarked on a campaign to Territorial evolution of Russia, expand the Russian frontier to the east. This effort continued until the 19th century under the Russian Empire, when the Imperial Russian Army ...
*
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
*
Soviet famine of 1930–1933 The Soviet famine of 1930–1933 was a famine in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukraine and different parts of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russia, including ...
*
Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin Estimates of the number of deaths attributable to the Soviet revolutionary and dictator Joseph Stalin vary widely. The scholarly consensus affirms that archival materials declassified in 1991 contain irrefutable data far superior to sources us ...
*
Indigenous Peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
*
Genocide of indigenous peoples The genocide of indigenous peoples, colonial genocide, or settler genocide is the Genocide, elimination of indigenous peoples as a part of the process of colonialism. According to certain genocide experts, including Raphael Lemkin – the indiv ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * Conquest, Robert, '' The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-famine'', Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press in Association with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986. * * * Sahni, Kalpana. ''Crucifying the Orient: Russian orientalism and the colonization of Caucasus and Central Asia''. Bangkok: White Orchid Press, 1997. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kazakh famine of 1932-33 1930 disasters in the Soviet Union 1931 disasters in the Soviet Union 1932 disasters in the Soviet Union 1933 disasters in the Soviet Union Famine-genocide of 1930-1933 Famine-genocide of 1930-1933 Famine-genocide of 1930-1933 Famine-genocide of 1930-1933 1930s famines Famine-genocide of 1930-1933 Kazakhstan of 1932-33 Genocide of indigenous peoples in Asia Human rights abuses in the Soviet Union Human rights abuses in Kazakhstan Joseph Stalin Persecution of Kazakhs