MECHANISM OF CREATION OF THE FAMINE OF 1946–1947 (ON THE EXAMPLE OF KOVRAY VILLAGE, ZOLOTONOSHA DISTRICT, CHERKASY REGION)

Abstract

To revealed the preconditions, causes and mechanism of the famine of 1946–1947 on the example of Kovrai village, Zolotonosha district, Cherkasy region by using the method of the source and literature base analysis. The methodological basis of the study is based on the use of both purely historical and general scientific methods. The methodological basis is the principles of objectivity and systematization. Methods of critical analysis and synthesis, close reading of sources are used in working with the fonds of the Museum of Memory and Kovray Village Council. It has been established that the main cause of the famine of 1946–1947 was not natural, it was orchestrated by the Soviet totalitarian regime. At a critical time, the state was unable to regulate the development of the agricultural sector. During the first postwar years, the Ukrainian countryside was under the repressive pressure from the administrative-command system, its tax and grain procurement policies. However, without investing anything in development, the state expropriated everything it could. The famine in colonial-dependent Ukraine was manmade. The Communist Party shifted the burden of rebuilding the agriculture onto the impoverished peasantry. All methods of seizing grain from collective farmers, to which the government resorted in 1946, were mostly violent. In conditions of labor shortage, physically healthy young people would leave the villages for Donbas where they were involved in construction of industrial centers. Authorities were constantly on the lookout for internal enemies. A large number of people were imprisoned on baseless charges. Bread producers were starving, and the government was replenishing state reserves, increasing grain exports, and directing funds to the development of the militaryindustrial complex. The form of remuneration of collective farmers in working days led to the fact that the peasant actually worked for free. Natural taxes in the form of provisions deprived the peasantry of the most vital thing – the food, putting them in conditions in which survival was impossible. The strict priority of economic interests over human ones persisted.