Collectivization

The first in the long list of those policies was the collectivization drive, the centerpiece of the Soviet agricultural policy launched by the central authorities in the fall of 1928.

What accounts for that difference? The main reason for the higher level of collectivization in the steppe oblasts was a policy designed and introduced by Joseph Stalin and his advisers in Moscow and implemented by the Ukrainian party authorities in Kharkiv. As shown on the map of ecological zones of Ukraine, the country is divided into four zones: two steppe and two boreal zones. It was the dividing line between the boreal and steppe zones that turned out to be the most important one in the eyes of the Moscow authorities as they produced plans for the collec­tivization drive.

For purposes of official reporting on the progress of col­lectivization, Ukraine was divided into four areas: Steppe, Left Bank, Right Bank, and Polissia. With the introduction of oblast administrative divisions in February 1932, the Steppe region en­compassed the Moldavian Autonomous Republic and Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk Oblasts; the Left Bank included Kharkiv Oblast and parts of Kyiv Oblast; and the Right Bank encompassed most of Kyiv Oblast and all of Vinnytsia Oblast. Polissia was originally divided between Kyiv and Kharkiv Oblasts, but in October 1932 most of it was included in the newly created Chernihiv Oblast.

In the summer of 1930, the Central Committee of the Com­munist Party in Moscow decreed that the level of collectivization in the steppe areas of Ukraine was to reach the 65-75 percent mark by the end of the 1930/31 agricultural year. In other regions of Ukraine, a collectivization level of 35-45 percent was to be attained during the same period of time. The black-earth zones of the southern Ukrainian steppe were considered the princi­pal grain-growing areas of the Soviet Union and were therefore supposed to be collectivized sooner and faster than the others in order to increase the grain yield for the government. As shown on the map of levels of collectivization, by the fall of 1932, accord­ing to official statistics, the Ukrainian authorities overshot the 75 percent target introduced for the previous year and reached the 85 percent mark in some of the southern areas. The other regions lagged behind by at least 10 percent.¹¹

Stalin and his advisers in Moscow continually focused their attention on southern Ukraine. In March 1932, additional trac­tors were sent specifically to the Ukrainian steppelands to meet the quotas originally allocated by the Moscow authorities to Russia and Belarus. In April of that year, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Stanislav Kosior, and other Kharkiv officials visited the southern regions of the Ukrainian steppe oblasts to oversee the sowing campaign firsthand. After the trip Kosior reported on his findings to Stalin. He was glad to note favorable weather conditions and a good crop of winter cereals in Odesa Oblast; he also predicted better sowing than in the previous year.¹²

Thus, by the spring of 1932 the Moscow government had cre­ated a new political, social, and technological situation in the southern oblasts of Ukraine. Those areas were more collectivized than the rest of Ukraine, had higher numbers of tractors and agricultural machinery, and, because of their ability to produce significantly more grain than areas to the north, were closer to the central concerns of the Moscow authorities than the rest of Ukraine.