23. This Disaster Was Predictable, and Had Been Predicted Years in Advance
The man-made disaster that came to be known as the Terror Famine was predictable. It had actually had been predicted years earlier by objective observers who had witnessed collectivization’s early trial runs in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
They sounded the alarm about the expected chaos and turmoil, and the negative impact on the harvests and the distribution networks that took produce from the fields to consumers. As early as 1930, academics and advisers to the authorities in the Ukrainian SSR predicted that famine was inevitable if collectivization was continued at its current pace. Their warnings were ignored by the authorities.