20. After Kicking Off a Disaster, Soviet Authorities Shifted the Blame to the Peasants
Collectivization’s turmoil resulted in a poor 1932 Ukrainian grain harvest yield: Soviet authorities got a hold of only 4.3 million tons, as opposed to 7.2 million tons a year earlier. Food rations were slashed in the cities, where many starved that winter. The disaster had begun, and it was about to get far worse. To channel the urban industrial workers’ ire away from Stalin’s government, a propaganda campaign blamed the food shortages on counterrevolutionary peasants. Peasants were accused of hiding the harvested grain and potatoes to produce an artificial shortage, then cash in on the higher prices, even if it cost the lives of starving urban workers.
The propaganda succeeded in riling up the industrial workers, and before long, the urban proletariat were hopping mad at the peasants, blaming them for their hunger pangs. When the authorities organized them into special brigades and columns to go into the countryside to help confiscate grain, the workers were in no mood to listen to the peasants’ protestations of poor harvests and the lack of grain to meet the set quotas.