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 | | The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine by Robert Conquest ISBN-10: 9780195051803 ISBN-10: 0-19-505180-7 ISBN-13: 9780195051803 ISBN-13: 978-0-19-505180-3 Paperback 1987-11-12 Oxford University Press, USA Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description The Harvest of Sorrow is the first full history of one of the most horrendous human tragedies of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932 the Soviet Communist Party struck a double blow at the Russian peasantry: dekulakization, the dispossession and deportation of millions of peasant families, and collectivization, the abolition of private ownership of land and the concentration of the remaining peasants in party-controlled "collective" farms. This was followed in 1932-33 by a "terror-famine," inflicted by the State on the collectivized peasants of the Ukraine and certain other areas by setting impossibly high grain quotas, removing every other source of food, and preventing help from outside--even from other areas of the Soviet Union--from reaching the starving populace. The death toll resulting from the actions described in this book was an estimated 14.5 million--more than the total number of deaths for all countries in World War I. Ambitious, meticulously researched, and lucidly written, The Harvest of Sorrow is a deeply moving testament to those who died, and will register in the Western consciousness a sense of the dark side of this century's history. | ||
Reviews | ||
See Conquest's last name Me am good member of party. Me no like book. It say bad to starve 8 million people to death. Socialism above bourgeouise idea of morality. We liquidate who ever we want and Liberal useful idiots always defend. Besides kulaks bring it on themselves. If only they gave us all of their food in 1930 then we not take it from them in 1931 then no famine in 1932! famine be in 1930 then. This am important. Also talking about famine really fasthist plot. Anyone who not like communism fasthist and anti-semite. Cell leader tell me this last week so I repeat it here. Stop talking about famine! Vast right-wing conspiracy. Bush is hitler. Stalin great builder of mankind. Lenin god. Marx bigger god. Only bad stupid people not like. Me am not stupid. Conquest am bad. He write for Thatcher!! Look at his last name. Conquest!! Me write Putin now. When communism come back, we remember. Party never forget. | ||
First History to detail Stalin's Terror-Famine in Ukraine (death toll was higher than the total deaths for all countries in WWI) Highly acclaimed, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine is a British historian's detailed, documented account of the horrific events in Soviet Ukraine in 1929-1932 during Stalin's reign wherein millions perished by means of man-made starvation. Awards and honors of British historian Robert Conquest include: the Jefferson Lectureship, the highest honor the federal government bestows for achievement in the humanities (1993); the Alexis de Tocqueville Award (1992); the Richard Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters (1999); the Fondazione Liberal Career Award (2004); the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2005); and the Ukraine Presidential Medal of Honor (2006). The Ukraine Presidential Medal of Yaroslav Mudryi, named for the Kyivan prince known as a lawgiver and patron of the church and the arts (early 1000s), was given in recognition of Dr. Conquest's path-breaking scholarship on the Ukrainian famine 1932-1933 in Harvest of Sorrow (1986). The Medal is the highest honor bestowed by Ukraine. By 2006, Dr. Conquest had authored twenty-one books on Soviet history, politics, and international affairs, including the classic, The Great Terror, which has been translated into twenty languages, and the acclaimed Harvest of Sorrow (Oxford University Press, 1986). His field of expertise is Russian and world politics and history. His many professional affiliations include former research associate of Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute. This is but a brief outline of Robert Conquest's curriculum vitae; that his credentials are distinguished, formidable, and impressive goes without saying. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine was sponsored by Harvard University Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian National Association. Among many others, the major research and discussion contributions of American historian, James Mace, PhD, Harvard University, are specifically acknowledged. Various resources in Europe and in America were utilized; special acknowledgement is made to the Hoover Institution's Library and Archives. The purpose of Harvest of Sorrow is to raise public awareness of the events which took place within living memory, and which involved millions of people and millions of deaths. Three reasons are stated for the lack of public awareness of the Ukrainian famine (known in Ukrainian as Holodomor). First, the terminology doesn't resonate with the same connotation--the word `peasant' doesn't have the same meaning to an American or Briton as it does to the Ukrainian or Russian. Second, Ukraine wasn't an independent nation at the time of writing of The Harvest of Sorrow; on maps, Ukraine appeared as part of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. And, third and most importantly, the concealment of facts by Stalin and the Soviet authorities ensured that the world was kept uninformed or confused. The events chronicled in Harvest of Sorrow cover the period 1929-1932 (about the same length of time as that of the First World War). "Though confined to a single state, the number dying in Stalin's war against the peasants was higher than the total deaths for all countries in World War I." Evidence cited in Harvest of Sorrow is from a variety of confirmatory sources so that no serious doubts should remain about any aspect of the period. Types of evidence referenced include: Soviet scholars, the Soviet press, confidential documents that have reached the West (`Smolensk Archives' at Harvard), the testimony of former Party activists (including General Petro Grigorenko and Dr. Lev Kopelev), foreign correspondents, foreign citizens, and first-hand reports of survivors. "For a long time testimony which was both honest and true was doubted or denounced--by Soviet spokesmen, of course, but also by many in the West who for various reasons were not ready to face the appalling facts." The sheer amount of evidence is enormous, and the material is confirmatory. Following the Preface and Introduction are three Parts, the Epilogue, which includes Notes, Selected Bibliography, and Index. In the Preface, we're told that Ukrainian spellings of Ukrainian place and personal names were used, with the exception of Kiev (Kyiv), Kharkov (Kharkiv) and Odessa (Odesa). Additionally, Dr. Conquest used "the Ukraine" rather than "Ukraine." He acknowledged that at the time, a number of Ukrainians found the reference to "the Ukraine" derogatory; however, he used the phrase since at the time of writing, it was used by Western scholars, translations from prominent Ukrainian writers used the phrase (because of their imperfect knowledge of English), and by Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Note: Ukraine gained independence in 1991. The website reads Embassy of Ukraine (not Embassy of the Ukraine); the government officially calls the country "Ukraine" (one word) and not "the Ukraine." The Introduction states, in part, that a historian's duty is to discover and register what actually happened--to put the facts beyond doubt and in their context. And, that is precisely what Dr. Conquest accomplishes. The Contents include: Preface; Introduction; Part I: The Protagonists: Party, Peasants and Nation; Part II: To Crush the Peasantry; Part III: The Terror-Famine; Epilogue: Notes (pgs. 348-394), Selected Bibliography (pgs. 394-398), and Index (pg. 398-412). Eleven archival photos evidence some of the very many atrocities. Background material is extensive, documented, detailed, and very informative. A horrendous chapter from Ukraine's history is exposed and documented. `A quarter of the rural population, men, women, and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors.' History that needs to be made known is presented in engrossing format with voluminous evidence. Deserving acclaim; deserving to be on library shelves, both personal and public, worldwide! A riveting read--definitely five stars, plus! Addendum: In spite of the efforts of some to deny the Ukrainian Holodomor, Kyiv Post, in its November 17, 2008 issue, reported: "Representatives of around 40 countries will come to Ukraine to participate in events dedicated to the memory of the 75th Anniversary of the Holodomor Famine in 1932-1933," including: the Presidents of Macedonia, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Parliamentary Delegations from Moldova, France, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Spain, Croatia, Finland, and Liechtenstein; and, a Delegation from UNESCO, the European parliament, the OSCE, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Addendum: Readers, you're invited to visit each of my reviews--most of them have photos that I took in Ukraine (over 600)--you'll learn lots about Ukraine and Ukrainians. The image gallery shows smaller photos, which are out of sequence. The preferable way is to see each review through my profile page since photos that are germane to that particular book/VHS/DVD are posted there with notes and are in sequential order. To visit my reviews: click on my pseudonym, Mandrivnyk, to get to my profile page; click on the tab called review; scroll to the bottom of the section, and click on see all reviews; click on each title, and on the left-hand side, click on see all images. The thumbnail images at the top of the page show whether photos have notes; roll your mouse over the image to find notes posted. Also, you're invited to visit my Listmania lists, which have materials sorted by subject matter. | ||
Bad propaganda The author, who wrote many of Thatcher's (worst) speeches, admits that this book is based on hearsay and rumour not on proper research. So his figures are ridiculous exaggerations. Far too many writers on the subject have relied not on the archives, but on Conquest's estimates. However, a proper historian, Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, has explained how Conquest reached his figures. He writes: "Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine (New York, 1986) argues that the `dekulakization' of the early 1930s led to the deaths of 6,500,000 people. But this estimate is arrived at by extremely dubious methods, ranging from reliance on hearsay evidence through double counting to the consistent employment of the highest possible figures in estimates made by other historians." The true figure for the 1930s is about 300,000 deaths. Another decent historian, Professor R. W. Davies, wrote, "The archival data are entirely incompatible with such very high figures, which continue to be cited as firm fact in both the Russian and the Western media." (Soviet history in the Yeltsin era, Macmillan, 1997, page 172.) So it's high time that Conquest's book was thrown into the dustbin of history. Read Douglas Tottle's book, "Fraud, famine and fascism" instead, for an exposure of the US/British propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. | ||
The Soviet-Sponsored Ukrainian Famine-Genocide: Refutation of Deniers A careful reading refutes the preposterous claims that Conquest invented this genocide out of his anti-Communist convictions, or that he relied on the testimonies of Nazi-collaborating Ukrainians. In actuality, the fact of Ukrainians perishing in a famine, and by the millions, can be verified indirectly from Soviet sources (p.7), and directly from both local and foreign Communists of the time, who justified this act. (p. 261, 304). The unintentionality of the famine can be refuted by noting such things as well-fed local Soviet-Communist officials (p. 3, 230), as well as the amounts of food that were locally stored, wasted, or exported. (e. g. p. 235). Blame-the-victim tactics, such as those that insinuate that the Ukrainians brought the famine upon themselves by destroying livestock and crops, collapse once it becomes obvious that the Soviets systematically searched Ukrainian farmsteads for even small amounts of hidden feedstuffs, ruthlessly confiscated them (p. 229, 234), and punished these Ukrainians for the crime of attempting to avoid starvation. (p. 226). Certain Judeocentrists have tried to minimize this genocide by claiming that, whereas Jews were murdered for being Jews by the Nazis, the Ukrainians perished not as Ukrainians, but as opponents of the Soviet collective-farm system. Tell that to the victims! As it turns out, Ukrainians WERE targeted as Ukrainians, as proved by the draconian Soviet repression of Ukrainian culture and political life (p. 266, 271-272). Conquest even finds parallels with the later Soviet efforts to destroy the Poles: "The first assault on the Ukrainian intelligentsia preceded the general attack on the peasantry...The `decapitation' of the nation by removing its spokesmen was indeed essential--as was later evidently the motive for Katyn, and for the selective deportations from the Baltic states in 1940." (p. 219). The gullibility of westerners accepting Stalin's denials of the Ukrainian famine, based in part on stage-managed visits, could only have emboldened his future deceptions of the same. (p. 314). By way of historical context, the 1861 tsarist emancipation of the serfs had given them only part of the land they had previously worked, and required prolonged payments to own. However, peasant disorders dropped from 3,579 in 1859-1863 to 136 in 1878-1882. (p. 15). In 1880, Leontiev commented that "Socialism is the feudalism of the future". (p. 164). Pasternak, in his DOKTOR ZHIVAGO, noted that peasants found the new revolutionary super-state much more oppressive than the old tsarist state. (p. 52). Ironically, "A class struggle of sorts did indeed emerge in the villages--between the collectivized peasantry and the `New Class' of bureaucrats and administrators." (p. 341). In focusing on the Soviet system up to the 1980's Conquest concludes: "All of the symptoms we noted in the 1930's remain--apathy due to lack of incentive, `leadership' by incompetents, huge bureaucratic overheads, intensive intrusion by ignorant and distant central planners." (p. 341). Considering the increasing drift of many nations (e. g., the USA) to ever more socialistic economies, this is a sobering warning! | ||
The Horrors of the Soviet State. The black earth Was sown with bones And watered with blood For a harvest of sorrow On the land of Rus. - _The Armament of Igor_. _The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivizaton and the Terror-Famine_, first published in 1986, by historian Robert Conquest is an excellent accounting of the horrors of the Soviet state unleashed upon the Russian peasantry by the Soviet Communist Party between 1929 and 1933. Robert Conquest is a British historian who early on joined the Communist Party and fought in World War II; however, after seeing firsthand the horrors of Soviet communism he became an anti-communist. In this book a detailed accounting of the more than 14.5 million deaths (more than the total number of deaths from all countries involved in World War I) that resulted directly from policies sanctioned by the Soviet Communist Party is detailed. Such policies as dekulakization, collectivization, and the "terror-famine" in the Ukraine had drastic consequences for those living under this oppressive and horrendous regime. Further, many Western intellectuals turned a blind eye to these atrocities because of their support for this horrendous and ungodly ideology. Even today many continue to deny such crimes occurred among the communists, while at the same time a repeated accounting is made of Nazi and fascist crimes. For those who believe that Soviet communism was a just and noble endeavor, a book like this is certainly sobering. Through painstaking research, Robert Conquest unveils the horrors behind Soviet communism. Conquest begins by noting the importance of Ukrainian nationalism, feared by the Soviets, and comparing the atrocities of communism to those of the other totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century, Nazism and fascism. To begin with, the Soviets long regarded the peasants as backwards and reactionary, clinging to their traditions and religion, and thus "counter-revolutionary" and a threat to human progress. Such hatred for the peasant goes all the way back to Karl Marx, the founding father of Soviet communism. Lenin also denigrated the peasant as a threat to the creation of the Soviet state. Conquest traces the development of Ukrainian nationalism as it contrasted with Leninism and Soviet communism. For example, as Engels commented, "Now you ask me whether I have no sympathy whatever for the small Slav peoples, and remnants of peoples . . . In fact, I have damned little sympathy for them." During the years 1917 - 21, the revolution broke out sponsored by the Bolsheviks. At the same time the peasant war and famine broke out. Repeated famines were common in the history of the Soviet regime, showing the utter failure of the Soviet economic system to provide food for its people. Such famine was so bad at times that many Russians even had to resort to cannibalism in their efforts to stay alive. Further, during this time and following, the Soviet state began a series of purges against "counter-revolutionaries", those who stood in the way, the religious, and those who did not sufficiently truckle to the powers that be. The NKVD and secret police were formed to rid the state of dissenters. The League of Militant Godless, a band of militant atheists, formed which sought to purge the state of religious and ransacked the Orthodox churches. At the same time, purges were made of kulaks (and suspected kulaks), largely middle-class peasants who could afford to hire labor or lenders. Frequently the individuals accused of being kulaks were very poor, and hardly the rich exploiters they were portrayed to be. Indeed, the accusations and railings of individuals such as Josef Stalin against the kulak bear an eerie resemblance to those of Hitler. At the same time, the free peasantry was abolished and the land was laid to waste. So inefficient were the Soviet agricultural methods that millions starved. In particular, children faced a horrific fate under the Soviet regime and frequently starved or were left to die as orphans. All the while massive purges continued and the state officially denied any problems existed (afterall the Soviet state was supposed to be a utopia). Conquest sums up the death toll as follows: Peasant dead: 1930 - 37 11 million Arrested in this period dying in camps later 3.5 million TOTAL 14.5 million. The record of the West in responding to these atrocities was equally horrendous, particularly among intellectuals who frequently harbored communist sympathies. In particular, individuals such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and Walter Duranty denied such occurrences. Further, the reports of such individuals (which could be likely classified as nothing more than official propaganda for the Soviet state) were accorded places of prominence among leading Western sources. However, others did catch on to the evils of the Soviet regime and began speaking out against it as well as providing aid. Following this, Conquest attempts to assign responsibilities for such atrocities. Certainly, we cannot forget these horrors and a full accounting must be made, even and especially if such an accounting happens to undermine one of our most favored ideologies. Conquest ends by discussing the aftermath of such terror and the Soviet Union up to the present time. This book was written before the fall of the USSR. This book is to be highly recommended for those who want to know the truth about Soviet Communism. The official Soviet line denied such atrocities occurred under their regime. The twentieth century is likely to be remembered as an era of totalitarian regimes, and the Soviet Union remains one of the worst such regimes ever known to man. Nevertheless, there exist those who continue to deny that such things ever occurred because of their support for such an ideology. Indeed, Conquest himself has been much vilified by a largely pro-Communist Left that refuses to face up to its own atrocities while at the same time preaching constantly about the horrors of "right wing fascism". That is why a proper accounting such as that made in this book is all the more important. | ||