• DOI:10.1080/09668130600831282
• Corpus ID: 154824515

Arguing from errors: On certain issues in Robert Davies' and Stephen Wheatcroft's analysis of the 1932 Soviet grain harvest and the Great Soviet famine of 1931 – 1933

@article{Tauger2006ArguingFE,
  title={Arguing from errors: On certain issues in Robert Davies' and Stephen Wheatcroft's analysis of the 1932 Soviet grain harvest and the Great Soviet famine of 1931 – 1933},
  author={Mark B. Tauger},
  journal={Europe-Asia Studies},
  year={2006},
  volume={58},
  pages={973 - 984}
}

• M. Tauger
• Published 1 September 2006
• Economics, History
• Europe-Asia Studies

IN THEIR RECENT BOOK, THE YEARS OF HUNGER: SOVIET AGRICULTURE, 1931-1933 (2004), a detailed study of the Soviet famine of those years, Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft criticise my publications on the Soviet grain harvests of 1932-33 and the causes of the famine. In an appendix to their book and in a table located online, they attempt to discredit the evidence, methodology and conclusions from my article 'The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933' (Tauger 1991) and certain other publications, showing that the 1932 harvest was much smaller than the official data showed. The data at issue are from kolkhoz annual reports for 1932 and 1933, located in a group of archival files in the Russian State Economic Archive (RGAE) (Tauger 1991, p. 77 and following pages). In 1932 these reports came from more than 77,000 collective farms, 40% of the total at the time, with more than 6.7 million peasant house holds, approximately 33 million people. In 1933 the reports came from more than 154,000 farms, more than 60% of the total at the time, with more than 60 million people, a majority of the rural population (Tauger 1991, p. 78 and 2001a, p. 54). These reports contain the final results of the work of these collective farms, in particular measured final harvest data. These data thus represent actual agricultural production and not pre-harvest estimates or other speculative figures. Because we know the coverage and character of these reports, it is clear that their data are uniquely valuable: no other category of sources for agricultural production in this period can legitimately be described as measured final harvest results or can claim their coverage. All other estimates of the 1932 harvest, including both Soviet official published data and later estimates by Western scholars, are projections made before the harvest or speculative adjustments of those numbers (Tauger 1991, p. 70 and following pages, and 2001a, p. 39 and following pages).