• DOI:10.1080/09668130500199392
• Corpus ID: 13880089

The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931 – 1934

@article{Ellman2005TheRO,
  title={The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931 – 1934},
  author={Michael Ellman},
  journal={Europe-Asia Studies},
  year={2005},
  volume={57},
  pages={823 - 841}
}

• M. Ellman
• Published 1 September 2005
• Economics
• Europe-Asia Studies

[Lenin in 1891 – 92] spoke out sharply and definitely against feeding the starving. His position, to the extent that I can now remember it, and I remember it well since I frequently argued with him about it, was as follows. The famine is the direct result of a definite social system. While that system exists such famines are inevitable. To eliminate famines is possible, but only by destroying this system. Being in this sense inevitable, the current famine is playing the role of a progressive factor. By destroying the peasant economy and driving the peasant from the country to the town, the famine creates a proletariat and facilitates the industrialisation of the region, which is progressive. Furthermore the famine can and should be a progressive factor not only economically. It will force the peasant to reflect on the bases of the capitalist system, demolish faith in the tsar and tsarism, and consequently in due course make the victory of the revolution easier. . . Psychologically all this talk about feeding the starving and so on essentially reflects the usual sugary sentimentality of our intelligentsia. V.Vodovozov (1925)