There are two flavors of anti-communism when it comes to the famine, you have the Holodomor myth that's pushed by ukrainian fascists to create a mythology of persecution to justify their scapegoating of russians in their borders and you have the anti-collectivist myth where anti-communist historians having access to the truth in the soviet archives overemphasize the planned industrialization and collectivization as the primary factors of the famine while marginalizing the sabotage conducted by expropriated kulaks, and the still primitive farming techniques that made it difficult for farmers to combat agricultural pests and diseases
Kotkin has no sympathy for the communists. In that passage we can see he falls into the second camp by laying it flatly at Stalin's feet that it was Stalin's deliberate actions of collectivizing and industrializing that 'accidentally' caused the famine. Of course, being inconsistent, Kotkin had through out the book openly blamed the Soviet program and Stalin: Stalin's Famine (subtitle, 127), Stalin's famine, involving extirpation of capitalism and denomadization, was incomparably worse (127), All of these actions were woefully insufficient for avoiding the mass starvation in the countryside caused by his policies, in the face of challenging natural conditions. (128-9), Once Stalin caused the horror, even complete termination of exports would not have been enough to prevent famine (129), Stalin had caused a domestic calamity and rendered the Soviet Union vulnerable in the face of Japan's expansionism...(129), Marxist imperatives of transcending capitalism - combined with inordinate willpower - brought apocalypse (191).
Lets also talk about a bit of dishonesty in Kotkin's citations: Many Contemporaries, such as the ITALIAN AMBASSADOR WHO TRAVELED THROUGH UKRAINE IN THE SUMMER OF 1933, DEEMED THE FAMINE DELIBERATE ^471. Monsterously, Stalin himself made the same accusation - accusing peasants of not wanting to work ^472 (128). In citation 472, Kotkin says Stalin's stance on the famine was that the peasants were starving because they didn't want to work. The work he cites is an article of Michael Ellman who states that according to a doctor in Kiev "leaders and rank-and-file workers" - notice there's no stated names nor statements on which level of leadership that doctor was referring to - were blaming peasants who did not work for their starvation. Ellman also wrote a letter to Mikhail Sholokhov noting that Stalin had said that some peasants had refused to work, which in turn threatened to starve the workers in the cities and the red army. In that same article Ellman also writes "Stalin's idea that he had faced a peasant strike was not an absurd notion indicating paranoia. It seems that there were really numerous collective refusals by collective farmers to work for the collective farms in 1932; see Kondrashin & Penner, Golod, chapter 3. [Ellman, note 9, p837]. In that Kondrashin & Penner citation the chapter 3 referenced was "They raised, but they did not harvest" From this one citation we see Kotkin who has read the Ellman article has read all of this but chose to omit all this information to his readers knowing many of them are casual readers and not historians who do the tedious work of checking citations :citations-needed:
Added note: I'm thinking about it now but barring someone being willing to slog through Conquest of all shit historians to check whether or not he's actually abandoned his propagandist position in favor of being somewhat historically accurate, I'm retracting my comment saying Conquest saying the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 wasn't intentional as my memory's fuzzy.
There are two flavors of anti-communism when it comes to the famine, you have the Holodomor myth that's pushed by ukrainian fascists to create a mythology of persecution to justify their scapegoating of russians in their borders and you have the anti-collectivist myth where anti-communist historians having access to the truth in the soviet archives overemphasize the planned industrialization and collectivization as the primary factors of the famine while marginalizing the sabotage conducted by expropriated kulaks, and the still primitive farming techniques that made it difficult for farmers to combat agricultural pests and diseases
Kotkin has no sympathy for the communists. In that passage we can see he falls into the second camp by laying it flatly at Stalin's feet that it was Stalin's deliberate actions of collectivizing and industrializing that 'accidentally' caused the famine. Of course, being inconsistent, Kotkin had through out the book openly blamed the Soviet program and Stalin: Stalin's Famine (subtitle, 127), Stalin's famine, involving extirpation of capitalism and denomadization, was incomparably worse (127), All of these actions were woefully insufficient for avoiding the mass starvation in the countryside caused by his policies, in the face of challenging natural conditions. (128-9), Once Stalin caused the horror, even complete termination of exports would not have been enough to prevent famine (129), Stalin had caused a domestic calamity and rendered the Soviet Union vulnerable in the face of Japan's expansionism...(129), Marxist imperatives of transcending capitalism - combined with inordinate willpower - brought apocalypse (191).
Lets also talk about a bit of dishonesty in Kotkin's citations: Many Contemporaries, such as the ITALIAN AMBASSADOR WHO TRAVELED THROUGH UKRAINE IN THE SUMMER OF 1933, DEEMED THE FAMINE DELIBERATE ^471. Monsterously, Stalin himself made the same accusation - accusing peasants of not wanting to work ^472 (128). In citation 472, Kotkin says Stalin's stance on the famine was that the peasants were starving because they didn't want to work. The work he cites is an article of Michael Ellman who states that according to a doctor in Kiev "leaders and rank-and-file workers" - notice there's no stated names nor statements on which level of leadership that doctor was referring to - were blaming peasants who did not work for their starvation. Ellman also wrote a letter to Mikhail Sholokhov noting that Stalin had said that some peasants had refused to work, which in turn threatened to starve the workers in the cities and the red army. In that same article Ellman also writes "Stalin's idea that he had faced a peasant strike was not an absurd notion indicating paranoia. It seems that there were really numerous collective refusals by collective farmers to work for the collective farms in 1932; see Kondrashin & Penner, Golod, chapter 3. [Ellman, note 9, p837]. In that Kondrashin & Penner citation the chapter 3 referenced was "They raised, but they did not harvest" From this one citation we see Kotkin who has read the Ellman article has read all of this but chose to omit all this information to his readers knowing many of them are casual readers and not historians who do the tedious work of checking citations :citations-needed:
Added note: I'm thinking about it now but barring someone being willing to slog through Conquest of all shit historians to check whether or not he's actually abandoned his propagandist position in favor of being somewhat historically accurate, I'm retracting my comment saying Conquest saying the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 wasn't intentional as my memory's fuzzy.
OMG the citing of an Eye-talian ambassador's opinion is actually causing me psychic damage