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The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
by
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 concentr
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Paperback, 411 pages
Published
November 1st 1987
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published 1986)
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Start your review of The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
Page 299 (my book) Khrushchev quote
“No one was keeping count”
This is about one of the more appalling episodes in the history of the Soviet Union under Stalin. The centerpiece is the treatment of the ethnic and farming communities in Ukraine during 1929 to 1934.
By following the dogma of Marxism-Leninism class war was declared on the so-called rich farmers of Ukraine labeled as kulaks. The definition of kulak varied – it could be a peasant farmer who owned a horse or two, a pig or two, who employe ...more
“No one was keeping count”
This is about one of the more appalling episodes in the history of the Soviet Union under Stalin. The centerpiece is the treatment of the ethnic and farming communities in Ukraine during 1929 to 1934.
By following the dogma of Marxism-Leninism class war was declared on the so-called rich farmers of Ukraine labeled as kulaks. The definition of kulak varied – it could be a peasant farmer who owned a horse or two, a pig or two, who employe ...more
Hitler was a piker compared with Joseph Stalin. Stalin created the gulags in the 1920's, and created a man-made famine to eliminate most of the population of the Ukraine who refused get aboard his economic plan. This work is one of the pieces of evidence proving that more people on this earth were murdered in the name of State Communism than from any other single ideology. Mao, Pol Pot, and all of the other State sponsored secular tyrants learned their trade from Stalin. Stalin alone probably mu
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Aug 30, 2014
Czarny Pies
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
All readers be they history buffs or not
Recommended to Czarny by:
Norman Davies
Shelves:
favorites,
european-history
The importance of this book is that it finally silenced those who denied that there had been a man-made famine in the Ukraine betweem 1929 and 1932. Within 5 years of its publication in 1986, the overwhelming major of academic historians in the West were willing to acknowledge that there had indeed been a Ukrainian "Holocaust". From the 1930s to the early 1980s communist intellectuals and fellow travellers in the West had essentially succeeded in convincing the public that the stories of the fam
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This book was banned in Canada when it first came out. (I had to have it). It is such a gut-wrenching account of how people were forced into collectives, forced to endure famine and hardships that were hidden from the western world. The world knew one history of that time period but the reality, hidden by the Soviets, was another entirely. It isn't a book for the faint of heart and the pictures boggle the mind. With the help of Stalin approximately 14 million people died in and around the Ukrain
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An important book that exposes the atrocities committed against Ukraine in the forms of de-kulakization and grain requisitioning. Imprisonment, death, famine, and economic depravation were employed against the Ukrainian nationstate as means of political warfare by the Stalinist regime. Although unaware of what genocidal consequences these policies would have at first, Conquest's conclusions do not absolve Stalin of these crimes through ignorance or confusion. The fact that their implementation c
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A classic--- and a vital part of anyone's library on 20th-c. Russia. A horrifying account of what Stalin--- and the Party apparatus; never never never think it was all Stalin alone ---did to the Russian peasantry as part of forced industrialisation: crushing the peasantry in order to extract the surplus that would feed the cities and the workers needed for the manic industrial growth projected under the 5-Year Plans, exporting grain to pay for building up Soviet industry even while the countrysi
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I'm a person of Ukrainian descent on both parents' sides of the family. I first learned about this horrific event in 2nd year university when I took a course on Poland and Ukraine. As much as people blame Stalin and he is to blame for most things, but this didn't just happen in Ukraine (and be careful not to say the Ukraine. It isn't a province, it's a country) but it happened in Russia itself. There wasn't just dekulakization in Ukraine. It happened in the farm lands in Russia as well. Conquest
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It is a curious thing, but the public schools do not teach anything about this subject in their history classes. This book should be required reading!
It is not an easy read any way you look at it, but it is an important book. Please pick it up and give it a read.
It is not an easy read any way you look at it, but it is an important book. Please pick it up and give it a read.
**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,"
...more
Conquest clearly explains the precursors to famine, the tragedy itself, and its aftermath. Many first-hand accounts are quoted, often at length, from both victims and government "activists," allowing for an intimate understanding of specific people's experiences in context. Conquest also writes of the West's knowledge of and reaction to the famine, including a description of Stalin's tactics of obfuscation. Statistics are offered frequently. Harvest of Sorrow reads as a relatively objective acco
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A must read for anyone who believes communism is good. It isnt.
The best description of Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture -- arguably the most monstrous crime of a monstrous century.
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I was reading Conquest's book on The Great Terror, about Stalin's show trials in the late thirties, but then thought I should go back a few years and learn about Stalin's terror famines. I'd also read Hungry Ghosts about China's terror famine in the mid-fifties and wanted to see how it played out in Russia. Like Hungry Ghosts, this was an incredibly eye-opening and shocking book. We were never taught about any of this in school. The stupidity and sheer evil of Stalin is really highlighted here i
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Jun 29, 2008
John
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
general reader as well as specialists
Recommended to John by:
bibliography of Montefiore's "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tzar.
Shelves:
soviet-history
A most engaging and horrifying book. It conveys the circumstances and the means by which the Soviet government put to death at least 10 million peasants. Most of these people, the adults at least, opposed collectivation to some degree. Many others were members of national minorities, such as the Ukranians, who may not have opposed 'Soviet power,' i.e. collectivation, at all, but who were members of national minorities, Ukranians, for example, devoted to their national language, culture, traditio
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I feel a bit bad marking this low, as at the time when it was written it was probably quite brave and necessary, but while Conquest (awesome author name, by the way) lays out an unapologetic indictment of the Soviet government for its intentional infliction of famine on the Ukraine, and its damnable stubbornness in insisting on ideologically-motivated reforms even in the teeth of overwhelming evidence that they were failures, the writing is weak, the organization is scattered (alternating chrono
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This is a history of the famine in the Ukraine brought about by Stalin's collectivization program and enforced by terror. It is a horrible story and that is both depressing and still little known today. Conquest is a superb writer and the book is captivating to read even as it is difficult. There are other treatments of this series of events, such as Bloodlands, that place it in context with other atrocities of the time. There is even an emerging genre of these events, such as histories of the I
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Excellent piece of historical research and writing. Most Americans don't know anything about the frightful events that are detailed in this book. Conquest does an excellent job piecing together the facts to give the reader a complete picture of what happened. A must read.
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Amazing account of a forgotten Genocide. Stalin's Terror famine.
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An illuminating account of an overlooked human catastrophe. The 14.5 million death toll of the Holodomor is much overlooked and this book really should be on high school reading lists.
The best resource I've found to date on the Holodomor.
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Conquest is an incredible historian and writer.
This is the most horrific book I have read in my entire life. It was heart breaking and felt unimaginable reading part about Holodomor. Just let it sink that one letter in this book represents 20 people who died from famine that was result of Stalin's regime.
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This is a well written book with no wasted words, even if not an absolute masterpiece of style.
And though history books are to me generally not 5-star, it seems inescapable that this is indeed a 5-star book because the story is so damned important.
I admit to starting off through the first third in the frame of mind of collecting the material into my mind; to just absorb it as history. Now, at completion, I've come to realize that this is something different.
Statistical figures, Soviet reports, l ...more
And though history books are to me generally not 5-star, it seems inescapable that this is indeed a 5-star book because the story is so damned important.
I admit to starting off through the first third in the frame of mind of collecting the material into my mind; to just absorb it as history. Now, at completion, I've come to realize that this is something different.
Statistical figures, Soviet reports, l ...more
Why I did not read this when it was first published I do not know. Its publication date is 1986, before the fall of the USSR. I am left with 2 overwhelming impressions. Firstly, he argues very clearly about the responsibilities for the famine in Chapter 18. In chapter 17, he describes how Stalin successfully 'managed the message': " This lobby of the blind and the blindfold could not actually prevent true accounts by those who were neither dupes nor liars from reaching the West. But they could,
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The author, who wrote many of Margaret Thatcher's (worst) speeches, admits that this book is based on hearsay and rumor, 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 Collecti ...more
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 Collecti ...more
Aug 25, 2016
David M
marked it as to-read
Earlier this year I read Timothy Snyder's great book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, which gives a truly horrifying account of the Ukranian famine. Snyder, however, gives a much lower figure than 14.5 million, something closer to 4 million. Why this huge discrepancy?
This maybe points to a larger question. Famines have been common throughout most of human history. By the end of the first world most the inhabitants of the Russian empire were starving or severely malnourished. Nichola ...more
This maybe points to a larger question. Famines have been common throughout most of human history. By the end of the first world most the inhabitants of the Russian empire were starving or severely malnourished. Nichola ...more
Anyone who thinks socialism is a good idea needs to read this book. If socialism is so wonderful, why does it have to be forced on people? If it the best system ever, why does it drive a mother to kill and eat her own children? Millions of people were killed outright, deported to labor camps, or simply left to starve to death...because these things would create a perfect world. Didn't happen. That world never appeared. This book was published in 1986, and the author noted that the average citize
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And this is what democrats and do-nothing republicans want??? Now I know why Politicians pit one group against the other. Man, what a depressing book, I wish that this book was taught in every school in the U.S. Fourteen million deaths, many children, what a crying shame!!! With all of this going on and Roosevelt wanted to recognize Russia! I think Whittaker Chambers said it best in his book, WITNESS. "The Communist vision is a vision of Man without God." After reading this book, I have to agree
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He died while I was reading this, at the age of I think 98. Stalin had the Ukrainian peasantry slaughtered through famine - oh but he didn't MEAN to. Collectivisation and "de-kulakisation" caused millions of deaths. But hey. Conquest was hugely unfashionable when I was studying Soviet history when I was young. Because anti-communist. But it's more than an atrocity story. All backed up with figures which were confirmed when the Soviet archives were opened after the collapse of the USSR. He says,
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I'm quite tired of Goodreads picking a random book off my shelf and telling people I'm currently reading it!
So you now (and perhaps forever) get Harvest of Sorrow. I do want to finish this book someday, but it's so dry and full of irrelevant details that it makes my eyes glaze over. So it sits atop the bookcase and glares down at me, much like that picture of Gauss in grad school that seemed to say "look upon my works ye mighty, and despair."
So there. ...more
So you now (and perhaps forever) get Harvest of Sorrow. I do want to finish this book someday, but it's so dry and full of irrelevant details that it makes my eyes glaze over. So it sits atop the bookcase and glares down at me, much like that picture of Gauss in grad school that seemed to say "look upon my works ye mighty, and despair."
So there. ...more
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| What's the Name o...: Fiction Book about the Ukraine [s] | 9 | 199 | May 10, 2012 06:10PM |
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George Robert Ackworth Conquest was a British historian who became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication, in 1968, of his account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s, The Great Terror.
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