Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine

by Anne Applebaum

A series of sanctions on blacklisted farms and villages followed. In a telegram sent to all the provinces the Ukrainian Central Committee banned blacklisted districts that had failed to meet grain targets from purchasing any manufactured or industrial goods. In the initial order an exception was made for kerosene, salt and matches. Two weeks later, in a telegram from Moscow, Molotov ordered Kosior to ban the delivery of those three items too. After the ban went into effect, any peasant who might possess food would soon have great difficulties cooking it.40 A complete ban on trade came next. Earlier in 1932 an edict had forbidden peasants from trading grain and meat products if their farms had not met requisition quotas. Now, districts which had failed to meet the grain procurement targets—and this included most of Ukraine—could no longer legally trade grain, seeds, flour or bread in any form at all.