The Harvest of Sorrow

The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-famine is a book by British historian Robert Conquest, published in 1986. It was written with the assistance of historian James Mace, a junior fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, who, following the advice of the director of the Institute, started doing research for the book.[1]

The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-famine by Robert Conquest

The book deals with the collectivization of agriculture in 1929–31 in Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR under Stalin's direction, and the 1932–33 famine which resulted. Millions of peasants died due to starvation, deportation to labor camps, and execution. Conquest's thesis was characterized as "the famine was deliberately inflicted for ethnic reasons" or that it constituted genocide.[2][3]:507

Reception

According to David R. Marples, the book was generally well received, but also served as an indicator of divisions in Western scholarship on the subject.[3]:507

Largely accepting his thesis was Geoffrey A. Hosking, who wrote that "Conquest’s research establishes beyond doubt, however, that the famine was deliberately inflicted there [in Ukraine] for ethnic reasons—it was done in order to undermine the Ukrainian nation". Peter Wiles of the London School of Economics, stated that "Conquest had ‘adopted the Ukraine exile view [on the origins of the famine of 1932–1933], and he has persuaded this reviewer’"[3]:507

Craig Whitney in a New York Times book review stated: "The eyewitness testimony may be reliable, but far more debatable is the thesis that the famine was specifically aimed as an instrument of genocide against the Ukraine. The clear implication of this book is that the author has taken the side of his Ukrainian sources on this issue, even though much of his evidence does not support it well".[3]:508

Alexander Nove, while generally praising the book, noted: "That the majority of those who died in the famine were Ukrainian peasants is not in dispute. But did they die because they were peasants, or because they were Ukrainians? As Conquest himself points out, the largest number of victims proportionately were in fact Kazakhs, and no one has attributed this to Stalin's anti-Kazakh views".[3]:508

Later scholarship has been divided on the question as well. Marples states: "Hiroaki Kuromiya notes that those who examine the famine from a general Soviet perspective downplay any specific Ukrainian factor, while specialists on Ukraine generally support the concept of a genocidal famine".[3]:508

Awards

The Harvest of Sorrow won Conquest the Antonovych prize in 1987, and the Shevchenko National Prize in 1994.

References

Notes
  1. Vlad, Mariya. "James Mace, a Native American with Ukrainian blood". WU Magazine. Welcome to Ukraine. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  2. Tauger, Mark (1991). "The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933" (PDF). Slavic Review. 50 (1): 70–89. (footnote 4) For examples of the genocide thesis, see Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow
  3. Marples, David R. (May 2009). "Ethnic Issues in the Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine". Europe-Asia Studies. 61 (3): 505–518. doi:10.1080/09668130902753325. Geoffrey A. Hosking concluded that: Conquest’s research establishes beyond doubt, however, that the famine was deliberately inflicted there [in Ukraine] for ethnic reasons...Craig Whitney, however, disagreed with the theory of genocide

Bibliography
  • Conquest, Robert, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-famine, Oxford University Press, 1986, ISBN 0195051807
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