To the People’s Commissariat of Land Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR.
Report note.
Based on our preliminary grain and fodder stock of 16870 tons, the Ukrainian Milk Trust on 10/XII fully implemented the grain procurement plan provided by the Government.
According to the information that Ukrainian Milk and Butter Trust has from radhosps and our inspectors who examined radhosps in 1931/32, the state of radhosps in terms of food is catastrophic; in other words, after all the expenses for the second half of 1931, we have 1096 tons of food crops remaining for 1931/32, and 26 radhosps have no food crops at all.
Whereas, based on the production objectives of our radhosps, 6886 tons were needed to support the workers in the first half of 1932, i.e., until the new harvest, or 2585 tons in the first quarter and 4301 tons in the second quarter, which means a shortage of 5790 tons of food crops.
Only 36 radhosps have these 1906 tons, which averages out to 34.4 tons for each radhosps, and the remaining 26 radhosps do not have a single centner, and the condition of the remaining ones is catastrophic.
Despite our strict prohibition to use seed and concentrated fodder for eating, those radhosps still utilize the corn used as concentrated fodder for the cows, and some radhosps eat the seed (barley, oats…)
Such a situation with the workers’ nutrition on most radhosps has created and continues to create a large turnover of labor and disrupts the training of mass-qualified personnel who scatter, and some radhosps do not even have enough labor to milk the cows.
To eliminate such a menacing situation with the nutrition of workers and students, the Trust took measures in its power (transferring food crops from radhosps to radhosp), and now all actions that the Milk Trust could take have been exhausted.
Therefore, to avoid such a dangerous situation with the nutrition of workers and students, which may affect the preparation and transfer of the sowing campaign, I ask you to take the necessary measures to provide radhosps with food crops.
The material to this is being added.
Director of the Ukrainian Milk Trust /DIYUK/ (signature)
Ukrmolokotrest (state enterprise which united milk industry in Soviet Ukraine) sent this instruction to the Peoples Secretariat of Land Affairs of the USSR in the second half of 1932. The document contains important information on the situation at padhosps (Soviet agricultural farms), which belonged administratively to the trest. As the trest had the right to inspect the state of work on the controlled radhosps, its inspectors possessed the detailed information about the state of their work and the condition of food supply of their workers. Thus, the provided information about the “catastrophic” situation of food supply in the early 1932 testifies about the already existing famine conditions in the countryside while the peak of famine was in the spring of 1933. The note also indirectly states that such situation was caused in fact by the collection of grain and food supply from radhosps due to excessive grain requisitions. As a result of mass migration of the starving to the cities, there were “a shortage of working force to milk cows.”
The text of the document does not use terms that directly refer to famine or are related to requisitions of grain, mass migration of rural dwellers to cities, or food aid to the starving population. Instead, the leadership used such euphemisms as “catastrophic/dangerous situation of food supply,” “shortage of food [agri]cultural…,” “expenses” of radhosps, “fluidity of working force,” or “transfer of food cultures.”