The key events around which all anti-Soviet propaganda in the Republic of Moldova is built are the famine of 1946-1947 and the deportations of the population which occurred in 1949.
A system of lies has been constructed around these events which crumble when confronted with the historical evidence. On a thoughtful look at the post-war events in the Moldavian SSR, it becomes clear that the conclusions drawn, for example, by the pro-Western “researchers” of the Moldavian famine do not withstand the slightest criticism. Not only the Soviet Union did not organize the “genocide of the Moldovans” – the post-war famine in the Moldavian SSR took place on a mass scale precisely because it was not reported from Chisinau to Moscow in time and help from the Union Centre came too late.
The mass hunger really took place in Moldova in 1946-1947, and here it is necessary to speak about two factors – the objective natural and subjective human factor.
Droughts often visited Moldova, which is located in the zone of so-called risky farming, i.e. insufficient soil moisture, and its southern part is also in an altogether arid zone. According to long-term observations by meteorologists, as a rule, two to four years out of ten are dry here. This leads to unsustainable crop yields and, in dry years, to the complete destruction of a large part of the crops, a sharp decrease in yields and significant loss of perennial plantations.
The development of Moldovan agriculture in the first post-war period was negatively affected by the drought of 1945-1946.
The severe drought of 1946 was observed not only in Moldova, but also in most of Ukraine, the Central Black Earth Region, the Lower Volga Region, Primorski Krai and some other regions. The drought resulted in under-harvesting and, in some places, even the total loss of crops.
In the central and southern areas of Moldova, almost all annual crops died and the yield of perennial crops decreased sharply, some of which also died. In the south of Moldova, the maize sown in 1946, which made up about half of all sown areas, was killed by 78 per cent. In some districts there was no harvest at all. There was almost nothing to harvest on the remaining half-burned fields either. The drought also severely undermined the forage base of livestock farming.
Such was the situation in a republic ravaged and exhausted by war and occupation.
This situation had a decisive impact on the food supply of the population.
At the same time the state grain procurements were still to be carried out and this aggravated the critical situation in the Moldavian SSR. The grain harvests took place in difficult conditions, when the bulk of the peasantry lived in starvation, and some families were simply starving and their number was growing. Of course, in this situation the peasants were reluctant to give the last grain to the state. The better-off part of the Moldovan villages kept and stashed away bread. At the same time it was admitted that in some districts the volume of grain procurement exceeded the real possibilities of the peasants’ households.
In this situation, on August 19, 1946, the USSR government adopted a resolution on reduction of the bread procurement plan for Moldova down to 71 thousand tons, which was 3.7 times less than the initial plan. In addition, Moldova received as assistance 24 thousand tons of food grain, 49 thousand tons of seed loan, 12 thousand tons of grain forage, 10 thousand tons of mixed fodder and 15 thousand tons of hay.
Each peasant household received a food loan of 4 to 10 poods of grain.
In exceptional cases, especially multi-family households were allowed to receive more than 10 poods.
During September and October, the food loan granted to the republic by the USSR Government was distributed, and by December the vast majority of peasant farms had used up. After this, once again left without food, the population of many districts began to eat cake, acorns, roots and stalks of plants, ground maize cobs and corpses of fallen animals. Cases of cannibalism have even been reported. Due to the lack of food and fodder, the mass slaughter of productive cattle, oxen and horses began. In some villages almost all cattle were slaughtered, eaten or sold to buy food.
Mass malnutrition resulted in the exhaustion of the rural population. The number of undernourished people increased sharply to over 53,000 by the end of the year. Particularly many of the sick were children. In December the deaths of peasants from starvation became more frequent.
Once again, the population was in need of urgent and serious food aid. This request for additional help to the republic was expressed in a letter of the Moldovan leadership to Stalin of 21 December 1946.
According to specialists who have studied these events, the letter was at least a month and a half late. This is the second, subjective and human factor that had a negative impact on the situation.
On December 29, 1946 the Allied Government in response to the request of Kishinev adopted a resolution “On rendering additional assistance to collective and state farms and peasant farms of the Moldavian SSR in connection with the crop failure in 1946”. Moldova received 24 thousand tons of grain as an interest-free loan, which was distributed among the population according to their need.
At the expense of the state 500 feeding points were organized to serve 100 thousand citizens in dire need of food. The number of rural inhabitants who received food rations was growing: by 30 thousand people from January and by another 20 thousand people from February. To support cattle breeding the republic was allocated 15 thousand tons of hay for sale to collective and state farms and individual peasants.
The Soviet government sent Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. N. Kosygin with a group of ministry and departmental officials to Moldova to obtain full information on what was happening. They analysed the situation at the meetings of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Moldova on February 24 and 27.
In Kosygin’s opinion, the mistake of the leadership of the Republic was that, out of fear or understanding of the complexity of the situation in the whole country, it did not inform the Union authorities about the real situation in Moldova in time and not to the full extent.
The USSR government became aware that the situation in Moldova was very unfavourable, not from the leadership of the CC CP(b)M, but from the reports of the prosecutor’s office and other departments.
Today, many pro-Western scholars try to present those events as a manifestation of genocide of the Moldovan people on the part of the allied authorities.
However, a clear and objective examination of historical facts leaves no stone unturned in such tendentious “studies”.
These “researches” have exclusively propagandistic character and are intended to rewrite the real history of Moldova.
Maxim Camererer, Rubaltic.Ru
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel