Letter sent from: Dolynska raion, Kirovohrad oblast
Letter describes events in 1932-1933 in: Novomoskovs'k Machine-Tractor Station (MTS), Novomoskovs'k raion, Dnipropetrovsk oblast
Current location name: Novomoskovs'k raion, Dnipropetrovsk oblast
Stepan Parasotka was assistant to the chief of the political department of Novomoskovsk Machine-Tractor Station in charge of the Komsomol from March 1933. He was an eyewitness to numerous deaths from hunger and cannibalism and the devastation in villages. He is defensive about collectivization and collective farms.
He does not blame Stalin but rather accuses the Ukrainian leadership (Kosior, Postyshev, Chubar, Liubchenko and others) because they were struggling for power. He notes that there was no famine in oblasts of other republics bordering Ukraine.
By June 1933, the famine was alleviated by the new harvest of greens and vegetables. Parasotka says that the harvest had never been as good as in 1933, not since 1923, and that the collective farmers were receiving generous workday payment in grain; they were amply rewarded for their work with grain from the 1933 harvest and therefore accepted the superiority of collective farms. Villages completely recovered by the end of 1933. The author, in sum, is a believer in the
value of collective farms.
Parasotka believes that the Soviet regime is pushing a new narrative about the Famine that is a “one-sided new cult of personality” and that therefore his letter will not be published. He is a veteran of party, World War II and labour.
Russian transcription and English translation available.
