Lazar Kaganovich
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Secretary of the Central Committee; People's Commissar of Railways · Soviet Union
On the regime page: Soviet Union under Stalin
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“Criticism should be undertaken at the Ukrainian conference of the work of the CC CP(B)U, whose shortcomings have brought about a difficult situation in some regions. The question arises of how this should be explained in the press. In order not to give fodder to the foreign press, we deem it necessary to expound on this criticism in our press in moderate tones, without printing facts about the situation in the bad regions.”
English: Maksym Motorenko and Bohdan Klid, in The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, ed. Bohdan Klid and Alexander J. Motyl (Edmonton and Toronto: CIUS Press, 2012). Original-language text not found.
A joint telegram of Molotov and Kaganovich, who were taking part in the All-Ukrainian Party Conference, asking Stalin how the press should report criticism of the work of the Ukrainian Party leadership.
Telegram from Molotov and Kaganovich to Stalin, 6 July 1932, in Holod 1932-1933 rokiv v Ukraini (2007), p. 232 Source
Content note: Announces removal of goods and threatens deportation of entire villages. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“In ten districts of the Kuban, delivery of goods to cooperative and state stores was halted, and in another ten districts that most shamefully failed in sowing and procurements, in addition to stopping deliveries, all goods were removed. Residents of the blacklisted stanitsy were warned that in the event sabotage continued in sowing and grain procurements, they would be deported beyond the borders of the territory to the northern oblasts, and these stanitsy would be settled by conscientious collective farmers....”
English: Bohdan Klid, in The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, ed. Bohdan Klid and Alexander J. Motyl (Edmonton and Toronto: CIUS Press, 2012). Original-language text not found.
Kaganovich, a Secretary of the Central Committee, spoke after a Central Committee group went to the North Caucasus to deal with what the resolution called sabotage of sowing and grain procurement by kulak elements in the Kuban. He described measures taken against villages that had not met the plan.
Speech at a joint meeting of the enlarged bureau of the North Caucasus Territorial Committee of the AUCP(B) and the bureau of the Rostov city committee and activists, 23 November 1932, 'Tasks of the North Caucasus Bolsheviks in the struggle for grain and for the strengthening of collective farms', in Komandyry velykoho holodu (2001), pp. 286-289, 291-292 (excerpts) Source
Content note: Announces deportation of purged Party members as 'traitors to the working class'. The words are shown as they were said or written. Why
“We will deport those purged from the Party beyond the borders of the territory to the northern oblasts as traitors to the working class and as politically dangerous.”
English: Bohdan Klid, in The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, ed. Bohdan Klid and Alexander J. Motyl (Edmonton and Toronto: CIUS Press, 2012). Original-language text not found.
In the same speech, Kaganovich reported that 25-30 percent of the staff of the village (stanitsa) organisations had been purged from the Party, and said what would happen to them.
Speech at a joint meeting of the enlarged bureau of the North Caucasus Territorial Committee of the AUCP(B) and the bureau of the Rostov city committee and activists, 23 November 1932, 'Tasks of the North Caucasus Bolsheviks in the struggle for grain and for the strengthening of collective farms', in Komandyry velykoho holodu (2001), pp. 286-289, 291-292 (excerpts) Source
“The very raising of the issue of creating and securing reserves, as well as prohibiting the transfer of seed reserves to grain procurement, provides the legal grounds and basis for entrenching the established view that the plan cannot be fulfilled, although this is not said openly.... [W]e are convinced that this “preoccupation” with reserves, including seed reserves, is seriously hampering and undermining the entire grain-procurement plan.”
English: English text in 'Holodomor Documents' (Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, holodomor.ca, 7_HR_Documents.pdf), from Holodomor of 1932-33 in Ukraine: Documents and Materials (Kyiv, 2008); translator not credited for this item. Original-language text not found.
Kaganovich and Mikhail Chernov wrote to Stalin about a resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine of 18 November 1932, which they argued allowed collective farms to keep grain reserves.
Telegram from Kaganovich and M. A. Chernov to Stalin, 22 December 1932, on the need to cancel the resolution of the CC CP(B)U of 18 November 1932, in Holodomor of 1932-33 in Ukraine (2008), p. 70 (excerpt) Source