The War on the Peasantry: Stalin, the Grain Crisis, and the Road to Famine (Part 2)

Episode Summary:

In the second part of our deep dive into the origins of the Soviet famine, Nick continues his exploration of 1928-1929, the critical years that sealed the fate of the Russian peasantry.

Drawing again on Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow, we examine how Stalin’s "emergency measures"—intended to be temporary—became a permanent war on the countryside. Why did the Bolsheviks believe that the "middle peasant" was a capitalist hoarder? How did the regime’s reliance on bad data lead to a spiral of confiscation and violence that destroyed the incentives...