I certainly don’t intend to defend Stalin. There was famine in parts of the Soviet Union even before the war and he was responsible for it. Arguably he did more harm to the people of the Soviet Union than even Hitler. I mean only to express some sympathy for the ordinary people of the Soviet Union. I think they weren’t indifferent to children’s hunger but there simply wasn’t enough food.
These were folk in their mid-late teens, when they say ‘juveniles’. But yes, the Soviet people weren’t indifferent to their children’s hunger, absolutely! Noted by another contemporary report from the Soviet archives:
Having been deprived of rations for bread and food products, the dependants and children in large families are forced to starve. The employees [rabotniki] themselves – the heads of the families – are dividing up their own ration with their children and are driving themselves to emaciation. In connection with this, cases of acute malnutrition, of a sharp decline in labour productivity, of quitting their jobs, etc. have become more frequent.
Parents often choose starvation over their children going hungry, in every society. Not always, of course, we’re all individuals - but parental affection is a hard thing to suppress.
Part of the issue of the famine in 47 was that the Soviet system decided to strip many dependents, including children, of their previously-given ration allocations.
I certainly don’t intend to defend Stalin. There was famine in parts of the Soviet Union even before the war and he was responsible for it. Arguably he did more harm to the people of the Soviet Union than even Hitler. I mean only to express some sympathy for the ordinary people of the Soviet Union. I think they weren’t indifferent to children’s hunger but there simply wasn’t enough food.
These were folk in their mid-late teens, when they say ‘juveniles’. But yes, the Soviet people weren’t indifferent to their children’s hunger, absolutely! Noted by another contemporary report from the Soviet archives:
Parents often choose starvation over their children going hungry, in every society. Not always, of course, we’re all individuals - but parental affection is a hard thing to suppress.
Part of the issue of the famine in 47 was that the Soviet system decided to strip many dependents, including children, of their previously-given ration allocations.