On August 7, 1932, the Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the Council of People's Commissars (RC) signed the Decree initiated by Y. Stalin “On the protection of the property of state-owned enterprises, collective farms and cooperatives and the strengthening of public (socialist) property”, which was popularly called the law “Law of Spikelets.”
According to this resolution, the property of collective farms and cooperatives, including the harvest in the fields, was declared state property. Even for collecting ears of corn after the harvest from the collective farmlands, a higher punishment was established - execution, and in the presence of mitigating circumstances – a sentence of at least 10 years of imprisonment with confiscation of all property. Amnesty could not be applied to those convicted of theft of collective farm and cooperative property.
This resolution was the main instrument of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. The Soviet authorities consciously implemented the idea of destroying the Ukrainian nation, the lion's share of which at that time lived in the village. Unrealistic plans for grain distribution due to the confiscation of grain doomed the peasants to starvation. Any attempts to escape and hide food threatened with confiscation of all edible (and even cooked food) and property or execution. Villages were filled with “tow crews” who were engaged in searches and confiscation of food. They went through the villages from yard to yard and searched houses and yards with probes (long sharp metal rods) in search of hidden food. For non-fulfilment of grain procurement plans, entire villages were put on so-called “black boards”, which in practice meant the cessation of trade, supply to stores and even a ban on leaving the territory of the village.
In this way, the mechanism of mass murder of Ukrainian peasants by artificially planned famine was launched. Of course, the specified resolution was also valid for representatives of national minorities who lived in the village – Jews, Germans, Bulgarians, etc.; therefore, terror and hunger affected them as well. The “Law” was in effect until 1947, people were convicted under it also during the famine of 1946–1947, although the peak of its application fell precisely in 1932–1933. According to official data, by October 1933, the Soviet authorities had sentenced more than 200,000 persons, including children.
Law of Spikelets had no precedents in world history. In the conditions of that time, he actually forbade people to dispose of their food.
In the conditions of full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, Ukrainians choose not only their own freedom, but also the right to exist at a heavy price. In dangerous conditions, under rocket fire, Ukrainians sow fields and harvest crops. The enemy strikes with deadly weapons on our fields, machinery, burning entire fields of grain, and sometimes killing agricultural workers. In addition, it strikes rockets at grain warehouses, mines ports, hits fuel and lubricant storage facilities, blows up gas stations, and in the occupied territories brazenly steals grain and agricultural machinery and transports it to its own territory. The lack of a sufficient amount of Ukrainian bread on world markets can cause a food crisis and cause hunger in certain regions of the globe.
Unfortunately, the bread terror continues, and it can only be stopped by joint actions - on the diplomatic front and, of course, on the battlefield.
Daria Yesina