Famine accompanied Soviet power essentially from its inception. Recognized as almost an essential component of the "revolutionary upheaval," in the pre-Stalinist era, it was not hidden; quite the contrary, "Tsar Famine" actively appeared on screens. In particular, for propaganda purposes: some films aimed to encourage peasants to hand over grain to the state more actively, some became part of an information campaign for the West, which helped the USSR overcome the Great Famine of 1921–1922, and some sought to shift the responsibility for the food crisis onto "enemies," while others simply documented famine as a reality of the time. Let us explore the screens of the 1920s and the eve of the 1932–1933 Holodomor to see how famine appeared in Ukrainian cinema of that period.

Early Years: The Battle Against "Tsar Famine"

Symbolically, famine became a "hero" of Ukrainian Soviet cinema from the very beginning. The years 1921–1922 in the USSR, and particularly in Ukraine, were marked by the Great Famine, which became a notable fact of ideology and, accordingly, art, including cinematography. During this period, films advocating for aid to the starving were produced—of course, primarily to aid the Volga region, without mentioning famine in Ukraine itself. For instance, in 1921, Axel Lundin’s agitational film Flowers on Stone depicted Ukrainian peasants realizing the necessity of helping the starving Russians. According to the plot, in the autumn of 1921, a Ukrainian village that had gathered a rich harvest learns about famine in the Volga region. A meeting is convened, and a decision is made to help the victims. Some villagers sabotage the decision, such as one peasant who takes grain to sell. At the market, he encounters his brother, who had settled in the Volga region, learns about the dire situation there, and decides to donate the grain after all.

As in many similar Soviet films, the mechanism for solving the problem in the movie is grassroots initiative, not government measures (or responsibility). The following year, Odessa Film Studio released another agitational film, Famine and the Fight Against It by M. Saltykov, which served as a kind of cinematic summation of the famine theme during the revolutionary years. The film included documentary footage and staged scenes, explaining the famine on Soviet territory as a result of poor harvests and turmoil.¹.

When the fight against famine ceased to be an urgent issue, it remained on screens as a sign of the times, appearing in films of other genres and on different topics, including children's cinema. For example, one of the first Ukrainian "children’s" films, Mariyka (1925) by the same Axel Lundin, featured a storyline where a girl from a starving village is sent to the city by the "Pomgol" Committee (Aid to the Starving). The child runs away to return home but falls into the hands of criminals. In the finale, she is saved, becomes a Pioneer, and reunites with her older sister.

Screen Famine in the Struggle Against Imaginary Enemies

In subsequent years, up to the famine and Holodomor of 1932–1933, the theme of famine or its threat was actively used for agitation against external and internal enemies.

An example of this can be found in the film P.K.P. (1926) by Axel Lundin, which addressed the Polish-Ukrainian alliance and the Second Winter Campaign. The motif of requisitioning agricultural products from Ukraine for export abroad—during wartime, when the population was already suffering from food shortages—was highlighted. The actions of the Poles following the allied agreement are depicted accordingly. After the title "The allies have set out…" and footage of a Polish column, another title reads: "No sooner had they arrived in Ukraine than they began open plunder…" What follows is a detailed depiction of requisition: an officer satisfiedly plunges his hand into a sack of sugar; Polish soldiers roll barrels and carry sacks of provisions, take agricultural tools, and load supplies onto railway cars. A title identifies the wagons as belonging to the "Polish State Railway" (Polskie Koleje Państwowe), and a peasant sarcastically "translates" the abbreviation: "Piłsudski bought Petliura," expressing the local population's sentiment. Eventually, the Red Cavalry's advance forces the Poles to retreat, ending their plundering.

We have attempted to recount what happens on screen as succinctly as possible. A vivid description, with correctly placed ideological accents, was provided by the contemporary cinema press: "Smoke rises from the locomotives pulling enormous trains loaded with wagons. These wagons carry the lifeblood of the Ukrainian working people: sugar, bread, livestock. And on the wagons, the white eagle—the state emblem of contemporary Poland—is painted, along with the letters 'P.K.P.' The trains move from the worker-peasant Ukraine to the lordly Poland. [...] A rough, unkempt peasant from Podillia quickly deciphers the mysterious inscription: 'Piłsudski bought Petliura.' Was the peasant mistaken? No. Bloody, tragic facts clearly and loudly confirm that the Ukrainian peasant had every reason to interpret the inscription beneath the white eagle of lordly Poland in this way. From this point on, the inscription becomes historic. It was aptly chosen as the title for this significant film. [...] With certainty, we can say that Soviet cinematography, in this case, fulfilled another important task, taking yet another step forward."²This excerpt conveys the Bolshevik perspective on events while simultaneously illustrating the peculiarities of historical narrative cinema in general and Soviet historical-propagandistic cinema in particular. Selected, contextually isolated, vivid, and "gripping" facts (with the famine of previous years still fresh in memory, the sight of food supplies being exported abroad was meant to resonate especially painfully) are presented within a specific ideological framework.

Another theme that emerged somewhat later in Ukrainian Soviet cinema and gained widespread use was the notion of "internal enemies"—the "kulaks"—being responsible for food shortages. A prime example is the film The Adopted Son (Tak Bulо, 1931) by O. Stryzhak, where the plot revolves around a malicious kulak who prefers to destroy grain rather than give it to the state. The narrative reframes a common scenario to fit Bolshevik ideology. The antagonist, the "kulak," having been obligated to deliver two hundred poods of grain, becomes embittered and decides to destroy the grain. His son-in-law (a former farmhand and Bolshevik sympathizer) tries to stop him, leading to a fight during which the son-in-law ends up in a ravine. After regaining consciousness, the protagonist reports his father-in-law to the village council, resulting in the "enemy's" arrest—likely more for hiding the grain than for the attempted murder.

The film Bread (1929) by Mykola Shpykovsky offers a vivid cinematic interpretation of Bolshevik views of the postwar rural crisis. In the story, a Bolshevik soldier returns from the front to "build communism in the countryside," facing opposition from a kulak who buries grain in a hideout. The kulak is portrayed as the cause of failed sowing campaigns and general food shortages. The situation is saved by the "Republic," as the proletariat sends seed grain to the village. The sowing campaign was saved despite the armed attack by the kulaks. Interestingly, however, the film failed to gain approval from the censors. In 1930, the Main Committee for Repertoire Control under the People's Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR (GRC RSFSR) rejected the film based on the conclusion of the political editor, which stated, among other things, that "the picture gives a false impression of the struggle for grain" and "the picture distorts historical reality in addressing the agrarian issue."³And in Yevhen Adelheim's article "The Mechanist Director. On the Work of Director Shpykovskyi" published in the journal Kino a bit later, in 1932, the film was criticized for essentially portraying events from the perspective of the kulak. Bread became an important, though not the only, example of depicting the concealment of grain by a kulak.

During the 1932–1933 famine years, depictions of the contemporary rural situation did not appear on screen. Instead, mentions of famine surfaced in films addressing the grim realities of the capitalist world. For example, the agitational film "Perhaps Tomorrow" (1932) by D. Dalsky and L. Snezhinskaya depicted the crisis of the Western world and the rise of militaristic sentiments; unemployment and hunger played a significant role in the narrative, driving crowds of demonstrators into the streets, opposed by police armed with tear gas. In "The Feast of Unirea" by P. Dolyna, which told the story of the harsh life of Ukrainians in Romania, the protagonist, unable to endure the relentless poverty and hunger ravaging a Bessarabian village, sets off to the city in search of work.

Overall, in cinema as an ideological weapon, the motif of food crises and hunger was employed according to circumstances—ranging from agitation to concealing the true state of affairs. In particular, it can be argued that cinema played a certain role in justifying the terror against the peasantry, including the Holodomor.

Finally, it is worth mentioning how cinema also contributed to combating hunger—not only through film production but financially as well. When the government introduced a special tax for all enterprises, with the proceeds intended to aid the starving population, a special decree by the VUTsVK (All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee) was issued on September 13, 1921. This decree mandated a corresponding deduction from every ticket sold for entertainment events. For cinema, this deduction amounted to 20% of the ticket price. On April 12, 1922, the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration issued Order No. 1020:

"1. To establish local commissions consisting of representatives from: the Film Departments, the Provincial Departments of the RSN, the Provincial Political Education offices, and the Provincial Committee for Hunger Relief (Gubkomdopolholod), to thoroughly examine all deductions from cinemas starting from October 5, 1921, until the completion of the audit.

2. The aforementioned commissions are to verify all amounts of gross receipts, the sums of percentage deductions, and their timely submission to the appropriate authorities. For any cases where such deductions were made incorrectly or the calculated sums were not submitted on time to the relevant authorities, and generally for any defects noticed, detailed reports were to be prepared for bringing those responsible to trial.

3. During the specified two-week period, all collected data must be brought into the most complete order, the deducted sums must be totaled, and the submission of these sums must be cross-checked with the receipt amounts. This work must be completed by preparing a single report, signed by all members of the regional commission for verification. These reports should be prepared in four copies, one of which remains with the regional financial department, another is provided to the People's Commissariat of the RSIs, the third to the Central Commission for Aid to the Hungry, and the fourth to the All-Ukrainian Photocinema Directorate.

4. This order is to be executed without the slightest delay in a combat-ready manner. Any abuse, negligence, or carelessness in the matter of aiding the starving will be considered as deliberate murder and will be punished with all severity as the gravest crime against the destitute working masses afflicted by a natural disaster."⁴.

As we can see, the motif of hunger and food crises was one of the defining themes of Soviet cinema in the 1920s and, to a lesser extent, in the early 1930s. As was characteristic of Soviet cinema with its propagandistic function, the presentation of this theme was largely determined by the needs of the moment—ranging from conveying information in order to obtain aid to shifting the blame onto internal enemies as a justification for repression against them.

¹  Myslavskyi V. N. Istoriia ukrains'koho kino 1896–1930: fakty i dokumenty / V. N. Myslavskyi. – Vol. 1. – Kharkiv: "Dim Reklamy", 2018. – pp. 456–457.

²  Setar V. "P. K. P." / V. Setar // Kino. – 1926. – No. 8 [June]. – pp. 15, 20.

³  Cited in: Naumova L. M. The film "Khlib" by M. Shpikovsky: Trends and Influences / L. M. Naumova // Scientific Bulletin of the Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television named after I. K. Karpenko-Kary. – 2017. – Issue 20. – p. 101.

⁴  Myslavskyi V. N. History of Ukrainian Cinema 1896–1930: Facts and Documents / V. N. Myslavskyi. – Vol. 1. – Kharkiv: "Dim Reklamy", 2018. – pp. 566–567.