decline inhorses alone.

Thisimplies thattheregime's acquisition andproduction of

tractors andcombineharvesters (also included in thelastcolumn ofthetable) cushioned
thedecline.
Aside from theusual uncertainties regarding Soviet statistics, thedatainthis
table aresomewhat misleading because theydonotindicate thequality of thesedraft
forces. Archival sources contain manyreports of ill-fed horses thatcouldnot work
verywellorverylonginthefamine years. Ukrainian party secretary Stanislav Kosior
wrote toStalinin April 1932thatindistricts hevisited, one-quarterof thehorses had
diedandtherestwere"skinandbones." Party secretary Bykin ofBashkiriawrote to
theCentral Committee thatbecause ofthecropfailure in 1931, andoverestimates and
incorrect rationing of feed, anima1s weredyingeverywhere: in a distrietin goodcondition
17percent ofthehorses haddied, andinothers theconditions wereworse. ByApril
1932 30-40 percentof the horses were incapableof work. In Kazakstan, party
secretary F.I. Goloshchekin wrote toIakovlev in early 1932thattheextreme shortage
of draftanima1s made itimpossibleto fulfill the 1932spring sowing plan of 5.83 million
hectares, andherequested a reduction to 4.8 million hectares."
Theregime imported andproduced tractors in 1931-1932, butnotenough to
meeteventhebasicneeds ofmanyregions, letalone tocompensate forhorselosses.
The regimeproduced some46,000 tractors in 1932, butby the end of the yearthe
total numberoftractors inthecountry hadincreased byonly23,000,from 125,344to
148,480; halfthenewtractors replaced machines damaged beyond repairduring the
year.9S Regional officials continually appealed formore tractors." The numberof
tractors gives a poorindication ofthedraftpowerthey could actually provide because
thisdepended onthequality ofthetractors themselves, theavailability of scarcefuel
andspareparts, andtheoften poorquality ofrepairs. Shortages andmismanagement
keptavailabletractors outof commission for longperiods. In somecasestractors
purchased fromtheUnitedStateshaddefects. AnOGPUnoticefromMarch 1931
reportedthatsome 5,000 tractors purchased fromtheAmerican company "Oliver"
hadleaking radiators andloudsounds intheirmufflers, transmissions, andmotors, and
thatAllis-Chalmers tractors purchasedin 1930arrived withmissing parts,"
Wealsohavehighly anecdotal andinconsistentevidence regarding howdraft
forceswereactuallyused. For example, Kosiorwroteto Stalinin April 1932 that
because of theirpoorcondition, horses played aninsignificantrolein sowing, which
dependedmostlyon tractors. Duringthe springsowingthe Politburodispatched
thousands ofadditional tractors to Ukraine.98 Anofficial oftheUkrainian Commissariat
of Agriculture, however, claimedat theend of July that 80 percentof farmlandin
Ukraine was being workedby horsesin 1932, and only 20 percent by tractors."
Whetherthesediscrepancies reflected differences between sowing andharvesting, or
betweendifferentsowcesofdata, orofficials' different levels ofknowledgeorwillingness

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