Centre-periphery relations in the Soviet post-war famine of 1946–47 1

This chapter offers the first exploration in literature of the role played by two major Soviet leaders, Lazar Kaganovich and Alexei Kosygin, in the development of the under-researched Soviet famine in 1946–1947. Kosygin and Kaganovich’s roles and remits were very different, but both were sent by Stalin to Ukraine and Moldova respectively as central representatives of the Soviet government to bring local authorities in these peripheries ‘into line’ for their ‘failures’ leading into the famine and to assist in them getting out of the crisis. Neither Kosygin nor Kaganovich’s visits went exactly as planned. This analysis of their roles reveals new post-war fault lines in Stalinist centre-periphery relations on which the famine emerged and on which post-famine Soviet society would continue to wobble.