"Predictably, the consequence of the [Soviet Union's] systematic annihilation of any farmer suspected of being a kulak was not economic growth but one of the greatest man-made famines in history. As Party functionaries descended on the countryside with orders to abolish private property and 'liquidate' anyone who had accumulated more than the average amount of capital, there was chaos. Who exactly was a kulak?Those who had been better-off before the Revolution or those who had done well since? What exactly did it mean to 'exploit' other peasants? Lending them money when they were short of cash? Rather than see their cattle and pigs confiscated, many peasants preferred to slaughter and eat them, so that by 1935 total Soviet livestock was reduced to half of its 1929 level. But the brief orgy of eating was followed by a protracted, agonizing starvation. Without animal fertilizers, crop yields plummeted - grain output in 1932 was down by a fifth compared with 1930. Grain seizures to feed Russia's cities left entire villages with literally nothing to eat. Starving people ate cats, dogs, field mice, birds, tree bark and even horse manure. Some went into the fields and ate half-ripe ears of corn. There were even cases of cannibalism. As in 1920-21, typhus followed hard on the heels of dearth."