During 1929–1933, the grain quotas were placed artificially high. It became a cat and mouse game between the peasants and government officials as peasants would attempt to hide grain and bury it. According to historian Robert Conquest, every brigade had someone with a long iron bar to probe the ground for grain caches[20] and peasants who did not show signs of hunger (whose bodies were not swollen) were especially suspected of hiding food.[21] Conquest states:
When the snow melted true starvation began. People had swollen faces and legs and stomachs. They could not contain their urine... And now they ate anything at all. They caught mice, rats, sparrows, ants, earthworms. They ground up bones into flour, and did the same with leather and shoe soles ...[22]
