How Joseph Stalin Starved Millions in the Ukrainian Famine
Cruel efforts under Stalin to impose collectivism and tamp down Ukrainian nationalism left an estimated 3.9 million dead. PATRICK J. KIGERAPR 16, 2019
At the height of the 1932-33 Ukrainian famine under Joseph Stalin, starving people roamed the countryside, desperate for something, anything to eat. In the village of Stavyshche, a young peasant boy watched as the wanderers dug into empty gardens with their bare hands. Many were so emaciated, he recalled, that their bodies began to swell and stink from the extreme lack of nutrients.
"You could see them walking about, just walking and walking, and one would drop, and then another, and so on it went," he said many years later, in a case history collected in the late 1980s by a Congressional commission. In the cemetery outside the village hospital, overwhelmed doctors carried the bodies on stretchers and tossed them into an enormous pit.
The Holodomor's Death Toll The Ukrainian famine—known as the Holodomor, a combination of the Ukrainian words for “starvation” and “to inflict death”—by one estimate claimed the lives of 3.9 million people, about 13 percent of the population. And, unlike other famines in history caused by blight or drought, this was caused when a dictator wanted both to replace Ukraine’s small farms with state-run collectives and punish independence-minded Ukrainians who posed a threat to his totalitarian authority.
“The Ukrainian famine was a clear case of a man-made famine,” explains Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of the 2018 book, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. He describes it as “a hybrid…of a famine caused by calamitous social-economic policies and one aimed at a particular population for repression or punishment.”
In those days, Ukraine—a Texas-sized nation along the Black Sea to the west of Russia—was a part of the Soviet Union, then ruled by Stalin. In 1929, as part of his plan to rapidly create a totally communist economy, Stalin had imposed collectivization, which replaced individually owned and operated farms with big state-run collectives. Ukraine’s small, mostly subsistence farmers resisted giving up their land and livelihoods.
Ukrainian Famine Grain confiscated from a family derided as "kulaks" in the village of Udachoye in Ukraine.
Resistant Farmers Labeled as 'Kulaks' In response, the Soviet regime derided the resisters as kulaks—well-to-do peasants, who in Soviet ideology were considered enemies of the state. Soviet officials drove these peasants off their farms by force and Stalin’s secret police further made plans to deport 50,000 Ukrainian farm families to Siberia, historian Anne Applebaum writes in her 2017 book, Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine.
“Stalin appears to have been motivated by the goal of transforming the Ukrainian nation into his idea of a modern, proletarian, socialist nation, even if this entailed the physical destruction of broad sections of its population,” says Trevor Erlacher, an historian and author specializing in modern Ukraine and an academic advisor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies.
Collectivization in Ukraine didn’t go very well. By the fall of 1932—around the time that Stalin’s wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva, who reportedly objected to his collectivization policy, committed suicide—it became apparent that Ukraine’s grain harvest was going to miss Soviet planners’ target by 60 percent. There still might have been enough food for Ukrainian peasants to get by, but, as Applebaum writes, Stalin then ordered what little they had be confiscated as punishment for not meeting quotas.
“The famine of 1932-33 stemmed from later decisions made by the Stalinist government, after it became clear that the 1929 plan had not gone as well as hoped for, causing a food crisis and hunger,” explains Stephen Norris, a professor of Russian history at Miami University in Ohio. Norris says a December 1932 document called, “On the Procurement of Grain in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and the Western Oblast,” directed party cadres to extract more grain from regions that had not met their quotas. It further called for the arrest of collective farm chiefs who resisted and of party members who did not fulfill the Soiet quotas.
Decrees Targeted Ukrainian 'Saboteurs' Meanwhile, Stalin, according to Applebaum, already had arrested tens of thousands of Ukrainian teachers and intellectuals and removed Ukrainian-language books from schools and libraries. She writes that the Soviet leader used the grain shortfall as an excuse for even more intense anti-Ukrainian repression. As Norris notes, the 1932 decree “targeted Ukrainian ‘saboteurs,’ ordered local officials to stop using the Ukrainian language in their correspondence, and cracked down on Ukrainian cultural policies that had been developed in the 1920s.”
When Stalin’s crop collectors went out into the countryside, according to a 1988 U.S. Congressional commission report, they used long wooden poles with metal points to poke the dirt floors of peasants’ homes and probe the ground around them, in case they’d buried stores of grain to avoid detection. Peasants accused of being food hoarders typically were sent off to prison, though sometimes the collectors didn’t wait to inflict punishment. Two boys who were caught hiding fish and frogs they’d caught, for example, were taken to the village soviet, where they were beaten, and then dragged into a field with their hands tied and mouths and noses gagged, where they were left to suffocate.
As the famine worsened, many tried to flee in search of places with more food. Some died by the roadside, while others were thwarted by the secret police and the regime’s system of internal passports. Ukrainian peasants resorted to desperate methods in an effort to stay alive, according to the Congressional commission’s report. They killed and ate pets and consumed flowers, leaves, tree bark and roots. One woman who found some dried beans was so hungry that she ate them on the spot without cooking them, and reportedly died when they expanded in her stomach.
“The policies adopted by Stalin and his deputies in response to the famine after it had begun to grip the Ukrainian countryside constitute the most significant evidence that the famine was intentional,” Erlacher says. “Local citizens and officials pleaded for relief from the state. Waves of refugees fled the villages in search of food in the cities and beyond the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.” The regime’s response, he says, was to take measures that worsened their plight.
By the summer of 1933, some of the collective farms had only a third of their households left, and prisons and labor camps were jammed to capacity. With hardly anyone left to raise crops, Stalin’s regime resettled Russian peasants from other parts of the Soviet Union in Ukraine to cope with the labor shortage. Faced with the prospect of an even wider food catastrophe, Stalin’s regime in the fall of 1933 started easing
Russian Government Denies Famine Was 'Genocide' The Russian government that replaced the Soviet Union has acknowledged that famine took place in Ukraine, but denied it was genocide. Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” In April 2008, Russia's lower house of Parliament passed a resolution stating that “There is no historical proof that the famine was organized along ethnic lines.” Nevertheless, at least 16 countries have recognized the Holodomor, and most recently, the U.S. Senate, in a 2018 resolution, affirmed the findings of the 1988 commission that Stalin had committed genocide.
Ultimately, although Stalin’s policies resulted in the deaths of millions, it failed to crush Ukrainian aspirations for autonomy, and in the long run, they may actually have backfired. “Famine often achieves a socio-economic or military purpose, such as transferring land possession or clearing an area of population, since most flee rather than die,” famine historian de Waal says. “But politically and ideologically it is more often counterproductive for its perpetrators. As in the case of Ukraine it generated so much hatred and resentment that it solidified Ukrainian nationalism.”
Eventually, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine finally became an independent nation—and the Holodomor remains a painful part of Ukrainians’ common identity.
The background for the hatred by the ethnic Ukrainians toward the Russians, and the present day ethic Russians in the Ukraine that are the descendants of the Russians serfs imported to the Ukraine to replace the starved and murdered Ukrainians.
The background for the hatred by the ethnic Ukrainians toward the Russians, and the present day ethic Russians in the Ukraine that are the descendants of the Russians serfs imported to the Ukraine to replace the starved and murdered Ukrainians.
t was the communist party led by a Georgian that starved Ukraine. Stalin did the same to Russian nationals .
This information has been well known for decades. Now being resurrected by the patriotic left wind libs for political reasons.
Please read an unbiased history book. In 2014 the Russians invaded Ukraine under Obama and nothing was done. The US is in part responsible for what is going on now in Ukraine
Ukrainians don’t hate the Russians. They’re two sides of the same ethnic coin. Virtually everybody in Ukraine has close relatives in Russia. They share the same church. Virtually everyone in Ukraine speaks some Russian and the two languages are similar like Spanish to Portuguese to Italian.
By the summer of 1933, some of the collective farms had only a third of their households left, and prisons and labor camps were jammed to capacity. With hardly anyone left to raise crops, Stalin’s regime resettled Russian peasants from other parts of the Soviet Union in Ukraine to cope with the labor shortage. Faced with the prospect of an even wider food catastrophe, Stalin’s regime in the fall of 1933 started easing
Evil Grandiose has been Replicating as fast as the recent Virus in this Country.. You can tell by the way their stealing the Future Growth of the Country .. Their Hoarding Prosperity for a Reason .. Maybe they know their going to own it anyways “ You can’t put it in a Saddlebag and take it with You” Sports ….
Yes. This should also be a lesson to those on here who say, “The rural farmers and ranchers should just stop sending food to the cities! That’ll show ‘em!!”, or even “Truckers should stop shipping to the cities! That’ll show ‘em!”.
Did folks see Canada threaten to seize trucks and revoke licenses and bank accounts??
Dictators gonna dictate.
Sometimes “passive resistance”, works, but most of the time, folks have to fight, or at least THREATEN to fight. (Or folks, if in the minority, gotta leave...)
N.Y. Times reporter ,Walter Durranty,wrote glowing reports of the health of the people in the Ukraine ,and the glorious wonders of communism in 1933.A shill and a liar. These left wing commie reporters have been around a long time.
Ukrainians don’t hate the Russians. They’re two sides of the same ethnic coin. Virtually everybody in Ukraine has close relatives in Russia. They share the same church. Virtually everyone in Ukraine speaks some Russian and the two languages are similar like Spanish to Portuguese to Italian.
It would be like the US invading Canada now.
All the Ukrainians I know speak Russian.
Slaves get what they need. Free men get what they want.
Understand what Putin thinks and what his reasons are. In doing so, it may be easier to predict his next moves. Read his speech Understand that neither Moscow or Washington DC tell their people the truth much of the time. (In the case of Washington DC, I'd say most of the time. The communists in our federal government have learned from Lenin and Stalin very well, and the play-book they use was perfected by the Russians back in the 40s and 50s)
So knowing that we have one of the most controlled and dishonest national government on the whole planet, and they LEARNED HOW TO BE THAT DISHONEST FROM THE RUSSIANS. It's impossible to know who tells the truth. But it's very easy to know who lies.
Putin spins things his way in the speech. That is expected, but most of what he said is true. He mixes in some political leaning of course, but as to his accusations about "the west' being dirty in their politics" and the fact they lie outright, he is spot on. But he is NOT going to tell the world that his idea of bringing peace is to kill all that oppose him and leave no one to fight back. That's the communist's idea of peace. It is not compromise in ideas with agreement to allow others their opinions, but to eliminate any opposing opinions or thoughts, by any means available, exactly like the Dem/Comms and all RINOs in the USA, and for the same reasons.
As a side note; the 4 million people spoken of that were deliberately starved to death under Stalin is highly sanitized. Actual history shows it was closer to 58,000,000. Even Gorbachev admitted the losses of lives under the heel of Stalin was higher in number then what was lost to the Nazis. in WW2.
Many people of Ukraine remember that part of history. Seems "for some reason" they distrust Moscow. Who'd-da thunk it?
In this video grab taken from a handout footage made available on February 24, 2022 on the official web site of the Russian President (kremlin.ru) Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the nation at the Kremlin in Moscow. - Published On 24 Feb 2022 24 Feb 2022
The speech came on the heels of his decision to recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic on February 21 and the signing of mutual cooperation agreements between Russia and the two breakaway regions.
“Respected citizens of Russia! Dear friends!
“Today, I again consider it necessary to come back to the tragic events taking place in the Donbas and the key issue of ensuring Russian security. Let me start with what I said in my address of February 21. I am referring to what causes us particular concern and anxiety – those fundamental threats against our country that year after year, step by step, are offensively and unceremoniously created by irresponsible politicians in the West.
“I am referring to the expansion of the NATO to the east, moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders. It is well known that for 30 years we have persistently and patiently tried to reach an agreement with the leading NATO countries on the principles of equal and inviolable security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we constantly faced either cynical deception and lies, or attempts to pressure and blackmail, while NATO, despite all our protests and concerns, continued to steadily expand. The war machine is moving and, I repeat, it is coming close to our borders.”
“After the collapse of the USSR, the realignment of the world began, and the norms of international law that had been developed – the key, basic ones being adopted in the aftermath of World War II and largely consolidating its outcome – began to get in the way of the self-proclaimed winner of the Cold War.
“Of course, in practical life, in international relations and the rules that regulated them, it was necessary to take into account changes in the state of affairs in the world and the balance of power. This should have been done professionally, smoothly, patiently, taking into account and respecting the interests of all countries and understanding one’s own responsibility. But no, the euphoria from having absolute superiority, a kind of modern-day absolutism, and the low level of general culture and arrogance of decision-makers [led to] decision prepared, adopted and pushed through that were beneficial only for themselves. The situation began to develop according to a different scenario.
“You don’t have to look far for examples. First, without any approval from the UN Security Council, they carried out a bloody military operation against Belgrade, using aircraft and missiles right in the very centre of Europe. [They carried out] several weeks of continuous bombing of cities and critical infrastructure. We have to remind of these facts, as some Western colleagues do not like to remember those events, and when we talk about it, they prefer to point not to the norms of international law, but to the circumstances that they interpret as they see fit.
“Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya, Syria. The illegitimate use of military force against Libya, the twisting of all decisions taken by the UN Security Council on the Libyan issue led to the complete destruction of the state, to the emergence of a major hotbed of international terrorism, to a humanitarian catastrophe and a civil war that has not ended to this day. The tragedy, to which they doomed hundreds of thousands, millions of people not only in Libya, but throughout this region, gave rise to a massive migration wave from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe.
“They ensured a similar fate for Syria. The Western coalition’s military activities on the territory of this country without the consent of the Syrian government or the approval of the UN Security Council are nothing but aggression, intervention.
“However, there is a special place for the invasion of Iraq, which was carried out also without any legal grounds. As a pretext, they put forward supposedly reliable information from the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As proof of this, publicly, in front of the eyes of the whole world, the US secretary of state shook some kind of a test tube with white powder, assuring everyone that this is a chemical weapon being developed in Iraq. And then it turned out that all this was a hoax, a bluff: there were no chemical weapons in Iraq.”
“In this context, there were promises to our country not to expand NATO even one inch to the east. I repeat – they deceived us, in other words, they simply conned us. Yes, you can often hear that politics is a dirty business. Perhaps [that is so], but not to this extent. After all, such cheating behaviour contradicts not only the principles of international relations, but above all the generally recognised norms of morality. Where is justice and truth here? Just total lies and hypocrisy.
“By the way, American politicians, political scientists and journalists themselves write and say that in recent years, an actual “empire of lies” has been created inside the United States. It’s hard to disagree with that, as it’s true. But let us not understate: the United States is a great country, a system-forming power. All her satellites not only dutifully agree, sing along to its music, but also copy its behaviour, and enthusiastically accept the rules they are offered. Therefore, with good reason, we can confidently say that the entire so-called Western bloc, formed by the United States in its own image and likeness, all of it is an ’empire of lies.'”
“Despite all of this, in December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on the non-expansion of NATO. Everything was in vain. The US position did not change. They did not consider it necessary to negotiate with Russia on this important issue for us, continuing to pursue their own goals and disregarding our interests.”
“As for the military sphere, today, modern Russia, even after the collapse of the USSR and the loss of a significant part of its capacity, is one of the most powerful nuclear powers in the world and possesses certain advantages in some of the newest types of weaponry. In this regard, no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to defeat and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor.”
“As NATO expands to the east, with every passing year, the situation for our country is getting worse and more dangerous. Moreover, in recent days the leadership of NATO has been openly talking about the need to speed up, force the advancement of the alliance’s infrastructure to the borders of Russia. In other words, they are doubling down on their position. We can no longer just watch what is happening. It would be absolutely irresponsible on our part.
“Further expansion of the NATO infrastructure and the beginning of military development in Ukraine’s territories are unacceptable for us. The problem, of course, is not NATO itself – it is only an instrument of US foreign policy. The problem is that in the territories adjacent to us – territories that were historically ours, I emphasise – an “anti-Russia” hostile to us is being created, placed under full external control; [it] is intensively settled by the armed forces of NATO countries and is supplied with the most modern weapons.
“For the United States and its allies, this is the so-called policy of containment of Russia, [which brings] obvious geopolitical benefits. And for our country, this is ultimately a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a people. And this is not an exaggeration – it is true. This is a real threat not just to our interests, but to the very existence of our state, its sovereignty. This is the very red line that has been talked about many times. They crossed it.
“About the situation in the Donbas. We see that the forces that carried out a coup in Ukraine in 2014, seized power and are holding it through sham electoral procedures, have given up on the peaceful settlement of the conflict. For eight years, for eight long years, we have done everything possible to resolve the situation by peaceful, political means. All was in vain.
“As I said in my previous address, one cannot look at what is happening there without compassion. It is simply not possible to stand all this any more. It is necessary to immediately stop this nightmare – the genocide against the millions of people living there, who rely only on Russia, only on us. These aspirations, feelings, pain of people are the main motivation for us to take the decision to recognise the people’s republics of Donbas.
“What I think is important to emphasise further is that the leading NATO countries, in order to achieve their own goals, support extreme nationalists and Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, who, in turn, will never forgive the Crimeans and Sevastopol residents for choosing reunification with Russia.
“They, of course, will crawl into the Crimea, just like in the Donbas, in order to kill, just as the gangs of Ukrainian nationalists, Hitler’s accomplices, killed defenceless people during the Great Patriotic War. They openly lay claim to a number of other Russian territories.
“The course of events and the incoming information show that Russia’s clash with these forces is inevitable. It is only a matter of time: they are getting ready, they are waiting for the right time. Now they also claim to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not allow this to happen.”
“We have been left no other option to protect Russia and our people, but for the one that we will be forced to use today. The situation requires us to take decisive and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbas turned to Russia with a request for help.
“In this regard, in accordance with Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter, with the approval of the Federation Council of Russia and in pursuance of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance ratified by the Duma on February 22 with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, I decided to launch a special military operation.
“Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the regime in Kyiv for eight years. And for this we will pursue the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.
“Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we hear that recently in the West there is talk that the documents signed by the Soviet totalitarian regime, securing the outcome of World War II, should no longer be upheld. Well, what is the answer to this?
“The outcome of World War II, as well as the sacrifices made by our people on the altar of victory over Nazism, are sacred. But this does not contradict the high values of human rights and freedoms, based on the realities that have developed today in the decades following war. It also does not cancel the right of nations to self-determination, enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter.”
“In this regard, I appeal to the citizens of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia was obliged to protect the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol from those whom you, yourself call “Nazis”. Crimeans and Sevastopol residents made their choice to be with their historical homeland, with Russia, and we supported this. I repeat, we simply could not do otherwise.
“What is happening today does not come out of a desire to infringe on the interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It is related to the protection of Russia itself from those who took Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and its people.”
“I also need to address the military personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces.
“Dear comrades! Your fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazis and defend our common Motherland, so that today’s Neo-Nazis can seize power in Ukraine. You took an oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people, and not to the anti-national junta that plunders Ukraine and abuses its people.
“Don’t follow its criminal orders. I urge you to lay down your weapons immediately and go home. I want to make clear that all servicemen of the Ukrainian army who do so will be able to freely leave the combat zone and return to their families.
“Once again, I emphasise, all responsibility for possible bloodshed will lay on the conscience of the ruling regime in Ukraine.
“Now a few important, very important words for those who may be tempted to intervene in the ongoing events. Whoever tries to hinder us, or threaten our country or our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to consequences that you have never faced in your history. We are ready for any turn of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.”
“Dear compatriots!
“I am confident that the soldiers and officers of the Russian Armed Forces devoted to their country will professionally and courageously fulfil their duty. I have no doubt that all levels of government, the experts responsible for the stability of our economy, financial system and social sphere, the heads of our companies and all Russian business will act in a coordinated and efficient manner. I count on a patriotic consensus position of all parliamentary parties and public forces.
“As it has always been the case in our history, the fate of Russia is in the reliable hands of our multinational people. And this means that the decisions made will be implemented, the goals set will be achieved, the security of our Motherland will be reliably guaranteed.
“I believe in your support, in that invincible strength that our love for the Fatherland gives us.”
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