Holodomor or how Russians starved a nation.
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Holodomor was a genocide of the Ukrainian people caused by the former USSR, accompanied by repression against Ukrainian culture. Specifically, it was a man-made famine in the years of 1932-33; however, the Russian aggression against Ukraine started much earlier.
It all started when the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, took over Russia in 1917 and later became the Communist Party. One of their goals was to seize power worldwide, and they started with Ukraine. In December 1917, Bolsheviks launched military aggressions against the Ukrainian people. They created the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, and even though Ukrainian partisans tried to resist, Russian communists managed to occupy it and later on included Ukraine in the USSR. Another goal of the Communist Party was the collectivization of private property. They started this process by dividing peasants into 3 different socio-economic groups: poor, middle, and kulaks. In December 1929, the Soviet authorities declared their intention to liquidate kulaks as a class, as they were allegedly the culprits of all problems. The punishment of kulaks (who sometimes received this label only due to their political views) was eviction to the infertile lands or Siberia. Their land was confiscated and given to collective farms. From February 18 to March 10, 1930, 92 970 people were deported to remote areas of the USSR. Many of them died on the way or in the first year of relocation because of the inhumane conditions.
In 1929, the USSR began complete collectivization - the communalization of land, livestock, and agricultural property-which was a complete destruction of Ukrainian economic independence. Collective farms theoretically remained owned by private farmers; however, they were obliged to provide the state with a certain amount of agricultural products. Only after fulfillment of these norms, were they able to distribute the remaining crops among themselves.
The farmers started mass protests as a reaction to collectivization and dekulakization, which Joseph Stalin (at the time the leader of the Communist Party) saw as a threat, so he resorted to drastic measures. Throughout 1932-1933, Communists deprived Ukrainian farmers of almost all the food they grew. In some regions, 80% of crops were taken by the state, and if farmers failed to fulfill these quotas, all their food was taken. The authorities conducted yard searches (often accompanied by physical violence) and took all the food, including food that was already cooked, along with their agricultural tools (like millstones and grinders).
Starving people searched the fields for the little food that was left behind after harvest; however, on August 7, 1932, the government issued the “law of 5 ears of grain”, according to which collective farms were state property and taking food from them was considered theft of state property, punishable by execution or imprisonment for 10 years with confiscation of property.
During these times, people were driven to despair; to survive, they ate anything they could find, such as tree leaves and bark, weeds, grass, but also rats, birds, dogs, cats, etc., and sometimes they had to resort to cannibalism. However, the Soviet authorities took even the little “resources” they had left. Holodomor witnesses recall that members of the towing brigades deliberately killed dogs and cats and took their carcasses with them. Villages that did not fulfill quotas or resisted the policy were put on so-called “black boards”. These villages were surrounded by troops, all food was taken from them, and trade was banned. Residents of these settlements were forbidden from leaving the area.
Later on, Soviet authorities took measures to prevent all starving Ukrainians from leaving. On December 27, 1932, they established a unified passport system and mandatory registration of passports. These farmers did not receive the passports, so they were, in fact, deprived of the right to move freely. On the borders of Ukraine, the communists stationed armed blocking units to prevent people from leaving the country. If someone tried to flee, they were shot down.
We know that at least 4 million of Ukrainians died during the Holodomor; however, the number could be much higher as the Soviet Union falsified demographic data and classified archival documents. We just do not know the real number. After the Holodomor ended, the USSR continued to Russify Ukrainians. They promoted Russian culture as superior to Ukrainian culture, changed the Ukrainian spelling to sound more Russian, and later also removed Ukrainian words that were not similar to Russian from dictionaries and replaced them with new ones.
Although Russia did not want the world to know what they had done, the word still spread due to foreign journalists who managed to get into the starving villages and then wrote about the situation. When the word started to spread throughout Europe, the USSR denied the existence of the famine and discredited those who talked about it. To further prove their claims of “no famine”, Moscow organized demonstrative visits by foreign politicians and cultural figures, who were meant to convince the world that the famine did not happen. After the USSR fell apart and Russia took over, they started proclaiming that the famine did happen; however, it was caused by natural factors, and nothing could be done to prevent it.
The Holodomor created living conditions for Ukrainians designed for their partial or complete destruction, which corresponds to the definition of genocide according to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Nowadays, over 30 countries recognise Holodomor as genocide, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, France… Yet as we can see from the current conflict occurring, the Russian aggression towards Ukraine has never ended.