Holodomor

Viacheslav Molotov or Lazar Kaganovich, who were sent two months earlier to Ukraine and the Kuban as the heads of similar extraordinary commissions

The situation was deliberately aggravated by the blockade of Ukrainian and Kuban villages, aimed at stopping the flight of starving “peasants” (the quotation marks are Stalin’s own from his now famous secret telegram dated 22 January 1933).

when the Stalinist leadership purposefully aggravated widespread scarcities and local famines in order to achieve precise political goals

following on Stalin’s elaboration of his “national interpretation” of the grain requisition crisis and his singling out of Ukraine as a “unique” national republic whose party had been infiltrated by “Ukrainian nationalists and Petliurites”

such as the infamous “blacklisting” of collective farms, villages, and sometimes even whole raions that did not “fulfill the plan.”

A vicious, repressive Chekist campaign was launched against “Ukrainian nationalism,” targeting the intellectual, religious, and political elites of the Ukrainian nation—some 200,000 people were arrested by the state’s security organs in the Ukrainian SSR in 1932-33

Instructions ordering house-to-house searches for “hidden grain” paved the way for the confiscation of all foodstuffs under the pretext of “fining” reluctant peasants, collective farms, villages, and even whole districts that did not meet the grain- and meat-procurement plans.

Since the pioneering works of Robert Conquest and James Mace compelled historians of the Soviet Union to tackle the question of the “man-made” famines of the early 1930s

At the peak of the 1933 famine a small number of people received such negligible assistance.

A minimal food allowance is to be distributed solely to those who conscientiously participate and have already started working

The famines in Soviet Ukraine and the Kuban, which Ukrainian and Western historians have more thoroughly researched than the other famines, had a clear and distinct trajectory after the autumn of 1932

To terminate the criminal case initiated over the committing of genocide in Ukraine in 1932-1933 against Stalin (Dzhugashvili), Joseph Vissarionovich; Molotov (Skryabin), Viacheslav; Kaganovich, Lazar;

Postyshev, Pavel; Kosior, Stanislav; Chubar, Vlas and Khatayevych, Mendel in connection with their death.

Stalin and Molotov on 22 January 1933 signed and sent to the Ukrainian SSR a directive from the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and the Sovnarkom of the USSR

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the borders of Ukraine sealed to prevent anyone from escaping the manmade starvation

Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933, known as the Holodomor

The Soviet regime deliberately confiscated grain harvests and sealed the borders to prevent Ukrainians from escaping from starvation.

I do believe that was intended to kill more people in Ukraine and that it did so and that the Ukrainian Communist Party and the Soviet Communist Party knew that this was happening. Yes, it was an intentional famine.

there were a number of measures taken that specifically affected Ukraine: blacklisting of particular farms and towns and villages, a cordon around the border so that people were unable to leave Ukraine, special measures against Ukrainian cultural institutions and the Ukrainian language.

one of the decrees they passed was an end to [the 1920s-era policy of] ‘Ukrainization’–

Brigades of activists came through Ukrainian villages and they took not only grain but everything else. They took all other kinds of food

the number they have come up with is that 3.9 million -- nearly 4 million people -- died in Ukraine.

(b) fines in kind and in many cases confiscation of all foodstuffs were widely implemented

(c) the most extensive practice of blacklisting was implemented, covering the whole territory of UkrSSR and targeting not only collective and State farms but also entire villages and districts

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

the Famine in the UkrSSR transformed into Holodomor, as in, terror by Famine carried out by the central government against the peasants in the UkrSSR and Kuban

The UkrSSR and the North Caucasus received the largest reduction in their original quotas by 35 and 30 percent, respectively, compared to the plan of May 6, 1932.

in the first half of 1933, the Soviet government provided food aid to UkrSSR and several regions of RSFSR

claim that an absolute shortage of food in these years was an immediate factor that led to the Famine

January 22, 1933: directive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR that prohibited farmers from leaving the territory of Soviet Ukraine and Kuban in search of bread to other areas of the Soviet Union and forced their return to their place of residence

We estimate the toll of the Great Famine at 4.5 million, with 3.9 million in direct and 0.6 million in indirect losses.

Their results are quite different from ours: 2.6 million direct losses and 1.1 million indirect losses, compared to our 3.9 million and 600,000, respectively.

Estimates of direct losses as high as 10 million are based on anecdotal evidence and are questionable (Wolowyna 2012); estimates that are derived from demographic data vary between 2.6 and 5 million

this translates into a total loss (direct plus indirect losses) equivalent to 15.3 per cent of the overall population of Soviet Ukraine in 1933.

Ptoukha Institute of Demography and Social Studies

Estimates show that within the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the largest number of deaths caused by the famine, and that in relative terms, i.e., losses per population, it occupied second place, after Kazakhstan.

The historical record shows that the famine in Ukraine, as well as in the Kuban, had also a national and ethnic component, as Ukraine and the Kuban region of the Russian SFSR (with a very high percentage of Ukrainians) were singled out by targeted punitive directives.

There, the famine was carried out by the Soviet state with the additional purpose of subduing and eventually destroying the independent-minded Ukrainian peasantry and, by implication, the national identity of the Ukrainian people

Directive No. 65 of the Central Committee dated 22 January 1933, “On the prevention of a mass exodus of starving peasants,” closed the borders to any voluntary emigration

President Viktor Yushchenko has said up to 10 million Ukrainians died of hunger in 1932 and 1933. Stanislav Kulchitsky, a respected Ukrainian historian, believes the number is closer to 3.5 million.

Roughly 3.5 million people died in Ukraine during the Ukrainian famine of 1931-33

the average number of daily losses at the peak of the Famine in Ukraine, June 1933, is 28,000, while the respective number in Russia is 12,000 in July 1933

the supplemental purchase and importation of grain for Ukraine

do not indicate the extinction of, or any other actions directly aimed at murdering, the Ukrainian people.

The directive restricted railroad transportation in the areas affected by starvation, prohibited the sale of train tickets to the local people

It also ordered the creation of police and military units assigned with the duty of catching those who attempted to leave the areas of starvation.

Although there is no formal legal act adopted by the Soviet authorities that would prove the existence of an organized campaign aimed at the extinction of the Ukrainian people, documents issued by the Soviet Government in 1932–1933

are generally recognized as legal background for those government actions that lead to mass death in Ukraine.

in reality the law turned into an instrument for prosecuting those who gleaned harvested fields.

All individuals twelve years and older were subject to prosecution

The law penalized these actions with capital punishment unless there were extenuating circumstances, when the penalty was decreased to imprisonment for a term of no less than ten years with confiscation of the violator’s property.

as prescribed by a government directive of July 1932 that established grain procurement targets for Ukraine

In 1932-33 mass starvation occurred on the territory of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Russian provinces of the Northern Caucasus.

The Kazakh famine was a part of the collectivization famines that afflicted the Soviet Union during the years 1930-33, most notably in Ukraine but also in the Volga, Don, and Kuban areas