What You Need to Know About the Reality of Holodomor

Holodomor is the term for the greatest famine ever happened in Ukraine. This kind of famine was said to be “brutal artificial famine” because people did not starve out of lack of money but due to the greediness of leaders and executions by Ukraine religious leaders. Many people died ranging from 3 million to 14 million. Ukrainian Famine happened in the year 1932-1933. This famine happened when Russian Revolution and Second World War occurred in Ukraine.

Soviet Government did not claim to be responsible for this so-called Holodomor until the Soviet Union collapsed. They kept the Holodomor happening in secret. No one took interest to study the history of Holodomor until the scholars from the West came. After few decades when this famine happened, organizations and other groups studied the Soviet records and census data. But no one accepted the conclusion of both parties because according to their researches, the records are inconsistent, and there was no evidence that would support their reasonings.

The most debated reason for this Famine is that this was the weapon used by Stalin’s regime against Ukraine. From other perspectives, they think that the famine happened in Ukraine is one kind of genocide. Russian did not side with that kind of reasoning, but some modern historians believe that this kind of famine is truly one kind of genocide.

The real reason behind the famine was still unknown until historian studied the history of Ukrainian Mass Famine.

Before the greatest brutal artificial famine occurred, there were some stages and events from recent years that triggered the Holodomor. Let us take a brief look at the recent years before this event.

• Year 1917
  Vladimir Lenin take the lead in the Bolsheviks to have power in the regime of Russia.

• Year 1922
  The Soviet Union joined the republics of Ukraine.

• Year 1924
  When Vladimir Lenin died, Joseph Stalin replaced him to rule in Russia.

Joseph Stalin image source

• Year 1928
  When Stalin ruled, he made a proposal to the farmers to give up their private lands and livestock to join collective farms. According to Stalin, doing so would help their economy and could give an adequate amount of grain to sell abroad. The money from selling the grains could be used for his plans in the industry.

• Year 1929
  Although the proposal of Stalin is enticing to other farmers, it still seems inadequate for independent farmers. According to these farmers, joining Stalin’s proposal is the same as going back to the early centuries. Stalin decided to make a division of class welfare to avoid getting refusal. Those who are high-classed farmers were considered as a class enemy. To get rid of these farmers, Stalin greedily leads the policy to liquidate these so-called kurkuls. They initiated brutal reinforcement to get rid of them.

• Year 1930
  People fell into the pit of Stalin’s proposal. There are exact 1.5 million people who joined him. In this year, Stalin commanded his people to confiscate the lands and other private property by force. They even evicted family from their homes. “Kurkuls” suffered from Stalin’s scheme greatly. Almost half million of Ukraine population were sent away from their homes to Siberia and stayed there without shelter and food. Many died, especially children.

• Year 1932-1933
  These are the years wherein the famine spread out throughout the country. Soviet Union government made sure that the products given to Ukrainians should not be met. If a person saw that he is harvesting wheat from the field even it is just a leftover, he’ll be carried to execution and would undergo punishment. Voucher system was established, and militaries are everywhere just to make sure that foods would not be distributed to any part of the villages. Because of the harsh treatment of Soviet Union, there were young activists and hid little amount of foods to their hideouts, but Soviet learned about this and persecuted them.

• Year 1933-1934
  Famine was so great until the end of the year 1934. The famine had overwhelming effect on Ukraine. At this time, nearly 30, 000 people died every day. Third of this number were children left dying. From 1932-1934, 4 million were found dead because of great famine. The number of 4 million is just the people died from starving. Death from executions, ordinary death causes, and deportations were not yet included. Stalin was exporting millions of tons of grains to different country, denying that there was famine happening in Soviet Ukraine. The numbers that were exported were enough to save millions of lives, but Stalin did not care at all.

By the year 2006, Verkhovna Rada from the Parliamentary government of Ukraine passed a decree that Holodomor was considered as genocide. Holodomor caused grief and rage to Ukrainian people, and people from modern times are still asking for the justice their ancestors and nation needed.

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