3/5 - The Holodomor

Holodomor - “death inflicted by starvation”

  • 1932-1933 Ukraine, USSR

  • Death toll estimated between 3.5-7 million

  • The primary victims are rural villagers.

The famine was caused by rapid industrialization after the Bolshevik uprising. There is a fear of Ukrainian uprising, a counter to the desire of collectivization, which would spark those in charge to implement harsh measures, including grain requisitioning and suppressive policies against the peasantry. It was a longstanding instance of violence, not a single event, which consumers were separated from production.

This is in relation to Stalin’s 5-year-plan in which everything was measured to a T: workers need food, and therefore, farmers need to produce food for the workers; Stalin was controlling the farmer production ad food supply. He would get the ball rolling and is the source of all these different processes and purging: he would mention offhandedly that this group of people could become and issue, next day they “disappeared.” There is no “smoking gun” document of him directly saying he wanted a famine, but there’s no doubt he didn’t know it was occurng.

Kulak - imaginary wealthy class of peasants

  • characterized as “tight-fisted” and greedy enemies of the state

  • peasant farmers with land would let other peasants farm on their land, thus, working amongst themselves and not for the greater good of the USSR

Collectivization - abolishment of private land ownership and establishing large, state-owned farmed

  • bought grain and produce grain cheaply so it can be sold abroad, and these profits can be invested in industrialization

  • break peasantry independence and force industrialization

  • feed urban working class

There’s many reasons as to why people are hesitant to label this event as a genocide:

  • genocide is heavily connected to the Holocaust, which wasn’t happening here

    • not a mass killing for hate, it was a product of trying to expand and improve the USSR

      • its for the greater good

  • genocide would become too “broad” by including political and social groups

  • they won the war, so the ends justified the means

There was a suppression of information about what was happening at the time:

  • propaganda

    • cleaning up streets for news outlets

  • generally killing people, or making people disappear, when they try to spread the word

  • deny, deny, deny

  • reluctance of powers calling out the Soviets on what they’re doing

    • “yo bro, you’re starving people”

    • ”do you want my help or not, ho? sybau”

The numbers taken on the death toll is not reliable as it was taken by whoever was the enemy at the time. Additionally, there wasn’t taken into account prisoners, deportations, who went where for what reason, etc.

  • there is the question of who’s being counted and why

  • the data keeping were too accurate

    • your ass is not counting 174920 people, to the digit, bffr

      • either inflating numbers, or not keeping count so you’re guessing.

    • quotas

    • tryna look good for daddy Stalin