The Holodomor – What Actually Happened, Essay Example

Criminal charges should be brought against The Soviet state for crimes against humanity/crime of genocide relating to the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33. This paper will focus on the history of Ukraine leading up to the Holodomor, the policies in place resulting in the Holodomor, suspects whom instigated and propelled these crimes and their means and motives.

History of Ukraine

During the years 1932-1933 Ukraine suffered a devastating famine as a result of Soviet rules and policies. The policies that were in place during this time that lead up to the Holodomor were due to Stalin’s collectivization that instigated the purposeful starvation of Ukrainians.[1] The beginning of Holodomor came to be during Stalin’s first period of collectivization program. Over a period of eighteen months, this program proved fatal for Ukraine as estimates show that between “five and ten million deaths due to starvation or other famine-related illnesses, more than one third being children”[2]

In its prime, Ukraine was touted as the “bread basket” of Russia because of the rich topsoil the country boasted, known as black earth. As such, its agrarian dominance was well known to Stalin. In 1917 the Bolsheviks took power in Russia lead by Lenin. After the autocracy was destroyed in 1917, the Bolshevik government recognized the benefits of the Ukrainian republic. In order to “win over” Ukraine, or to placate them in order to dominate them, however, Lenin began introducing governmental reforms which were dubbed “Ukrainization” of the republic as the Kuban area. This however only served to strengthen a sense of pride in the peasantry for their Ukrainian heritage. This propelled a strong sense of independence among the farming community.

In 1922 the world saw the nascent rise of the Soviet Union. Ukraine was a republic under this rule. After Lenin’s death, Stalin rose in power in the Soviet Union. In 1928 Stalin introduced his agrarian program, collectivization. Under the collectivization program farmers are made to “willingly” hand over their land to the government (this includes all property equipment such as tools, herds, etc.). The land then becomes state-owned land. Thus, the land the government has acquisitioned becomes more akin to a factory than farmland. Stalin decides that these collective farms should be able to maintain not only a food supply to the workers and countrymen, but his long-term plan is to have the food shipped abroad. This would enable a bit of commerce to influx into the Soviet Union thereby establishing it more as a superpower and thereby on the same playing field as America and the United Kingdom. Stalin planed on using the money through grain sales as a means to fund his industrial plans (meaning a stronger work force, and most certainly a stronger army – anticipating WWI).

In early 1929 a large amount of Ukrainian farmers still maintained their independence from Stalin’s collectivism. This was done in an effort by Stalin to push for a total and pure communism. Due to the country’s history and rebellion against serfdom, these farmers felt their independence was being threatened. As a way to curtail farmer’s independence, Stalin instituted “class warfare” in the Ukraine. This worked by labeling independent farmers as kurkuls (kulaks) or the enemy, and were handled by secret police. All who resisted Stalin’s collectivism was branded a kurkul, and was secretly hunted down by his troops or secret police; “Such a kurkul would be required to fulfill a quota of six hundred and nineteen bushels of wheat. If not met the kurkul would be arrested and all property removed, with the family sent out on the street or be deported to Siberia.”[3]By 1930 nearly 1.5 million Ukrainians has been victims of Stalin’s collectivism and brutal class enemy tactics. Stalin’s armed guards would “forcibly confiscate land, livestock and other property, and evict entire families. Close to half a million individuals in Ukraine are dragged from their homes, packed into freight trains, and shipped to remote, uninhabited areas such as Siberia where they are left, often without food or shelter.”[4] It was with these large state-run kolkhozes (collective farms) as well as with the “imposition of exaggeratedly high grain procurement quotas.”[5]Not only were armed trooped involved in securing grain quotas and ensuring that farmers weren’t stealing from the government’s procured crop, but Stalin also implemented the use of communists onto government held farmland in the Ukraine (nearly twenty-five thousand communists participated) to help with the transition of the country. In protest, the independent Ukrainian farmers instigated the slaughter of their livestock and selling off any remaining machinery they were in possession of at the time. In addition to these small rebellions, Ukrainian farmers also under-performed during the collectivism.[6] In retaliation of such efforts, Stalin instituted his own decrees: “The addendum to the Minutes of the Soviet Politburo meeting number 93, dated 6 December 1932, outlined clearly the severity of the penalties, for not cooperating and giving up the grain obligation to the authorities. The kulaks and ‘counterrevolutionary elements’ were held responsible and villages were placed on the black list for so called ‘disruption of the grain collection plan’. The villages were listed in the Addendum.”[7]

Between the  periodof1932-1933 known as Holodomor, Stalin demanded an increase in grain production in order to meet rising quotas. Stalin demanded this as part of a larger plan of starving the Ukrainian peasantry/farming class. Stalin’s plan was successful. Starvation is rampant in the Ukraine. Not only is starvation rampant in the country, but because of Stalin’s laws, death rates rise. Stalin decreed that anyone (even a child) caught stealing crops (even handfuls of crops) would be put to death. This meant, that farmers, farming their own lands, could take the food they had grown as it was considered government property; “…discriminatory voucher systems are implemented, and military blockades are erected around many Ukrainian villages preventing the transport of food into the villages and the hungry from leaving in search of food. Brigades of young activists from other Soviet regions are brought in to sweep through the villages and confiscate hidden grain, and eventually any and all food from the farmers’ homes.”[8] Stalin’s tactics, decrees, laws, and management of the Ukrainian countryside lead to the Holodomor and dekulakization which “…saw peasants of every economic situation being caught in the operation.46 In discussing this issue of eliminating kulaks Stalin was on record as having said on 27 December 1929, that, ‘When the head is off one does not mourn for the hair’.47 The mass deportations of the early 1930s ‘were an initiative of Stalin’ that he sometimes forced through against OGPU opposition. This is noted by Khlevnyuk in Ellman.48 Ellman’s paper quotes data indicating that from 1929 – 1933, the years of collectivization and famine, saw an excess in the number of convictions by the Soviet courts compared to the years before and after thus linking the actions to Stalin’s policies of repression during that time.”[9]

By 1933 the countryside was ravaged by death. Estimates put the death rate at about 30,000 a day. Of these, a third are children under 10 years of age: “Between 1932-34, approximately 4 million deaths are attributed to starvation within the borders of Soviet Ukraine.”[10] During this time, Stalin denies his knowledge of the events occurring in the Ukraine and denies his instigating role in the occurrences. During his denial, Stalin continues to export millions of tons of grain.[11]

Stalin’s collectivism initiative demonstrates how he lead the Soviet Union into being one of the most valuable economic leaders in the world during that time. Collectivism garnered the country nearly one fourth of the Soviet Union’s grain output. Not only grain, but vegetables, meat, and milk were also being “harvested” from Ukrainian farmers.

Under Stalin’s decree, the first year of Holodomor or collectivization, “any kolkhoz ‘had first to settle with the State according to a quota issued from above’ and only after that would the workers be remunerated.”[12] It’s been noted, however, that even just two years before Holodomor, the kolkhozes weren’t able to perform up to par with the standard quota. Due to this grain shortage, it was never feasible to pay the newly acquired Ukrainian workers. As a way to placate any fears about starvation, or perhaps to try and increase the low productivity from Ukrainian farmers, Stalin instituted an increase in the quota in hopes of farmers being able to meet the previously stated quota: “By June 1931 Ukraine reached its quota for 1930, but only by emptying all its grain reserves and leaving the kolkhoz workers weakened and malnourished. Instead of taking this into account, the regime even further increased the quota for the 1931 harvest to a quite impossibly high level.”[13]By the end of 1931, however, no village in the Ukraine was able to meet the new quota. Due to this neglect in quota marking, it was decreed that all goods and supplies to the peasantry would cease. Furthermore, the Central Committee (Stalin’s brainchild) any grain that secret police found in any Ukrainian’s home would be considered plunder, and the family would be considered criminals of the state: “In Ukraine and Kuban the situation was additionally exacerbated by the reintroduced confiscations and a complete cessation of any food deliveries from outside after a resolution from Stalin in January 1933. The ‘Law in the Inviolability of Socialist Property’, also widely known as the ‘5 ears of wheat law’condemned anyone, who was even only suspected to having purloined an ear of grain, to death or, in milder circumstances, to a prison sentence for at least 10 years.”[14]

Despite the increase in starvation and obvious lack of productivity and small measurements of quotas, there was an increase in prohibition in Ukraine over deserters. Anyone caught leaving their region in search of food was punished. In order to secure that there were no deserters, Stalin set up roadblocks and reintroduced passport checks  wherein, anyone without validating ID would be stopped, searched, and apprehended: this kept people from traveling outside of their region.  Another “devastating factor was the political repression carried out by the Central Committee of the Communist Party with the aim to suppress any Ukrainian nationalist revival. Ukrainian leading academics and teachers, as well as known writers and even leaders of the Ukrainian branch of the Communist Party, were falsely accused of conspiracy and executed or sentenced to 10 years of prison.”[15]

This was showcased in the extreme in March, 1933 when thirty-five Commissariat for Agricultural, civil servants, were executed. They were executed after less than a day of trial, because they “wilfully permitted noxious weeds to grow in the fields’, or ‘encouraging the spread of meningitis among horses.”[16] These civil servants were actually used as scapegoats and were blamed for that year’s bad harvest (something they were accused of doing intentionally) which cause massive starvation in that region.

During this time, Ukrainization was considered against the law that meant Ukrainians weren’t allowed to speak in their native tongue.[17]

The Holodomor resulted in nearly a quarter of reduction in population in the Ukraine over an 18 month period. Among the dead were “up to 80% of Ukraine’s intellectuals, among them over 200 Ukrainian authors and 62 linguists perished, were liquidated or disappeared.”[18] This suggests that Stalin had ulterior motives in his tactics in the Ukraine: “What resulted in Ukraine and other places in the Soviet Union is at least partially linked to this industrial push, Stalin’s Five Year Plan.”[19] Stalin obviously had a dual purpose in starving out the Ukraine. Part of the Five Year Plan had to deal with extinguishing nationalism in the Ukraine, as Stalin said, “There is no powerful national movement without the peasant army…in essence, the national question is a peasant question.”[20] Since the peasantry made up the majority of population in the Ukraine, Stalin targeted them. Thus, Stalin’s tactic was “mass murder through starvation.”[21]

By the end of the Holodomor a mass amount of villages and towns throughout the Ukraine had become places of isolated ghettos known as “black boards.” Even during the tale end of the Holodomor, when famine was at its worst, the Soviet Union continued to export grain as high volumes, as well as use grain in the making of alcohol.[22]“The apparent ethnic specificity of the famine’s effects and Stalin’s known conflicts with Ukrainian nationalism led many to term the event an ethnically targeted campaign, or genocide”[23] The number of policies, decrees, and dedication of Soviet work force suggests that Stalin was completely conscious of what he was doing. He perpetuated the famine through his laws, even going so far as to kill people for stealing grains of wheat.

It was later discovered that there were secret emergency supplies in the manner of grain, potatoes, etc. that were stored in the Ukraine under heavy guard. This further supports the long-held belief that Stalin was cognizant of the Holodomor.[24]

Stalin’s deliberate plan to distinguish Ukrainian culture through mass starvation he also “persecuted and killed bearers of Ukrainian cultural memory, thus attempting to destroy the very foundations of Ukraine cultural heritage. He dismantled the education system and adjusted it forcefully to the Russian system. He also attacked the intelligentsia, academics, linguists, writers, and the religious culture of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its clergy.”[25] Under these pretenses, Stalin’s mass use of starvation as a weapon to kill an entire culture is best termed as genocide and such crimes against humanity deserve to come to justice.

Despite the above-listed facts, there was no genuine article of proof that suggests Stalin was cognizant of his crimes. Legally, there is no recourse for action because of this lack of evidence, however, new research decrees that “the intentionality of this was sufficiently expressed by many legal acts aimed specifically at the Ukrainian citizenship.”[26] This is established through the black boards in Ukraine. Also, the 5 ears of wheat law further supports an intent by Stalin. Furthermore, the blockades and passport checks issued to Ukrainians in order to keep them in their region would be considered new evidence and “it has been convincingly established that the famine was deliberately caused by the instrumental use of government policies, and that those implementing them, Stalin and a small group of other officials around him, were therefore responsible for committing a crime against humanity and indeed intended genocide to cripple the Ukrainian nation.”[27] In future hearings about Holodomor, the issue hasn’t been denying that Stalin knew what he was doing, but rather, do his acts constitute an act of genocide. [28]It is distinctly clear that Stalin knew what he was doing. His four tiered process of dealing with the Ukraine for keeping the country in a state of terror, these included: “judicial repression; charges, arrests, investigations and sentences by the OGPU; deportations and the sending of special plenipotentiaries to Ukraine, North Caucases, and the Lower-Volga to obtain grain by force’ regardless of the famine conditions.”[29] The Holodomor would be deemed a genocide as the deliberate starvation of the Ukrainian people was an obvious political game for Stalin.

Bibliography

A.C. “Ukraine Remembers the Holodomor.” The Economist (2012). Accessed 10 July 2014, http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/11/ukraines-tragic-history

“Holodomor, 1932-1933.” Accessed 10 July 2014, http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html

Hulnik, Blake. “The Holodomor: Continuing Controversy in Ukraine Politics and External Relations.” Accessed 10 July 2014, https://www.hamilton.edu/documents//levitt-center/Hulnick_Blake_article.pdf

Kasionov, Georgiy. “The Debate on Law Drafts on Holodomor Denial in Ukraine.” Liberte Pour l’Histoire(2012), Accessed 10 July 2014, http://www.lphasso.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=177%3Athe-debate-on-law-drafts-on-holodomor-denial-in-ukraine&catid=72%3Aukraine&Itemid=190&lang=en

Kulchytsky, Stanislav. “The Holodomor of 1932-1933: The Scholarly Verdict.”

International Forum (2008), Accessed 10 July 2014, http://ncua.inform-decisions.com/eng/files/kulchysky_9-08.pdf

Morgan, Lesa. “A study of genocide, famine, and the Stalinist Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine, 1932-33, as it was remembered by post-war immigrants in Western Australia who experienced it.”The University of Notre Dame (2010).

Motyl, Alexander. “Deleting the Holodomor: Ukraine Unmakes Itself.” World Affairs (Sept/Oct. 2010).

Sawicky, Nicolas. The Holodomor: Genocide and National Identity. State University of New York, 2013.

Stark, R. “Holodomor, Famine in the Ukraine 1932-1933: A Crime Against Humanity or Genocide.” Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies 10, 1 (2010): 20-30.

Yushchenko, Viktor. “The Holodomor.” The Wall Street Journal(2007) Accessed 10 July 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB119602928167703318

[1]Stanislav Kulchytsky “The Holodomor” International Forum (2008) 2.

[2]Stanislav Kulchytsky “The Holodomor” International Forum (2008) 3.

[3]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 111.

[4]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 113.

[5]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 114.

[6]Alexander Motyl, “Deleting the Holodomor” World Affairs (2010) para 3-7.

[7]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 111.

[8]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 117.

[9]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 111.

[10]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 117.

[11] “Holodomor” Holodomorct.com para 3-10.

[12]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 107.

[13]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 107.

[14]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 127.

[15]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 133.

[16]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 133.

[17]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 107.

[18]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 155.

[19]Nicolas Sawicky “The Holodomor” State University of New York (2013) 4-5.

[20]Nicolas Sawicky “The Holodomor” State University of New York (2013) 5.

[21]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 153.

[22] Viktor Yushchenko, “The Holodomor” The Wall Street Journal (2007), para 5-6.

[23]Blake Hulnick, “The Holodomor” 58.

[24] Renate Stark “Holodomor, Famine in the Ukraine 1932-1933” Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies10, 1 (2010): 22.

[25]Nicolas Sawicky “The Holodomor” State University of New York (2013) 6.

[26]Renate Stark “Holodomor” Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies10, 1 (2010): 22.

[27]Nicolas Sawicky “The Holodomor” State University of New York (2013) 6.

[28]GeorgiyKasionova. “The Debate on Law Drafts” Liberte Pour l’Histoire (2012) para 7.

[29]Lesa Morgan “A Study of Genocide” University of Notre Dame (2010) 111.