Holodomor And Stalin Essay

The Holodomor-Stalin’s Holocaust The Holodomor was a vast famine that took place in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, that millions of Ukrainians died of starvation. This was the deliberate mass starvation of an entire country that was carried out under the orders of one of the most brutal leaders in all of history, Josef Stalin. The Holodomor means “murder by hunger” that is what the Ukrainians called it by, and it would leave about ten million people dead. About seven million of these people actually died from starvation. And many more were executed on the spot or they were shipped off to Artic work camps, where they eventually would die from the brutal effects of exposure, overwork and malnutrition.
What was the Holodomor (Classification)
In the Holodomor there were only two groups that were involved, the Russians(The ones starving Ukraine) and Ukraine(The ones being starved). The Russians were deliberately starving Ukraine for no reason at all. They cut off Ukraine’s food supply and let the whole country starve. And if the people weren’t there starving
in Ukraine, they were being forced to work at camps for the Russians. In 1930 eleven million households were forced to join collective farms, or what they called “Kolkhozes”. This rapidly brought the percentage of farms in the Soviet Union that had been collectivized from about fifteen percent the previous year to about sixty percent at the time.
The Arctic work camps and Collective Farms(Dehumanization) The process of “Dekulakization” began in the winter of 1929, when some ten million peasants were forcibly relocated to the Arctic work camps.
About three million of these peasants, mostly children died because of the harsh conditions in the Arctic. The peasants that were allowed to stay at their homes in Ukraine, were forced into the collective farms. Everything that these farms produced belonged to Russia. Only after the Russians quotas were met, the peasants could be given a portion to eat. Even after all the work that the Ukrainians had done, they were paid little to nothing and sometimes nothing at all. This was just the initial stages of Stalin’s war against the Ukrainians or “kulaks” as Stalin called them. But the quota he set for them to produce was six almost seven million tons of grain. This was an impossible quota to meet, especially since collective farms were always less productive than private
farms.

Stalin’s army(Organization) The main key party during the Holodomor was the Russians, they are the ones that starved the Ukrainians to death. They also sent the Ukrainians to the Arctic camps to work for them and also to collective farms to produce grain. The Russians treated the Ukrainians terribly, they feed them little to none so most of them starved to death like this or they died at the Arctic camps because of the cold weather and the terrible conditions at the camps.

How did the Russians prepare(Preparation) In the first two months of 1930 eleven million household were forced to join collective farms, also known as “Kolkhozes”. This brought the percentage of collective farms up almost by forty-five percent. Stalin set a quota of six almost near seven million tons of grain that they had to produce to meet Stalin’s needs. This number was near impossible to meet. Also the collective farms produced less than the private farms so either way they couldn’t reach the quota that Stalin had set. By November the Russians had killed of most of the productive farmers, this guaranteed a smaller harvest from the Ukrainians. Also they had only met forty percent of the quota that Stalin set for them. Stalin responded to this by confiscating all the grain that they had produced. A soviet author said that “All the grain without exception was requisitioned for the fulfillment of Stalin’s plan, including the grain set aside for sowing, fodder and even that previously issued to the kolkhoznik(A collective farm employee) that is the payment for their work.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the Holodomor was very devastating for Ukraine for the fact that about ten million innocent people were starved to death and or sent to work camps for no reason at all other than Stalin hated them. He made them work for him, produce grain that he set the quota unrealistically high on then took all of the grain away from the without exception. Stalin didn’t care if they were children or not, because three of the ten million people that were starved at the Arctic camps were children. He also didn’t care about paying the people that he forced to work, he paid them little to none at all. Their payment would have been the grain that they were producing, but Stalin took all the grain from them when they didn’t meet his quota by november. The Ukrainians didn’t even reach half of the quota that he had set for them to reach. So the fact that all these innocent people died makes you wonder how could this actually happen whit no one trying to stop it.

Works Cited
Holodomor: Stalin’s Holocaust in the Ukraine by Warren Mass

Andrij Makuch and Frank E. Sysyn, editors. Contextualizing the Holodomor: The Impact of Thirty Years of Ukrainian Famine Studies

“Tragic” Flaw Russia and MH17 by: Mariana Budjeryn