DEFINITION HOLODOMOR noun: ho lo do `mor
The term Holodomor (“death inflicted by starvation” in Ukrainian) refers to the man-made famine that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33 as a result of Soviet policies. The Holodomor can be seen as the culmination of an assault by the Communist Party and Soviet state on the Ukrainian farming population, who resisted Soviet policies.
Source: Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) and Holodomor in Ukraine by Valentina Kuryliw
Ukraine is the largest country entirely in Europe. Ukraine was called the breadbasket of Europe because of its rich soil. In 1922, Ukraine was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR – Soviet Union). In 1926 per the census in Soviet Ukraine, farming communities made up 82% of the population.
Source: HREC and Holodomor in Ukraine by Valentina Kuryliw
CAUSES of the Holodomor
When Joseph Stalin came to power in 1928, he set out to rapidly industrialize the USSR. To pay for this rapid industrialization, he seized control of farming in Ukraine so that he could sell on the international market the grain grown by Ukrainian farmers. The peasant farmers (89% of Ukrainian population) were forced, often through violence, to give up their land, their equipment, and their animals, and to become simply workers on state-run collective farms.
Joseph Stalin’s first 5 Year Plan
During Stalin’s first 5 Year Plan, the Soviet Government in 1928 to 1933 attacked the following groups in Ukraine:
First – Attack on Intellectuals – the BRAIN
In 1930, a group of Ukrainian intellectuals, teachers, and university students — a total of 45 — were accused of belonging to a fictitious anti-Soviet organization and were convicted in show trials. The result was that Ukrainian language and culture were linked to subversion and thus treasonous, and on that premise, some 30,000 people were arrested, sent to the Gulag or executed.
Source: HREC and encyclopediaofukraine.com – Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (SVU)
Second – Attack on the Ukrainian Church – the SOUL
The Ukrainian Autocephalous (independent) Orthodox churches were closed and destroyed. The priests and the entire hierarchy of the church were sent to labor camps or executed and 10,000 clergy were liquidated.
Source: HREC and Holodomor in Ukraine by Valentina Kuryliw
Third – Attack the Farmers – the SPIRIT
Farmers were forced to join the collective farms, or be sent to labor camps (the Gulag). The authorities imposed high unrealistic grain quotas. When quotas could not be met, they were blacklisted, and all foodstuff was withheld from them. Teams were sent house to house, searching and removing what little food remained. A law was introduced that made the theft of even a few stalks of grain an act of sabotage punishable by execution. Millions of people starved; children were orphaned, abandoned, and died.
Source: HREC and Holodomor in Ukraine by Valentina Kuryliw
Fourth Attack – Sealed the borders and sealed their fate
In 1932 the USSR introduced an internal passport system that prevented hungry farmers from fleeing the countryside to enter cities, and in 1933, a Soviet decree closed the borders so that the starving could not seek food outside of Ukraine.
Source: HREC https://holodomor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/7_HR_Documents.pdf
RESULTS of the Holodomor
Stalin created the artificial Famine to destroy the Ukrainian identity and annihilate Ukraine as a nation.
At the height of the Famine in 1933, people in Ukraine were dying at a rate of 28,000 people per day. Nearly a third of those who died in the Holodomor were children under the age of 10.
Four to ten million people died in the Holodomor of which over 80% were Ukrainians. Others were also impacted by the Holodomor: Russians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Roma, Belarusians, Hungarians, and others, also died from starvation. However, Ukrainians were the primary target of Stalin’s plan.
“Aside from certain Don and Volga regions, only Ukrainian agricultural areas faced complete confiscation of foodstuffs, only Ukrainian agricultural area were sealed off from the rest of the world, only Ukrainian villages were blacklisted for failing to fulfill their grain delivery quotas and only Ukrainians were denied the possibility of leaving their impacted regions. As a result of this, within just a six month period in 1933 more than 4 million Ukrainians died,” Professor Andrea Graziosi, historian, University of Naples
