Holodomor (Terror-Famine)
Lesson 8: 1932–1933
Introduction: Death by Hunger. The word Holodomor literally means “to kill by starvation.” In 1932, the Soviet Union did not run out of food. In fact, they were exporting record amounts of grain to the West. The famine in Ukraine was not a weather event; it was a man-made weapon designed to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people.
Soviet Grain Policy (1932-1933)
1.7 Million Tons
Essentially Zero (Confiscated)
Collectivization
War on Farmers
Stalin decided that independent farmers were a threat to his power. If a man owns his own land and feeds himself, he doesn’t need the government.
- Seizure: The state ordered all farmers to give up their land, livestock, and tools to the “Collective Farm” (Kolkhoz).
- Resistance: The Ukrainians fought back. They slaughtered their own cattle rather than hand them over to the Communists. In response, the Red Army was sent in to force them into submission.
Dekulakization
Liquidation
To destroy the resistance, the state targeted the most successful farmers, known as “Kulaks.”
- Definition: A Kulak wasn’t necessarily rich. If you owned a cow or hired a worker, you were a Kulak. Eventually, anyone who opposed the government was labeled a “Kulak helper.”
- Order: Stalin explicitly ordered the “liquidation of the Kulaks as a class.”
- Result: Millions of the best farmers were arrested, shot, or deported to Siberia. This destroyed the agricultural backbone of the country.
The Nexus
Leadership
Consistent with the previous lessons, the architects of this policy were largely from the “Internationalist” wing of the party.
- ✡Yakov Yakovlev (Epstein): The People’s Commissar for Agriculture who oversaw the early stages of collectivization. Your source notes he was responsible for the policies that stripped the peasantry of their land.
- ✡Lazar Kaganovich: Known as the “Butcher of Ukraine.” He was Stalin’s right-hand man who traveled to Ukraine to ensure the grain quotas were met. He signed the orders that blacklisted entire villages, sentencing them to death.
- ✡Genrikh Yagoda (Yehuda): The head of the NKVD (Secret Police) who enforced the borders, ensuring no starving peasants could escape.
The Famine
Weapon of Hunger
Once the farms were destroyed, the state demanded impossible amounts of grain.
- Quotas: The state set grain quotas that were higher than the total harvest. When farmers couldn’t pay, commissars searched their homes with iron rods.
- The Sweep: They took everything. Not just wheat, but seed grain, potatoes, and pets. They left the people with absolutely nothing to eat.
- Black Boards: Villages that didn’t meet the quota were put on the “Black Board.” This meant they were blockaded. No food could enter; no people could leave. It was a death sentence.
- Internal Passports: To prevent people from fleeing to the cities or Russia, the borders of Ukraine were sealed by the secret police.
Cannibalism
Horror
The reality of life in the “Breadbasket of Europe” became a nightmare.
- Survival: People ate grass, tree bark, and shoe leather.
- Cannibalism: By 1933, the situation was so desperate that incidents of cannibalism became common. Parents ate their children; children ate their parents. The Soviet government printed posters saying: “To eat your own children is a barbarian act.” Over 2,500 people were convicted of cannibalism in one year.
- Ghost Villages: Entire villages died out. When officials arrived later, they found only silence and corpses.
The Discrepancy
Death Toll and Cover-Up
While Ukrainians were dying, the Soviet Union was selling their grain to Europe and America.
- Statistics: Historians estimate between 3.9 million and 7 million Ukrainians died in less than two years.
- Census Purge (The Discrepancy): Stalin ordered the 1937 Census to be scrapped. When the census takers found that millions of people were missing, Stalin had the census directors arrested and shot. He then ordered a new “fake” census in 1939 to show the population was growing. This created a “black hole” in the data that historians are still trying to fix today.
- Walter Duranty: The New York Times reporter in Moscow won a Pulitzer Prize for writing that “there is no famine,” helping Stalin hide the crime from the world.
- Denial: For decades, it was illegal to mention the famine in the Soviet Union. It was a crime erased from history until the fall of Communism.
How many people died under Stalin?
to
60,000,000
Historians estimate this massive range by taking into account the fake census, the rural land purges, and the large famine.
The Conclusion
Summary
The Holodomor was not an accident. It was a strategic genocide. By targeting the Kulaks (the leaders) and the Ukrainians (the nationalists), the Bolshevik regime used hunger to crush the two things they feared most: private property and national identity.
Sources for Lesson 8:
Historical Narrative: Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (Oxford University Press). The definitive history of the event.
Nexus Connection: Yakov Yakovlev (Epstein) biography details from The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.
Eye-Witness: Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust. A survivor’s account of life in a starving village.
Legal Analysis: Raphael Lemkin, Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine (1953). The man who coined the word “genocide” used the Holodomor as a prime example.
Media Complicity: S.J. Taylor, Stalin’s Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times’s Man in Moscow.
Demographic Study: Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.
Catherine Merridale: The 1937 Census and the Errors of Socialism. (An academic paper detailing how the census results panicked the leadership because they revealed the massive population loss from the famine).
Robert Conquest: The Great Terror: A Reassessment. (Includes a detailed section on the arrest and execution of the Census Bureau chiefs, including Ivan Kraval).
