Causes and Consequences of The Holodomor Genocide for The People of Ukraine

The Holodomor was an atrocious event also known as ‘Hunger Plague’, which began in the year of 1932 and ended in the year of 1933 causing more than seven million deaths. The Holodomor was designed to destroy the nation of Ukraine and especially the farmers. The goals of this genocide were collectivism and Soviet industrialization. The word Holodomor is a Ukrainian word which is used to describe death by hunger or starvation. The main areas that were affected by this genocide were central and eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian farmers were forced to give all their harvest to the government which resulted in famine. The famine was caused by the Soviet Union, which made the famine look like a crop failure; the brain behind his mass occurrence was Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Communist Party. The purpose of this essay is to describe the consequences that caused the Holodomor genocide, and the effect of the genocide on the people of Ukraine during and after the genocide. 

Joseph Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary who was born on December 18, 1878, in Russia. Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili was Joseph Stalinэs real name. Before Stalin was a charge of the Soviet Union, Lenin was in-charge. Stalin kept moving up the ladder and gained political support, but when Lenin died Stalin took his place and took full control of the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin played a huge role in the upcoming of the Holodomor genocide, was that he wanted to expand Russia, and to make enough money for Russia as possible. Stalin wanted to remove undesirable people from Ukraine, and he did this by sending them to forced labor camps or did it by killing them. Joseph Stalin collectivized farming and executed enemies who could oppose a threat to him. Joseph Stalin saw that the growth Ukraine would lead in danger. As in 1932, Joseph Stalin said, ‘If we don’t make an effort now to improve the situation in Ukraine we may lose Ukraine’. The rise in the population was a piece of evidence that tells us that Stalin was motivated to make the policy for the Holodomor genocide. Joseph Stalin played a major role in the Holodomor genocide. Before the Genocide began many steps were taken by Stalin to accomplish his goal, which was to make Russia an industrial country. Stalin’s idea was used to feed industrial workers, he wanted to also provide grain, to be sold to other countries to make money, which could be used to finance his industrialization plans. 

In the year 1928, Stalin made an agricultural collectivization program which forced people to give up their land and join collective farms owned by the government. In the year of 1929, the ‘Class Warfare’ policy was issued, because there were many farmers who refused to join the collective farms, and this policy was used to stop the resistance against the collective farms. Many farmers who were successful were brutally treated by the troops and the secret police were used to eliminate them at once. Many people became victims of the Dekulakization policy, which was a policy that put many people into trains and transported them to remote areas such as Siberia without food or shelter. Stalin made many police’s that gave an idea of what he was planning something very big. Life during the Holodomor was really difficult for people, twenty-five percent of the population was put to death. Another dreadful result of the Holodomor that many children were dead under the age of ten. Poor people would steal food from the soldiers to give to their children to save their life. When soldiers went to people homes to get the food they would take everything thatchy found, this was a decision of the government. ‘If you hid some food, they could send you to Siberia’. This was said by Kateryna Panchenko a person who had survived the Holodomor. 

In the year of 1933, over three hundred thousand children were recorded dead in the Kyiv region alone. Most of the children died on the streets because starvation, which was a result of the orphanages and shelters to be overcrowded, and space left for more kids. In addition, two-thirds of Ukrainians children were also recorded missing from schools, and a large number of children were orphans or became homeless. Many people walked in other towns and cities for food when they ran out of food in their villages. By the year of 1933 as the famine was really critical, people were dying at a rate of 30000 a day in the area close to one-third of them were children under the age 10. There was food available in the cities, but many people of the cities were not allowed to help and doctors were not allowed to treat the poor villagers, who at the end of the day died on the streets. Many things took place after the Holodomor genocide which still affected the many lives of people, and many still continued to die from starvation. Stalin denied to the whole world that famine had occurred in Ukraine and he continued to export millions of tons of grains, which was more than enough money to feed the starving men, women, and children who were killed because of starvation. As Joseph Stalin wanted to accomplish his goal of making money for industrialization but his plan didn’t work out as he planned it would, because fewer grains began to be exported than before. Anyone that raised their voice against Stain was caused off spreading a disease. As many people who survived the Holodomor had to go through a mental break down because their relative’s died due to hunger caused by the lack of food. Throughout the year of 1933 and 1934 four million deaths were caused due to starvation within the borders of Soviet Ukraine. 

In the end, Holodomor was a catastrophic event, which was a famine that caused seven million deaths in Ukraine between the years 1932 and 1933 by the Communist Party. A said in the essay, that Joseph Stalin refused to help the Ukrainian people, who were dying because of the famine, which was stared by the man himself. Stalin was afraid of nationalism in Ukraine, which he saw that as a threat, because of which he made the Holodomor destroy the Ukrainian national idea by wiping out the elite and their social support base. After Stalin decided to destroy life for Ukrainian people, life got uncomfortable for people as they started to die because of starvation. As a result of Holodomor, more than seven million people in Ukraine lost their life. People that hid food were sent to Siberia when they were caught hiding food by the soldiers. 

The Holodomor was a deadly event that washed away many lives, as it passes away through the years of 1932-1933. ‘God spare us from reliving it again’. Said by another Holodomor survivor, Ksenia Datsenko. Many children were missing from school, which was also the result Holodomor and had caused a high children’s mortality rate. Many orphanages and children shelters were overcrowded, which caused an increase in the number of deaths of children caused by starvation.