CLASSROOM COUNTRY PROFILES Collectivization and the …...What is a genocide? Does the Holodomor in Ukraine qualify as a genocide? Ask students to discusses reasons for and against.

Holodomor — The name of the man-made famine of

1932 and 1933that killed millions of Soviet citizens,

most of them Ukrainians. Collectivization policies and

the Soviet government’s seizure of grain have been

blamed for the mass starvation. “Holod” means

“hunger” in the Ukrainian language.

Collectivization — The policy of transferring the own-

ership of private farmland to the state. The Soviet state

in the 1930s seized land and set up collective farms

where workers would produce grain for the state to

distribute. The policy proved disastrous for grain pro-

duction levels.

Kulak — “ Fist” in Russian. It was the term used to

demonize farm owners during collectivization. Ku-

laks resisted collectivization. Millions were exiled to

forced labor camps or killed as a result.

Collectivization and the Holodomor

The 1930s saw many horrors in the Soviet Union. Joseph

Stalin’s purges resulted in the execution of thousands, while

millions more were sent to forced labor camps. The decade

began with the forced collectivization of farms throughout the

Soviet Union, a process that resulted in the deaths of millions

by starvation. Ukraine, which suffered the most from collectivi-

zation, lost an estimated 3-5 million people to a famine that

was entirely avoidable and likely at least in part deliberate.

Famine victims lie on the streets of Kharkiv

By the end of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin had consolidated power as the

unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union. In 1928 he introduced a pro-

gram to collectivize farms and end private ownership of land. Farmers in

Ukraine, known as the “bread basket” of the Soviet Union for its fertile

soil, resisted giving up their land to the state and joining collective farms.

The Soviet state under Stalin responded with a program called “de-

kulakization,” which evicted farmers and their families. The word “kulak”

means “fist” in Russian and was used to demonize private farmers who

refused to open their “clenched fists” and participate in building socialism.

More than a million Ukrainian farmers were exiled to the far reaches of

the Soviet Union or left without homes or work in the process.

In 1932, the Soviet state increased Ukrainian grain harvest quotas, even

as collectivization policies led to much lower production levels. The im-

possibly high quotas meant grain that would be normally be eaten by

farmers was confiscated and sent to other parts of the Soviet Union or

sold abroad. As a result, millions, mostly rural Ukrainians, went hungry.

The state gave orders to the internal police, the NKVD, to arrest or exe-

cute farmers who tried to steal grain from fields or storage facilities. The

so-called kulaks were also denied residency permits to gain access to

housing in cities. Signs of agony became widespread as starving families

moved to the streets of cities such as Kharkiv, desperate to find food.

In 1930, an estimated 30,000 people were dying of starvation per day,

many of them children. Some resorted to cannibalism.

Because the USSR did not record deaths from the famine and attempted

to cover it up, an exact number of victims is difficult to verify. However,

scholars generally agree that millions lost their lives. Discussion of the

Holodomor was banned until the final years of the USSR under Mikhail

Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika.

Updated: June 2017

C L A S S R O O M C O U N T R Y P R O F I L E S

What is a genocide? Does the Holodomor in

Ukraine qualify as a genocide? Ask students

to discusses reasons for and against.

Why did it take so long for knowledge of the

Holodomor to become public? Have students

talk about how other events, such as the Hol-

ocaust, were documented.

What were the goals of collectivization? Why

did the process create a decline in agricultural

production in the early 1930s?

Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin’s War

on Ukraine. Doubleday, 2017.

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Between Hitler

and Stalin. Basic Books, 2012.

The Holodomor Research and Education

Consortium. Available: http://holodomor.ca/

“Harvest of Despair.” 1984 documentary film

by Sviatoslav Novytsky.

USEFUL LINKS

CIA World Factbook: Ukraine

BBC Country Page: Ukraine

National Geographic: Ukraine

Kyiv Post English

News

Monuments in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, commemorate victims of the Holodomor.

The Holodomor remains a sensitive and contentious issue in the former Soviet

Union. Ukraine considers the famine a genocide perpetrated by Joseph Stalin and

the Soviet state. However, the Russian Federation has been sharply critical of

attempts to recognize the famine as a genocide, noting that ethnic Russians also

died and disputing claims that it was deliberate. Several other nations, including

Canada, Australia, Poland, and the Baltics recognize it as a genocide. The United

States has not officially recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide but has

called it a man-made famine and an attack on Ukrainian nationalism.

A similar famine took place in the territory that is now Kazakhstan from 1930-

1933. Forced collectivization and attempts to change the Kazakhs’ primarily no-

madic lifestyle into a culture based on agriculture and industry resulted in the

deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people. The event primarily effected ethnic Ka-

zakhs and made them a minority in the territory, which became the Kazakh Soviet

Socialist Republic in 1936. The famine is sometimes called the Goloshchekin gen-

ocide, named after Filipp Goloshchyokin, who was responsible for carrying out

Soviet policies there.

Traditional Ukrainian Easter Eggs

CL ASSROOM COUNTRY PROFILES

More resources for educators are available

on the Henry M. Jackson School of International

Studies website.

The map above shows areas of population de-cline in Ukraine and southern Russia during the

famine. Western Ukraine was unaffected be-cause it was part of Poland until the outbreak of

World War II.