Causes of the Holodomor

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Holodomor
Historical background
Famines in the Soviet Union

Soviet institutions

Policies
Responsible parties
Soviet Union
Investigation and understanding

The causes of the Holodomor, which was a famine in Soviet Ukraine during 1932 and 1933 that resulted in the death of around 3–5 million people, are the subject of scholarly and political debate, particularly surrounding the Holodomor genocide question. Soviet historians Stephen Wheatcroft and J. Arch Getty believe the famine was the unintended consequence of problems arising from Soviet agricultural collectivization which was designed to accelerate the program of industrialization in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.[1][2] Other academics conclude policies were intentionally designed to cause the famine.[3][4][5] Some scholars and political leaders claim that the famine may be classified as a genocide under the definition of genocide that entered international law with the 1948 Genocide Convention.[4][5][6][7][8]

Raphael Lemkin, the co-author of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1948, considered Holodomor an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation, not just Ukrainian farmers. Such a conclusion was made by him based on four factors:

  • the decimation of the Ukrainian national elites,
  • the destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,
  • the starvation of the Ukrainian farming population, and
  • its replacement with non-Ukrainians from the RSFSR and elsewhere.[9]
  1. ^ 'Stalinism' was a collective responsibility - Kremlin papers, The News in Brief, University of Melbourne, 19 June 1998, Vol 7 No 22
  2. ^ Getty, J. Arch (August 2018). "New Sources and Old Narratives". Contemporary European History. 27 (3): 450–455. doi:10.1017/S0960777318000322. ISSN 0960-7773. S2CID 149507259.
  3. ^ С. Уиткрофт (Stephen G. Wheatcroft), "О демографических свидетельствах трагедии советской деревни в 1931—1933 гг." Archived 2008-03-20 at the Wayback Machine (On demographic evidence of the tragedy of the Soviet village in 1931-1833), "Трагедия советской деревни: Коллективизация и раскулачивание 1927-1939 гг.: Документы и материалы. Том 3. Конец 1930-1933 гг.", Российская политическая энциклопедия, 2001, ISBN 5-8243-0225-1, с. 885, Приложение № 2
  4. ^ a b Marples, David (9 December 2005). "The great famine debate goes on ..." ExpressNews, (University of Alberta). Archived from the original on 15 June 2008. Originally published in the Edmonton Journal, 30 November 2005.
  5. ^ a b Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Holodomor of 1932–1933 as genocide: the gaps in the proof", Den, 17 February 2007, in Russian, in Ukrainian
  6. ^ Peter Finn, Aftermath of a Soviet Famine, The Washington Post, 27 April 2008, "There are no exact figures on how many died. Modern historians place the number between 2.5 million and 3.5 million. Yushchenko and others have said at least 10 million were killed."
  7. ^ Yaroslav Bilinsky (1999). "Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–1933 Genocide?". Journal of Genocide Research. 1 (2): 147–156. doi:10.1080/14623529908413948. Archived from the original on 15 June 2008. Retrieved 16 November 2008.
  8. ^ Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Holodomor-33: Why and how?", Zerkalo Nedeli, 25 November—1 December 2006, in Russian, in Ukrainian[permanent dead link‍].
  9. ^ "Role of Lemkin". HREC Education. Retrieved 21 May 2024.