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There is no way people can argue that the Holodomor (Soviet Famine) did not happen in Ukraine in the years of 1932 to 1933 in which it took over millions of lives in that area. This is a man- made famine which was crafted by Stalin to be a “lesson that they would never forget” for defying his collectivization plan for Ukraine, the now part of USSR. The Holodomor literal means murder by starvation in which the people were systematical deprived of food by either of having impossible quotas that the government place or militarily blocking outside aid. Unlike the Holocaust, the Holodomor is not very well known or documented, thus many countries in the World question if this event is really a genocide that Stalin created or just a tragedy set on the Ukrainian people history. Today there is effort to gain global awareness of this genocide.
If a person goes back in history of Ukraine, he or she can easily see why Stalin might target this place to install his idea in. Ukraine is the “breadbasket of Europe” in which the USSR gets its grain to feed its empire. In 1929, the Central Committee of the Soviet Union's Communist Party decided to introduce a program of collectivization to the farmers of Ukraine. This forced the farmers to give up all private property: lands, livestock, and farming equipment. By doing this Stalin hoped to feed the industry workers in the cities and export the product to other countries in hope to gain profit to help him fund his industry plans. Private farmers were to be completely being replaced by collective farming or known in Ukraine as kolkhozes. Many of these private farmers, who sought for independence, refused to join collective farming because it resembled early serfdom in that region. Stalin intr...
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Motyl Alexander J. "Deleting the Holodomor: Ukraine unmakes itself." World Affairs 173.3 (2010): 25+.Accessed on April 11,2014. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA239725483&v=2.1&u=tel_a_nestcc&it=r&p=EAIM& sw=w&asid=b34924bba67e024f5f808e81c1dbbd3c
Perloff James . "Holodomor: the secret holocaust: when Ukraine resisted Soviet attempts at collectivization in the
1920s and '30. the Soviets used labor camps, executions, and starvations, and starvation to kill millions of Ukrainians." The New American : Accessed on April 11,2014. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA194331804&v=2.1&u=tel_s_tsla&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=39f46c4ce7c868e4974433bcd6bc008d
He goes with some other workers to a state run farm outside of Magnitogorsk to help repair tractors he remarks, “everything, in fact, had been thought of, he said, 'except good land and men to work it'.”7 This was the issue with Stalin's “revolution from above” be built these grand cities that were essentially just large plants like Magnitogorsk, but the people lived in horrible conditions, the collectivized farms that were meant to support the food supply for the workers of Magnitogorsk had bad land and nobody to work to the farms. In theory Stalin's plans could work, but the people, the land, the infrastructure could not feasibly attain the end result that was needed, it just wasn’t possible. For Stalin's plans to have worked he needed to be in the right place and the Soviet Union, and the unforgiving landscape just was not it. Things got so bad that Scott writes, “ the new Bolshevik government sent inspectors to every village to look for hoarded bread.”8 Scott writes, “ during the early thirties the main energies of the Soviet Union went into construction. New plants, mines, whole industries, sprang up all over the country” but he also recalls, “the new aggregates failed to work normally.
The Soviet system of forced labor camps was first established in 1919 under the Cheka; however, in the early 1930’s camps had reached outrageous numbers. In 1934 the Gulag had several million prisoners. The prisoners ranged from innocent pro-Bolsheviks to guilty Trotsky’s. Conditions were harsh, filthy, and prisoners received inadequate food rations and poor clothing. Over the period of the Stalin dictatorship many people experienced violations of their basic human rights, three in particular were Natasha Petrovskaya, Mikhail Belov, and Olga Andreyeva.
The first five-year plan, approved in 1929, proposed that state and collective farms provide 15 percent of agriculture output. The predominance of private farming seemed assured, as many farmers resisted collectivization. By late 1929, Stalin moved abruptly to break peasant resistance and secure the resources required for industrialization. He saw that voluntary collectivism had failed, and many “Soviet economists doubted that the first plan could even be implimented.”1 Stalin may have viewed collectivization as a means to win support from younger party leaders, rather than from the peasants and Lenin’s men. “Privately he advocated, industrializing the country with the help of internal accumulation” 2 Once the peasantry had been split, Stalin believed that the rural proletarians would embrace collectivization . Before this idea had a chance to work, a grain shortage induced the Politburo to support Stalin’s sudden decision for immediate, massive collectivization.
"Stalin, Joseph." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 8. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 86-87. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
This stage is known as denial. During both the Holocaust and Holodomor, the Nazis and Soviet Union attempted to demolish many camps to destroy evidence of the two events. However, both sides have a significant difference. Many Nazis confessed to the Holocaust and modern day Germany takes responsibility for the Holocaust, but Soviets then and modern Russia now refuse to admit that the millions of deaths were intentional. The Russian government has only stated that the millions of deaths were a tragedy due to the Soviet famine of 1932 (Motyl 30). The Russian Federations denial that the Holodomor was intentional came soon after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the country’s policymakers voted on whether or not to consider the event a genocide. In 2006 the Ukrainian parliament formally declared the Holodomor a genocide (Motyl 27). The Russian government was appalled by this
Throughout history there have been many horrifying genocides, the most famous of which is the Holocaust. However, there have been many other genocides, some dating centuries prior to the Holocaust, or even during the Holocaust, such as the Asian Holocaust. One of these genocides predating the Holocaust is known as the Holodomor, A man-made famine lasting from 1932 to 1933, and, in more broader terms, the deportation and execution in Ukraine and other areas where the Ukrainian nationality is dominant.
It is no mystery that Stalin’s brutal totalitarian regime costed the lives of millions of Soviet citizens. It is estimated that between 1930 and 1953, over one million Soviet citizens were executed, six million were deported to special settlements, 16 to 17 million were imprisoned in forced labor, and three to five million starved to death (131-132). However, the question is, do these crimes amount to genocide, the crime of crimes? Many scholars would not label Stalin’s crimes as genocide since they do not fit nicely into the definition of ‘genocide’ as stated in the Genocide Convention of 1948, which defines genocide as, “Acts committed with the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” (15-24). However, in his book “Stain’s Genocides”, Norman Naimark, argues that there is overwhelming evidence that Stalin’s crimes amount to genocide. To prove his case, Naimark brings up the controversy
After the October Revolution of 1917, Soviet Society was dramatically changed in the countryside. Prior to the revolution the countryside consisted of family plots that allowed them sustain themselves. On these family farms women from a young age worked alongside men. The self-sustaining family plot was one in which every member of the family had their share of the work. Howeve...
The Russian revolution of February 1917 was a momentous event in the course of Russian history. The causes of the revolution were very critical and even today historians debate on what was the primary cause of the revolution. The revolution began in Petrograd as “a workers’ revolt” in response to bread shortages. It removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, replacing Russia’s monarchy with the world’s first Communist state. The revolution opened the door for Russia to fully enter the industrial age. Before 1917, Russia was a mostly agrarian nation. The Russian working class had been for many years fed up with the ways they had to live and work and it was only a matter of time before they had to take a stand. Peasants worked many hours for low wages and no land, which caused many families to lose their lives. Some would argue that World War I led to the intense downfall of Russia, while others believe that the main cause was the peasant unrest because of harsh living conditions. Although World War I cost Russia many resources and much land, the primary cause of the Russian Revolution was the peasant unrest due to living conditions because even before the war began in Russia there were outbreaks from peasants due to the lack of food and land that were only going to get worse with time.
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
The Collective Farms of Eastern Europe The ideology of collectivisation 1st became a viable policy in Stalinist Russia. The primary thinking behind this revolutionary initiative was to improve agricultural production to a level that could sustain the ever-increasing urban masses. Furthermore the decision makers in Eastern Europe wished to ensure an abundant supply of cheap food was available so that they could control, and keep real wage rates at a manageable level. The collectivisation of agriculture was envisaged by the socialist regimes as the “Ideal vehicle to achieve this objective.” (1) The large-scale cultivation necessitated by collectivisation was seen by the socialist regime as a fundament strategy to improve the total productivity of the agricultural sector.
The main focus of the post war testimony of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, Commandant at Auschwitz from May 1940 until December, 1943, is the mass extermination of Jews during World War II. His signed affidavit had a profound impact at the Post-War trials of Major War Criminals held at Nuremburg from November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946. His testimony is a primary source that details and describes his personal account of the timeline, who ordered Auschwitz to become a death camp, and the means used to execute and exterminate millions of Jews. Obtained while tortured nearly to death under British custody, the authenticity and reliability of this document is questioned due to arguable inconsistencies that exist. However, the events sworn to in his testimony have been recounted and corroborated by witnesses and thousands of survivors.
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
Around the early 1920’s, Stalin took power and became leader of Russia. As a result Russians either became fond of Stalin’s policies or absolutely despised them. Stalin’s five-year plans lured many into focusing on the thriving economy rather than the fact that the five year plan hurt the military. The experience of many lives lost, forced labor camps, little supply of food, influenced the Russians negative opinion about Stalin. Having different classes in society, many Russians had different points of views. For the Peasants, times were rough mainly because of the famine, so they were not in favor of Stalin and his policies; where as the upper classes had a more optimistic view of everything that was occurring. Stalin’s policies affected the Russian people and the Soviet Union positively and also had a negative affect causing famine for the Russian people.
Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union can be best described as a period of terror and censorship. In other words, he was very strict, considering the fact that he created the totalitarian government. In order to create this type of government, Stalin used fear and propaganda. He took part in The Great Purge, which was a campaign of terror that was supposed to eliminate anyone who threatened Stalin’s power. He also relied on secret police, who would arrest and execute any traitors. The online blog, “The Reasons For the Failure of The Russian Revolution”, brings up information on how Stalin planned to rule as dictator of Russia. It has been noted, “This ‘reshaping’ had three main aspects: the elimination of all dissent; the liquidation of all forms of democracy and of working class organisation; the slashing of the living standards of the working class and the physical annihilation of millions of peasants” (Text 5). This quote explains how Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia, which includes the deaths of several peasants of Russia. The Russians did not just die from The Great Purge, but also from Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to industrialize the Soviet Union. It was also a plan for increasing the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity. He had control over economic resources, including farms and