Review Of The Holodomor Event In Ukraine History Essay

Re take c are Of The Holodomor Event In Ukraine History bear witnessThe Holodomor was a catastrophic event that saw the deaths by starving of zillions of Ukrainian niggards in the early 1930s. chiefly regarded as having been at least partially caused by Soviet artless polity, the major school of horizon for years has been that harvest-home harvests at the period were non abnormally low, and the deficit was a direct matter of policies implemented with the intent of causing throne starvation among the people.However, revisionist theory contends that 1932 saw a massive dress up failure in m any parts of Ukraine and the Soviet Union, the order of which made general paucity an carryful event, instead of creation utilisationfully engineered by the Soviet leading. Clearly, in that location exists sufficient ambiguity with regards to the reasons for the deaths of the millions of peasants involved to mug an investigation.As such, an important question to address wou ld be To what extremity was the Ukrainian famine of 1932 a mensurable act of racial extermination a crystallizest the Ukrainian people? This essay shall argue in favor of a tax write-off of the two arguments, accepting that on that point was and so a catastrophic crop failure in Ukraine at the time, alone also that the subsequent actions of the Stalin points to an unequivocal attempt to decimate the peasantry. This essay will attempt to do this by explaining the motivations that Stalin may hold had to institute genocide against the Ukrainian people, and show how his policies and actions reflected the intent to use the crop failure to his own ends.This essay will also examine the origins, purposes, values, as surface as limitations of confused sources dealing with the Holodomor, in an attempt to assess their suitability for use as test.IntroductionDespite regular denials on the part of the Soviet Union and its modern derivative, the Russian Federation, it is now generally a ccepted that in the years 1932 to 1933, several million peasants died as a result of Soviet artless policies, including collectivization and pressure seizure of crops,1as head as extremely harsh laws. The famine was exacerbated by the forced expatriate of millions of peasants that took place during the same time period.2This period of famine became known as the Holodomor, Ukrainian for death by starvation. The exact figures with regards to fatalities due to the famine are hard to pin down, due in no polished part to the Soviet Unions suppression of census figures. 1991 saw the release of the 1937 census, which shed some light on the possible range of fatalities of the time. The figures seem to offer that the number of victims of the famine in 1933 were in the region of 7.2-8.1 million3this figure however, does non take into account famine victims of 1932 and 1934. The generally held cyclorama in many historical texts is that the famine was avoidable, and it was instead the actions of the Soviet leadership that led to the widespread devastation.4The exact reasons for the famine are a subject of scholarly debate. The first major argument is that of the famine as having been deliberately engineered with the purport of empowerting genocide against the Ukrainian people from the in truth onset. This view was raised by esteemed Holodomor historian Robert Conquest in his 1987 fix, Harvest of Sorrow the primary evidence for such an argument includes the detail that official Soviet statistics elicit that the element harvest of 1932 was non abnormally low, and would have readily fed the population if not for brass intervention.5Proponents also point to the harsh laws ordered that suggested a deliberate attempt to cause widespread hunger, including the five ears law, which called for the public presentation or ten-year imprisonment at best, of any hungry person who stole more than a few ears of corn.6However, that view has been countered by historians w ho see the famine as a completely unforeseen side subject of the collectivization process, caused primarily by the drought of 1931 and poor harvest of 1932. The primary proponent of this view is Dr account B. Tauger, who suggests that the classification of the famine as a deliberate act of genocide is down to misinterpretations and factual inaccuracies with regards to the officially released soviet data. Tauger also cites inconsistencies in the official element harvest statistics of the 1930s and evidence that points to struggleds the unreliability of these statistics.7In light of the evidence raised by both(prenominal) camps, at that place remains the important question To what extent was the Ukrainian famine of 1932 a deliberate act of genocide against the Ukrainian people? It is sop up that there exists room for a synthesis of the two arguments, combining the various pieces of evidence that corroborate with each other in order to piece together a picture of the true natur e of events. It is thus argued that the famine was an unexpected as well as undesirable step forwardcome of the industrialization and collectivization process.8However, while there was no conscious decisiveness on the part of Stalin to have the Ukrainian cosmos intentionally starved, and the intention when enacting the collectivization polity was by no agent to enact a policy of starvation, Stalin was cool it indeed guilty of failing to take appropriate action to stop the famine from occurring,9and sufficient evidence exists to suggest that Stalins later policy reflected his intention to use the already widespread starvation as a bill to further his own agendas.10Thus, unintentional as the famine might have been, the fact does not at all absolve Stalin from responsibility for the famine. His policies towards the peasants were ruthless and brutal.11This view has been proposed by historians R.W. Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft in The Years of Hunger, and supported in part by Micha el Ellman,12The Accidental FamineRecent scholarship tends to disagree with the notion that Soviet policies were engineered specifically to deal a mortal blow to the Ukrainian peasantry. Ellman, as well as Davies and Wheatcroft, point to the fact that the famine was caused mainly by Stalins decision to rapidly industrialize the nation by means of bonus from the peasantry,13as well as two successive bad harvests of 1931 and 1932. They also point to the fact that misguided policy, for example, neglect of hoidenish techniques such as crop rotation, as well as the decision to unfold jot export and refuse the import of cereal exacerbated the problem. However, it is difficult to conclude that these were intentionally designed to kill.14To baffle with, it is important to remember that policy craps in the Soviet Union of the time had diminished knowledge of agricultural practice, and often over-optimistic about the effects of their own policies.15Furthermore, the refusal to import g rain had deeply ideological roots. In a time of great anti-communist sentiment around the world, Stalin was keen to ensure that he and his nation continued to examine strength and power. Stalin himself in 1934 said, The import of grain now, when abroad they are shouting about the shortage of grain in the USSR, might produce a political minus.16As such, it can be seen that both the grain procurement policies as well as refusal of foreign import are not necessarily evidence of an active plot to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry. on that point exists strong evidence to suggest that the starvation was not a aforethought(ip) event, and were instead due to the implementation of policies without proper consideration of their impact. It moldiness be note though, that Stalin viewed the starving as idlers and class enemies,17and in his speech delivered at the midst of the famine in 1933, Stalin quoted Lenin by saying He who does not work, neither shall he eat.18These reflect the fact that although he had not necessarily planned the famine, he did not view the dying as worthy of aid, and this lends support to the argument that the famine, although unintentional, sleek over placed fault in the hands of Stalin due to his refusal to take action in preventing it.The Poor HarvestsThe view of the famine as an intentional act of genocide rests firmly on the belief that the agricultural grant of the time was not particularly bad. This view was regarded as true for many decades, but historian Dr. score B. Tauger, in his journal article published in the Spring 1991 issue of the Slavic Review, suggests that this argument overlooks inconsistencies among official grain harvest statistics for 1930 and the evidence of famine, as well as evidence that these sources are unreliable.19The unbending re contrast of peasant movement through the internal passport system was cited by Conquest and others as evidence of the Soviet policy- have gotrs keeping the Ukrainian peasants attach ed to the land, in much the same way traditionalistic serfdom did.20Introduced in 1932, the passport system excluded peasants, which meant that the rural agricultural population who were hit worst by the famine was unable to leave the countryside without official permission.21However, Tauger asserts that thousands of peasants fled not only from Ukraine, but also from Kuban, the Urals and the Volga basin, among others areas, and that the passport implement was put in place to operate labor movement and prevent famine stricken areas from world further threatened by depletion of labour.22In solvent to Conquests assertion that the grain harvests of the early 1930s were not significantly low, Tauger cites new Soviet archival data which shows that the 1932 harvests were much smaller than assumed, and worsened the food shortages that were already widespread by 1931.23Tauger also references R.W. Davies review of Harvest of Sorrow, which questions Conquests uncritical use of evidence and bias.24This viewpoint was pen with the intention of debunking the genocide myth as put forth by Conquest in Harvest of Sorrow. It does this by pointing out the questionable nature of Conquests statistical data as well as questioning the assumption that policies at the time were directed only at Ukraine in an effort to writ of execution its people. The case for re-evaluation of the genocide theory was convincing decent that Conquest himself later wrote that he no longstanding held the view that Stalin deliberately engineered the famine of 1933.25However, Taugers work may not necessarily be expanded upon enough to be considered an argument on its own. Tauger himself produces that the Soviet regime was responsible for the deprivation and suffering of the Soviet populace in the early 1930s. He also goes on to suggest that the data presented here should contribute to a reevaluation not only of the famine, but also of the Soviet economy,26and not necessarily as a view unto its ow n.The purpose of Taugers work was to serve as a counter to Conquests work. Thus, there are several points that Taugers work does not cover, which is a limitation to the source. Firstly, the comments of Stalin and various other officials are completely ignored, as is the evidence that Stalin desire to wage class war on the Kulaks. Also, the occurrence of mass deportations, as well as the planned deportation of millions of other peasants is not mentioned. Policies such as the five ears law are also ignored. These issues are important when establishing the causality of the famine, as they are live indicators of intent on the part of the Soviet leadership to cause harm to the peasantry, whether Ukrainian or otherwise.Having been written some years after Conquests works, the source is blue-chip as it takes into account new information that often serves to counter Conquests arguments. Thus, it is necessary to gather evidence from both ends of the spectrum in order to establish an argum ent that takes into account all the various viewpoints.Stalins Motivations to KillWhen addressing the motivations that Stalin may have had for inducing an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people, it is important to consider the social and political changes that were happening at the time. Early Bolshevik leaders broke down the shadow of the Tsar and Russian Imperialism by assisting the causality subjects of the Russian Empire in rebuilding their own national identity and cultures.27This was by no means due to generosity of spirit or goodwill, and was instead necessitated by the political climate of the time, due to widespread dissatisfaction among the non-Russian peasants in wide areas of the Soviet Union.28This rebuilding of national identity had grown in strength in particular in the Ukraine, due in no small part to the fact that the 30 million Ukrainians life there were the largest single non-Russian national group in the Soviet Union, several times larger than any other. 29The policy of Ukrainisation, as it was called, thus went further in Ukraine than it had through in any other give tongue to of the Soviet Union. This outpouring of nationalism would not go unnoticed. Stalin, in a message to Kaganovich in eleventh August 1932 said If we dont make an effort now to improve the situation in Ukraine we may fall away Ukraine, suggesting that he saw a danger that the growing nationalism would lead to a rise in counter-revolutionaries.30This rise in nationalism provides compelling evidence to suggest that Stalin did indeed have motivation to enact a policy of genocide against the Ukrainian populace. The policies of indigenization that had dominated the peasantry for the last few years largely went hand-in-hand with Lenins natural Economic Policy, and together were designed to keep the peasantrys nationalist aspirations placated in order to satisfy Russias economic needs.31With Stalins outlet as the victor in the succession struggle however, came a rad ical reversal of policies. Stalin had in 1928 done away with the New Economic Policy, and thus it would not have been a great step for him to do away with the indigenization policies. One of the key objectives of this, as put forth by Mace, was economic and social variety designed to destroy native society and substitute a social system susceptible of control by Moscow.32Further evidence comes from the fact that the time of the famine coincided with non-Russian national self-assertion being denominate as bourgeois nationalism, and suppressed.33As such, the motivation for Stalin to want to enact a policy of enforced starvation against the Ukrainian populace is clear to see. The threat that Nationalism presented was not lost on Stalin, and his need to gain control over all aspects of the peasantry certainly suggests that an act of genocide intended to enforce obedience and chew up the intelligentsia would not be beyond Stalin. As Ellman puts itThere would be nothing surprising or o ut of character about Stalins use of starvation. Stalin explicitly soild that he was engaged in a war with the peasantryand in a war one aims to kill or otherwise overcome ones enemies.34At the same time, Leninism, and by extension Stalinism, viewed the peasantry with distaste, seeing them as petty property owners.35Ukraine had for a long time been viewed as the breadbasket of Europe, a name earned due to its rich soil and largely peasant population.36These two factors combine to form a plausible explanation for why Stalin would instigate starvation in Ukraine.Policies EnactedNext this essay shall consider Stalins actions. Arguments for the case of genocide typically cite two key points. First, the decision to continue exporting and seizing grain even in the midst of widespread starvation, and import, preventing the movement of peasantry out of affected areas. Another major point to consider is the deportation of peasants, even during the period of famine.Many historians make the case that actual productivity during the period was not overly low. One figure cited was an overall take fall of 9%,37which although substantial, was not enough to directly cause the deaths of millions of people. So then, what was the cause? Many point to the aggressive procurement policies that were put into place at the time. In 1932, just when it was beginning to become clear that Ukraine was facing mass starvation, Stalin began to implement policies that greatly affected the Ukrainian people.Despite falling labor, Stalins top assistants inform that Ukraines quotas for bread grain would remain unchanged from the previous year.38Naturally, the harvest was unable to meet the production quotas, but Ukrainian appeals for an end to the grain seizures were to no avail, and throughout the fall of 1932, bread was seized from farmers, and farms that met their quotas were given supplementary quotas to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.39Stalin even ordered the seizure of even the seed th at had been put aside for spring planting.40 death chair Mikhail Kalinin went so far as to claim that only degraded disintegrating classes can produce such misanthropical elements in reference to the Ukrainian Politburos pleas for contributions to the starving.41Another major piece of evidence pointing to the possible intent of the politburo to commit an act of genocide is that of the mass deportation plans. In 1933, plans were drafted for the deportation of 2 million Kulaks.42There is dwarfish doubt that such massive deportations would have severely impacted Ukraines ability to continue producing the substantial amounts of grain that were required of it. However, to suggest that the planned deportation of the Ukrainian peasantry was intended to induce widespread starvation would be a fallacy. Indeed, by 1933, the roots of famine had already taken hold.43Instead, it is likely that the deportations were instead a resolution to what Stalin saw as class enemies and idlers44who were attempting to sabotage the Soviet rule by inducing grain shortages.45The eject PictureBy looking at the evidence shown, and also taking into account the strengths as well as limitations of the various historical arguments concerning the nature of the Holodomor, we can argue that although the initial aim of the collectivization policy was not to starve the peasantry,46Stalin did make use of the famine in order to achieve his other objectives.47There exists significant scholarship that attests to the unforeseen and undesired48nature of the famines of 1931 and 1932. Graziosi argues that Stalin, at a certain moment mulish to use hunger to break the peasants opposition to collectivisation, and that even when he did not initiate something willfully, was always very quick to take advantage, of spontaneous events, drawing parallels to the Kirov assassination.49So then, if the introduction of collectivized farming was not to unholy for the deaths, what was? There are several key factors i nvolved Firstly, the two successive bad harvests of 1931 and 1932 secondly, the politburos general ignorance of agricultural practices, leading to the disastrous implementation of agricultural policy. Thirdly, Stalins desire to punish the peasants for what he perceived as their counter-revolutionary struggle, and finally, Stalins plausible intention to make use of the famine as a cost-effective means of decimating and exerting ultimate control over the peasantry.Thus it can be seen that this argument takes into account two stages, the first addressing the roots of the famine, and the second dealing with the reaction of the Soviet leadership to the situation.In contrast to the view that the harvests of 1931 and 1932 were more than sufficient to pabulum to population, it is arguable that the harvests were so poor that famine eventually became an inevitable outcome. In 1932, the Soviet leadership admitted that there had been crop failure in parts of the Volga Basin and Asiatic Russia ,50and the harvest was sufficiently bad that there were insufficient stocks to cover urban and rural food supplies, seed and export.51The need for grain led to withdrawals from the state stockpiles Nepfond and Mobfond, which started out with 2 million tons in January 1932, and was left with only 0.641 million tons by July.52In order to fully understand the impact of the crop failures, the administrative policy of the time must be studied. First and foremost, one must remember that the Soviet leadership, to a substantial extent, knew very little of agricultural policy making.53This led to the implementation of practices that undoubtedly exacerbated the problem of the already poor harvests. One vital example is that of the methods by which the Soviet leadership arrived at their numerical data. The regimes calculation of grain harvests was based not on actual production values54instead, a statistical method known as biologic yield was used to calculate a pre-harvest estimate of yield, which was then taken as the actual production value.55The failure to use properly gathered statistics led to many gross miscalculations that placed enormous strain on the production process. For instance, the grain utilization plan for 1932/1933 at a time when Ukraine was already on the verge of mass starvation,56saw a planned reduction in grain export by 3 million tons. However, grain collection fell by 4 million tons, leaving a net fall in grain stocks of 1 million tons.57It can thus be seen that the extent to which the harvests of 1931-33 were in decline was arguably lost on the Soviet leadership. Efforts were made to adjust grain procurement quotas to match the fall in production, with the Politburo seen to have at least attempted to reduce quotas in reply to the falling harvests.58However, the Politburo at the same time planned to in fact increase the total state stockpile of grain from 1.36 million tons in July 1932 to 2.867 million tons in July 1933,59a response to the ala rming fall in the Nepfond and Mobfond stockpiles in July 1932. These counter-intuitive and contradictory policies seem to point towards the fact that the Politburo as an agricultural policy-making body was unable to properly grasp both the extent of the growing famine (caused by unfavourable weather), as well as the impact of their actions, which they implemented over-zealously and with over-optimism about the effects (which further strive the amount of harvest left for the rural populace).However, the end of 1932 began to see a shift in policy that can be deemed substantial enough to suggest that Stalin had begun to use the opportunity that the famine presented as a means to advance his own ulterior motives. There exists significant evidence to suggest that Stalin had begun to see the famine as a means by which he would exact revenge on the peasantry, as well as force their subservience through fear. Stalin, in a correspondence with Sholokhov, saidThe esteemed grain growers of you r region (and not only your region) carried out a sit- down strike (sabotage) and would not have minded(p) leaving the workers and the Red Army without bread. The fact that the sabotage was quiet and apparently harmless (bloodless) does not warp the fact that the esteemed grain growers were basically waging a quiet war against Soviet power. A war by starvation (voina na izmor), dear com. Sholokhov60Along the same lines, Stalin condemned members of the peasantry as class enemies and idlers, and felt that they were the engineers of the famine. As a primary source, it is extremely valuable as it shows how Stalin believed that the famines were the direct result of an active plot to pervert the Soviet way, which explains why he felt the need to finish off the Kulaks, who had been beaten but were still very much involved in the perceived class struggle.61However, as the correspondence was written with the purpose of pushing the blame of the starvation away from the Politburos agricultu ral policy and towards the peasants, it is limited as the situation exposit by Stalin may have been subject to exaggerations and thus, not fully representative of historical events.Still, this perceived need to take revenge on the peasants for their counter-revolutionary struggle went hand in hand with Stalins other motives, namely, the liquidation of the kulak as a class, and to render the peasantry ultimately subservient to the will of Stalin.At the beginning of 1933, plans were drawn up for the mass deportation of Ukrainian peasantry. At first 3 million, then reduced to 2 million people, with the destinations being Kazakhstan and West Siberia. However, the estimated cost of such a massive project was put at 1.4 billion roubles, a substantial sum that the Politburo was unwilling to fork out.62It was around this time that Stalin began to see the mass starvat