Holodomor
In 1924, the great Soviet revolutionary and leader Vladimir Lenin passed away, and Joseph Stalin took his place as the head of the Soviet Union. Stalin was determined to expedite the process of making the Soviet Union a true communist society. He and advisors went over several different plans to make this happen, eventually deciding to adopt what would become known as the First Five Year Plan. The aim of the First Five Year Plan was to collective nearly all agriculture and to improve upon the infrastructure of Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. While these goals were mostly accomplished, they were met at great cost to the peasant class, especially in Ukraine, where nearly all members of the kulak class were deported or executed, leading up to one final crushing blow in the winter of 1932-33: a man-made famine (known in Ukraine as Holodomor, “extermination by hunger”) that was designed to crush all spirit of rebellion and make the peasants know that collectivization was the only way of survival. The effects of this brutality had long-lasting ramifications on Ukrainian-Russian relations, which continue even today.
The Ukrainian members of the kulak class proved to be stubborn at the start of the First Five Year Plan, as they did not wish to collectivize their farms. This resistance did not sit well with Stalin, who was in a hurry to collectivize agriculture because he saw it as the fast pass for the Soviet Union to modernize and grow their economy. He initiated a “class war” on the resisting kulaks, declaring them to be enemies of the state and beginning to deport and even kill them. By the winter of 1932, Stalin was determined to finally crush all Ukrainian resistance to collectivization. The Soviets put food production on the quotas that were impossible to meet, and confiscated all their grain. The Ukrainians began to starve to death, and thousands died while the Soviet government refused to send or accept relief and continued to withhold food. By 1934, around four million deaths had been caused as a result of the high grain quotas and mass food exportation (Holodomorct.org).
Many Ukrainians who survived the Holodomor were reluctant to speak about it in any way, especially during the years that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. However, some artists did make works inspired by the famine. Volodymyr Kutkin was an artist who spent time in the gulags, and then when he was returned home he made many sketches inspired by the pain of the Holodomor. The bleakness of the medium illustrates the horror and despair felt by the Ukrainian people during this time of starvation (Wumag.kiev.ua).
In addition to inspiring some artists, the Holodomor left a lasting negative impression on Ukrainian-Russian relations. Most Ukrainians insist that the Holodomor was genocide, while the Russian government has always said that it was an unfortunate but unavoidable famine, which afflicted many other regions of the Soviet Union as well. This obviously creates a tension in the Russia-Ukraine relationship (BBC).
The Holodomor is an example of how collectivization shaped the peasant culture by basically eradicating an entire class. While Stalin’s plan to modernize Russia and bring it into communism worked, it came at such great cost to human life that it can hardly be viewed as a success. It had cultural ramifications that are still being felt today.
Sources: http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25058256
October 5, 2015 @ 8:26 pm
Thanks for writing about this very important issue. Even if the Holodomor wasn’t genocidal in intent, it’s still agonizing to think of how calculated the famine was, and how devastating its consequences were.
October 5, 2015 @ 8:43 pm
Wow, the picture you included is very descriptive of the devastating nature of the Holodomor’s consequences. It’s colors are very gloomy, and it gives off a mood of loneliness and loss. Great job tying collectivization to this cultural transformation.
October 5, 2015 @ 9:32 pm
The Holodomor is definitely a great tragedy and seems to be overlooked quite frequently. I think the resistance technique of killing your own animals to avoid collectivization didn’t help them out in the long run though.
October 5, 2015 @ 9:46 pm
Holodomor definitely does not get its fair share of coverage in history books considering the size of the tragedy. There is almost always Russian and Ukrainian tension, not always comparable to today, but still under the surface. This event has definitely stuck in the minds of Ukrainians who’s family members had to deal with its consequences. Unfortunately, no reparations were ever paid, unlike many other large scale tragedies.
October 6, 2015 @ 1:35 am
I knew there was a great famine in Ukraine, but I didn’t know the extent to which the Russian government was to blame. This is definitely a very informative piece, and the picture you chose to illustrate it was great. I think it’s really interesting that the Soviet government refused aid, and it really speaks to what the government was like at the time.
October 6, 2015 @ 2:31 am
I never knew this happened, this really explains a lot behind Russian-Ukrainian relations. I wonder what other tragedies like this happened that the Soviet government covered up? It might explain alot of Russia’s current foreign relations.
October 13, 2015 @ 1:31 am
I think it’s interesting to see which soviet countries experienced things like this during their time in the USSR, and which didn’t. Typically that has a large bearing on if the modern day country is friendly with Russia, even if there are cultural and language similarities. The Soviet Union didn’t make a lot of friends on the march to communism, and events like this are the reason why.