Was the Holodomor Genocide?

[Shadow]

As said, Stalin hated everyone equally. Not a genocide.

Now answerr my questions if you please.

[Muzh]

As said, Stalin hated everyone equally. Not a genocide.

Now answerr my questions if you please.

That's your opinion, of course.

[Ranetka]

The Holodomor was not merely the collectivization of the peasantry.  At the same time, their churches were destroyed, Ukrainian language was prohibited, the entire Ukrainian intelligentsia was sent to gulags, and Russians were moved, en masse, on Ukrainian lands.  This is why, today, Russian is still the dominant language of Eastern Ukraine.

The regions of Russia (Siberia, Southern Russia) in which collectivization and mass starvation were carried out were predominantly populated by ethnic Ukrainians.  The same form of genocide was carried out against Kazaks and in Central Asia.  Similar genocides were carried out, in a different way, against Bashkirs.  They were deported, en masse, to Siberia, where most of them perished.  In 1941, Germans were next on the list, though they had also suffered pogroms during WWI and in the 1920's.  The Don Cossacks were wiped out by Trotsky in the 1920's as well.

Firstly, the reason that Russian language is dominate in eastern ukraine is that these areas are historically populated by russian people and then were "given" to Ukrainian SSR when USSR was  a single country.


Secondly bashkirs were never deported to Siberia by Stalin, you are confused. Bashkirs however suffered forceful baptizing and yes forecful relocation  to Siberia during Russian Empire but that was way before ~Soviet Revolution.

[Ranetka]

For example Sevastopol or the whole Crimea where Carmissile is now had never been Ukrainian. Became a part of Ukrainian SSR thanks to Khrutshev - purely administrative/political divide at the time.

[Ranetka]

My Uncle who is 70 this year is from Rostov Don area, I even have cossack relatives, his (Russian) village suffered just the same as nearby cossacks, half of his siblings died then.

[ML]

This means that either Stalin committed genocide on all of the Soviet Union, or he did not commit genocide at all.

Impossible, given the author's definition:  "The most devastating aspect of the genocide for Lemkin was not the death of individuals, but the potential loss of a cohesive group who shared a common belief in their unity through language, customs, art, or even a sense of shared history."

[Shadow]

Are you answering my questions ?

[Ranetka]

Impossible, given the author's definition:  "The most devastating aspect of the genocide for Lemkin was not the death of individuals, but the potential loss of a cohesive group who shared a common belief in their unity through language, customs, art, or even a sense of shared history."

Russians and Ukrainian has shared history, language so similar that I watch Ukrainian TV programs without need for translation, common customs, religion (with Eastern Ukraine)....so how is dividing and separating helps either Russians or Ukrainians?

[ML]

Are you answering my questions ?

Your posted sign in your first response said - - - Off Topic.

So start a new thread.

[ML]

Russians and Ukrainian has shared history, language so similar that I watch Ukrainian TV programs without need for translation, common customs, religion (with Eastern Ukraine)....so how is dividing and separating helps either Russians or Ukrainians?

I fully admit that I am not an expert on this subject.  I just posted the summary and reference URL as a general service to the other readers here.

[Shadow]

Your posted sign in your first response said - - - Off Topic.

So start a new thread.

Jelly ?

[Ranetka]

I fully admit that I am not an expert on this subject.  I just posted the summary and reference URL as a general service to the other readers here.

Thing is historians still disagree. I am no expert either and already been corrected by PM . PM author said in (at least some?) Holodomor areas towns were Russian/Jewish, country - Ukrainian. Plus PM author quoted some facts about yes apparent genocide which I was not aware off. Again to form opinion you need to read at least more than one source and better yet from different perspective.




See I am not sure and I do not know was Holodomor genocie or not. As I said historian disagree. You only read English so you are less likely to form totally unbiased opinion as history is a biased science.


Regardless of Holodomor which was in 30s to extrapolate and say that there was Genocide lasting up to Gorbachev is absolutely not true. Why this opinion exists and is cultivated is a subject for discussion. How interesting is it for a forum of MOB seekers? Likely not much.


I admire your interest in Soviet history, it's seems you often have strong opinions which are not always based on knowledge.

[Vasilisa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%931933

"The Soviet famine of 1932–1933 affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, leading to the deaths of millions in those areas and severe food insecurity throughout the USSR. These areas included Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region and Kazakhstan,[1] the South Urals, and West Siberia.[2][3] The subset of the famine within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic is called Holodomor or "hungry mass-death."

"

Is there any particular reason why we are discussing only the Ukrainian part of it?

[Vasilisa]

From a knowledgeable (not me) source:  The Holodomor was not merely the collectivization of the peasantry.  At the same time, their churches were destroyed, Ukrainian language was prohibited, the entire Ukrainian intelligentsia was sent to gulags, and Russians were moved, en masse, on Ukrainian lands.  This is why, today, Russian is still the dominant language of Eastern Ukraine.

ML, you are so out of the point here. I have no idea what you are trying to say except how bad Russia is which makes me curious what makes you being here.
Stalin's original surname was Dzhugashvili and he was from Georgia.
Genocide was spread a lot wider than you think. Russian intelligentsia as well as intelligentsia of any other nationalities was sent to GULAG as well as Ukrainian intelligentsia.

And it was Stalin's time only. For comparison, when I was a kid any Soviet Republic including autonomic republic had national schools where kids were taught in their native language, in many villages people didn't speak Russian at all and nobody sent them to GULAG for that, moreover , the Soviet government made books in their native languages and sent them to those villages.
In each republic both local kids were taught their native language as well as the russian kids living there, school forms were divided into 2 groups for those lessons: Russian kids who didn't speak the national republic's language well had the beginners' lessons and the kids whose parents spoke their national language at home were having intermediate classes.
Any Soviet passport of the Soviet republic was both in the native language of the region and Russian language.

If you have no idea what you are talking about don't start topics before you learn the topic well enough.

[Vasilisa]

Here is something for non-believers like you are: Soviet passport/ Kazakhstan's version issued July, 31, 1980.

[Ranetka]

Here is something for non-believers like you are: Soviet passport/ Kazakhstan's version issued July, 31, 1980.

Vasilisa, how many posters can read Russian here?    The ones who do probably know it anyway :-)


And I have to ask who is this lucky lady 101 y. o.? Is it a relative of yours?

[Vasilisa]

Vasilisa, how many posters can read Russian here?    The ones who do probably know it anyway :-)


And I have to ask who is this lucky lady 101 y. o.? Is it a relative of yours?

I have no idea who this lady is, who cares anyway, I was trying to find a sample of the soviet passport duplicated into the language of the region. I've seen them before in other languages, too.And I am sorry, they didn't make the English translation for ML.

Here is more for ML, thouth who said that the languages other than Russian were prohibited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez
"Campaign for non-Russian speakersIn non-Russian speaking areas of the Soviet population, Narkompros promoted the policy of Korenizatsiya (literally "putting down the roots") within the separate autonomous regions and republics to the extent that teaching Russian was considered a counter-revolutionary crime.[1] For the separate nationalities, the ABCD Hierarchy, a system which ranked the 120 languages of the Soviet Union according their communicable significance, charted out a specific plan for each nationality's achievement of literacy. In 1924 textbooks were printed in only 25 language of the Soviet Union. However, by 1934 they were printed in 104 languages."

[Daveman]

ML, you are so out of the point here. I have no idea what you are trying to say except how bad Russia is which makes me curious what makes you being here.

Vasilisa, the point is that genocide does not necessarily equate to the murder of a population, but rather the squashing of their individual traits which make them unique, separate, different, however you wish to state it.


The topic has little to do with "how bad Russia is" but rather a different look at "genocide" at is may or may not relate to the Holodomor in Ukraine.


Take a look at that original post again with this in mind and I think it will make a little more sense.

[Vasilisa]

Vasilisa, the point is that genocide does not necessarily equate to the murder of a population, but rather the squashing of their individual traits which make them unique, separate, different, however you wish to state it.


The topic has little to do with "how bad Russia is" but rather a different look at "genocide" at is may or may not relate to the Holodomor in Ukraine.


Take a look at that original post again with this in mind and I think it will make a little more sense.

Dave, I read the original post, I still have no idea why we have to discuss in this way.
Yes, Genocide was a part of our history, but it affected people of different nationalities. Many other nations had it, too. How about Incas, American Indians, slavery in the US and one-language policy.
As for post-Stalin time I have to say that the Ukrainians had a lot of opportunities for learning and speaking their native language. Another things, as it has already been mentioned is that the Eastern part of Ukraine had more Russians than Ukrainians so people don't speak it that well and often as they do in the Western part. .

[Gator]

Famine in the Soviet Union was nothing new.  In 1921 following years of unrest (First World War, Revolution and Civil War), a severe drought hit the Volga-Ural area, particularly the Samara region.  The Bolsheviks confiscated the grain from farms.    As a result 5 million people died, the largest death count since the Black Plague.   

Besides starvation, disease claimed many lives, particularly typhus.  Even the seed grain had been consumed, so the next year would have been worse except for international relief efforts.
 
This is an excellent albeit graphic PBS report about the famine and the American relief effort.  There are many interesting film clips of the time.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1853678422
 
The video discusses the political intrigue surrounding the American relief effort, both in the US and the USSR.  The gratitude of the Bashkirs is also covered.
 
Supposedly Hoover had pushed for the relief effort as a way to overthrow the Bolsheviks.  However, it is commented that the relief effort did much to preserve the Soviet policies.
 
According to Wiki, "The famine was an excuse to begin the 1922 confiscation of Russian Orthodox Church property in Russia.....churches were stripped to provide for the relief of the famine victims, after a refusal by Patriarch Tikhon to sell off church valuables to raise needed funds to feed famine victims.[source needed] It has, however, been argued by some historians, including Richard Pipes, that the famine was only used as an excuse for the Bolshevik leadership to go after the Orthodox Church, which held significant sway over much of the peasant populace.^"
 
Is this genocide?  Or just a severe drought exacerbated by failure of undemocratic government to provide for its citizens plus another severe initiative by Stalin (who was the General Secretary of the Communist Central Committee in 1922) to wrest more central control over a highly diverse nation?
 

[Daveman]

The same principle can be applied to USA's Manifest Destiny policy as experienced by the Native American Nations, or currently with Israel's carbon copy illegal settlements and occupation of the "Palestinian Land".


It's just a discussion, not an indictment. I'd bet that most nations have such stains on their history.




Edit: sorry, I wound up in the wrong territory..

[Ranetka]

 
Is this genocide?  Or just a severe drought exacerbated by failure of undemocratic government to provide for its citizens plus another severe initiative by Stalin (who was the General Secretary of the Communist Central Committee in 1922) to wrest more central control over a highly diverse nation?

Severe drought
plus need to exercise control over hostile  part of population
plus attempt to get as much grain as planned (as people responsible for grain supply had their own lives as well as careers at stake ) and plans did not take drought into account
plus prioritizing towns and military over village population in limited resources
plus it was years straight after collectivization and many people killed or sold their livestock including horses prior to collectivization (don't blame them for that) .

[Ranetka]

 
Is this genocide?  Or just a severe drought exacerbated by failure of undemocratic government to provide for its citizens plus another severe initiative by Stalin (who was the General Secretary of the Communist Central Committee in 1922) to wrest more central control over a highly diverse nation?

Governments do not provide, they distribute. It was @@@@ all to distribute and the country needed way to much to rebuild economy, military, industry. So villages were sacrificed. If grain were not taken from villages by centralized forces it would have been taken by disorganized groups of city people. Population had plenty of guns and was actively using it just a few years back. So more civil war.


This is not to say the famine was not used to control hostile population.


And by the way famine and hanger was not only regular in the early years of Soviet Russia, it happened frequently in Russian Empire too on the same scale.  Particularly in Volga region.

[Slumba]

I have a more conspiratorial view.  This kind of coordinated action doesn't happen "by accident"...

To have control over people, you need to get rid of or minimize any religion not controlled by the State/Government; and, you need to exercise control over the daily life of the people.

USSR - attack the church any way they can, pull it down, scare the priests

USSR - lock up the grain in warehouses, makes it easier to starve them out, collectivise the farmers, who are always difficult to govern if they have their own land - put them into kolkhozes, collective farms, or , ship them to Siberia or Kazakhstan where they have to start over.

USA--99.99% of churches are controlled by the use of 501c3 taxation requirements - if a church endorses a candidate directly (as they did in the days before Lyndon Johnson, who pushed for 501c3 to regulate churches), they lose their tax exemption and have to pay taxes on everything.  They can't speak out on many other parts of politics either.

USA--some 46 million people in USA are dependent on "food stamps" meaning the govt gives you a card that looks like a credit card and you use that to buy food with.

Yes, I see parallels between USSR then and USA now...

[Boethius]

Firstly, the reason that Russian language is dominate in eastern ukraine is that these areas are historically populated by russian people and then were "given" to Ukrainian SSR when USSR was  a single country.

That is inaccurate, Ranetka.  The lands of Eastern Ukraine, other than the Crimea (technically, Southern Ukraine) were populated by peasants, most of whom spoke what is now known as "Ukrainian".  Cities were predominantly Russian speaking.

Secondly bashkirs were never deported to Siberia by Stalin, you are confused. Bashkirs however suffered forceful baptizing and yes forecful relocation  to Siberia during Russian Empire but that was way before ~Soviet Revolution.

Bashkirs were deported during forced collectivization.  James Olson has written about this.
 
With respect to the issue of drought raised, the years of the Holodomor were not drought years.  Crops were larger than in the preceding four years.
 
The Holodomor had several objectives.  The first was to forcibly collectivize peasants.    But, another was to stop "Ukrainization".  In 1923, the Bolsheviks, fearful of losing the Tsarist Empire, developed not only NEP, but policies of national identity which encouraged nationalism in the "colonies", known as "korenizatsiia", or "indigenization".

In Ukraine, korenizatsiia resulted in expanded language study, a blossoming of intellectual life in all spheres, and the development of national consciousness.  The cultural advances in Ukraine in this time are the most interesting in its history.  However, those advances were a threat to the Revolution, and nationalism, i.e., national identity had to be stopped.  That is the part of the Holodomor which Ukrainians view as "genocide".  The intent was to destroy Ukrainians and turn them into a "new man", free of the past and to stop the development of a Ukrainian national identity, which could result in an independent Ukrainian state.  So, in Ukraine, the Holodomor is the end result of a period known as "rozstrilian vidrodzhennia", or "executed rebirth", because this brief flowering of intellectual, political, and cultural life was suddenly, and violently, "executed".  The areas of Russia (Kuban and the Don) most affected by the famine were, at that time, also predominantly populated by Ukrainians.
 
Finally, confiscated grain was used to trade for machinery required for industrialization.
 
I have met many Ukrainians who were children and survived the Holodomor.  From their stories, it is clear that the intent was to starve whole villages to death.