hollow de moore can be literally

translated to death by hunger it's a

horrifying fate that between 7 and 10

million people suffered in ukraine

between 1932 and 1933 thanks to the

soviet union's harsh grain quotas and

joseph stalin's underlying desire to

totally subdue the ukrainian population

in recent years with further evaluation

of joseph stalin's methods in ukraine

that led to this mass famine historians

have been forced to reconsider and

reassess what happened between 1932 and

1933 with many now renaming the

holodomor as nothing shorter than

genocide

before joining the soviet union in 1922

ukraine was its own independent thriving

nation this was in no small part due to

their flourishing agriculture with lands

full of fertile soil ripe for farming

the crops produced in ukraine became so

well known that after joining it became

known as the soviet union's breadbasket

joseph stalin head of the new soviet

union wanted to ensure he had a ukraine

under his complete control and so he

introduced a five-year plan in 1928 part

of which included what was called the

collectivization of agriculture that was

meant to meet the needs of the rapidly

expanding urban population using this

method all individual peasant farms

would be replaced by collective ones

effectively destroying the class of

kulak peasant farmers with greater land

or property and replacing individual

farms with large state-run ones instead

that stalin could more easily control

stalin also increased his grain quota

year-on-year to unsustainable figures

much to the dismay of the peasant

farmers

stalin's methods were unpopular and many

peasant farmers revolted against

collectivization particularly in the

class of the coolacks what started as

peaceful protests became violent as the

farmers went so far as to even kill

their own animals and burn their crops

in response to stalin's measures in

response stalin seized the opportunity

to completely remove himself of the

kulak peasant class and so he exiled

imprisoned and executed hundreds of

thousands to millions and cut off

rations kulaks were sent to exile

settlements in kazakhstan and siberia

where many died along the way some were

sent to forced labor camps those who

didn't meet their grain quotas were

fined five times more and had their

property confiscated shortly thereafter

by spring 1932 ukraine simply could not

keep up with demand as a whole the

country produced 4.3 million tons of

grain a big shortfall from the previous

year's 7.2 million tonnes with the

removal of the kulaks increased grain

quotas and rampant state-sanctioned

murder of the ukrainian people the

harvest that year was unsurprisingly

poor in urban areas rations were cut

further and further cutting off aid

workers may send their family in the

countryside till eventually they could

barely feed themselves as conditions

worsened in city centres the soviet

government began to effectively cut off

travel and information links from the

city to the country

they could not as easily hide the truth

of what was happening in urban areas as

rural though ukraine was starving the

two worst affected areas were kiev and

venezia but stalin and the government

blamed the famine on the peasants

turning citizens against each other in

towns they told workers that the farmers

were deliberately withholding grain

whilst they starved with thousands dying

daily across the country

some historians argue this is precisely

what stalin wanted a weakened or even

completely wiped out ukraine as time

went on and the crisis worsened he

employed harsher and harsher

restrictions on the country under false

pretenses that only added to the pain of

the famine he had created

in december 1932 the government

introduced an internal passport system

that prevented peasants from leaving the

countryside entirely with stalin

claiming it was to prevent people

leaving the country for nefarious

anti-soviet reasons if they did try to

escape they could find themselves fined

put in labor camps arrested or even

executed

people died in the streets and in their

fields survivors tell stories of bloated

dead bodies and a desperation for food

that meant many had to resort to methods

they never would have dreamed of to

survive

one of the most prominent of these was

cannibalism when food became completely

unobtainable and people could see

nowhere else to turn to survive many

resorted to cannibalism eating the

corpses of their fellow starved it

became such a fact of life during this

desperate year that posters were printed

in an attempt to discourage it as one

woman wrote to her friend in june 1933

the good people died first those who

refused to steal or to prostitute

themselves died those who gave food to

others died those who refused to eat

corpses died those who refused to kill

their fellow man died parents who

resisted cannibalism died before their

children did

continued raids of farms by the

government stole what little grain

remained and day by day moore died

the soviet government and stalin

repeatedly tried to hide the truth of

what was occurring in ukraine and indeed

across other areas of the soviet union

as caused by stalin's policies they

threatened reporters and denied entry to

the country and in the soviet union any

mention or discussion of the famine was

banned entirely it is only thanks to a

few reporters that we have the knowledge

we have on just how many people suffered

under stalin's attempt to obtain total

control

one such individual was gareth jones a

welsh journalist who traveled to the

soviet union for a third time in 1933

after previously writing anonymous

articles in 1930 and 1931 on the country

his piece in 1931 in particular incited

the soviet union's anger as it was about

the then burgeoning ukraine famine in

1933 when he returned gareth jones

successfully sneaked his way into

ukraine he kept diaries of what he

witnessed and when he returned to the uk

his press release was met by disbelief

and horror everywhere was the cry there

is no bread we are dying in the train a

communist denied to me that there was a

famine we are waiting for death was my

welcome but see we still have our cattle

fodder go farther south there they have

nothing many houses are empty of people

and already dead

two years later in 1935 gareth jones was

murdered on assignment in china and

japan although unconfirmed it has long

been suspected that his murderers were

the nkvd the old kgb of the soviet union

whether stalin foresaw or planned the

mass murder of approximately 7 to 11

million people is up for debate but he

certainly went into ukraine with one

intention to beat or starve it into

submission

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