Every November Ukrainians around the world pay homage to the millions of victims of the 1932-1933 Holodomor, a man-made genocidal famine that took place in Ukraine, imposed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and his cronies. Eight decades later, Ukraine is again facing a Kremlin foe that is employing many of the same tactics used in Ukraine in the 1930s.
As things stand, Ukraine is on the brink of all-out warfare with the Russian Federation. Up until this point, however, the war raging in Ukraine’s east has been an unofficial conflict with an unidentified foe. Dubbed an “anti-terrorist operation,” President Poroshenko and other top authorities had refrained from directly accusing Russia of invading and launching attacks on Ukrainian sovereign territory.
The relatively slow but continuous nature of the invasion has also meant that it has largely become a back story in worldwide media coverage. As the Lithuanian ambassador to the UN so poignantly stated, “An undeclared war is being waged by Russia against Ukraine. By now, barely making the world’s headlines because it is slow and creeping – a few more meters of captured land, a few more explosions, a few more Russian tanks, a few more dead at a time.”
Over eight decades ago, another kind of undeclared war was being waged against the Ukrainian people. In a letter dated 11 August 1932, Stalin wrote to Lazar Kaganovich, a top Soviet official, “If we do not start rectifying the situation in Ukraine now, we may lose Ukraine.” Stalin was of course referring to the multiple peasant revolts which had taken place in Ukraine beginning in 1918 and continuing into the 1930s. With his failing collectivization policy he feared Ukrainians, a people that had proven difficult to subdue, would once again revolt.
The result was the implementation of a four step genocidal policy. After the intelligentsia and clergy had been executed en masse, Stalin targeted the Ukrainian peasant farmers by confiscating all food and livestock. With the sealing of Ukraine’s borders, millions of Ukrainians slowly and painfully starved to death. One after another, towns and villages throughout what is today central and eastern Ukraine fell silent. The final step in Stalin’s genocide against the Ukrainian nation was resettling those towns and villages with ethnic Russians.
Then, as today, the Kremlin preferred a smoke and mirrors approach when it came to identifying the perpetrator of these crimes. According to official party lines, the disastrous collectivization policy in Ukraine - and the ensuing (man-made) famine - was the fault of rich kulak farmers who were hoarding produce. It was also the fault of “bourgeois nationalists” who were sabotaging the collectivization effort, as well as treacherous local agronomists and party workers who simply were not carrying out their tasks properly.
But of course, the famine was not the fault of “dear father Stalin,” who “cared for the people so deeply.” Just as today “Russia has not sent tanks, troops, and weaponry into Ukraine.” And as for Putin, he “really is so very concerned about the ethnic Russians there” who have lived in peace ever since Ukraine’s independence in 1991.
Both then and today, the Kremlin is seeking to punish Ukrainians for daring to escape its control. To quote Lithuania’s ambassador speaking at a November 12 emergency UN Security Council meeting, “The conflict in Ukraine is not an internal affair. […] It is Russia’s war against Ukraine for daring to choose a different – European – path.”
Eighty one years ago upwards of seven million innocent Ukrainians were starved to death – a move aimed at punishing a nation that sought to overthrow an oppressive Soviet regime. Today, Russia’s undeclared war on Ukraine has claimed well over 4,000 lives, and upwards of five million people live in areas affected by the violence. In the twenty first century Ukrainians are once again being forced to pay the price for refusing to be subservient to Russian ambitions. But perhaps this time the world will act and not stand by silently.
