WEBVTT - Holodomor 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.279 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.720 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.880 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Before we 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.479 start today's episode, today's topic is a serious one, but 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.159 today is also our last chance to let everybody know 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.360 that we have a live streaming event coming up on 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:32.680 March So if you're listening to this episode on the 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.520 day that we released it, that's tomorrow. It's happening very soon. 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.200 That's going to be at eight p m Eastern, five 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.040 pm Pacific. Several folks, when we have posted about this 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.000 on social media have said things like that's one am 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.440 my time, so I can't come. Well, I have good news, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.640 which is that the stream is available for seventy two 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.920 hours after the show, So if you are in sometimes zone, 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.760 that is very inconvenient for the times that we've just said, 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.560 it's okay. Uh. Normally, when we have a live show, 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.759 that live show becomes an episode of the podcast. That's 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.280 not going to be the case this time. Uh. This 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.880 is a little bit different in terms of the way 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.240 our live shows normally go. Rather than it just being 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.560 us doing something that we could also have done in 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.280 the studio. It's a little more interactive thing, so not 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.440 as conducive to going into our feed with everything else. Yeah. 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.080 So if you want to hear us talk about some 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:34.040 feuds and have some votes with audience interaction, this is 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.520 the thing. But like we said, if you miss out 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.960 on a ticket, you won't get to hear this one. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.200 So looped live dot com that's where you can go 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.760 to buy tickets. We also have the link to the 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.000 ticket page pinned up at the top of our Facebook 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.800 and our Twitter. We are very excited about it again. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:57.040 That's on Thursday, March two, eight pm Eastern, five pm Pacific, 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:02.720 and now onto the act will episode. One topic that 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.160 we have gotten many, many, many requests for over the 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.200 years is the whole Amore. Some folks have even been 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.000 persistent enough to write in and request this topic more 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.840 than one time. The whole of Moore is the name 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.600 that was coined in the nineteen eighties to describe a 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.720 famine that struck Ukraine in the early nineteen thirties. The 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.720 name comes from Ukrainian words that roughly translate to death 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.320 by hunger, and while there were famines and food shortages 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.880 that were taking place in other parts of the Soviet Union. 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:39.280 At the same time, Soviet policies toward Ukraine specifically made 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.760 the situation there a whole lot worse, and they were 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.480 part of an intentional effort that was spearheaded by Joseph 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:52.000 Stalin to destroy Ukrainian culture and identity. This is also 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:56.480 obviously part of the historical context for Russia's invasion of 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.480 Ukraine that started on February of this year. It is 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.640 also really truly horrifying, so listening to it in light 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.120 of those events which are ongoing that may make it 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.600 seem even more horrifying. So take care of yourself while 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.560 you're listening. So to give a little bit of background, 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.440 Russia and Ukraine share a lot of overlapping history, going 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.120 all the way back to the establishment of Kievan russ 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.359 in the late ninth century. Keevan Ross was the first 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:29.320 Eastern Slavic state, and today Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia all 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.000 trace their origins and cultural identity back to it. But 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.720 over the centuries, the nations, peoples, and ethnic groups that 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.880 would form these countries as we know them today they 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.200 went through very different trajectories. What's now Ukraine was repeatedly 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:49.480 divided up and assigned to other nations and empires, including Poland, Lithuania, 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:54.560 and the Austro Hungarian Empire. Aside from its westernmost regions, 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.960 most of Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire in seventee. 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:04.000 Regardless of which nation or empire they were considered to 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.840 be living in, Ukrainians had their own ethnic and cultural identity. 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.520 By the middle of the nineteenth century, most of what's 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.160 now Ukraine had come under Russian control, but by that 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:20.400 point Ukrainian had also evolved as its own standardized language. 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:26.599 Literature written in Ukrainian reflected ukrainians own cultural and ethnic identities. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.320 Imperial Russia eventually started to see this developing sense of 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.080 language and cultural consciousness as a threat, and in the 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.320 late nineteenth century, Russian officials started banning the teaching of 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.440 Ukrainian and removing Ukrainian books from schools. The Russian Imperial 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.520 government was overthrown in a series of revolutions in nineteen seventeen. 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.600 The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin took control, changing their 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.600 name to the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks in nineteen eighteen. 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.760 As all of this was happening, Ukraine established a provisional 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.599 government and declared its independence, and for about the next 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:09.680 four years fought to keep that independence. This involved political, diplomatic, 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.960 and military efforts against other nations and against counter revolutionary 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:18.800 forces within its own borders. This lasted until nineteen two, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.479 when Ukraine became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, part of 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:28.839 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That same year, parts 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.960 of the Soviet Union faced a famine. This famine was 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.640 brought on by the political instability and warfare of the 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.839 previous few years, and it was made worse by a drought. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:44.839 At first, Soviet leaders refused international aid, but eventually a 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:49.360 campaign for famine relief was underway in Soviet Russia. This 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.120 included suspending food taxes, but Ukraine was really facing the 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:58.919 same conditions, especially in its southern regions. Not only was 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.679 Ukraine left out of aid programs and other relief until 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.039 late nineteen twenty two, but it was also expected to 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:11.520 contribute food to Russia, including contributing food from the southern 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:15.320 regions that had been most stricken by the same famine. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:20.000 The Communist Party had also instituted a system of war communism, 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:25.200 which involved nationalizing industries and forcibly requisitioning surplus grain and 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.880 other food. This affected the Soviet Union as a whole, 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.920 but it was particularly disruptive in Ukraine, where about eight 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:37.120 percent of the population were farmers. Growing grain was a 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.920 central part of the Ukrainian economy and identity. Ukraine is 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.600 nicknamed the bread basket of Europe and its flag represents 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.640 a blue sky over a yellow field of wheat. Under 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.120 war communism, Ukraine was no longer able to sell its 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:57.040 surplus grain, and as a consequence, it's economy collapsed. Unrest 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.479 was widespread, and agricultural productivity roped since people didn't want 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.520 to spend their time growing surplus grain that would just 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:10.280 be requisitioned with no compensation. Lenin introduced a new economic 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.480 policy in nineteen twenty one that addressed some of this, 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.800 but there was still a lot of anti Soviet and 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.840 anti communist sentiment. One step that was taken to try 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:25.760 to reverse that sentiment was a policy of indigenization. Russia 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.040 was by far the largest of the Soviet republics, and 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.200 Russians were by far the largest ethnic group, but the 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:37.360 Soviet Union was not at all monolithic, nor were the 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:43.360 Soviet republics that comprised it. This indigenization policy encouraged people 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.680 of different national identities and ethnic groups to really pursue 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.440 and develop their own cultures while still being part of 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.600 the Soviet Union. In Ukraine, this led to a huge 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:01.320 cultural flourishing involving literature, art, music, and language age. Newly 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.560 open schools taught courses in Ukrainian, with Russian treated more 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:10.360 like an elective class. The Ukrainian Autocephalis Orthodox Church became 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.480 independent from the Russian Orthodox Church, and its membership and 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:20.000 clergy both grew rapidly. The idea had been that encouraging 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:24.280 this kind of diversity and national identity would appease various 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.200 ethnic groups and it would increase their support for the 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:33.000 Soviet regime. But Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin, found Ukraine's cultural 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.080 rebirth and it shift away from Russian culture and ideals 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.559 to be threatening. In ninety nine, he started arresting thousands 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:46.760 of Ukrainian scientists, poets, intellectuals and artists, claiming that they 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.599 were part of a secret organization that was plotting against Russia. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.880 The Russian Orthodox Church had been opposed to the Ukrainian 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:58.920 churches independence from the start. It formally denounced the Ukrainian 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.040 Autocephalis or Docks Church as well, and Soviet authorities started 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:07.079 cracking down on it in nineteen twenty six. This involved 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:12.920 destroying churches and their icons, smashing church bells, arresting religious leaders, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.280 and murdyring bishops. In the face of all of this, 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.840 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church abolished itself in nineteen thirty although 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.720 a smaller group of churches held on until nineteen thirty six. 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.960 The Ukrainian Autocephalus Orthodox Church didn't start re establishing itself 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:35.240 in Ukraine until the nineteen eighties. Another big factor leading 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:39.880 into the Holadamore was Stalin's First five Year Plan, which 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.320 was announced in ninety eight. This was a plan to 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.520 modernize and industrialize all of the Soviet Union. In terms 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:52.199 of agriculture, this would involve collectivizing the farms. Small farms 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.240 would become part of bigger collectives that were under state control, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.679 and they would sell their crops at prices that were 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.640 set by the state. The idea was that this would 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.880 make farms more efficient, and that efficiency would allow the 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.320 Soviet Union to feed a larger population as it industrialized, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.000 and to export more crops to bring in more revenue 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.040 to then buy the equipment and material that was needed 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:22.360 for that industrialization. Of course, farmers resisted this idea, and 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.520 there were thousands of uprisings against collectivization all across the 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:31.280 agricultural areas of the Soviet Union. Many of the poorest 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.760 farmers had received the land they were working in a 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.680 redistribution after the Russian Revolution, and now they were being 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.960 told to give it up. In general, people did not 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.439 want to go from controlling their own livelihoods to essentially 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.200 being employees of state run farms. The prices set by 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.720 the state were often lower than what people had been 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.400 able to sell their surplus for before, so overall the 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.079 farms were very slow to collectivize, leading the Communist Party 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.880 to start a huge push between January and March of 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:07.920 nineteen thirty and this included taxing independent farms so heavily 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.400 that the farmers wound up in debt and that forced 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.600 them to join the collective or go bankrupt. Soviet leadership 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.880 also targeted one particular class of farmers. That was a 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.520 group known as kulaks, which was a term that had 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.079 taken on some derisive connotations. Sometimes these people are described 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.079 as wealthy farmers, but to be clear, they were not 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.160 what most people would think of as wealthy today. The 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.080 Soviet government defined kulak farms as ones that brought in 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.960 an annual income of three hundred roubles per person or 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:46.520 fifteen hundred roubles per family, and hired farm workers are 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.160 owned farm machines. Being able to rent out some of 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.439 the farm property or having another income besides farming also 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:59.240 would fit the definition of kulak, but for comparison, the 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.880 average industrial worker only made about three hundred roubles per year. 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.720 Authorities didn't really stick strictly to this definition, and a 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.200 lot of people that were treated as kulaks had even 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.880 less than that. The Soviet government believed that if there 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:19.280 was going to be an organized uprising against collectivization, it 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.719 was probably going to start with these slightly more affluent peasants, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.240 so it branded them as class enemies, claiming that they 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.920 were exploiting hired workers and taking advantage of their communities. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.480 Authorities pursued a policy of liquidating the kulak class, or 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:40.720 decoulak azation. They arrested about fifty thou people, some of 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:45.880 whom were deported or executed. Authorities also confiscated their property 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.600 and their farm equipment. This was catastrophic in addition to 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.360 the loss of labor and production from these farms. Many 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.680 of these people described as kulaks were the most skilled 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.520 and experienced farmers in the areas they lived and a 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.800 lot of towns and villages. They were also community leaders. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.000 They were the people who really helps to hold the 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.760 community together. So this community resource for knowledge and support 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:16.640 just disappeared. Between the forced collectivization and the de cool 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:21.320 acquization campaign. More than two hundred and eighty thousand peasant 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:26.280 households simply vanished from Ukraine between nineteen thirty and nineteen 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.600 thirty one. And all of this set the stage for 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.400 a famine, and we're going to get into that after 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:44.440 we pause for a sponsor break. After all of the 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.760 factors that we talked about before the break, harvest was 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.679 poor across a lot of the Soviet Union. The collectivization 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.040 and de cool acquization process had been really disruptive, and 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.400 then bad weather made it worse. The collective farms also 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.640 had not been run particularly efficiently, even though the whole 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.240 point was to be more efficient. This was in part 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.640 because that liquidation of the koolat class had involved a 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.680 lot of loss of knowledge and leadership. Soviet leadership also 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.520 set quotas for how much grain each community was expected 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.960 to contribute to the collective, and in many cases those 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.160 quotas were just unattainably high. To even come close to 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.640 meeting them, farming families had to turnover grain that they 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.400 would normally keep for their own food supply. Although these 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.440 quotas existed in all of the Soviet Union's agricultural regions, 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:40.760 their effects were particularly dramatic in Ukraine, which was expected 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.560 to contribute about as much grain and other produce as 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.800 all the rest of the Soviet Union combined. In December 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:53.400 of one, Joseph Stalin's government started placing more and more 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.680 pressure onto these communities to meet their quotas. A lot 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.080 of the enforcement of these regulations was overseen by the 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.400 State Political Directorate, which is abbreviated from Russian as GPU. 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.440 This was kind of a combined intelligence and secret police force. 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.680 In internal memos about this there is an insistence that 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:18.160 the poor harvest and the failure to meet the quotas 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:23.240 was the result of a coordinated program of intentional sabotage 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:27.320 and theft that was meant to undermine the collectivization process 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.240 and ruin the harvest and undermine the Soviet Union as 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:35.560 a whole. So mass uprisings against collectivization, which involved everything 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.880 from work stoppages to destructions of machinery to violent revolts, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:45.280 that was interpreted as a conspiracy against Soviet leadership rather 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.480 than as a response to all of this increasing hardship 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.280 and instability. This is a really destructive cycle in which 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.800 people were arrested, deported to Siberia or sent to a gulag, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.360 and then that would spark further uprisings among the who 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:04.680 had known those folks. Uprisings and unrest continued through the 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.560 nineteen thirty two planting and growing season, with farmers struggling 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.760 to both meet their quotas and just retain enough food 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.920 to live on. In most cases it was flatly impossible 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.520 to do both, or in some cases to do either. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.800 By June of ninety two, Ukrainian leaders were writing to 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.440 Stalin and other Soviet leaders for aid. In August, Stalin 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.600 wrote to his adviser Lazar Kaganovitch, saying that if they 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.000 did not improve the situation in Ukraine, they might lose it. 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.440 Grain quotas were lowered three times in nineteen thirty two, 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.320 but really not enough to address this situation, and the 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.480 quota reductions were also more about trying to keep the 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.840 system of agriculture running, not about a humanitarian impulse. Were 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.680 the people who were doing that. Even with those reductions, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.840 Ukraine was still expected to contribute about of its grain 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.760 to the state. Punishments for failing to meet the reduced 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.760 quotas also became a lot harsher, and the other policies 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.000 that were contributing to the famine, like this continuing push 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.160 for collectivization and the ongoing liquidation of the Kulak class, 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.320 none of that changed. A new decree called the five 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.800 Stocks of Grain Decree went into effect in August of 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.520 ninety two. Under this law, theft of state property was 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.879 punishable by ten years in prison or death, and this 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.840 meant that people who stole food because they were starving 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.080 could be executed for it, no matter how little food 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:41.520 they stole. This applied to everyone, even children. It also 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.280 applied to people who went through fields that had already 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.040 been harvested to glean anything that was left to save 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:53.560 themselves from starvation. More than fifty thousand people were charged 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.800 with violating this decree, and more than two thousand of 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.280 them were executed. Although the five stocks grain decree applied 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.960 all across the Soviet Union, the vast majority of people 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.160 who were arrested were from Ukraine. Because of the truly 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:13.640 dire situation there. In the fall of two, Soviet leadership 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.120 started blacklisting towns and villages that failed to meet their 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:22.200 grain Quotas. Blacklisted towns were banned from receiving food and 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:27.040 from buying basic necessities like salt or kerosene. More than 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:31.040 a third of the towns in Ukraine were blacklisted. So 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:34.920 to some all this up Joseph Stalin's policies had created 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:39.040 the conditions that sparked the famine, then made the famine worse, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.000 and punished its victims for being the victims of famine. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.200 At this point, many farmers started trying to leave Ukraine, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.879 either to buy food from one of its neighbors or 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.080 just to relocate entirely in the hope of finding a 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.720 better life, and of course Soviet leadership did not want 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.200 this to happen because Ukraine was the Soviet Union's largeist 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.080 food producer, But instead of taking steps to address the 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.920 escalating famine in Ukraine, which again was being worsened by 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.840 unreachable food quotas. Soviet leadership worked to stop Ukrainian farmers 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:18.040 from leaving. In October, about a hundred thousand Communist Party 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.880 representatives and military personnel were dispatched to Ukraine, as well 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.600 as to the Northern Caucasus and the Volga Basin to 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.840 conduct house to house searches to make up for the 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.520 shortfall in the quotas. During these searches, they confiscated any 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.320 grain or flower or their food that they found. People 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:42.440 started selling whatever they had wedding rings, household goods, furniture, 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.239 their tools, just to try to buy back some of 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.400 their own produce to eat. Calls for aid to Ukraine 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.520 became increasingly desperate, but in ninety two, more than four 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.080 million tons of grain were taken from Ukraine, enough to 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.000 feed more than twelve million people for a year. Moscow 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.160 exported more than a million tons of green to other 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:08.119 countries and held enough green in reserves to feed at 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:12.080 least ten million people. Yet all over the Soviet Union 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:18.359 people were starving, especially in Ukraine. In December of ninety two, 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.119 still tied to the idea that a huge conspiracy was 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:27.959 intentionally undermining agriculture in Ukraine, Soviet authorities started a series 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.000 of mass arrests of people who were accused of being 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:36.240 involved in secret paramilitary organizations. These organizations did exist. They 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.240 included the Ukrainian Military Organization or u v O and 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.439 the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists or oh u N, but 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:49.000 this alleged involvement was really being used as a justification 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.720 for mass arrests without actually offering any proof that the 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:58.879 arrested person had any ties whatsoever to these organizations. In 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.720 January of nine thirty three, Pavel post Yachev arrived in 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.479 Ukraine as Stalin's personal representative and implemented a series of 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:12.280 massive purges, removing Ukrainians from positions of leadership and replacing 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.359 them with Russians. On New Year's Day of nineteen thirty three, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.040 an amnesty was announced for anyone who turned in stolen 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.479 or hidden grain. The implication was that anyone who didn't 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.639 turn in any grain was clearly hiding something. The house 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.399 to house searches that had started in October intensified, with 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:37.480 anything that could be eaten being confiscated, including seed crops 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.000 meant to be planted the next season, and people's pets. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:46.000 In late January of three, Joseph Stalin and Lazarre Molotov 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.840 ordered the Ukrainian borders to be sealed. Efforts had already 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.560 been underway to keep Ukrainian farmers from leaving, but this 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:59.240 measure also kept people from entering Ukraine, so people couldn't 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.199 leave to buy food. That's also kept word of the 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:05.800 famine from spreading, and it kept any kind of relief 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:10.480 from being brought into Ukraine. An internal passport system was 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:15.400 implemented for travel within Ukraine as well, but farmers were 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.720 not allowed to have them, so in addition to being 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.880 unable to leave Ukraine to find work or food, they 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.479 also couldn't try to move to a city or a 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.679 different rural area where things might not be so dire. 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.439 Even though other parts of the Soviet Union were also 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:36.000 experiencing a famine, Ukraine was the only Soviet republic where 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:40.080 these measures were in place. In late January of nineteen 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.240 thirty three, the Pullit Bureau, which was the Communist Party's 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:48.119 supreme policy making body, resolved that the Ukrainian Communist Party 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.119 had failed to carry out its duties. Pavl Postazev was 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:56.280 named the new head of the party, he implemented another 0:22:56.359 --> 0:23:01.560 wave of purges of Ukrainian intellectuals, cultural figures, and party leaders, 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.960 again replacing the people who were removed from their positions 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.080 with Russians. Many of those who had been arrested and 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:13.760 imprisoned in earlier years were executed. Ukrainian Communist leader Michoelas 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.880 Krupnik took his own life in July three rather than 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.919 go through a show trial connected to all these purges. 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:26.200 A month earlier, Ukrainian poet and writer Michael Kulvi took 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:28.639 his own life in protest, feeling that that was the 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:32.840 only action left open to him. The deadliest months of 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.960 the dam Or were in early nineteen thirty three. During 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:40.360 this time, it is estimated that a thousand people were 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.720 starving to death in Ukraine every single hour. People died 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:47.600 of starvation while waiting in line for bread, with those 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:51.800 lines often being thousands of people long. As crops grew 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.919 in the early spring of nineteen thirty three, people died 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.920 while trying to eat unripe grain uncooked in the fields. 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:02.920 Parents abandoned their children close to cities, hoping that city 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:05.520 dwellers with more access to food might take them in. 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:11.359 Survivors accounts are full of just absolutely desperate steps that 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:15.440 people took to try to stay alive. Eventually, so many 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:18.920 people were dying that wagons were sent house to house 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:22.680 to collect the dead. The wagons were drawn by horses, 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:25.520 which had to be fed at night and in secret, 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:30.080 otherwise starving people would understandably mob the stables trying to 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.800 get the horses food. Many many farm animals died of 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:36.960 starvation during this period as well, because there was no 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:40.119 grain to feed them with, and there was also a 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:45.120 wave of just appalling and brutal crimes, including cannibalism, committed 0:24:45.160 --> 0:24:47.520 by people who had reached a point of having to 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:53.120 do just anything possible to find something to eat. Throughout 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.200 the late nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties, the focus 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:58.480 of the mass arrests and purges had mainly been men 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:01.040 that men that often them, and where the people trying 0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:04.040 to hold their families and their communities together as the 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:08.720 wolodamor peaked. Survivors of the famine have described women trying 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:11.920 to find and store whatever food they could, and trying 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:14.720 to turn things that would be considered to be inedible, 0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:18.080 like leather and horse hides and dried leaves and twigs 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:23.800 into food. Women also formed mutual aid organizations and banded 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:27.320 together to try to guard communities food stores, or to 0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:32.920 fight back against food confiscations and arrests. The Soviet government 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:36.200 took steps to try to cover up the famine. Russian 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:40.439 propaganda films depicted Ukraine as a happy and bountiful place, 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:44.720 as professional journalists and ordinary citizens risk their lives trying 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:49.160 to document what was happening. Foreign journalists and dignitaries were 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:52.280 allowed into the Soviet Union, but they were given very 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:55.560 tightly controlled tours that made it look like everything was 0:25:55.640 --> 0:25:59.520 under control. A small number of journalists did manage to 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:03.240 publish articles on what was really going on. One was 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:07.240 Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who published multiple articles on the 0:26:07.240 --> 0:26:11.760 famine in ninety two and nineteen thirty three. The Soviet 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:16.280 Union published extensive rebuttals to this reporting, insisting that everything 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:19.080 was fine and that reports of a famine were simply 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:25.200 anti Soviet propaganda. Even journalists outside the Soviet Union questioned 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:29.879 or dismissed Jones's reports. Walter Duranti of The New York Times, 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:33.560 for example, stated that he quote thought Mr. Jones's judgment 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:38.200 was somewhat hasty. Jones was ultimately forbidden from being allowed 0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:41.160 to re enter the Soviet Union, and he was murdered 0:26:41.200 --> 0:26:45.840 in Japanese occupied Mongolia in ninety five. Yeah, there were 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:48.280 there were some other journalists as well who were able 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:53.320 to publish accurate accounts, some of it later, like later 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:57.159 in the nineteen thirties. We'll get more into the aftermath 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:08.760