Holodormor

=**The Genocide of Holodomor**= = = The genocide resauted in ten million people and happened in 1932-1933. The historicity of the Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933 is no longer challenged. What is still disputed is the number of victims, the reasons for the catastrophe, and its nature. Estimates of loss of life from starvation and related diseases vary from three to ten milllion. Historians idetify a number of factors which brought on the famine or contributed to its intensification: adverse climatic conditions connected with pest, incompetence of local administrators and farmer opposition, difficulties connected with the transition from private to socialized economy and governmental mismanagment of the agricultural sector, criminal intention on the part of Stalin and his cronies. Some historians deny or minimize the moral responsibility of the Communist leader, reject the accusation of their intention to starve the population, or even of pursing policies which they knew would resault in horrendous human loss. In a recent major study on the subject, authors write: 'We do not at all absolve Stalin from resposibility for the famine. His policies toward the peasents were ruthless and brutal. But the story which has emerged is of a Soviet leadership which was struggling with a famine crisis which had been caused partly by their wrongheaded policies, but was unexpected and undesirable. It is my contention that the famine was both expected and desiable. Proponents of the view that the famine was a delicbrate act of the Soviet regime continue to disagree on the nature of the crime and the identity of the victims: there is no consensus on whether the famine in Soviet Ukraine should be classified as genocide, and if so, if famine has always had ascademic and political dimensions. And today, it still elicits partisan feelings among scholars and poliicians.

Sources: @http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/ukraine_famine.html [] @http://shevchenko.org/famine/ @http://www.infoukes.com/history/famine/ @http://colley.co.uk/garethjones/soviet_articles/soviet_articles.htm