Ukraine was once the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union, with vast fertile fields and a warm climate.
However, in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, there was a great famine that shocked the world in this land. According to estimates at the time, at least seven million to ten million people died of famine in Ukraine, or 25% of the total population of Ukraine.
This tragedy is deeply imprinted in the hearts of the Ukrainian people and has become part of history that must be remembered.
The causes of the Holodomor in Ukraine are manifold, ranging from the wrong policies to the intensification of popular revolt.
During the Bolshevik period, a supply system was introduced in Ukraine, and all peasants were not allowed to hide grain privately. The grain search team searched from house to house and urged the peasants to hand over the grain, which triggered a violent intensification of social contradictions, and even led to the killing of the members of the grain search team and the arrest of the peasants.
In order to alleviate this contradiction, the revolutionary mentors ordered a slowdown in the implementation of public ownership and replaced the grain requisition campaign with a grain tax.
But this was only a temporary stopgap measure, and with the death of Comrade Lenin and the end of the NEP, Ukrainian farmsteads of the Stalinist model were officially established and collectivization began to be implemented.
The collectivization policy deprived the peasants of their private property and confiscated all farm implements, livestock, and seeds into the state state. Cadres went down to the front line in the rural areas to urge the peasants to deliver grain.
However, the peasants had very little identification with the concept of collectivization, had no enthusiasm for production, and had no interest in it.
The first secretary of Ukraine, Kosiol, even said that the peasants tried to strangle the Soviet Russian regime and were very resistant to the farms.
In order to change the mentality of the peasants, the cadres in the farms adopted the method of movement, suppressing the landlords and kulaks, and leaving the poor peasants in charge. However, this did not increase the motivation of the peasants to produce, and in 1932 the grain production in Ukraine was much lower than expected.
Faced with a food shortage, Stalin ** covered up the real situation.
Ukraine, which is expected to produce nearly 10 million tons of grain, actually harvested only 18.5 million tons, but this huge gap was concealed.
With the outbreak of famine, farmers began stealing grain to survive. However, the Soviet Union ** issued draconian decrees punishable by death for theft of collective farm property.
Rather than deterring the theft of grain, such draconian measures exacerbated the famine and looting on the farms.
The Soviets suppressed the grain grab and forbade the peasants to flee the famine.
Farmers were trapped in farmsteads and began to eat pets, wild vegetables, and even cannibalism against each other. Famine and plague raged, and the whole of Ukraine turned into a red land.
In order to cover up the tragic situation, the team that was originally responsible for searching for food became a corpse search team, and the dead were buried in a large pit. This desperate phenomenon was widespread across Ukraine, but no one dared to reveal the truth at the time.
It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the truth about the Holodomor in Ukraine emerged. The Holodomor in Ukraine is a tragedy, the result of a man-made disaster.
The policy mistakes and the intensification of the peasant revolt led to a large number of people, and this history should be remembered. By exposing and remembering this history, we can ponder and avoid similar disasters from happening again.
As human beings, we need to cherish the relative comfort and stability of the present, as well as respect for humanitarian values, so that we can learn from the dark history of the Holodomor in Ukraine and build a better world together.