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this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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I think you're drawing lines history doesn't support. The famine hit Ukraine yes but also Kazakhstan the North Caucasus Kuban the Volga region the southern Urals and western Siberia. Same drought same collectivization pressures same policy failures across all these regions. And it was worsened in large part due to kulaks land-owning peasants who burned grain and slaughtered livestock to sabotage collectivization. This resistance happened everywhere the policy rolled out. Also even scholars critical of the USSR don't claim the famine was manufactured from scratch. The actual debate is whether policy errors worsened a crisis with environmental roots not whether Moscow designed starvation as a targeted ethnic weapon. If that was the goal why did those same populations grow industrialize and thrive in the decades after? And after 1933 that entire region never suffered a major famine again. Not during the war not after. The agricultural system was stabilized.
On Poland your framing ignores the diplomatic reality. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the last non-aggression deal the Nazis signed. France and Britain had already appeased Hitler at Munich and refused Stalin's proposals for a collective security pact to defend Czechoslovakia. Poland itself refused to let the Red Army pass through its territory to confront the Nazis. So when the Polish state collapsed under German invasion in September 1939 the Soviets moved into Ukrainian and Belarusian lands Poland had taken in 1921. Yes the pact may have had secret protocols. But that buffer zone delayed the Nazi advance and kept those populations out of German hands for nearly two years that's still positive. The USSR bought critical time to industrialize because it knew it would face the Nazi war machine largely alone. That's important context (they were right 80% of the fight was on the Eastern front).
I'm not defending Soviet deportations or repressions. They happened they were brutal and they warrant criticism. But if we're going to critique history we need accuracy not selective framing. Conflating distinct events or narrowing complex disasters to fit an ethnic narrative doesn't strengthen your argument it weakens it. Call out the crimes sure but don't reshape the record to do it or pad your list.
"Holodomor" is a Ukrainian word. One they used to describe the Famine in Ukraine. I do not think it's unfair, to separate their Famine, with the one Kazakhs had. Kazakhs were by large nomadic. By siezing their livestock for collectivisation, they all but sentenced them to death by starvation.
They were two completely different people, living two completely different lives. Affected by the same policy which was the major contribution to the famines.
They were two separate people, living in two very different places. If your only criticism is that you think "Holodomor" should encompass both. I'll gladly change it it "Ukraine famine"
What kolaks burned in protest and sabotage was what was going to be taken from them anyhow. So rather than giving it up, they destroyed it. It would not have changed much of the outcome, because they wouldn't have had it anyway.
I strongly disagree that my framing ignores the diplomatic reality.
non aggression between nazi germany and USSR. But I don't think Poland would agree with the notion of "non aggression"
USSR absolutely did not know they would face the Nazi regime "alone". Stalin was literally speechless when the Germans went into USSR. They didn't carve up Poland to "secure Ukraine" or "buy more time" they did it to seize more land. It having the side effect of slowing down Nazis entry into USSR is nothing but coincidental. And neither excuses the execution of over 100 thousand poles.
As of later, why would Poland allow the red army to go anywhere in Poland? "Hey guys, we're not gonna kill you this time, we promise, we just want to go to germany". Can you honestly even remotely blame them for not allowing entry? Why would they believe anything nazis or USSR said?
I'm not reshaping anything. Both the Ukrainian Famine and the Kazakh Famine was deliberate to weaken them while strengthening Moscow. If events such as droughts occur. You don't go ahead and sieze your initial quota to leave the population with nothing. That is purposefully creating a genocide by proxy of famine.
USSR and later Russia have a history of systematically weakening and eliminating ethnic minorities while strengthening the ethnic Russians, a history which is continuing to the present day.
The major contributor to the famine was environmental, as it was every other time that region experienced famine. My criticism is that the Holodomor presentation is disingenuous. It wasn't a man-made famine from scratch and it clearly wasn't targeted. Kulaks destroyed food that was being collectivized for redistribution. That absolutely would have helped feed people. They burned it because they couldn't profit from it in the crisis. If they couldn't have it, no one should. That's not noble resistance, that's sabotage that hurt the very people they claimed to represent. This is an ahistorical framing.
On the Nazi invasion: Stalin being "speechless" is revisionist folklore. Hitler's intent to invade Russia was literal doctrine in Mein Kampf. Everyone knew it was coming. When France, Britain, and Poland refused every pact the Soviets put forward to stop the Nazis, to defend Czechoslovakia, to form a collective security front, it was extremely obvious what was next. The USSR wasn't naive. They were preparing for a war they knew was inevitable because the West wouldn't ally with them to prevent it.
You say the USSR didn't expect to face Germany alone. That ignores the diplomatic record. Stalin proposed collective security repeatedly. He was rebuffed. Poland refused Soviet passage to confront Hitler. The buffer zone gained in 1939 did delay the Nazi advance. Whether that was the primary intent or a side effect, it happened. That's strategic reality, not apologism.
On the famine again: if Moscow deliberately seized quotas to genocide Ukrainians or Kazakhs, why did the same policies apply to Russian peasants in the Volga, Kuban, and North Caucasus? Why did party officials in those same regions starve? Procurement quotas were brutal and badly implemented, yes. But they weren't ethnically calibrated. The suffering was cross-ethnic because the crisis was structural and environmental, not a targeted hit job.
I'm not debating the deportations. They were bad. Full stop. But you're twisting history to pad the list. Conflating distinct events, ignoring environmental factors, and erasing the agency of kulak sabotage doesn't strengthen your critique. It makes it easier to dismiss. Call out the crimes, but don't reshape the record to do it. Accuracy matters.
Not at all. You're just actively choosing to dismiss it because you want to dismiss it. I'm not going to argue with someone that desperately want to rewrite history.
The Famine in Ukraine didn't kill millions because of environmental factors. It's because their produce was confiscated, and they were left to die.
I'm sure to have an excuse for the kazaks whose livestock was confiscated too, leading to their Famine.
It's not just deportations that were bad. The active genocide was worse.
I don't know if you remember checnya. But I do.
I'm not the one rewriting history here you are. It was one famine affecting an entire region caused mainly by environmental factors and worsened by policy failure (among other factors). It was not man made, it wasn't targeted, it was still a tragedy.
Again because you keep doing this I don't support the Checnyan wars, the deportations etc. like I've said every time you can say these things are bad without padding your list with twisted bullshit.