Historical horrors sometimes take on new contours of meaning in the face of present events. Today Ukraine commemorates the 90th anniversary of one of the worst mass crimes of the 20th century, the Holodomor (Ukrainian for starvation), the famine orchestrated by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to subdue peasants and thus force collectivization of their lands.
The Ukraine was then part of the USSR, and between 1932 and 1933 3.8 million Ukrainians died of starvation, although other estimates put the death toll at between seven and ten million. The State apparatus requisitioned cereal crops, confiscated food from house to house, and prevented people from traveling in search of food, thus condemning the population to starvation.
Today, after nine months of Russia's war against Ukraine, this country and many of its allies establish links between that terrible event and the Russian invasion launched by Vladimir Putin. The objective, they argue, would be the same in both cases: to deny the Ukrainian nation the right to exist and to decide its path.
Suffocated into oblivion during Soviet times and gradually restored to historical memory after Ukraine's independence in 1991, the Holodomor was recognized as genocide in 2006 by the Ukrainian Parliament, which confirmed it "on the fourth Saturday of November." as an annual commemoration date. That day the Ukrainians place lighted candles and ears of wheat in memorials to the victims.
Ukraine has been campaigning for years for the Holodomor to be internationally recognized as genocide. Some fifteen countries recognize this, including Poland, the Baltic countries, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Brazil and the Vatican. Others brand it a crime against humanity, generally arguing that Stalin's action also punished the population of other Soviet territories: in Kazakhstan, the North Caucasus and the Volga region.
In Germany, the Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) will approve next Wednesday to recognize the Holodomor as genocide. The joint motion of the ruling coalition (Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals) and opposition conservatives states that "all of Ukraine was affected by famine and repression, not just its grain-producing regions", and that "from the perspective current, this suggests a historical-political classification as genocide. In addition, the parliamentarians link the past with the present of Ukraine, which "suffers from the war of Russian aggression", and ask for "political, financial, humanitarian and military" support for the country.
Other Parliaments are having similar gestures these days. Ireland's Senate approved Tuesday to designate the Holodomor "as genocide against the Ukrainian people." The Ukrainian embassy in Dublin tweeted its thanks in these terms: "Ireland is one of our closest friends, who is not afraid to call things by his name."
The Romanian Parliament called it "a crime against the Ukrainian people and against humanity" in a resolution passed on Wednesday. “Nine months after the Russian Federation unleashed its military aggression against Ukraine, the adoption of this declaration represents a resounding gesture of support and solidarity with the Ukrainian people,” said the deputy representing the Ukrainian minority in Romania, Nicolae-Miroslav Petretchi.
On Wednesday, Pope Francis compared both historical moments before the anniversary of the Holodomor: "Let us pray for the victims of this genocide and we pray for so many Ukrainians, children, women and the elderly, children, who today suffer the martyrdom of aggression."
The road to the Holodomor began when Stalin applied the forced collectivization of land from 1928 and launched a five-year plan to modernize the heavy industry of the Soviet Union, to finance the export of Ukrainian wheat with hard currency.
Starting in 1930, detachments of the State Political Directorate (GPU) began to abusively requisition Ukrainian grain and wheat, leaving the peasants without seeds or time to plant. Small landowners opposed handing over their crops and collectivization. In 1932 the mass deaths due to hunger began, and in August of that year the Law of Ears was approved, with harsh punishments, even capital punishment, for those desperate who stole grain.
Furthermore, as many historians point out, Stalin's fear that Ukrainian peasant opposition to collective farms would lead to a nationwide rebellion prompted him to further brutality, blockading territory to prevent foraging trips. The Holodomor ended in 1933, when arable land was already communist property and the surviving peasants worked it for the state.
